Platform User Guide

🚀 Getting Started — Your First 5 Minutes

Welcome to bio-logicalgames.com! Follow these quick steps to get started:

1. Step 1: Explore the Study Guide — Visit the Games → Study tab to look over the 3D cell structure symbols and functions.
2. Step 2: Play Your First Game — Choose CellMatch or Aedes Match in Solo mode. Match the single shared symbol between your card and the pile card as fast as you can.
3. Step 3: Try a Quiz — Take the Cell Oracle adaptive quiz to test your factual recall.
4. Step 4: Save Your High Score — Click "Submit Score" at the end of a match and enter a nickname to get on the public Hall of Fame. No password required.
5. Step 5: Create a Secure Account — Sign in with Google to persistent-save your Evolution Points, progress through the Geologic Timeline Quest eons, share materials, and host custom challenges.

🌍 What is bio-logicalgames.com?

bio-logicalgames.com is a free, browser-based world for learning biology through play — no downloads, no installs, just open and go. We call it Biology Without Borders: a global classroom where students, teachers, and curious players learn side by side. Born in Asia, built for the world.

What you can do

• Play to learn — CellMatch (fast visual cell-structure matching), Aedes Match (mosquito biology & vector source control matching), Single-Cell Duel (card strategy), and Oracle Quizzes to test what you know.
• Play together — real-time online multiplayer with peers worldwide, or local head-to-head on one screen (perfect for classrooms and study groups).
• Level up — earn Evolution Points from games, quizzes, and shared resources, and climb the Geologic Timeline Quest from the Hadean Eon to today, unlocking milestones as you go.
• Create & compete — monthly Biocreative Challenges, leaderboards, a printable card-deck maker, and a community portal for slides, notes, and lesson plans.

Who it's for — Primarily middle- and high-school students and their teachers, but open to anyone, anywhere, who's curious about biology. Teachers and students play and compete side by side.

Getting the most out of it — what it is, and isn't

• A supplement, not a full curriculum — use it for engagement, review, and icebreakers alongside your textbook or standards-aligned materials.
• An interactive companion — ideal for active learning of cells, organelles, and evolution; pair with formal assessment for depth.
• Needs JavaScript enabled for full interactivity (on by default in modern browsers).
• New and growing — 100% free and open, improving every week.

🎮 How to Play: Game Instruction Guides

Each module on the platform teaches biology through a different gameplay loop:

• CellMatch (Organelle Recognition): A fast visual matching game (Spot It style). Every pair of cards shares exactly one symbol. Find the match between your active card and the center pile card and click/tap it to score. Correct matches deal a new card; incorrect matches award a time penalty. Maximum score is 31.
• Aedes Match (Mosquito Vector Recognition): Re-skins the matching engine with Aedes lifecycle stages (Eggs, Larvae, Pupae, Adults), high-risk breeding container hazards, and Larval Source Management (LSM) actions.
• LSMgame (Vector Control Simulation): Simulates real-world Vector Control Officer (VCO) actions. Read your VCO field briefing, review Dengue risk indicators, and play action cards (Biological, Source Reduction, Chemical) to neutralize standing water breeding threats.
• Cell Oracle (Adaptive Quiz): Adaptive multiple-choice questions testing biology organelle definitions and vector control scenarios. Questions adjust dynamically based on your correctness.
• Single-Cell Duel (Strategy Match): Multiplayer attribute-matching card game. Choose a biological attribute (size, year discovered, etc.) to beat your opponent's card in head-to-head rounds.

🔗 Recommended Free Resources for Teachers

bio-logicalgames.com is the game & engagement layer of your biology class. Pair it with these excellent free tools for the parts we don't try to replace — hands-on labs, simulations, and standards alignment:

• PhET Interactive Simulations (University of Colorado Boulder) — free, research-based science & math simulations for deeper conceptual understanding.
• BioMan Biology — free biology games, virtual labs, and topic quizzes; a great companion for targeted review and lab practice.
• NGSS — Next Generation Science Standards — the standards framework to map your lessons and assessments against.

