Europa Prime: A STEM-based Virtual Reality Game
In a futuristic space station on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, players are tasked with completing STEM-based puzzles, fixing the station, and communicating with the alien life found in the moon’s subsurface ocean.
Play now! Give us feedback! Have fun, learn, and explore!
With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the UniVRsal Access project, EdGE collaborated with Landmark College, MXTreality, and other partners to design, develop, and research the STEM-based virtual reality (VR) game Europa Prime, as well as a wealth of related digital assets and education materials.
STEM in Europa Prime
Europa Prime is a STEM-based game, but it contains a lot of science fiction elements. Many of those sci-fi elements were designed by extrapolating and speculating based on what is known and/or what there is evidence to suggest, but they are still science fiction.
There is no base station on Europa, and Minos don’t exist.
The most sophisticated mission to Europa is the Europa Clipper, a flyby mission — no landing on Europa, let alone building anything there — launched in October 2024 and not scheduled to arrive until 2030!
Earth is the only place in the entire universe known to have life. Europa is a strong candidate for the possibility of life beyond Earth, but we’re still only at the stage of studying whether it has the conditions necessary for life. Scientists speculate about possible life there, including the possibility of cephalopod-like life forms, but for now, we don’t know if there is any life there, let alone anything about such life.
To explore the science in the game, use the interactive ThingLink below, do your own checking, and consider:
- What’s currently known to be true?
- What’s likely to be true?
- What’s highly speculative?
- What’s (almost) entirely fiction?
Click on the following image or this link to access the interactive.
Co-Design and Development
The game, co-designed by and with neurodivergent learners from Landmark College, is sensory and attention friendly, with development choices and in-game controls that minimize issues like motion sickness, allow players to easily adjust visual, audio, and other settings, subtle guide players, and present fun and interesting STEM-based challenges.
Other Education Resources
Explore this astrobiology education resource created by TERC.