ZOMBIES! 🧟 Yesterday, we did something special in a special location: the National Videogame Museum. At Merlin Software's invitation, our students tackled a crisis: a zombie outbreak had been detected at Haga Hospital in Zoetermeer. Would we keep our cool?
The students formed two crisis teams and got to work with Merlin's tools, designed to manage information and decision-making during a crisis. This serious game simulated a situation whose intensity could occur in real life... although we hope it would not actually involve zombies.
Crisis management
Rainald Isabella, a GameLab student and participant, enjoyed the experiment: "I got a good sense of what it would be like to be on a crisis management team." His fellow student Parminder Singh Maseeh adds: "It was certainly fun and educational. Different from anything I had done before. It was great to see the teamwork." He also has a suggestion for the organisers: "I think VR would have worked well in this scenario too."
There was plenty of hard work and laughter, and thankfully the city of Zoetermeer was saved!
Afterwards, we received a tour of the National Videogame Museum, which we highly recommend! And, of course, there was time for a little gaming too! 🎮🕹️
Thanks to Harold Beffers and Irma de Graaff of the Municipality of Zoetermeer for organising the event, the National Videogame Museum for providing the venue and Merlin Software for supervising and creating this educational serious game.
This event was organised as a side event of the Upstream Festival in Rotterdam. Zoetermeer is a partner of Upstream 2024.