Screenshots from Science Pirates

Today, we reached first playable on the first major section of our upcoming educational title Science Pirates: The Curse of BrownBeard. Science Pirates is a game that teaches about the science process and food safety that is being developed by the good folks associated with the NMSU Learning Games Lab.

The part of the game we reached playable on is the Super Tiki Monkey Temple. In this part of the game, players guide a monkey through a ruined temple by luring him around with fruit. But when a blender gets thrown into the mix and suddenly you can make fruit smoothies, the player is forced to make a hypothesis based on previous observations to figure out what the monkey is going to do.

Check out these screenshots from the game:

(Click any thumbnail for a full-size version.)

The cool thing about this game is that it's fun and playable, and that it doesn't feel educational. It feels like a puzzle-based casual game on 3D steroids. I really think we have a shot at making a game that kids want to play, despite the fact that they'll be learning as they go.