Chapter 12: Using Digital Storytelling to Teach and Train
1. Military Simulations: Hollywood and the DOD Join Forces
One organization with a lively interest in immersive simulations is the United States
Department of Defense (DOD). The military has for some time regarded simulations as a lowcost, safe, and flexible way to train military personnel in a variety of skills. But it has also
recognized that in order for simulations to be effective, they need to fully engage the trainees... in
other words, they need to be entertaining. In 1996, this realization led to an historic event: a twoday workshop with leaders from Hollywood and the military world. The goal was to explore how
these different communities, with extremely different cultures, might benefit by joining forces to
work on immersive simulations. The workshop helped forge a working relationship between the
entertainment and defense worlds and articulated how each could benefit from this collaboration.
As the participants saw it, the military would gain access to experienced producers of
entertainment and Hollywood would be able to utilize cutting-edge technology developed by the
military for its own creative endeavors.
Not long after this meeting, the U.S. Army made a $45 million grant to the University of
Southern California to establish the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a research center
to develop immersive simulation technologies. Hollywood professionals and members of the
gaming community were to be heavily involved, as well. ICT’s mandate was to devise
experimental training prototypes, many of them using new techniques or technologies to develop
virtual characters, AI, immersive sound, and VR.
Larry Tuch, a writer, was one of the Hollywood professionals selected to work on ICT
simulations, and he applied his Hollywood background—writing for primetime television and
Paramount Pictures—to the task. He found that much of the work he did for ICT was not too
different from what he might be doing on a TV show, particularly the job of creating well
rounded characters and compelling storylines. The fact that he wasn’t a technologist wasn’t
much of an obstacle, he said, though he admitted to me that sometimes constraints of
technology—”the geek stuff”—got in the way of developing effective narratives.
2. Initial Development Work on Military Games
Dr. Elaine Raybourn is a leading expert in making makes for the military, and at the time I
interviewed her, she was working for the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In order
to design the military games she makes, Dr. Raybourn stays on top of developments in the
commercial game work, particularly action games, first person shooters and real time strategy
games. She studies how these games keep the action flowing; how they put the player in danger;
and how they ramp up the stress level.
In designing her games, she begins by determining the specific training need that the game will
focus on and how it will fit in with the training the intended learners are already receiving. She
then does what she calls ethnographic field research, going to military bases, studying the
intended users and sitting in on their training sessions. As an aid to her pre-production phase, she
takes a great many photographs, documenting small details like how people gesture, how they
stand in groups, and the items around them in their environment -- what she refers to as a
photojournalist approach. She also meets with cultural informants -- people from the part of the
world where the game will be set -- and studies their body language and how they communicate
with each other.
3. Why Parents like Edutainment Titles
Edutainment titles designed for home use have done so well in part because parents perceive
them as a great boon to their children’s education, and a way to counter the problem of
overcrowded classrooms and the mediocre education children receive in many public schools.
They are especially popular in homes where both parents work or that are headed by a single
parent. In such households, parents have little time to spend reading to their kids or taking them
to museums or reviewing their homework. It is comforting for these parents to know their
children are occupied by a wholesome learning activity, and that their minds are being stretched.
4. Computer-based learning on an Indian pueblo
Families who are struggling to make their way up the economic ladder welcome
computers and edutainment software into their homes whenever they can afford them. They see
them as important tools to help their kids attain success in life. This faith in computer learning
was eloquently demonstrated by a decision made by the tribal leaders of the Sandia Pueblo in
northern New Mexico. Although the tribe had many competing and pressing financial needs, the
tribal elders elected to use revenues from their casino to purchase computers, monitors, and
printers for every family in the pueblo, along with free training (the Santa Fe New Mexican, July
24, 2003).
In explaining the reasons for this expensive computer give-away, the young governor of
the pueblo, Stuart Paisano, commented that Native Americans have typically been stereotyped as
being unable to compete in the modern world. He said: “This is my council’s initiative to try to
give our community the tools in order to be not only a productive member in his community but
also in society. It allows them to compete with everyone else.” While acknowledging that the
computer purchase was a substantial expense, he said: “There’s no way to place a value as to
what this will do for each household and each member. It’s very difficult to place a monetary
value on someone’s knowledge and learning capabilities.” And an elder member of the tribe,
Rose Hinkle, who is 60, expressed her excitement about the purchase. She said that she felt the
computers would be a big asset to the pueblo’s children. “I think it’s going to help them with
school. I think it’s great because we didn’t have nothing when I was growing up.”
