IIT-Madras students design digital Covid-19 awareness game

Students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) have developed a multi-lingual free of cost digital game to create pubic awareness on Covid-19, the premier institute said on Monday.

"IITM Covid Game" takes inspiration from the popular 'Super Mario' game and is available in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu, besides English, it said.

Students have developed the browser-based digital game to create awareness among the general public, particularly children, on the importance of following precautions announced by the government to safeguard themselves against coronavirus.

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"The game takes inspiration from the famous Super Mario game and consists of a character who encounters various right things-like masks, washing hands and also encounters things to be avoided like hugs, handshakes."

"As the character does the right things, points keep getting added. If the character fails to avoid a wrong thing, points get deducted to highlight the consequence. The game goes on for one minute and the players should aim for maximum points," a release from IIT-M said.

The game was created by students who took a nine-credit elective course called "Let's Play To Learn" offered during the January-May 2020 Semester, in which they were taught game-based learning tools and techniques, it added.

The game can be played on personal computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones.

It is available free of cost and can be played from the home page of www.letsplaytolearn.com, it said, adding, the game was also available on the website of IIT Madras.

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Prof. Preeti Aghalayam, Department of Chemical Engineering, IITM, a co-facilitator for the elective course, said: "The IITM Covid game is a small but very meaningful and engaging contribution."

"And it clearly exhibits how thoughtful and aware our students are," Aghalayam was quoted as saying in the release.

Kartic Vaidyanathan, Founder, LetsPlayToLearn and a co-facilitator, said the students applied the concepts and created a number of game design prototypes that are relevant in general for science and engineering courses and can be used in IIT Madras courses.