Engineers at Iowa State University are developing a computer game to help emergency responders think on their feet in crisis situations.

In the game, players are assigned to different roles like fire, EMS or county emergency managers, as a derecho rolls through an urban setting.

Players have to make decisions about how to respond and effectively allocate resources.

ISU engineering professor Cameron MacKenzie is leading the project and says the game offers an immersive, yet flexible training option.

"That's kind of more or less the overall goal of what Polk County wants to achieve with it," MacKenzie says, "creating a different type of training tool that's engaging, that's perhaps easier to conduct logistically than some of these large-scale exercises."

MacKenzie says people running the game can make it more challenging by adjusting different variables, like the number of ambulances. He says people could play the game multiple times and get different outcomes.

"They're kind of doing a 'choose your own adventure' because they have different decisions, and based on their decisions, that influences how the game unfolds and develops," he says.

The National Science Foundation is supporting the project through a $700,000 grant.