{"639608":{"#nid":"639608","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Students Play Key Role in IndieCade\u2019s Global Covid-19 \u2018Game Jam\u2019","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EVideo games are not just fun. They also can help give insight into experiences that charts or news stories cannot provide. That makes them a great tool to help teach people about ways to slow the spread of Covid-19.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EStudents working in the\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dilac.iac.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center\u003C\/a\u003E (DILAC) in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/qbios.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EQuantitative Biosciences Graduate Program\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech are making that point in a big way with their work as part of IndieCade\u0026rsquo;s\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.indiecade.com\/jammingthecurve\/\u0022\u003E Jamming the Curve\u003C\/a\u003E game design event. They designed two video games and an epidemiological model to power them and provided an explanatory video to help game designers competing in the event, which runs through Oct. 1. IndieCade is a highly regarded juried festival for independent games.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDigital Media Master\u0026#39;s student Kevin Xu Tang of Atlanta helped design one of the games, called\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EEssential Workers\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026quot;We wanted to show how individual decisions during a pandemic could influence others in a community and vice versa,\u0026rdquo; Tang said. \u0026ldquo;Along the way, we also realized that we could use \u003Cem\u003EEssential Workers\u003C\/em\u003E to show how brutally difficult it could be for some people to even survive the pandemic, whether financially or physically.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech Quantitative Biosciences student also designed the epidemiological model used in the games to determine players\u0026rsquo; chances of getting infected. Marian Dominguez-Mirazo, a Ph.D. student in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cos.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECollege of Sciences\u003C\/a\u003E, worked with the DILAC team as a part-time researcher over the summer.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo learn more, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/news-events\/features\/covid-19-games-digital-media\u0022\u003Eread the full feature\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudents working in the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center and Quantitative Biosciences Graduate Program created two video games as part of a major independent game design event to help stem the spread of Covid-19.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Students working in the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center and Quantitative Biosciences Graduate Program created two video games as part of a major independent game design event to help stem the spread of Covid-19."}],"uid":"34528","created_gmt":"2020-09-25 20:46:25","changed_gmt":"2020-09-25 20:47:13","author":"jhunt7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"639394":{"id":"639394","type":"image","title":"Dino Store game","body":null,"created":"1600790719","gmt_created":"2020-09-22 16:05:19","changed":"1600790719","gmt_changed":"2020-09-22 16:05:19","alt":"Screenshot of Dino Store game","file":{"fid":"243104","name":"Dino-store screenshot.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Dino-store%20screenshot.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Dino-store%20screenshot.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":41941,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Dino-store%20screenshot.JPG?itok=787oVJM6"}}},"media_ids":["639394"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[{"id":"138","name":"Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics"},{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"151","name":"Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts"}],"keywords":[{"id":"184289","name":"covid-19"},{"id":"166882","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003Emichael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}