SuperCell Creator
SuperCell Creator is an educational immunology application targetted at children, and the aim of the game is to create a super-charged immune cell – a ‘SuperCell’ – to help the body fight off an infection. It has been designed be played at home or as part of a public engagement activity.
The app was developed from a paper-based public engagement activity where children draw a picture of an immune cell and give it superpowers that they think would help it fight off an infection, regardless of whether those powers exist in real life or not. In this version, players choose from a range of defence mechanisms used by real immune cells and combine these in any way they want to create their own, personalised SuperCell. Information is given about each of the defence mechanisms, including what it is, how it’s used in the immune system and which immune cells use it. Players can then decide to add it to their SuperCell or not. Once the SuperCell is complete, it goes up against an invader and the player gets to see whether it was successful in fighting off the infection or not.