Launching as part of the MOD. Hedonism exhibition and the Universal Gallery (within the UniSA Cancer Research Institute on North Terrace, Adelaide), Symbiosville takes a deeper look into the body at the microbiome. The microbiome is an ecosystem home to billions of microscopic organisms which can live both on you and in you (shudder), but don’t worry as lots of these bacteria are friendly. This is an evolving research topic and is still not fully understood even today, however, we do know that they do affect our health in both positive and negative ways, so enters Symbiosville – a game we’ve made that explores what we know of the microbiome.
The aim of Symbiosville is to create your own character, explore the world and learn how to keep them healthy and happy. After playing for a while, choosing different activities to complete and foods to eat, you will learn (with the help of the professor) a little about how these affect your health. Most people associate bacteria with uncleanliness but lots of bacteria are good for us, and even though the research is still in the early stages it seems clear that having a diverse microbiome is a big part of being healthy. That means going outside, petting dogs, eating a hotdog and drinking a beer will all shuffle your microbiome diversity around, and that’s exactly what Symbioville emulates.
Team
Partners
UniSA MOD.
