Students aim for a high score with video game collaboration

Students on the MSc degree in Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences have been sharing their knowledge and understanding about life on other planets with a video games company.

Auroch Digital, an independent game development company based in Bristol, is creating the video game ‘Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life’, whose players will run a space agency, investigate the solar system and collect evidence of life.

The collaboration, which also involved astrobiology staff, included a number of online meetings and a visit from game developers to the University. Students carried out research and made scientific suggestions to inform in-game scenarios.

A  tour of lab facilities conducted during the visit involved a demonstration of chemical reactions, the viewing of samples including rocks, minerals, organisms and fossils, and a guide to the ‘Mars chamber’, which reproduces the pressure, temperature and atmospheric composition of Mars to see how various materials and processes behave under those conditions.

Students on the interdisciplinary MSc degree in Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences work to understand the nature of life and whether we might find it elsewhere in the universe. They build on their knowledge of  physics, chemistry, biology and geosciences to answer fundamental questions about living matter, how it forms, varies and evolves in concert with planets and stars, and how it is distributed across time and space.

An estimated 3.2 billion people worldwide play video games, making this one of the most popular forms of entertainment. With the steady rise in popularity of gaming over the past few years, there may be further opportunities for collaboration with scientists.

Madeleine Landell, a student on the MSc Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences degree commented:

Collaborating with Auroch on Mars Horizon 2 has been an incredible opportunity. It has both given us astrobiology students a glimpse into the creative and meticulously researched process that goes into videogame development, as well as allowing us to think differently about advances in space science. The Auroch team's dedication to preserving as much real science as possible in the video game was really impressive. They weren't afraid to get into the semantics of molecular biology and geochemistry in their pursuit of a scientifically accurate yet exciting game. We've left this collaboration with renewed excitement about how our current astrobiological research could contribute to the future of space exploration. We really look forward to the release of Mars Horizon 2.

John O’Donnell, Lead Game Designer on Mars Horizon 2 said:

We had so much fun collaborating with the students of the MSc programme. It was a privilege to see and hear about their work and have their influence on the game’s vision and authenticity. The students helped us research many what-if scenarios of life in our solar system and because of their diverse backgrounds this took the game in interesting new directions.