5. Techniques for creating effective educational projects for children
The key to a successful edutainment title seems to be in finding the right mix of educational
material and entertainment. But what guidelines can be used to work out the ratio of fun to
education? In other words, how do you integrate the “edu” and the “tainment,” and balance the
two? Does a veteran company just go by the seat of its pants and rely on past experience, or do
they follow established in-house guidelines? Does the ratio of “edu” and “tainment” differ from
title to title? And what guidelines would be helpful to a company that was foraying into
educational waters for the first time?
Senior producer Diana Pray of Knowledge Adventure told me that for the JumpStart
edutainment games, they look to balance the education and entertainment, but always start with
the educational goals of the product.
Despite the fact that Knowledge Adventure has been turning out successful edutainment games
for over twenty years, the creative team of a new JumpStart game always begins by soliciting the
input of outside experts in setting the educational objectives. Typically, these experts are
classroom teachers who teach the grade or subject matter of the title, and who give their advice
both about content and teaching techniques for that grade or subject. In some cases, they also use
subject matter experts—specialists in a particular field—particularly when a title focuses on a
specific topic. For instance, when they developed JumpStart Artist, which dealt with the visual
arts, they used art experts from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Developing the curriculum for an edutainment title can be a major challenge, because curriculum
standards can vary widely from state to state, and standards can change quickly. Furthermore,
some companies market their products internationally, and standards can vary significantly from
country to country. For instance, in France they don’t teach subtraction until third grade, while in
the United States it is taught in first grade. Adding to the challenge is the teachers themselves,
who often have strong opinions about what is age appropriate and what is not.
For the JumpStart games, these challenges are handled these challenges in part by offering three
levels of difficulty within each game, expecting that a child will fit inside one of these levels.
The parent or child can set the level of difficulty, but the games also include an assessment tool
that automatically sets the level for a child, and offers up games that have a natural progression
in difficulty.
In working out the curriculum, many companies not only consult with teachers and content
experts but also turn to resources that specialize in curriculum information. At JumpStart, they
not only use published resources, but also create their own nationwide compendium of
curriculum standards.
In terms of the “tainment” part of the edutainment equation, children’s software companies use a
variety of approaches to make their titles engaging, guided in part by the title’s educational
objectives. Most of the games contain generous amounts of humor because children enjoy it so
much. Some companies, like JumpStart, offer a great many small games within a larger game
context, while other companies focus on developing a more involving storyline. Attractive
characters are also an important draw, as are settings that children enjoy—realistic places like the
beach, a zoo, or an amusement park, or fantasy settings like outer space or an underground
“alternate” universe.
Ideally, the fun of an edutainment title is seamlessly mixed in with the learning content, making
for an enjoyable experience. But as essential as the entertainment is, the pedagogical goals still
must be considered first. As we have seen, the “edu” must come before the “tainment.”
Successful edutainment companies, however, take care not to short-change the entertainment
experience. For example Kukoka Interactive, which develops the Mia titles, pays great attention
to the animation and the development of the characters, and the games are supplied with ample
doses of humor. Above all else, however, each title is built on a dramatic premise.
For example, in Mia: Just in Time, which focuses on math skills, the game begins with a blazing
fire that burns down the quaint Victorian cottage where Mia lives. Soon after, Mia learns she has
a chance of reversing the fire, and possibly finding out who set it, if she can just manage to
assemble and operate an old time machine. But four essential parts are missing, and she needs
you, the learner, to help her find them, a quest that requires the solving of many math problems.
The adventure takes you deep underground into a mole’s hole and into a gadget-filled inventor’s
cave, and finally, if you find all the parts, on a flight on a time machine. The way the game has
managed to blend fun and learning has earned high praise from critics. The Houston Chronicle
noted: “What’s exemplary is how well the “edu” and the “tainment” are always working
together. Neither overshadows the other. Rather, each furthers the adventure.”
As with the JumpStart titles, children are given numerous rewards as they work their way
through the game, and they can adjust the difficulty level, too—these titles offer four different
settings. However, in my opinion, one of the biggest attractions of Mia: Just in Time is
something that is impossible to quantify: its enormous charm and a slightly off-the-wall
sensibility.
