Team:Fudan/Engagement
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Game is an excellent learning platform. Once involved, the profound theory and knowledge beneath the game will be absorbed subconsciously. An interesting game will stimulate the players’ imagination, rise their interests in related topics. Imagine a boy coming across an amazing sic-fic game, the scene of space battle and high-tech shuttles will stay in his mind for weeks, just like seeding a future of science, technology, universe or even literature. We believe that, spreading the interest in medic and science with joy is more efficient than merely spreading knowledge, so why not use game as a platform to spread our passions? To spread the idea of our project, we created a novel board game, Cell War. The game is based on solid medical and biological knowledge, so playing indeed is learning.Various fantasy and sic-fic elements are incorporated to attain joyful game experiences. After half a year’s exploring, we even designed several versions of Cell War for varying players, and the one version we bring to you is a delicate multiplayer board game, friendly for both veterans and green hands. The game has become a symbol of our human practice project as well as our team, representing the creative spirits of iGEMers. Here, we invite you to join our journey with Cell War.
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Initially we thought about making tour speeches around Shanghai to help people learn more about immunotherapy, cell engineering and cancer related information. But teaching by speaking is really not a choice satisfying enough for us. We want people to explore the knowledge of cancer immunotherapy in a friendly way. We want to engage the public. And we want to inspire the future. After several times of intensive group meeting and brainstorming, a bold but impressive idea was brought up: To design a game. |
At the outset, the game was crude. We simply copied rules from some of the most famous board games. It was much easier than developing a brand new one, but it existed big problems: borrowed forms are rarely incongruous with our contents and ideas. We tried to invent some rules ourselves, but none of us were familiar with board games. We also considered making online games once, but for us students major in medic and biology, it was too hard to write complex program. The dream of spreading through the game remained on the blueprint for a long period. |
Things were turning around after we got in touch with a professional board game lover, Ruiling Zhong. Miss Zhong was the president of Fudan University Board Game Club. Luckily, she was such a nice person who agreed to help us with our board game project for nothing in return. She had rich experience in numbers of board games, and provided multiple examples for us as references. Several team members were invited to join in their club activities to experience multiple types of board game. With our relative professional knowledge and enhanced experience in board game, we finally started designing.
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After times of playing, discussing and brainstorming, we decided to abandon the previous strategy of copying and improving. What we want to achieve is a game that can motivate players to learn more about immunotherapy by themselves, rather than a normal board game just for fun. Thus we need a frame which suit our idea perfectly. This can only be achieved by developing the game mechanics and the contents at the exact same time.That was when an even bolder and even more impressive idea was brought up: To design a game of our own and by ourselves. And we started from scratch, to construct from the very first piece of stone. |
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And it was hard. We’ve been brainstorming until all the ideas ran dry. We’ve been constantly making tests until every part of the game was polished again and again. And we’ve been so desperate because things just didn’t seem to work out perfect. But it grew gradually. And after all the brilliant ideas we never gave up on, after all the joys and troubles we will never forget, Cell War was finally brought to life, on the fifth of July. |
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WARNING! Cancer invasion is detected in the human body. Our immune fighters are dispatched immediately for the mission. The war can be triggered at any moment… Attack and defense, gamble and foresight, craft and strategy, luck and adversity, lone battle and team combat… In the war against cancer, you need more than what you think.
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Warriors! Draw your sword, and fight the war! Come and join us at the Hynes Convention Center! We will randomly select ten participants and send out the light version of Cell War! |
To share Cell War with more people, we grab every chance to demonstrate our board game. Our board game was brought to conferences, schools and organizations.
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We tested the board game in Fudan Board Game Club several times. Club members were so impressed and showed great interests in related topics.Cell War was then for the first time introduced to the public on the Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCiC). We won everyone’s attention. Haoqian Zhang from Beijing also showed interest in our board game. Mr. Zhang was previously the iGEM team leader of Peking University. Now he is the CTO of Bluepha, a synthetic biology related company. In CCiC, he first got to know our board game. After that, an intense cooperation has been made. We made several sets of board games and send them to Beijing to be promoted at Peking University affiliated high school. |
