EscapeCell: Serious Game Integration to a University Biology Course on an E-Learning Platform

This paper presents EscapeCell, a Serious Game to help undergraduate students understand plant cellular biology. Each course chapter is enriched with one mini-game, a gamification module integrated into the e-learning platform and several reminders of the game in the course material. We conducted a study on 117 students to compare their exam results with a control group from last year. We also correlated the collected feedback from the students and usage tracks. This helped us measure the usefulness of specific game elements such as a non-player character that provides help and bonus information modules hidden throughout the mini-games. The preliminary results indicate that the integration of EscapeCell improves students’ learning outcomes in the final exam and that Blob, the virtual tutor, facilitates the usage of the mini-games. Although the bonus information modules do not directly correlate with the final exam result, they show a positive correlation with the scores of the intermediate tests - the multiple-choice questions (MCQs) - taken by the students just after playing the mini-games.