These are independent external sites and open in a new tab. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by them — we just think they're genuinely useful alongside bio-logicalgames.com.

🎓 Teacher Quick-Start & Lesson Integration

Integrate bio-logicalgames.com into a 45-minute biology or public health lesson with zero setup:

1. Warm-Up (5 min): Project the interactive 3D Study Guide on the board. Review 5-8 organelles or mosquito breeding sites.
2. Solo Practice (10 min): Direct students to play CellMatch or Aedes Match on their devices to build visual speed and recall.
3. Classroom Tournament (15 min): Pair students up for Local Multiplayer (two players on one keyboard/screen) and run a bracket tournament.
4. Knowledge Check (10 min): Direct students to take the Cell Oracle quiz and submit their results to the Hall of Fame.
5. Debrief (5 min): Discuss the hardest-to-identify components or the most common mosquito breeding containers.

Sharing Resources: Upload worksheets, study slide files, or lessons to the Community portal. Verified uploads grant you **12 hours of VIP access** and boost your geologic evolution score.

📤 Dashboard & Creator Workspace

Your private dashboard allows you to manage your profile, host challenges, track logs, and share print files.

• Profile Setup: Display Name, Country, either your Role or expertise/credentials, and bio are required before uploading files to ensure educator trust. Until all four are filled in, the upload form itself stays hidden behind a completion prompt. A profile photo (PNG/JPG under 1MB) is optional.
• Alerts & Logs: The 🔔 Alerts & Logs tab shows a running feed of who downloaded your shared resources, including their name, country, and expertise.
• Subscriptions: The 👥 Subscriptions tab lists every creator you follow (despite the name, it is not a billing page) so you can quickly revisit their profiles and resources.
• Accepting Messages: You can toggle the Accept Direct Messages checkbox on or off. Turning it off locks messaging for other creators attempting to message you.
• VIP status: Unlocked automatically when you subscribe to a monthly ($10/mo) or yearly ($50/yr) membership plan, when you upload any educational resource (notes, slides, worksheets, etc.) to the Community Portal (which grants 12 hours of VIP access per file), or as a one-time milestone reward of 1 free month when your lifetime evolution points cross 3,000. Always-on VIP via holding points is no longer active; VIP status now operates on an expiration model (extending your duration with each purchase, resource upload, or milestone grant). VIP is one of two ways to unlock hosting — see Hosted Challenges below.

🛒 Shop, Printable Decks & PayPal Checkout

Printable PDF card decks, sticker pages, and learning guides are available for offline classroom use:

• Premium Decks: Unlocked PDF decks feature high-resolution, unwatermarked vector graphics ready for double-sided home or school printing. Free variants are available with watermarks.
• Checkout Flow: Click buy on any item in the Games/Shop tab. Secure payment is processed directly via our integrated PayPal SDK. Upon confirmation, a persistent download link is generated under your profile.
• Refund Policy: Due to the nature of digital goods, downloads are non-refundable. If a checkout download link fails, please message us via Support Chat to re-issue the file directly.
• VIP Membership: Subscribe to monthly ($10) or yearly ($50) plans to unlock challenge hosting, VIP badges, and a 1,000 Gem bonus.

💬 Premium Chat Workspace

Direct communication with other educators features advanced checks, reactions, and file share transfers.

• Double checkmarks: Single checkmark ✓ Sent means delivered. Green double checkmarks ✓✓ Read means viewed by the recipient.
• Threaded Replies: Swiping right on a message bubble (on touch devices) or clicking Reply opens a quotation quote linking your text to that message.
• Emoji Reactions: Click the ❤️, 👍, or 👎 choices next to any message to instantly assign an emoji badge to the bubble's corner.
• File Attachments: Click the paperclip icon (📎) next to the message bar to select files (max 2MB). Shared images render inline inside the bubble, and other files display as secure download buttons.
• Permanent Delete: Click Delete on any message. It deletes the record permanently and clears any uploaded files from KV storage namespaces.

