Quake: the tectonic extinction game

Hello, and welcome to my Summative post for my latest project, Tectonic Chances. This project was all about learning about earthquakes, tsunamis, fault lines, earth’s layers, and much, much more. Today I’ll be taking you through my learning process and what this project was about.

The goal of this project was to create a board game based off of tectonic concepts. I was partnered with Noah to make a game. Our game was called Quake, and the goal of it was to eradicate humanity through a series of natural disasters that target different parts of the world for each turn.

This is what our game board looked like:

Here are our game rules:

Here are our game pieces:

Competencies:

Evaluating: Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of evidence.

I think I learned a ton about this while completing the workbooks. I learned about layers of the Earth and how we can’t probe deep enough into Earth to measure the layers but we can still use scientific evidence to measure the layers. Our game also used evidence of plate tectonics by having separate plates, just like it is in real life. We also had some key science concepts included in our game that are mentioned above.

Questioning and predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.

The main scientific focus of our game was tectonic plates. To learn about the ways tectonic plates move, Noah and I separated our game board into different sections that represented plates and we referred back to the workbooks that initially taught us about tectonic plates.

How are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design?

As I previously mentioned, the main theme of our game was understanding tectonic plates in order to eradicate humanity. Also we used mathematical concepts by using probability in our game. For each turn, you must roll dice and also draw a card. That is how we used mathematical concepts. We also decided to have different amounts of points for each plate. To get rid of the points, you have to rely on probability instead of skill.

The driving question: How are thematic and mathematical concepts used in game design?

For each project in PLP, there is always a driving question. I think the answer to this one is that games rely on themes and math to function. Most games have some form of probability. For example, rolling a dice or drawing a card. That is how games rely on mathematical concepts.

Here are my final thoughts on this project:

I enjoyed being able to use creativity and original ideas to make a board game. I also think it was interesting to have to tie in lots of scientific concepts as well. It was challenging but also a lot of fun to challenge myself. Thank you for reading my blog post!

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