University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Epidemic vectors: an action game about mosquito-transmitted disease prevention

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Epidemic vectors: an action game about mosquito-transmitted disease prevention

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Content
Epidemic Vectors
An action game about mosquito-transmitted disease prevention
By
Daniel Batista
Master of Fine Arts
Interactive Media & Games Division
School of Cinematic Arts
University of Southern California
May 10, 2019

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Acknowledgment

I would first like to thank my thesis advisors: part time lecturer Carl Schnurr and
associate professor PhD Andreas Kratky, both of the School of Cinematic Arts -
Interactive Media and Games Division at the University of Southern California. They
were always ready to help me whenever I ran into a trouble spot or needed feedback on
a particular subject.
I would also like to thank the expert game producer Charles Babb from the Fairchild
Consortium, who provided invaluable feedback especially regarding gameplay and
combat mechanics and strategies.
Without their passionate participation and input, this project would not be possible.
Finally, to my beloved wife Fernanda always at my side providing feedback and insight
throughout the entire project and life itself; My sister Camila; My mother Fátima and my
father Elizaldo; I must express my very profound gratitude, thank you for your support.
Love you all.
Daniel (Dan)
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Contents

Abstract 4
Research on Mosquito Transmitted Diseases 5
Dengue Fever 5
Malaria 7
Chikungunya 8
Dog Heartworm 9
Yellow Fever 9
Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) 10
St. Louis Encephalitis 11
West Nile Virus 11
Zika 12
Other Facts about the mosquitoes 12
Learning Unreal from a Unity3D background 13
Resources and References 15
Prior Art 16
Development 19
Avoiding Player Fatigue 21
The Power of Constraints 23
The World Impact “currency” 24
Future Development 25
Bibliography/References 27
Appendices 28

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Abstract
“Mosquito vectored diseases include protozoan diseases, i.e., malaria, filarial diseases
such as dog heartworm, and viruses such as dengue, encephalitis and yellow fever”
(American Mosquito Control Association) .
One of the most effective ways to prevent all those diseases is vector control, i.e. to
control the mosquito population, by eliminating bodies of standing water, where the
mosquitoes breed. It is especially important in tropical countries, with high rainfall and
warm weather, which provides perfect conditions for the reproduction of the mosquitoes.
Creating a game to help raising awareness about the diseases and motivate people to
act on it is the main objective of this thesis.
In Epidemic Vectors, besides literally fighting the giant mosquito mutations, players
combat them as we would in the real world, by destroying eggs and standing water. The
objective is to demonstrate and to motivate people to do the same in their houses.

In this thesis document I describe and reflect on the process of researching mosquitoes
and the diseases they carry, and on creating the game.

Keywords: Disease Prevention, Third Person Action Game, Mosquito Population
Control, Dengue Fever, Zika virus, Chikungunya, Malaria, Yellow Fever
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Research on Mosquito Transmitted Diseases
There are many diseases in which the main transmission agent, or vector of
transmission, is a mosquito. Here, I will briefly describe these diseases before
proceeding to my description of the game project:
Dengue Fever

Aedes aegypti mosquito

The dengue fever is an arboviral disease with very uncomfortable symptoms, it
has low mortality, but there has been a significant increase in the number of cases.
Especially in Brazil and other countries where the weather provides perfect conditions
for the proliferation of its main vector, the mosquito aedes aegypti.
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There is two types of Dengue fever, the “traditional” and a more aggressive type,
called Dengue hemorrhagic fever or just Severe Dengue . It is a debilitating disease,
causing high fever and at least two of the symptoms:
● Severe headache
● Severe eye pain (behind eyes)
● Joint pain
● Muscle and/or bone pain
● Rash
● Mild bleeding (nose or gum bleed, petechiae, or easy bruising)
● Low white cell count
Those symptoms might be mistaken for flu, which causes some cases to never be
properly diagnosed. For the cases where the temperature declines 3 to 7 days after the
symptoms first appeared, it is imperative to watch for the signs that the case might be
getting worse and turning to the aggressive type, the dengue hemorrhagic fever . Those
signs include:
-severe abdominal pain or persistent vomiting
-red spots or patches on the skin
-bleeding from nose or gums
-vomiting blood
-black, tarry stools (feces, excrement)
-drowsiness or irritability
-pale, cold, or clammy skin
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-difficulty breathing
The symptoms for the two dengue types are similar, and the change in
temperature is also small, but the aggressive type, the dengue hemorrhagic fever ,
demands medical attention, so it is imperative to look for an emergency room or the
closest health care provider if there is any suspicion of having it.
Subsequent infections and a low immune system are believed to increase the
chances of the Dengue hemorrhagic fever.
As the name implies, this variant can cause bleeding, which may lead to a failure
of the circulatory system and death. There is no specific medication, the treatment
consists mainly of fluid replacement therapy.
It is important for both variants of the disease, to avoid analgesics containing ibuprofen,
Naproxen or aspirin as those substances can increase the risk of bleeding.
Malaria