Rewards are always alluring to children, and are a regular feature of edutainment titles as well as
pure works of entertainment. At JumpStart, the storyline and the rewards system work hand in
hand. The incentives are embedded in the story; the story motivates the kids to play the games
and get the rewards. “With rewards, the kids want to play longer, so they are ‘powered up,”’
Pray explained.
For instance, one project I worked on, JumpStart Artist, is set at a carnival-like art fair, with
various art-related games and activities available in each of several tents. But at the start of the
game, the most exciting part of the art fair—the section where the carnival rides are located—is
out of operation. In order to get the carnival rides assembled and ready to ride, the learner has to
win coveted pieces of blue-prints—the rewards. These blueprint pieces, which look something
like jigsaw puzzle pieces, are won by playing the educational games and doing the activities in
the Art Fair tents. When enough of them are collected, one of the rides can be put together and
the child can actually take a ride on it. One of my tasks as a writer was to keep coming up with
fresh ways to remind the learners that by doing the various activities, they had a chance to win
these blueprint pieces. It was the old carrot and stick approach, but without the stick.
Along with major rewards, like the blueprint pieces in JumpStart Artist, many titles also offer
smaller rewards each time the child successfully completes an individual exercise within the
game. These rewards are the equivalent of a friendly pat on the back. Sometimes a character,
usually off screen, will congratulate the learner with a “good work” or a “bravo” or some other
words of praise. Sometimes a snatch of triumphant music will be played. And, in almost every
instance, a brief piece of reward animation will be activated. Usually something will happen on
screen to indicate a successful answer and also show the learner’s progress in the game. For
example, in the game Mia: Just in Time, the learner must solve ten math equations to earn parts
of a lock that plays an important part in the story. Each time the child solves one equation, a
piece of the lock appears on screen. Ten right answers earn the child a completely assembled
lock.
Rewards are not necessarily seen or heard. Often they work as invisible passes, granting the user
the ability to advance in the game. Another powerful type of reward is an elevation in status. For
example, in the Carmen Sandiego games, you start out as a rookie investigator, but as you solve
more cases, you work your way up to the rank of detective. And sometimes rewards serve as a
little morale booster given for general alertness. In the Mia games, for instance, if you keep your
eyes open, you will find hidden “sparklies”—gem-like objects that are the equivalent of money
in Mia’s world. Not only are they of value in the game, but Mia gets really excited each time you
find one.
Rewards come in many different forms. They include:
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Being praised by a synthetic character;
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Receiving a good score;
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Winning some kind of prize;
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Obtaining a coveted item;
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Moving up a level;
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Being promoted in rank or power within the fictional world of the project;
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Making some type of significant advance within the game or story context; or
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Achieving a successful outcome in a simulation.
Rewards are earned when the learner successfully completes a task, solves a puzzle, or works all
the way through a quiz. To be effective, the rewards system employed in an educational project
should be geared for the age of the audience and should be related to the project’s content.
6. An Example the Goals Employed in an Educational Game
Educational games offer almost limitless possibilities for establishing goals, and ideally these
goals are related to the game’s narrative. As an example, a title I worked on, JumpStart Artist, is
set at a carnival-like art fair, with various art-related games and activities available in each of
several tents. But at the start of the game, the most exciting part of the art fair -- the section
where the carnival rides are located – is still under construction. In order to erect the carnival
rides and be able to go for a spin on them, the learner has to win coveted pieces of blueprints,
which are won by playing the educational games and doing the activities in the art fair tents.
Thus, the carnival rides serve as the carrot that entices learners to work through the whole game.
7. What makes an educational game effective?
James Paul Gee, a scholar of educational games at Arizona State University and author of What
Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, has made many useful
observations about effective educational games in his book. He believes that for such a game to
achieve its goals, it must be enticing enough for learners to want to play it, and enjoyable enough
for them to put a great deal of effort into it. Learners, he says, need to be rewarded for their
efforts, with more rewards offered for greater efforts, and they need to be able to achieve
meaningful success in the virtual world they are playing in. Furthermore, he believes that a good
game should offer many opportunities to practice skills, and in a way that is not boring. The
learning in a game should be ongoing, he feels, so the players cannot operate on automatic pilot.
They should continually be offered fresh challenges as they play, but the game should not be so
challenging that players will feel defeated by it and give up.
