We probably all saw a diagram similar to this one at some point in school, and it was cool to glance through it, however, that minuscule engagement dissipates in less than a jiffy. I guess it might help to remember information when the teacher repeats for the third time that the heart pumps blood through the blood vessels, but I’d most likely be focused on cleaning my eraser or trading pens with my classmates. The human body is fascinating, but all the activities take place within the bodily systems, so why are we learning about them by looking at their exterior?
Virtual reality (VR) is a 3D environment generated by computers that users can interact with, and I’ve been looking into it for a while now. We can be anything, be anywhere, and do anything within the virtual space, so I thought this was the perfect tech to be used to learn about the human body. Looking at an organ system through a diagram or reading about it isn’t my cup of tea, so I replicated a Unity first-person-shooter (FPS) game and tweaked it around to become a platform where the user can learn about the human body while they’re in it!
The Game in Action
In this game, the player has to shoot down bacterial germs with antibiotic guns. The antibiotic doesn’t work on the blood cells but can eliminate bacteria. After the user navigates through the map for a while and observes bodily features, they reach the stomach and the game ends. It appears as a simple game at first, but it has the potential to educate students in a much more effective way based on the game components.
Composing the Game
This game focused on the arrangement of all the game objects, the level layout, and the objective to win it. The fact that this game is based on VR already allows students to process information 60,000 times faster than text from the visuals, and they’ll likely remember 90% of the content explained in this game since it combines visuals, auditory, and kinesthetic features. For comparison, we usually only remember 10% of the content we read from text alone.
Downloading Assets and Designing the Level Layout
I started by downloading the assets needed for the basics of the game through Unity Hub. This sets up the 3D models, basic game objects, player functions, and user interfaces I have access to for assembly.
When I open up the game, I have a basic scene with the main camera positioned at the first-person perspective of the player. This virtual landscape is boring to be limited to and play with, so I had to add to the map by clicking the LevelLayout option in the Unity hierarchy.
Using the Editing Layout feature, I browsed through different corridors and rooms to decide how I will arrange them in the scene by left-clicking to snap rooms together. The rooms are arranged to match as much of the human body as possible. In this game, I created a mouth after the head, a room for the throat, the ribs, the heart, and the stomach.
This allows teachers to explain to the students the order and arrangement of different parts of our body while the students are playing the VR game. In the clip above, you can notice how the electrical activity of the brain is visible. Teachers would mention how parts of our nervous system communicate using electrical signals.
After a series of snapping rooms together in the orientation, order, and places I want them, I have the base of the game map completed. There are no targets to see and shoot though!
Constructing Germspikes, Germslimes, and Blood Cells
To start assembling the bacteria, or GermSpike, I dragged a model of it into the scene. After rotating it so I have a clear view of it, I added a sphere collider component to the model. This makes sure that the player of the game can’t simply walk through the game object. Then I changed the center and radius of the sphere collider so it cages and fits the game object.
Next, I added a rigidbody component, a component that ensures the game object follows Unity’s physics system. I also checked the game object as kinematic instead of gravity under the rigidbody component so it can float in place since germs don’t just sit peacefully at the bottom portion of our veins. This also makes sure the antibiotic bullets being shot won’t just bounce off the targets.
The last component I added was a target script so the game engine will understand the object is something the player can shoot to collect points.
I didn’t want to repeat these steps for every single GermSpike I was going to create, so I made it a prefab, a blueprint of a game object’s family. I opened up the prefabs folder and dragged the germ model there to make it an original prefab. This way, a change to one prefab affects every other object under the same prefab.
These steps were repeated for both the GermSlime models and the BloodCell models. There was one exception to the BloodCell models though:
There is no target script attached! The reason is because I wouldn’t want student players destroying red blood cells with their antibiotic guns when antibiotics only target certain types of bacteria. Removing the target script component makes it so that no matter how many times the blood cells are shot, they are good and well.
After all three target prefabs were set up, I dragged multiple of each into the game so players get to shoot them around the map.
Setting Up the Fat Blob Door and Key
A part of replicating the Unity game was having a door and key system where the player had to collect a key to get through a blocked passageway. I did this by first dragging a fat blob door to block the entrance to the heart room. To get past this blob, students have a get a key first.
I dragged the key model into the game and added a key script along with a box collider. In the script, I gave the key a key type, which is “Key 1.” This is an important name I will associate with the fat blob door.
I added a lock script component, box collider, and dissolve action script to the fat blob door model. The lock script makes sure the game engine recognizes that this object can only be unlocked with a key. Under key type, I selected what I named the key, which is “Key 1.” Notice how the box collider is set to a trigger, so once the player has a key and touches the door, the dissolve action script is set to true, and the fat blob dissolves!
This part of the game could be used by teachers to explain how fat build-up in our bodies leads to blocked blood passageways which could be fatal.
Ending the Game
Ending the game was fairly easy. I created an empty game object and attached a box collider component. I adjusted the size of the box collider and set it to a trigger so that whenever the player walks into the collider, it will be triggered. Lastly, I added an EndScript, which ends the game and shows the player dashboard when the player touches the box collider.
Final Touch-Ups
The final thing I did was drag and drop models of props like bones, teeth, and blood vessels to the game. I did this last so it was easier and more clear to see objects when I was modifying them. Now I have a complete VR Germ Doctor game, ready to go!
Moving Forward
This was my very first attempt at making a VR game educational. VR is popular for gaming but the slightest tweaks can make it a valuable and effective educational tool. This project isn’t just going to end here though, I’ll be back to show original VR education games made from scratch!
Thanks for reading! Any feedback, applause, or comments are welcomed. If you found the content enjoyable, follow me on Medium! Feel free to connect with me via email (Jolie837837@gmail.com) and LinkedIn!