👥 Community Portal & Interactions

Discover study card decks, game rules, and worksheets uploaded by other community educators.

• Follow button: Clicking Follow on a resource card adds that educator directly to your **Messages Left Contact list** so you can chat, and to the **Subscriptions** tab in your dashboard.
• Like button: Boosts the resource card's community ranking so it ranks higher in the public explorer feed.
• Support Creator: Access links to a creator's custom Tip Jar (PayPal / Ko-fi) so you can directly support their design efforts.

🚩 Safety Screening & Flagging

We maintain a safe, professional, and positive space for classroom educators and learners.

• Profanity filter: Automated scans detect profane terms. The system highlights them in red with warning icons (⚠️ word) to flag potential cyberbullying.
• 🚩 Report Button: If you receive an abusive or inappropriate message, click Report. The message is instantly hidden from your chat log and sent to administrators for manual verification.
• Admin Queue: Admin moderators review reported chat lines and can suspend accounts violating community terms.

🖥️ System Requirements & Accessibility

Our platform uses hardware acceleration for 3D renderings and real-time WebSockets for multiplayer matchups.

Device Compatibility Matrix:

Accessibility Specifications:

• Keyboard focus controls on all menu actions.
• Skip Navigation anchors for screen reader users.
• Progressive Web App (PWA) manifest support for direct homescreen install on iOS/Android.

🧬 My Evolution & Challenges

Climb the geologic timescale, boost submissions, and host community challenges to earn rewards.

• Geologic Timeline & Point Multipliers: Earn points by doing activities (uploads, referrals, voting on others' work, and having your own work voted on). Your point rewards scale as you evolve! Point thresholds represent the cumulative Millions of Years Ago (MYA) of Earth development needed to reach the next era:
  • Hadean Eon (Stage 1): 0 points (Starts at 4,540 MYA). Any action awards a base 25 * 1 = 25 points.
  • Archean Eon (Stage 2): Unlocked at 540 points (4,000 MYA). Action reward scales to 50 * 2 = 100 points.
  • Proterozoic Eon (Stage 3): Unlocked at 2,040 points (2,500 MYA). Action reward scales to 100 * 3 = 300 points.
  • Paleozoic Era (Stage 4): Unlocked at 3,990 points (550 MYA). Action reward scales to 150 * 4 = 600 points.
  • Mesozoic Era (Stage 5): Unlocked at 4,340 points (200 MYA). Action reward scales to 200 * 5 = 1,000 points.
  • Cenozoic Era (Stage 6): Unlocked at 4,490 points (50 MYA). Action reward scales to 250 * 6 = 1,500 points.
  • Present Day (Stage 7): Unlocked at 4,540 points (0 MYA). Full timeline completed!
  Each stage you unlock also grants a unique named reward (avatar frames, card skins, badges, discounts, and more) — head to your dashboard to claim it once unlocked. Each stage's reward can only be claimed once.
• Welcome & Upgrade Bonuses: Registering a new profile instantly credits **500 Welcome points** to your balance. Upgrading your account to VIP status (via either monthly or annual membership plans) awards a **1,000 Gems** welcome bonus.
• Prestige & Vote Power: Your era group determines your vote weight (25 to 250 power). Reaching the Present Day unlocks **Prestige Tiers** (adds +50 vote power indefinitely for every 50 points past the max limit). Voting on a submission also earns you scaled participation points (same formula as uploads), and the submission's creator receives your full vote power (25 to 250+) as evolution points too — being voted on is itself a major point source, not just a challenge-ranking boost.
• Boost Keys & Purchases: Earn 3 keys per milestone unlock, or buy them inside your dashboard: a Single Key costs **500 points**, a Triple Key Pack costs **1,200 points** for 3 keys, and a Mega Key Bundle costs **1,800 points** for 5 keys — bigger bundles cost less per key. Applying a key highlights your entry in trending search results. Keys stack to extend duration: newbies in the first 3 stages get **24 hours** per key, while players in Stage 4 and above get **12 hours** per key.
• Special Challenge Rewards: Closing a challenge awards a **+1,000 points** winner's bundle, plus **+500 points** for **Most Liked (People's Choice)**, **Most Viewed**, and **Host Choice** badges.
• Invite Referrals: Share your unique "My Evolution" link (uses secure random referral codes like ?user=ref_x89a3f for privacy). Earn points for verified signups and bonuses when they upload their first file, scaled by your current eon multiplier.
• Hosted Challenges: Staking keys into escrow lets you host custom challenges once you reach Paleozoic rank (3,990+ evolution points) or have active VIP status — either one unlocks it. Annual VIP subscribers and players with 3,000+ points have no active hosted challenge limits, while other active VIP status creators under 3,000 points are capped at a maximum of one (1) active hosted challenge at any given time. Submissions allow up to **4 format-agnostic slots** per user (Stage 1-3 players get all 4 free; Stage 4 and above get 2 free slots, with the 3rd and 4th each costing 1 Boost Key). At close, the system automatically awards the staked keys to the mathematical winner (votes sum) to prevent favoritism, alongside discretionary Host Choice and People's Choice awards.
• Flagging Entries: Spot a challenge submission that breaks the rules? Flag it as off-theme, inappropriate, plagiarism, or spam (up to 3 flags per challenge, per user). Flagged entries go to admin review; confirmed violations are removed from the challenge and their votes are voided.