8. Online Learning
While CD-ROMs and DVDs were once the most popular platforms for interactive teaching,
many educational and training courses are now taught entirely online. Online education and
training is often referred to as e-learning or distance learning. College courses, university
extension courses, and adult education courses are all offered as e-learning opportunities, as is a
great deal of corporate training. E-learning has two great advantages over classroom learning:
location and time. It solves the problem of learners being widely separated from each other (the
location factor), and also takes care of the issue of scheduling, since students can usually log on
to a class whenever it is convenient for them (the time factor).
Thanks to broadband, online courses can now contain all the bells and whistles once only found
on CD-ROMs and DVDs, and as a result, contain many features of digital storytelling. These
features include the use of avatars, plots, gaming elements (one large over-arching game or one
or more small games), simulations, videos, and animation. However, as with all software
designed to teach or train, the entertainment components must be used judiciously, so that they
do not distract from the academic or pragmatic material that is to be mastered.
9. Using An Educational Guru in Educational Projects for Children
Even a small and relatively new company like Kutoka, which didn’t make its first title until the
late 1990s, goes to great lengths to make sure their titles are built on a solid educational footing.
Kutoka is the Montreal software firm that develops the Mia line of edutainment titles, introduced
earlier. Educational content is taken so seriously there that the company even has a full-time
“educational guru” on its staff, Dr. Margie Gollick, who doubles as a producer. Dr. Gollick, a
child psychologist, is a specialist in how children learn, and when the company sets out to do a
new title, she helps work out the teaching goals. The storyline is then built around these goals.
10. Digital Storytelling and Online Education
While training courses for corporations and other organizations can accommodate plenty of bells
and whistles, online courses for schools and adult learning institutions tend to be extremely lean
when it comes to the use of entertaining elements. E-learning courses offered by colleges and
universities are often put together by the instructors themselves, and most lack the time and the
skill to make them anything but “plain vanilla.” Another consideration is bandwidth. Many
students work on dial-up modems, and thus the downloading of big files, especially ones
containing video, takes too much time. Furthermore, some instructors believe that students want
their course materials to contain just the bare essentials. Thus, a great number of online
educational courses are presented as straightforward text, essentially containing written lectures,
examples, and quizzes, perhaps with a sprinkling of graphics.
However, as with everything else, the exception proves the rule, and some professors are
offering more when it comes to livening up their online courses. One such professor is Dr.
Sandra Chrystal, who teaches at USC’s Marshall School of Business, in its Center for
Management Communication. She offers a course called “Advanced Writing for Business,” a
“blended” course that is taught partly in the classroom and partly online. The online materials
contain cartoon figures and pop-ups that are contributed by the Marshall School’s e-learning
team. Dr. Chrystal also makes ample use of other graphics, such as photographs, charts, and
documents.
Perhaps the strongest application of entertainment techniques in Dr. Chrystal’s course is
her use of story—story in the true-life documentary sense rather than the fictional sense. For
example, in one module, she uses a dramatic case history about a manager who sent out a badly
written memo during a snowstorm, resulting in confusion about company policy and damage to
employees’ morale. The case history, illustrated with photos of the blizzard, helps dramatize her
points about effective memo writing. She further engages her students by challenging them to
use their skills in memo writing to show how the situation might have had a more positive
outcome, had the manager sent out a better-worded memo.
11. History of the Serious Games Movement
No one can pinpoint a specific moment when the serious games movement began, though several
significant events helped spur interest in the field.
One important starting place might be traced back to 1996, with a two-day workshop that
brought together leaders from Hollywood and the military world. The goal was to explore how
these different communities, with extremely different cultures, might benefit by joining forces to
work on immersive simulations. The workshop helped forge a working relationship between the
entertainment and defense worlds and articulated how each could benefit from this collaboration.
Not long after this meeting, the U.S. Army made a $45 million grant to the University of
Southern California to establish the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a research center
to develop immersive simulation technologies.
Another significant event in the serious games movement was the formation of the Games-toTeach Project in 2001, a collaboration between MIT and Microsoft. A year later, The Woodrow
Wilson Center for International Scholars founded the Serious Games Initiative. Its stated goal
was "to explore how key challenges facing governments and nonprofit groups can be addressed
using game play." Serious games went mainstream in 2004, when the first Serious Games
Summit was held at the Game Developers Conference. And, as a further mark of this
movement’s importance, in 2007, Michigan State University began to offer a Master of Arts
degree in serious games.
