Preliminary Experiments with EVA - Serious Games Virtual Fire Drill Simulator

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of a 3D serious game to simulate fire drills, aiming to provide an engaging, cost-effective training alternative while collecting valuable data for future artificial population modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel serious game-based fire drill simulation and evaluates its preliminary effectiveness and data collection potential.

Findings

Positive impact on user training experience

Valuable data collected for future AI population modeling

Preliminary results show promise in using games for fire safety training

Abstract

Fire keeps claiming a large number of victims in building fires. Although there are ways to minimize such events, fire drills are used to train the building occupants for emergency situations. However, organizing and implement these exercises is a complex task, and sometimes not sucessfull. Furthermore, fire drills require the mobilization of some finantial resources and time, and affect the normal functioning of the site where they occur. To overcome the aforementioned issues, computer games have a set of features that might overcome this problem. They offer engagement to their players, keeping them focused, and providing training to real life situations. The game evaluate users, providing them some feedback, making possible for the players to improve their performance. The proposed methodology aims to study the viability of using a game that recreates a fire drill in a 3D environment using Serious Games. The information acquired through the player's performance is very valuable and will be later used to implement an artificial population. A sample of 20 subjects was selected to test the application. Preliminary results are promising, showing that the exercise had a positive impact on users. Moreover, the data acquired is of great important and will be later used to demonstrate the possibility of creating an artificial population based on human behaviour.