Sunday 10 May 2009

Killer Flu: The game


Here comes the Killer Flu : The game, by the groovy legend Ian Bogost. The game, called Killer Flu, was commissioned by the UK Clinical Virology Network and produced in association with Scotland's Traffic Games. He describes the current situation of the new global media hysteria like this: Pandemic flus are rare and unusual strains that are far harder to spread than popular discourse might make it seem. They are real, to be sure. The 1918 Spanish flu made its way to nearly every corner of the world, but it was more unusual in that it featured a very high infection rate, tended to kill the young more than the old. In the end, 50-100 million people may have died from Spanish flu, but that number too deceives mostly because of the size of the numbers. At a roughly 20% infection rate, only 3-5% of those infected succumbed to the virus, or roughly 1% of the global population. Two independent research teams recently estimated that the worst case for H1N1 swine flu might result in 1,700 cases (not deaths, but cases).
Kiler Flu (the game) was created as an attempt to explain how flu really mutates and spreads, and how challenging it can be for a deadly strain to affect a large population geographically. The player takes the role of the flu itself, trying to mutate and then spread it in a variety of conditions.

Play the game and win the anti-virus....

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