Biohazard is designed to play on contemporary consoles or consumer-grade PCs. There are no major unsolved software engineering/game design problems in Biohazard. The game can be developed using most contemporary 3D gaming engines, modified primarily to simulate disease progression and propagation.

How the disease affects each patient could be modeled with table look-ups. Each player is modeled with vital signs (e.g. temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, blood work-up). These vital signs are affected by both 1) the presence of the disease and 2) how far the disease has advanced (a function of time in the system, mediated by any treatments). The spread of each disease can be modeled through standard collision detection. With diseases that are contracted through airborne agents, random disease-spreading actions, such as coughs or sneezes can be embedded in characters as well.

A simpler, but less effective game could hold vital signs constant for patients, reduce diseases to binary conditions (present or non-present), and use instantiated case modeling to determine if a person has a disease or not. The game system could "flag" characters as either having a disease or not depending on if they have interacted with other characters.

The primary technological challenge will be in providing a user-friendly set of editing tools for teachers and players to construct their own game levels. Most commercial first-person game engines have mod tools that are far from user-friendly. However, adding such a feature may be the biggest asset of the game. Level or scenario editors would allow teachers to construct assessment levels and players to create their own levels modeling diseases. Research has shown that giving teachers the ability to customize content is critical for successful implementation, and providing players opportunities to construct their own games is a very effective learning tool.

Copyright 2002, MIT.