Odyssey, a “next-generation science game,” is coming to PC and Mac in May 2017.
Developer The Young Socratics has surpassed its crowdfunding goal of $15,000, raising over $24,000 in less than a week on Kickstarter. The project, Odyssey, is a first-person, “Myst-like puzzle-adventure game” geared toward middle and high school students. It teaches scientific reasoning as well as astronomy and mechanics, from the ancient Greeks to Newton.
Players explore the “Wretched Islands” in the Caribbean to rescue 13-year-old Kai and her family, who have set up traps and obstacles to deter a group of dangerous pirates headed their way. Across the islands are clues that Kai has scattered to help any rescuers, including pages from her journal and notes on her father’s archaeologic discoveries—valuable artifacts that have attracted the pirates’ attention.
According to the Kickstarter, the game’s educational content covers the origins of science (from the Pre-socratics to the physics of Aristotle), the shift from a geocentric universe (Ptolemy) to a heliocentric universe (Copernicus and Galileo), and free fall motion. The Young Socratics also hopes to release a sequel that covers 1D kinematics, inertia and projective motion, and Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation.
Odyssey will be available on Steam next year and is suitable for ages 11 and up.