🎨 Monthly Biocreativity Challenges

Beyond the games, each month brings a Biocreativity Challenge — a community creative competition built around a biology theme (for example, a cell organelle like the mitochondria).

• Create & submit: make an original piece — a drawing or digital illustration, a 3D render, a clay/physical model, a microscopy photo, or a short video/animation. Add a title and submit it from the Challenges page (a completed profile is required to enter).
• Vote: everyone gets a limited number of votes (3) to support their favorite entries; browse by Recent or Top Voted.
• Earn & progress: entries, votes, and invite referrals all earn Evolution Points (Millions of Years) toward your Geologic Timeline Quest, helping you unlock eras and milestones.
• Rewards: participants receive a Certificate of Participation (hosts can add custom rewards), and standout entries can be boosted for extra visibility.

Why it matters for classrooms: it turns passive review into active creation — students don't just study an organelle, they build a creative representation of it. Great for project assignments, peer review, and reaching visual, artistic, and hands-on learners.

👤 Guest Profiles vs. Secure Accounts

Depending on how you access the platform, your data persistence and features will vary across three user tiers:

1. Anonymous Guests (Non-registered)
   • Who they are: People who just visit the site, read the study guide, and play the single-player games offline.
   • Database State: None. They have no record in the database.
   • Local State: Their temporary play history is cached locally in their browser.
2. Registered Guests (The "Mailing List" gate)
   • Who they are: Users who fill out the light Registration Form (asking for name, email, role, and institution) to unlock online multiplayer matchmaking or submit their high score to the Hall of Fame.
   • Database State: They have a record in the registrations table (name, email, institution), but they do not have an authenticated account (no password, no login credentials, and no secure session token).
   • Local State: Their details are cached in localStorage under biogames_registration to pre-fill their nickname.
   • Why this exists: It functions as a frictionless gateway. It allows school students to participate in multiplayer or leaderboard events quickly without needing a Google account, while allowing the website to capture their email/school for mailing lists and admin analytics.
3. Logged-in Customers (Google SSO Accounts)
   • Who they are: Users who securely sign in via the Google Login button.
   • Database State: They have a secure profile in the customers table, valid server-side entries in the sessions table, and an active bio_session auth token.
   • Data Persistence: They have persistent data that follows them across any device (Evolution Points, custom uploads, purchase receipts, direct messages, and VIP status).

❓ FAQ Help desk