Children of the Sorghum
The Murphy Research Group at Centenary College of Louisiana
Cell Bio Arcade 2022
Our Cell Biology class usually makes biology board games at the end of the semester and we invite the campus to play. Due to COVID19, we had to do things a little differently. This fall BIOL204 students learned the basic elements of coding to make online games using Scratch!
Play the games embedded directly below!
For mobile users or those with trouble loading the games, click the title to open the game in the Scratch window!
Instructions
These bacteria are dividing quick! Think of yourself as a white blood cell and click each bacterium to engulf them! White blood cells, also known as Leukocytes, protect your body from foreign viruses and bacteria. A white blood cell will engulf other cells through a process called phagocytosis. For every bacterium you engulf you will score a point! Press the green flag to start. You will have one minute to get as many points as possible. Good luck!
Notes and Credits
We would like to thank @MsFrizzleFoShizzle for her help in creating this game as well as the countless tutorials that we needed in order to get this game working well.
Instructions
Virus Takeover is a unique take on educating others on the topics of white blood cells and viruses!
You are a white blood cell fighting in the Immune System Army. You are tasked to attack all viruses that may come your way. There are 5 different levels with increasing difficulty. Click to destroy them! 10 destroyed viruses will get you to the next level. Destroy 50 viruses to win the game!
Notes and Credits
Sprites and Backgrounds were all drawn by hand!
Instructions
Welcome to the game of Virus Invasion!
This game will test your patience as you, the virus, try to invade the cell. Fair warning, the corners are trickier than you may think! Press the green flag to start the game. To navigate the virus, use the arrow keys. If you come in contact with the black maze walls or the purple lymphocytes, you will be sent back to the starting line. If you touch the red antibodies, you will grow in size making your travels almost impossible. To win the game you must successfully make it through the maze and reach the cell!
The immune system is composed of different types of white blood cells, one of which is seen here in the maze. Lymphocytes can be categorized into B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes. Our B lymphocytes produce antibodies to help attack and destroy foreign bodies such as a virus. While our T lymphocytes directly attack the foreign body and control our immune response.
Instructions
Mitosis is the process of making two identical daughter cells through cell division. Today we're going to show you exactly how it works. This cell needs help to divide. Your friend Mr. Cell will walk you through the steps of mitosis, but be careful. Make one wrong move and cancer cells could attack at any second. To start, drag the chromosomes onto their respective pairs. This pairing of chromosome is INTERPHASE and PROPHASE! Then move the chromosome pairs to either side of the cell to line them up. This is METAPHASE. Now line the chromosomes up on either side of the cell. This is ANAPHASE. Lastly, use the space bar to completely divide the cell! This is TELOPHASE and CYTOKINESIS. Congratulations, you just made two identical daughter cells! When the cancer cells attack, use the W,A,S, and D keys to move the chemo cells around and shrink the cancer cells. When a power up appears, press the space bar to grab the power up! Congratulations, you beat the cancer and completed mitosis!
Instructions
Use a mouse. WASD to move the lysosome. Mouse to aim. Left-click to shoot enzymes. Aim for the waste particles. The enzymes will break down the waste particles into smaller particles. The longer the lysosome survives, the faster it shoots.
Instructions
In the cell, packaging proteins into vesicles can be a very messy process! Sometimes endoplasmic reticulum (ER) proteins accidentally get swept up & brought to the golgi! Those proteins need to find their way back home to the ER. This is where KDEL receptors come in. KDEL receptors rescue the proteins & bring them back home to the ER. OBJECTIVE: Bring the blue proteins back to the ER. INSTRUCTIONS: Use the left, right, up & down arrow keys to catch the BLUE proteins via the PURPLE KDEL receptor.
Instructions
Use the right arrow key to move through the storyline and follow instructions to bake a cake for Devin's birthday! A lysosome is made of specific ingredients, just like a cake. A signal recognition particle (Sydney) reads the signal peptide in the genetic code (recipe) for the protein and brings the code to the translocation complex (fridge), which allows the protein to be synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum and move through the Golgi (kitchen). Mannose (sugar) and phosphate (flour) are added to the protein, which causes a vesicle (Sydney) to bring it to the late endosome (table). The late endosome keeps a low pH interior (orange) to dissociate the M6P receptor, and the lysosome functions how it is intended (cake)!
Notes and Credits
Special thanks to @Tigerking1717 for coming up with the idea of a cooking game and to @MsFrizzleFoShizzle for giving us the resources we needed to make this game biologically relevant! And thanks to random google websites for the atomic fart, the idiot sandwich meme, clock png, background music, and for leading me to James Gilleard, who designed the backgrounds.
Instructions
Use your arrow keys to help the ribosome find all of its parts in the correct order that it needs to finish translating into a protein and leave the cell, and find out what these organelles are used for! There are three different levels with different color boxes that you have to hit to get to the next level! But be careful to not run into the cell wall or you will have to start over!
Notes and Credits
We would like to show appreciation to the amoeba sisters, we used some of their characters as our sprites. We would also like to give a huge thank you to @MsFrizzleFoShizzle for being a great teacher/mentor this semester.