anopheles mosquito

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Malaria is a life threatening blood disease transmitted to humans by the mosquito
Anopheles . It is an acute febrile disease, with symptoms appearing usually 10 to 15
days after the infective mosquito bite. They include fever, headache and chills and
might be mild and difficult to identify as Malaria. Notwithstanding, if left untreated within
24 hours, it might progress to severe illness often leading to death.
The parasites of Malaria in mosquitoes belong to the Plasmodium genus, five
types of Plasmodium can infect humans. Typically, once infected, the parasites multiply
in the host’s liver, then they infect and destroy red blood cells. Different types of the
parasite reproduce and multiply in different rates, which in turn changes how quickly the
symptoms escalate and how severe the case is.
Chikungunya

Aedes albopictus mosquito

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Chikungunya is a viral disease transmitted to humans by female mosquitoes,
most commonly the Aedes aegypti and the Aedes albopictus. Main symptoms are fever
and severe joint pain, but it might also cause muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue
and rash. Treatment is focused on relieving the symptoms, there is no cure.

Dog Heartworm
Heartworms are a common disease in dogs throughout the United States, they
are transmitted by mosquitoes, they are very difficult to cure but 100% preventable.
Once mature, the heartworms live in the heart and in large blood vessels in the lungs.
Preventive treatment is made with medication and should start at 6 or 8 weeks of age.
Rare cases of human infection have been reported but this cases are not considered to
be a risk for human health, transmission from dogs to humans is not possible.

Yellow Fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by mosquitoes.
The yellow in the name refers to the jaundice that affects some patients. The symptoms
include fever, headache, jaundice, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and fatigue. Some
patients experience severe symptoms and half of those die within 10 days.
There is an extremely effective vaccine, safe and affordable. A single dose of the
vaccine provides lifelong immunity within 10 to 30 days for 99% of people vaccinated.
Booster doses are not necessary.
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However it is difficult to diagnose, the severe cases might be confused with
severe Malaria, leptospirosis, viral hepatitis, other hemorrhagic fevers, infection with
other flaviviruses and poisoning.

Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE)

Coquillettidia perturbans mosquito

Culex mosquito

Eastern Equine Encephalitis is another disease spread in horses and humans,
transmitted by mosquitoes that feed on both birds and mammals such as Aedes,
Coquillettidia and Culex. It is part of the most serious group of mosquito-borne
arboviruses that can affect the central nervous system and cause severe complications,
even death. Symptoms vary between none and mild flu-like illness with fever, headache
and sore throat. More serious infection of the central nervous system lead to sudden
fever and severe headache, followed by seizures and coma. About half the patients with
the more severe infection die or have some kind of permanent brain damage requiring
lifetime institutional care. There is no specific treatment. There is a vaccine for horses
but not for humans.

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St. Louis Encephalitis

St. Louis Encephalitis is transmitted from birds to mammals by infected
mosquitoes, mainly some Culex species.
The incubation period ranges from 5 to 15 days (the time from the infected
mosquito bite to the onset of the illness), symptoms are usually abrupt, and include
fever, headache, dizziness, nausea and malaise. Signs and symptoms intensify over
several days to a week, most people spontaneously recover after this period, others
develop signs of central nervous system infection, including stiff neck, confusion,
disorientation, dizziness, tremors and unsteadiness. Coma can develop in severe
cases.
Like the EEE there is no vaccine. Less than 1% of the cases is clinically apparent
and the majority of the cases remain undiagnosed.

West Nile Virus
West Nile Virus is a flavivirus disease with more than 70 identified viruses.
Similar to other encephalitis it is cycled between mosquitoes and birds and transmitted
to mammals by infected mosquitoes. It might be less severe with symptoms including
fever, headache, tiredness and aches or a rash. Like a flu this could take a few days or
several weeks, usually something around 30 and 60 days. The more severe types on
the other hand, are grouped as “neuroinvasive disease” which affects the brain.

