MCN 2024

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum served as the “client” for DePaul University’s Game Development II course, where students develop skills in game design and development through the creation of a 2D digital game designed from a set of client based restrictions. Students visited the Nature Museum, learned about the collections and education programs, and toured the space to be inspired by local animals. The university students developed the games for an elementary school student audience, but were also learners themselves as they studied the habitats, diets, and behaviors of the focus animals for their games. Nature Museum staff answered content questions and provided feedback on the games in progress. The result was 6 nature-focused, web-based games built in Unity, including custom animations, sounds, and game mechanics. DePaul and Nature Museum staff are continuing collaboration on how these games can be shared out and what future iterations of the collaborative partnership could look like. Some of the games are available to be playing on the Nature Museum website: https://naturemuseum.org/nature-inspired-digital-games