Web-Based Game – Discovery-opoly

INSTITUTION

Seattle University (SU)

CLASS

Platinum Class (2025 – 2026)

STUDENT TEAM

ACADEMIC GUIDANCE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

On July 29th, 1958 NASA was founded and given strong support for its missions during the Cold War. But as the war’s presence began to fade, so did the budget for space exploration. By 1990 NASA decided it was time to try a new way of organizing science missions under a “Discovery Program”. Responsible for over a dozen low-cost, high-focus missions – including household names such as Pathfinder and the Kepler Telescope – Discovery continues with the expected arrival of the Psyche spacecraft at its asteroid namesake in 2029.

Our team has developed a free online video game to raise awareness about Psyche and this unique NASA approach to running missions. Our game blends several game aspects we grew up enjoying including Monopoly-like resource management and Mario Party-like minigames! Over the year-long project our team remained committed to scientific accuracy while striving to make learning fun, targeting middle school students (5th grade) and older.

This project was sponsored by NASA’s Psyche capstone program, an effort coordinated through Arizona State University.

This work was created in partial fulfillment of the Seattle University Capstone Course “CPSC 4870”, “CPSC 4880, and “CPSC-4890”. The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.