| Description | Outbreak is a race-the-clock, question-asking, transformational game created for a Carnegie Mellon HCI research project. Our project focuses on designing and researching games that foster curiosity as an intervention for middle school students underrepresented in STEM fields: minorities, students from low socioeconomic status households, and women. Outbreak's aim is to help its players increase their comfort with asking questions and ability to ask well-formed questions on the fly, and is currently in the early stages of being field tested for impact. In Outbreak, a scientist's lab at the old house at the end of the block has an experiment gone horribly wrong. Now all of his assistants are turning into monsters, zombies, and ghosts. The lab is full of threats, from broken lab equipment to angry people to monsters. There are also virus antidote ingredients hidden in each room. You're a remote radio team that is in contact with the remaining scientists at the lab. You have control of a sensing robot that can scan the rooms, but can only answer certain questions about what's inside. Will you investigate the rooms and find the right people for the job before it's too late? |