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Zika
Zika is another virus disease transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti.
Symptoms are usually mild and include fever, muscle pain, rash, conjunctivitis, malaise
or headache. Most people infected do not develop symptoms, which causes the disease
to go unnoticed in many cases.
Zika causes congenital malformations, known as congenital Zika syndrome, it
might cause infants to be born with microcephaly, and is also associated with other
pregnancy complications such as miscarriages and preterm birth.
There is no treatment for Zika virus infection or its associated diseases.
The virus is also transmitted by unprotected sex.

Other Facts about the mosquitoes

Several factors can influence how the mosquitoes choose their prey, it is true
some people are more susceptible to bites, blood type, sweat, CO2, compounds
produced by bacteria present on our skin, all have some relation with how they are
attracted.
But it is only the females that bite humans and other animals. They do not do this for
their own nutritional needs, but they need the protein in our blood to develop their eggs.
Males can feed of flower nectar.
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The mosquito has a mouthpart called proboscis, much like a hypodermic needle,
that they use to probe in search for a capillary to suck our blood. In this process they
inject their saliva which prevents blood from coagulating and has anesthetic properties
so we do not notice their work, it is with the saliva that they transmit the diseases into
our bloodstream.
Although mosquitoes seem to cause only problems, they do have their purpose, their
larvae is food for many fish and other aquatic creatures and the adults are prey to bats,
birds and spiders.
Unfortunately there is not an absolute solution to be free from mosquitoes, but to
make your own backyard less hospitable to them, the best to do is to eliminate standing
water and recipients where rain can create standing water, which is where they breed.
Another interesting approach is to use plants to repel them, marigolds, for example, give
off a fragrance they do not like, it is a great way to avoid using chemical insecticides to
keep them off your yard.

Learning Unreal from a Unity3D background

The unity API, the assortment of functions provided in C# for the development of
the game is very user friendly. The majority of the game engine was conceived as a
collection of game components that can be combined independently, giving users the
freedom to use only the game components they need. This also results in a
documentation that is reasonably easy to navigate. Functions are usually found in the
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expected game components, since they tend to be specialized in their objectives. For
example, the collider component has all the functionality for collisions and with it, it is
possible to handle physics collisions and trigger or overlap events for any game object
with that component.
In the Unreal API on the other hand, the functions are tightly coupled, usually
taking advantage of something called inheritance , where specialized classes from the
same parent class have all the functionality of the parent in addition to its own functions
and attributes. This structure is great for maintenance and code optimizations. For first
time users though, it can sometimes lead to longer times to find the exact function that
needs to be used. When viewing the documentation for example, one might miss
functions that are in a different module, higher or lower in the inheritance hierarchy, and
it can therefore be difficult to see the full scope of a component because their
functionality is not centralized in a single module. This can result in spending precious
extra time when using C++.
To be fair, this is only a problem when using code exclusively, since Visual
Studio can rarely parse the entire code precisely for the auto complete to fully work,
which could give users the entire collection of functions available for an object. There is
no reason to create an entire project strictly with code, most projects will be a mix of
code and blueprints, a visual way of programming designed by Epic to attract people
averse to coding the traditional way. Depending on what feature is being designed, both
code and blueprint might offer downsides and advantages. It is possible to do
everything with both, but for more complex systems such as AI and the player
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controller, a good C++ code can give a clearer and more concise version, in such cases
it is difficult to keep the blueprint clear and not cross all the connecting lines creating
something difficult to maintain and understand.
Blueprints are faster to create though, and do not require the user to compile the
code. When programming with blueprints the editor will search for all the matches of the
functions the user is entering, a similar code autocomplete that searches and provides
the entire scope of matching functions for a given object, this gives first time users as
much speed as Unity. Using blueprints is a good way to speed up the process and find
the best options for a given feature, then, after the first prototype it might be worth to
convert the blueprint in C++ code in case it is a complex algorithm.

Resources and References

The project was influenced by an urge to create both a fun game and a tool to
spread awareness about mosquito transmitted diseases. As inspirations for the
gameplay, several third person action games were studied and considered. From the
disease awareness objective, articles about the diseases transmitted, ways to control
mosquito population and even ways to try to keep mosquitoes at a distance were
considered and used somehow in the story.