12. A Game Inspired by the Games-To-Teach Initiative
The work done by the Games to Teach initiative inspired at least one other pioneering
educational project. With the working title of Virtual State Parks, this ambitious role-playing
history game was developed 3,000 miles across the country from MIT, in California’s capital,
Sacramento. This multiplayer role-playing game is the brainchild of Elizabeth Prather, a designer
who works in the park design and construction division of the state’s Department of Parks and
Recreation. As of this writing, the project is in its pilot stage, which Prather is overseeing. When
completed, the project will give school children the opportunity to virtually experience
significant periods in the state’s history while being immersed in a real-time 3D-networked
environment. The game is illustrative of how the ideas being spun in the lofty halls of MIT can
be applied to real-world educational objectives.
The idea for the project grew out of an experimental real-time 3D environment Prather was
building of the Fort Ross State Park, which was part of the work she was doing in developing
architectural 3D real-time walk-throughs of various California parks. The success of the realtime 3D work inspired her with the notion of using it as the foundation of an educational game.
While in the first stages of developing the game, Prather learned about the Games to
Teach project, and it made a deep impression on her. She studied every one of MIT’s initial ten
prototypes as she did the storyboarding, and many of the Games to Teach objectives have found
their way into the Virtual State Parks project. It incorporates three qualities that are emphasized
in the MIT proto-types: peer-to-peer learning, learning by doing, and high entertainment value.
But it’s directing these concepts at a much younger age group: elementary school children. The
third, fourth, and fifth graders the curriculum is geared for will learn history, cultural
anthropology, natural history, and social skills while taking part in an experiential narrative
drama.
The game builds on one of the most important missions of the California state park system,
which is education. With 277 parks and 86 million visitors a year, the state’s park system is the
largest in the world. It contains a diverse collection of properties, from glamorous Hearst Castle
to tranquil Spanish missions to lonely ghost towns, and the game will focus on ten of these parks.
With this game, students who do not normally venture far from home will have the chance to
“virtually” visit some of these culturally rich sites. Even well-traveled students will experience
these places in an entirely new way, by engaging in dramatic reenactments of history.
Prather’s supervisor, Dr. Mark Schrader, who is Deputy Director of the Acquisition and
Development Division of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, has been an
enthusiastic supporter of the project. He said he regards the game as an educational tool for
today’s environment, and called it livelier and more mentally stimulating than “the typical static
exhibit, which is looking at something through glass.” Support for the project extends to the
highest level of the California State Parks system, to the Director herself, Ruth Coleman. She
said of the project: “California State Parks is committed to bringing parks closer to people, both
by acquiring lands in urban areas, and by using technology. This project can make history come
alive for all students, even if they don’t have the opportunity to visit the parks in person.”
History-rich Fort Ross State Park, a settlement originally built by Russian traders, was selected
as the setting for the pilot. During the game, the children will role-play real historical figures,
recreating both the daily activities of the settlement and significant events in the characters’
lives. In short, it is a bit like a historical version of the Sims—if you set the Sims in California in
the early 1800s and threw in some international explorers, Russian traders, Alaskan seal hunters,
and local Native Americans.
The pilot will serve as a proof of concept, and once it is completed, the Parks Department
will look for additional funding. Prather estimates the game could cost between $5 and $10
million dollars to complete.
During the first months of building the pilot, Prather worked as a one-person shop, doing
everything herself—the research, the design work, the storyboarding, the writing, even some 3D
real-time environments and animations. She keenly felt the burden of breaking new ground,
saying of the experience: “I was in an area where there was no area.” Her storyboards alone,
presented on a graphically vibrant PowerPoint slide show, ran to about 300 slides. To develop
the curriculum, she utilized material written by Park Interpretive Specialist Robin Joy, who had
worked out a set of grade-appropriate educational goals for students who visit Fort Ross.
Once the pilot was funded, Prather was able to bring on board a full-time assistant, Kirk
Hockinson, for six months. Hockinson, a subcontractor from the Pendergast Group, once worked
on the Sims. At Virtual State Parks, his role calls for him to help Prather with the 3D modeling
and animations and to produce real-time environments, avatars, and other kinds of characters.
For the prototyping of the pilot, Prather has selected software packages from Virtools,
including the Virtools Artificial Intelligence Pack, which can actually program NPCs with
behaviors and reactions. For instance, if a sea otter “sees” a hunter coming, it will beat a quick
retreat. Ultimately, she said, she would like to bring a writer aboard to tap into the rich historical
material she has unearthed, and to give the game a dramatic punch.
