Thursday, 19 May 2011

Our mission - part (v)

Questions from Project Manual (Q5)

What alternatives can we use to visualise the 2 shapes as they dock so as to ensure the best shape matching and least frustration to the player?
We can have a 3D viewer that is able to pan around every angle of every corner using the mouse to drag, this allows the player to look at the shapes from each angle and point of view, making it a better shape matching experience that is less prone to mistakes.

Our mission - part (iv)

Questions from Project Manual (Q4)

How much more difficult will this be if the bound solutions are unknown?
It will be much more difficult due to the bound solutions not being known.
In other words, real drug design would be like enzymetris game where the player doesn't know if the shapes will match or not.
How could we implement this aspect while not completely frustrating the player?
Whenever a point in the two active points of the molecules touch, it can change colour, allowing the player to have a rough feel of where the active points of the molecules are while keeping the challenging aspect to the new system.

Our Mission - part (iii)

Questions from Project Manual (Q3)

What are some alternative ways to provide better feedback and response to the user in real time as he/she proceeds through the docking process?
We could implement a warmer and colder system where if the player is on the right track we would say that it is warmer, however once the player strays off the track, we would say that it us colder.

(II) Our Mission ~ Part 1

What does the group need to accomplish at the end of the workshop?
We must learn to work together as a group, as well acquire new skills in game design and learn about molecular science.

Our mssion - part 2 (ii)

Questions from Project Manual (Q2)

The lock and key mechanism relies mainly on the matching of shapes. However, molecular binding also depends on specific interactions (for example a positive charge in one place of a molecule matching a negative charge on another molecule) and molecules sometimes change shape when they bind.
How can you imagine the game taking these into account?
We can imagine the player successfully matching the shapes correctly, when this happens an animation will occur according to what the shape matching represents, as well as adding a difficulty level where things like the positive and negative charge are also taken into consideration.

Our mission- part 2 (i)

  • What were some assumptions that were made in this initial step toward making a game for drug development? (We assumed that the game would be something very high level and a little bit boring, however this was not the case for chemistris.)
  • How are these assumptions limiting and how do they differ from reality?(These assumptions made us very close minded, we expected something like a question and answer kind of game where facts would be tested, however, we were given chemistris, which us fun and innovative, it was also very familiar as the majority of us play tetris.)
  • How are these assumptions helpful? (These assumptions will motivate us to find out more about the field.)
  • How would you modify the game to more realistically approximate enzyme inhibitor binding?(I would add examples of some of drugs used to target the disease, making it more realistic with real examples.)

(I) Overview of Project

What is the theory/ concept behind the topic?

This project steers students to acquire computer game design skill and apply it to develop a chemistry game known as Chemistris. Students will also study molecular science, create and test play the game, and learn how to spark the creative thinking of the player.

The objective of the game is to combine the molecular blocks in order to form the molecular compound and the user will learn and memorize a list of the molecular compound. In the game, user can interactively control the blocks in a 3D environment and the game allows the user to control the viewing camera. Once the user successfully matches the molecules, score will be given and background image will be randomly changed.

-From Project Manual

The theory behind the topic is to use this game as a type of simulation for the development of drugs. It uses the concept of enzymes, active sites and lock and key drug design, where the main concept is that the disease molecules have an active site, usually a concavities in the structure of the protein, these diseases can be treated using enzymes that fit the concavities perfectly.

Pictures of our game:



Our Team

Arthur
Wei Kang
Eugene

Team AWE

Photography of team and project supervisor:

Useful references

(I) About the Game Development...
(II) The People Behind...
(III) The Sciences behind...