Vascular Invaders

Details

Role: Lead designer, artist, and programmer

Additional team members:

  • Development: Michael Corrin (programming, database), Minyan Wang (3D model of vasculature), Nick Woolridge (skull model)

  • Research: Jodie Jenkinson, Michael Corrin

Audience: Medical/anatomy students

Description: Two interactive, web-based study-aids were designed for medical students learning human vascular anatomy (one game, one non-game). Both study-aids reinforces anatomy knowledge by engaging students in path-finding tasks wherein they travel from one location in the circulatory to another, based on vascular branching patterns.

  1. Vascular Invaders (video above) is a game wherein the player must complete the path-finding task within a limited amount of energy. Beware! Traveling against the flow of blood or revealing structures on the 3D model for help reduces energy.

  2. The Vascular Anatomy Study Aid (images below) does not have any game elements (e.g. energy mechanic, storyline, power-ups, music, etc.) but contains the same educational content, graphics, tasks, and sound effects as the game.

Medium: Unity (programming), Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator (artwork)

Awards: Best Web-Based Education Game (European conference on Game-Based Learning, 2015)

Vascular anatomy study aid

Read more about the research associated with Vascular Invaders and the Vascular Anatomy Study Aid on the ScienceVis Lab website.