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Prior Art
Devil May Cry (DMC)

Devil May Cry is an action-adventure hack and slash third-person shooter video
game series developed by Capcom and created by Hideki Kamiya . Dante and Vergil are
sons of a legendary demon slayer called Sparda. They have mixed blood with demons
and that gives them some special powers normal humans would not have. The game is
played with Dante, culminating in a battle against Vergil and the demon that was
controlling the world. The following features of this game inspired the design of my
project:

● Stylish action - the game rewards players who succeed in chaining the
biggest attack sequences, avoiding damage from the enemies. The
animations and visual effects provide satisfactory feedback, emphasizing
how powerful Dante is.

● Fast and fluid - the speed of the attacks and the general movement of the
player reminds players they are not normal humans, they can dash
forward and traverse big paths quick and smoothly.

● No mercy - the speed and flow of the combat and the movement are
reinforced by the grappling hook, a weapon that allows players to move
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quickly, reach difficult places and chain even bigger attack sequences,
bringing back in slash range enemies that were just sent flying by your
sword slashes.

Ninja Gaiden Yaiba

This is an action game following an alternative story from the main Ninja Gaiden
series. The game is played as Yaiba, a ninja that challenged the famous Ninja Gaiden
Ryu Hayabusa and then was killed in battle. Yaiba returns from Hell seeking revenge
and fighting hordes of zombies in a succession of bizarre enemies.

● Stylish action was also an objective in this game, with several attack
combinations and options to take down your enemies.

● Use enemies as weapons - the player can grab enemies with his short
range grappling hook and use them to fight, doing even more damage
than normal weapons.

● Not so fluid - this game is a good example of how important a third person
camera is. The animations and weapons were well designed, the visual
effects, but it did not reached its full potential due to a fixed, not fixed
camera point of view. In this game the camera moves according to the
space where you are, zooming in and out to show big areas or show the
detail of the action in small corridors. Unfortunately that made the combat
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not so fluid, because sometimes it is impossible to see the enemies and
who is about to attack.

Nioh
An action role-playing game where the player is a foreign samurai fighting all
kinds of Yokai (japanese Demons), he is one of a very few people who can see them.
Player needs to basically save the world from the Yokai.

● One-o-one fights - Nioh places heavy emphasis in this kind of battle, even
in the middle of the levels, some fights are mini boss fights, player fights
just one enemy on a big environment and it is designed to be a hard fight.
It makes the fights have more importance as opposed to when the player
is fighting waves of weak opponents.

● Unforgiving - Nioh is a hard game, compared to Dark Souls, where dying
is one of the normal paths to learn the game. The enemies can normally
kill with just one blow unless the player have 100% of his life.

Guiding spirit - The experience of dying is not pleasant, the enemies are
respawned and the player needs to defeat all of them every time he dies. But
Nioh tried rewarding players who could return to their place of demise by making
your guardian watch over your grave. The player recovers experience and points
when reuniting with his guardian.
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Development

The game was designed using the Unreal Engine Release 4.2.

After a very early prototype there was a playtest session with the entire MFA
cohort. The feedback from this playtest was very well aligned with the directions the
project was going for. At such early stage in development, some of the core elements of
the game were not available to play and receive feedback, and some of the missing
features were taken as points of attention.

An initial rough first level was designed to receive feedback, but without the other
elements, specially a tutorial system and a more gradual difficulty ramp, it was received
as a very difficult, possibly frustrating level.
The design of the environment was also not available to be evaluated but it
brought attention about how it could be made, which led to the decision to use of the
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very high quality material Epic has just released, in particular the Soul Cave and the
Soul City, environment asset packages that feature the very elements needed for the
first cave maze level and the climax of the story, a big fight in an urban environment.

A general concern that also resonated with the audience was about how to tie
very closely together an action game and the bigger mission of the game, which is to
bring more awareness about mosquito transmitted diseases, such as the Dengue
Fever.
One of the main mechanics of the game is fighting, which does not really relate to the
bigger goal of the game, so other systems were envisioned to address that:

● the physics puzzles to basically turn upside down any containers that might
accumulate water;
● the “water purge”, which is a fancy move to stab water puddles with your fire lit
glowing sword making the water inside to evaporate, which prevents more
mutations from spawning from those points;
● interactive eggs, which must be hunted and quickly destroyed.

Another concern also voiced in feedback was about player engagement, the
proposed solution is to give different actions and challenges for the player, some
platforming action, physics puzzles, stealth missions and different behaving enemies.

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After this initial playtest, a considerable amount of time was spent to finish the
implementation of the most important skills for the player, artificial intelligence for the
mutations for both navigating the level, doing basic waypoint patrol and fighting the
player.