During the early development stages, Prather spent many months working out ways to make the
learning more engaging. She was elated when her research uncovered a colorful real-life
romance that could serve as the dramatic centerpiece of the game. The tragic couple, a Russian
trader and a young, highborn Spanish beauty, both instrumental in the early history of Fort Ross,
will act as the ghostly “host” and “hostess” of the game. Prather also uncovered other intriguing
links between Fort Ross and world history, including a connection to the legendary Captain
Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame.
Bligh and other dashing historic figures will be incorporated into the game with the goal
of making the experience as engaging as possible to young players, who will have the
opportunity to “step into the shoes” of these fascinating characters. While role-playing historical
figures, students will go on challenging quests, competing and cooperating with each other in
various missions while attempting to fulfill specific assignments. Tasks will include such diverse
jobs as constructing a wooden windmill and grinding flour for the Fort’s residents; navigating a
boat through local waters; and going on a hunting expedition to a nearby island.
Each grade level will have its own educational focus, although students from all three
grades will be playing simultaneously. The entire group will come together at the end for a final
joint assignment. Players will be able to communicate in character by “talking” in text boxes,
and they can also take part in chats on the game’s chat boards, which will give them a forum for
assisting each other with the tasks they are trying to complete. Prather anticipates that these chat
boards will serve a valuable function in the game, serving as an important component of peer-topeer learning. Help and information will also be offered by three-dimensional characters
reconstructed from historic photos and wax figures, and animated by motion-sensor technology.
For the pilot phase, students at different locations will be connected by a networked
system and 15 to 30 students will be able to play at once, using PCs and controlling the action
either by keyboards or joy pads. Eventually, users might be able to play the game right at the
parks, using kiosks with touch screens. Prather hopes that in the finished product, the game will
have no upper limit as to how many people can play at the same time. She is also exploring the
possibility of making true VR a part of the game.
13. Description of a Handful of Serious Games
1. Food Force
Food Force, produced by the United Nations, is a game about global hunger that can be
downloaded for free from the Internet. It is set on a fictional island called Sheylan where the
inhabitants are undergoing a famine due to civil unrest and drought. Though the setting is
fictional, the challenges depicted in the game are realistic. The player becomes a rookie member
of team of emergency workers trying to save the starving islanders. During one of the six
missions, the players ride around in a surveillance helicopter to locate the best spots to drop
food; in another mission, the players must put together nutritious emergency food packs for
islanders on a budget of only 30 cents per day. The game is designed to dramatize the issue of
global hunger in about an hour of playing time.
2. Darfur is Dying
Darfur is Dying is a game focusing on international crisis situations, in this case the civil
war/genocide that at the time was raging in Sudan. Produced by mtvU, MTV’s college channel,
this Internet-based game requires no downloading and is designed for players with minimal
game-playing experience. The game is set in a refugee camp in Darfur. As a player, you can pick
which refugee to play and then go out and try to forage water for your family. Almost inevitably,
however, no matter how fast you run, Janjaweed fighters will track you down long before you
find any water. You can also explore the camp and discover first-hand what it is like to try to
survive in such a place. The game is designed to be a call to action and encourages players to
take steps to help end the crisis: to join protest groups, for example, or to contact legislators and
urge them to intervene in the crisis.
3. Re-Mission
The original Re-mission is one of what is now a suite of games designed for teens and young
adults fighting cancer. A third-person shooting game, Re-Mission is meant to give the patients a
sense of control over their cancer, help them adhere to treatment programs, and improve the
quality of their lives. Set inside a human body, players control a nanorobot named Roxxi and
blast away at malignant cells. They can receive power-ups that energize cancer-fighting weapons
like radiation, diet and chemotherapy. The game is distributed at no charge through the game’s
website, and players can also join an online support community of fellow cancer patients.
Produced by HopeLab, a non-profit organization, the game was developed with input from
oncologists and biologists, as well as from young patients. Thus, steps were taken to ensure it
was both scientifically accurate and relevant to the players’ concerns.
4. Fully Involved
Fully Involved is a single player PC game that aims to train firefighters for the difficult role of
serving as commanding officers in fast-changing emergency situations. The game’s realistic
simulations take players through increasingly dangerous fires while simultaneously dealing with
demanding personnel issues. In some cases, the firefighters must contend with flammable
chemicals; in other cases, victims are trapped inside houses. The goal is to foster good
management skills and strategies, while always keeping safety in mind.