Viral.izo: A game-based learning to foster resource management skills against emerging viral attacks

Abstract

This work presents Viral.izo 2.0, a casual educational game favouring world health by acting against emerging viral attacks. It extends our previous work by including three new game levels of progressive difficulty and two new minigames. In addition, we created three new variants beyond the original virus. Each variant has a specific visual design, attack behaviour (damage power and speed of spread), and visual effects. Knowing how to manage resources against the unpredictability of the virus and its variants is crucial for survival. We also developed a ranking system and new menu options to increase player engagement and game competitiveness. Moreover, we conducted new evaluations using a metric for assessment of user experience, showing that Viral.izo is capable of educating while challenging the player.

Keywords

• game-based learning
• health awareness
• health promotion
• resource management
• virus
• ranking
• user experience