The next step in development was devoted to level layout, and at this point the
scope of the project had to be reevaluated. The result is a 3 level game that can be
finished in about 10 minutes, which is the amount of time expected for our target
audience to have in events such as the USC games expo. It gives closure of the story
and allow users to experience and receive the entire message of the game, even in this
very short format.

Avoiding Player Fatigue
Every game has a basic game loop, but in order to create a good action game, it
is important to avoid too much repetition, which can make the players to be tired of your
game, the so called player’s fatigue. Good game design makes the player forget time, to
be completely immersed in the experience, engaged to learn other systems and to solve
the challenges posed by the game.
There are a number of techniques to keep player engagement and general
interest high in games, from giving different challenges and skills throughout the game,
different kinds of gameplay, alternating between heavy action and rewarding
sequences, cutscenes, innovative puzzles, they all help and are tools game designers
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can use, but there is no formula to balance all these different moments and techniques
to make a memorable game that just “feels right”. It needs to be custom made and
heavily playtested to achieve a good balance.

In Epidemic Vectors the approach taken involved:
● A good number of skills for both combat and movement for the player character;
to give freedom and choices when fighting and to try to make movement more
interesting avoiding moments the player walks endlessly to find his objectives.
● Different types of enemies, specifically designed to test specific player skills; to
teach and explore the many skills the main character possess.
● Level design based on story, player skills and combat to augment and improve
encounters and player experiences.

The development of the game started with what skills would be more interesting
for combat. Then, having the ability to traverse the levels quickly was also important to
be able to reach and out maneuver the flying mosquitoes with a robot that could not fly.
And to avoid long walks and moments where the players are walking without knowing
where or what to do. It was important for the game to be interesting to traverse, even
when no enemies were visible.
From there, the level design and the mosquito classes were designed to support and
challenge the player, the story and the mission of the game.

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The Power of Constraints

Flying is something that has always fascinated humankind, in one of the very first
game prototypes the player character was able to fly whenever he wanted. There were
plans to give this feature some limitations, but having the ability to fly at will was the
main idea. Playtesting this version revealed the flight even though interesting was not
nearly as powerful as it was intended.
Playtesting, investigation and reflection allowed the conclusion that being able to
fly at will was the core reason why flying at will was not interesting.
In comparison, in games where the player character does not have this skill, or where
players can only fly for a limited amount of time, it is a very desirable skill to have,
maybe because of the same reason it fascinates us, it is something we are just not
capable of doing, this limitation makes it all the more desirable. We wish we could, and
this is one of the main reasons superheroes are so popular, the desire to be more, and
to do what we cannot do is fascinating.
Limiting the player character to not be able to fly at will, yet be able to air jump
once and combine the grappling hook and the mutation throw to “fly” for brief moments
made it much more interesting. Whenever in air the player feels the danger of falling,
this big and constant tension is lost with the fly at will approach.

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The World Impact “currency”

One of the biggest motivations for the game, to help not only with the awareness
about the diseases, but also to prompt action, was the World Impact points system.
The main idea is to reward players who are in fact helping to eliminate the most
desirable spots for the mosquitoes to breed, small bodies of standing water.
Players would upload pictures of puddles of water or places that could turn into a
little water pool after a rain both before and after their interventions. The system in
game would allow photo uploads and viewing and voting other users photos to validate
their World Impact. Giving the users this task of voting each other photos would allow
the system to work without implementing complex algorithms for image recognition and
processing.
Considering the nature of the photos is expected to be completely not standard
and vary to a very high degree, making an automatic system for ranking and validation
is a challenge bordering the impossible.
The World Impact of each user would work then as a currency, allowing robot
customizations and other cosmetic features not changing gameplay and skill. Players
with the highest World Impact would also be recognized in the leaderboards, making
players famous inside the game community, by showing everyone the top 5 users
acting for the good of the world.
The system was not implemented in this prototype version, both for time
constraints and for the lack of a “foolproof” mechanism for the photo uploading feature.
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The mechanism should address a concern raised in early discussions, unfortunately
there is always people willing to explore and even vandalize any system. These ill
intended people might explore the photo uploading feature to upload potentially harmful
and mature content.
A potential low cost contingency plan would be to share the photos and integrate
the game with the Facebook api, trusting the big giant to use its censoring algorithms to
protect against bad users and fake accounts. This is an option that needs further
investigations to understand how well it could actually work.

