Starquake Academy

Starquake Academy is a science adventure game set in 2137. You play as Alex, a teenager from the Midwest recruited into Starquake Academy, an elite training program run by Starquake Corporation, the solar system’s most powerful company. While traveling to its Mars station, you train in a virtual holographic environment, learning science through lessons, puzzles, mini-games and hands-on experiments. The game is designed to teach science, technology, math and engineering, and is suitable for ages 9 and up.

The world of Starquake

By the end of the 21st century, overpopulation and resource depletion have crippled Earth. Companies look to space for new sources of resources, and two rise to prominence: Star Odyssey Contractors, a space construction company, and Meteor Quake Technologies, an asteroid mining company. They merge to form Starquake Corporation, which develops ways to extract raw materials in space and deliver them to Earth, and funds the largest Mars colonization effort in human history.

Concerned about Starquake’s growing power, the government scrutinizes the company and limits its progress. Starquake responds by investing in robotic mining and space-based manufacturing, building research labs, refining equipment and crew quarters on Starquake Station. The self-sustaining outpost becomes the company’s main operations center and a hub for space-related work.

Starquake has long operated in secrecy, and working at the station is a lifelong commitment for many leading scientists and engineers. Seeking youthful creativity, the company establishes Starquake Academy, inviting young students from around the world to move to Mars orbit, learn from its operations and tackle real problems on the station.

Training in NEXIS

Alex is on a six-month journey to the Mars station, part of which is spent in hibernation. As the shuttle approaches Mars, station leaders begin Alex’s training in the Neo Educational eXperience Immersion Simulator, or NEXIS. Its lessons link concepts to puzzles and games to reinforce learning, including the science behind lasers, which are an important part of the shuttle’s propulsion system.

The six lessons progress from the fundamentals of atoms to assembling a laser:

• Atoms and electrons: learn about atoms, electrons and how electrons can be excited.
• Light and wavelengths: learn about photons and light, and experiment with wavelengths.
• Atomic excitation: explore how atoms receive energy and how this relates to emitting light.
• Energy transfer: learn how Neon and Helium atoms share energy and why this matters for a laser.
• Making light: explore how atoms interact to produce light.
• Laser light: apply what you have learned about light to assemble a laser and see how it generates a specific form of laser light.

You practice through mini-games, puzzles and hands-on experiments during the lessons. After completing a lesson, you discover that the shuttle is in trouble and must use your skills to survive.