Web-Based Games for Psyche

Overview

Arizona State University required our team to create a web-based game about the ongoing NASA Psyche mission that educates the general public about the mission, its scientific goals, and the spacecraft itself. The gameplay needed to teach the player while remaining engaging and avoiding misleading information.

Objectives

Our team’s objective was to encapsulate the four scientific instruments of the Psyche spacecraft in gameplay that mimicked the flow of the Psyche mission. Each instrument’s function would be simplified into a minigame, which could be linked together by another minigame about the spacecraft’s orbit.

Approach

• Examined past games created for the Psyche mission to avoid duplication
• Studied the Psyche mission and spacecraft to determine which parts could be gamified
• Simplified the scientific tasks performed by each instrument into gameplay
• Verified that the simplifications were appropriate with the project sponsor
• Designed the high-level architecture of the system
• Collected existing resources, like models of the spacecraft and Psyche
• Created minimum-viable prototypes of the minigame functionality
• Refined the functionality through playtesting and code review
• Expanded the prototypes into finished minigames
• Integrated the minigames into a complete game
• Continued testing and refining game balance

Outcomes

While the result of this project could always be improved, our team is satisfied with what we produced. Including meeting the objectives stated above, the project:

• Produced a new educational game for the Psyche mission website
• Will educate the general public about the Psyche spacecraft’s instruments
• Will promote the Psyche mission for the years it will be in progress
• Will generate excitement about the mission’s eventual findings
• Will bring complicated scientific knowledge into reach of younger audiences through simplified gameplay
• Will give a more accessible overview of the basic progression of the mission