Development

January-April 2018

  • Trina Roberts, the Director of Pentacrest Museums at the University of Iowa, asked Amy Chen, English and Communications Librarian at Iowa, to design a learning game for the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History. Roberts met Chen when Chen promoted Codex Conquest and Mark at the teaching roundtable held during the Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice 2017-2018 Obermann Humanities Symposium.  
  • Amy Chen, Trina Roberts, Communications Coordinator Liz Crooks, and undergraduate Biology student Cody Crawford met on March 14 to brainstorm ideas for the prospective game. 
  • Amy Chen developed and pitched two game ideas to Roberts, Crooks, and Crawford on April 26: Laysan Island and Egghead

May-July 2018

  • Cody Crawford received permission to begin working on both Laysan Island and Egghead as a part of National Science Foundation Collections in Support of Biological Research (NSF CSBR) grant. Eventually, he will continue working on the project under museum funding. 
  • Amy Chen completed Laysan Island and printed the first play test deck. 

August-September 2018

  • Amy Chen and Cody Crawford began to play test Laysan Island
  • Amy Chen and Cody Crawford discussed potential collaborations with the Biological and Pre-Medical Illustration Program at Iowa State University. 

October-December 2018

  • Cody Crawford, Kimberly Moss (Assistant Professor and BPMI Coordinator at Iowa State), and Lynn Clark (Director of BPMI at Iowa State) begin to prepare the necessary documentation to pitch the collaboration to internal and external grants. However, we are focusing on Egghead as our first project during the 2018-2019 academic year. Laysan Island slated to be a future collaboration, perhaps during the 2019-2020 academic year. 
  • Amy Chen and Cody Crawford continue to refine the concept and mechanics of Laysan Island