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| The first game I ever designed was actually a card game, not a computer game. I created the original Bug Quest: Adventures in the Rain Forest game in a single day using Word Perfect 5.1, my parents laser printer, and some manilla envelopes. |
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| It was supposed to be a one-day activity for the entomology class my girlfriend was teaching at Aim High, a summer enrichment program for grades 6-8. But the kids liked the game so much they ended up playing it for the better part of a week. |
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| I wanted to teach kids not only some basic entomology vocabulary, but also teach them about the principle of natural selection. The kids had complete freedom to mutate their bug, but only got points for having traits that helped them survive natural events, simulated by drawing cards from the Rain Forest deck. My favorite event was "Generation XX" where all the male bugs of the species died off, and only insects that could reproduce asexually flourished. |
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| When we made the game we were sure all the boys would pick the blood sucker / armored shell / chemical attack bug. We were surprised when all the girls chose that combination, too. |
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| The kids learned pretty quickly that wasn't the way to succeed. By the end of the day, after going extinct at least half a dozen times, the kids were starting to learn that being a pollinator was a good strategy, as well as being a social insect. One interesting game mechanic was the "Insect Challenge" where players had to verbally make the case why their bug was better suited for some task than their opponent's bug, and then everyone would vote. Who says evolution isn't democratic? |
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| The original game was based purely on cards, with no graphics. During the following year at college I added the flipbook element to the game, so kids could see their bug and mutate by flipping the head, abdomen, and thorax sections. |
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| Shortly before I graduated from college we formed Dynamic Network Adventure Games (DNA Games) to market and produce Bug Quest. Things didn't go quite the way we planned, though. After college I ended up getting a job at UCSF (due at least partially to the work I had done on Bug Quest) designing and programming computer games for children with learning disabilities. Two and a half years later, the research group I worked for ended up being spun off into a private company that later went public as Scientific Learning Corporation. |
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| BugQuest Credits |
- Game Design: Tom Jacobson, Darlene Lim
- Artwork: Ryan Underwood
- Entomological Consulting: Linda Weiner
- Playtesting: Aim High students at Urban HS in San Francisco
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