Future Development

The original idea for the game had more enemy classes, the main mutation
would be able to change and command different insects, not just mosquitoes. The story
was supposed to develop in a slower pace, diving deeper into the anticipation for the
final encounter with the main mutation. To create the feeling that it is intelligent, and it is
Epidemic Vectors 26 of 29
the “mastermind” behind all the other insect mutations coming after the player. There
was a vision of a much stronger final encounter with the main mutation, making it
appear, provoke and frustrate the player in almost all the many levels initially
envisioned.
Another aspect that had to be simplified was the pace of the growing of the
mutations. Starting with small normal sized mosquitoes and going to huge beasts would
change the gameplay considerably and give interesting opportunities to make the
environments play a bigger role in the game.
Those were the initial objectives. In the future a possible remake with these
objectives in mind or to start where the story ended, going deeper into the science
fiction side and expanding the reach of the genetic mutation to also affect humans are
both interesting paths to take.
A vital system to be implemented is the World Impact.

More updates can be found on: http://www.bushidobots.com/#vectors

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Bibliography/References

Mosquito-Borne Diseases - American Mosquito Control Association. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://www.mosquito.org/page/diseases

A bonus benefit: Improving cognitive control with Action Games
Steenbergen, L., Sellaro, R., Stock, A.-K., Beste, C., & Colzato, L. S. (2015).
Action Video Gaming and Cognitive Control: Playing First Person Shooter
Games Is Associated with Improved Action Cascading but Not Inhibition.
PLOS ONE , 10 (12), e0144364. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144364

How educational games can bring about social impact
Jiménez, O. (2015). Leveraging the Social Aspect of Educational Games. Theory
Into Practice , 54 (2), 101–108.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2015.1010845

Technical challenges and the importance of third person cameras in action games
Schramm, J. (n.d.). Analysis of Third Person Cameras in Current Generation
Action Games, 36.

Epidemic Vectors 28 of 29
The Surprising Reasons Why Mosquitoes Bite Some People While Others Seem
‘Invisible.’ (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2019, from Mercola.com website:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/08/08/why-mosquitoes-bit
e.aspx

Dengue | CDC. (2019, January 15). Retrieved April 1, 2019, from
https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/index.html

Malaria: Symptoms, treatment, and prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2019, from
Medical News Today website:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150670.php

Zika virus. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2019, from
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zika-virus

WHO | Dengue/Severe dengue frequently asked questions. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1,
2019, from WHO website: http://www.who.int/denguecontrol/faq/en/

Appendices
Caroline Cox (Journal of Pesticide Reform, 2002, Spring)
PYRETHRINS/PYRETHRUM | Insecticide fact-sheet | Northwest Coalition for
Alternatives to Pesticides/NC. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from
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https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ncap/pages/26/attachments/original/142
8423441/pyrethrinspyrethrum.pdf?1428423441

Lakna. (2018, February 25). Difference Between Culex and Anopheles | Definition,
Facts, Role, Similarities and Differences. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from
Pediaa.Com website:
http://pediaa.com/difference-between-culex-and-anopheles-mosquito/

Abstract (if available)

Abstract “Mosquito vectored diseases include protozoan diseases, i.e., malaria, filarial diseases such as dog heartworm, and viruses such as dengue, encephalitis and yellow fever” (American Mosquito Control Association). One of the most effective ways to prevent all those diseases is vector control, i.e. to control the mosquito population, by eliminating bodies of standing water, where the mosquitoes breed. It is especially important in tropical countries, with high rainfall and warm weather, which provides perfect conditions for the reproduction of the mosquitoes. Creating a game to help raising awareness about the diseases and motivate people to act on it is the main objective of this thesis. In Epidemic Vectors, besides literally fighting the giant mosquito mutations, players combat them as we would in the real world, by destroying eggs and standing water. The objective is to demonstrate and to motivate people to do the same in their houses. In this thesis document I describe and reflect on the process of researching mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, and on creating the game.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Batista, Daniel (author)

Core Title Epidemic vectors: an action game about mosquito-transmitted disease prevention

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 04/28/2019

Defense Date 05/08/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag chikungunya,dengue fever,disease awareness,disease prevention,malaria,mosquito population control,OAI-PMH Harvest,third person action game,yellow fever,Zika virus

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Wixon, Dennis (committee chair), Fullerton, Tracy (committee member), Watson, Jeff (committee member)

Creator Email danielbatista.contato@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-152071

Unique identifier UC11660353

Identifier etd-BatistaDan-7303.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-152071 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-BatistaDan-7303.pdf

Dmrecord 152071

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Batista, Daniel

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA