Laura Burns and Natalie Metzger work on game pieces and boards. (photo by Christopher Miller)

By the time the weekend was over, Pamela’s attic looked like a preschool exploded in a college dorm room. Spreadsheets containing planetary data were taped to the walls. Large post-it pages covered a central pillar support, outline all the rules for the two games we’d created. The floor was littered with perler beads, papers from the back of adhesive foam shapes, pieces of molding clay were carefully lined up on the main table where Natalie and Laura had been prototyping pieces and tokens for the games. Discarded printouts, iterative modifications of game boards, character cards, and point trackers were stacked on the floor near the desk. And amidst all this, coffee mugs, pint glasses, empty hummus containers and cracker boxes.

This is what happens when you get a group of brilliant minds together to create board games. This was our Science Game Design weekend.

The Whole Story

Some time ago we received a grant from the EU to develop games for science education and entertainment. The goal was to design two games: one dealing with the settling of planets and the other dealing with climate science.

The following people were involved…

Dr: Pamela Gay is an astronomer, writer, and podcaster focused on using new media to engage people in science and technology. Through CosmoQuest.org, she works to engage people in both learning and doing science. Join me as we map our Solar System in unprecedented detail through our citizen science projects, and learn astronomy through media productions like Astronomy Cast.

Christopher T. Miller  is a writer, game designer, podcaster, and technologist. He is best known as one of the Co-Founders of Podiobooks.com, the much-beloved source for independent serialized fiction. He manages research and development for a fortune 500 company when he is not playing around on the Internet.

Dr. John Cmar is a physician specializing in infectious diseases, and a regular contributor to The Secret Lair podcast, as well as a gamer and libation enthusiast. He is best known for being John Cmar.

Dr. Nicole Gugliucci is an astronomer by day and bellydancer by night. And then usually doing more astronomy by night as well. Her blog is her outreach fix when not at the observatory, and a haven for unabashed skepticism. It’s also one of her preferred methods of procrastination.

Dr. Jake Noel-Storr is a Science Education Specialist and Astronomer. He is Director of the Insight Lab for Science Outreach and Learning Research.

Laura A. Burns has been a space enthusiast for most of her life. Since 1998, Laura has been on the James Webb Space Telescope project, most recently for the Space Telescope Science Institute. During the summer of 2007, she spent 9 weeks in Beijing, China at the International Space University. She is an alumnus of the prestigious NASA Academy student internship program and is actively involved in the NASA Academy Alumni Association. She regularly attends space conferences and enjoys speaking to the public on JWST and other space topics. In addition to her interest in space, she is a long time science fiction and fantasy fan and an avid book collector.

Natalie Metzger is a well-known artist and podcaster. She has provided artwork for Mur Lafferty, The Secret Lair, Jared Axelrod, and Matt Wallace to name but a few. She is quiet, brilliant, and probably the most dangerous one of the lot.

Cory Lehan is the Lead developer for Cosmoquest.org, a snappy dresser, and all-around good guy.

Kortney Hogan is a medical science graduate from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville who is currently getting her Masters degree in business administration at the same institution. She is specializing her studies in project management and hopes to continue managing science related projects for the rest of her career. She has enjoyed learning and conducting biological research and is learning more and more about astronomy as she continues to work in the field.

The Weekend

On Friday morning we had nothing but the following:

• Game One was to be a game about terraforming planets for human settlement
• Game Two was to deal with climate change and greenhouse gases.

By Sunday night, two games were ready for for beta testing:

Our Games, in pieces and parts (photo by Natalie Metzger)

Carbon: 2-6 players. Each player starts with an island populated with three trees and one coal power plant. The co-op goal of the game to develop a carbon neutral economy by progresses to renewable energy plants (via coal, petrol, nuclear, and finally, renewable) without overwhelming the planet’s atmosphere with greenhouse gasses. The individual goal is to amass the most wealth in the course of the game. These two mechanics keep the game competitive and exciting as the player buy and sell trees (which clean CO2 from the atmosphere), power plants, and carbon credits. Average playing time, 60-90 minutes.

Shaper of Worlds: 2-6 players. In this game, the players act as a set of Captains who have been tasked with terraforming a planet. At the start of the game, the players pick a planet from a deck of planet cards. The planet card displays all the vital data for the world to be shaped, along with five sliders: Pressure, CO2, O2, Water, and Temperature. Using a set of machines (drawn from a deck each turn), the players must work together to move the counters on the sliders until all the parameters are in the green zone that can support human life. Along the way, there are events that can disrupt or enhance their efforts (Hit By A Comet! Solar Storm! Space Dysentery!). The players have a set number of years (rounds) to finish before the settlers arrive. Average play time: 60-180 minutes, depending on the difficulty of the planet and the number of players involved.

Pamela, game in hand (photo by Christopher Miller)

In the evenings we worked on Cards Against Astronomy, but that was just for fun. And oh, what fun it was.

By the end of the weekend, Pamela had what she needed to take to Europe for display the results of the grant funding, and the rest of us had a sense of pride and accomplishment that followed us as we returned by to our daily lives.

And where do we go from here? We’re looking at getting both games into production after we finish our beta tests. If you’re interested in running some playtests with us, please let us know and we’ll get you what you need. With luck, the real games will be available for sale by summer 2015.