In 2023, I was on a team that released an educational game for middle school kids as part of a grant-funded project by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to advertise Fort Stanton Cave, a natural landmark in New Mexico. I was the principal programmer on the Academy project, an adaptation of Ron Lipinski’s Caver Quest simulation for the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project.
I created or revised many of the character and prop 3D models and animations, scripted new character controllers, customization, and interactions, implemented new systems such as quizzes, collection minigames, rewards, a generic save and load API, interactive caving equipment, an updated UI, seamless content streaming, and I optimized the game for mobile and low-power devices (like students’ budget Chromebooks).
Subject matter experts additionally captured the real-life environment using photogrammetry, wrote the educational content, recorded audio, and provided the graphic design. (The full credits are in game.) Caver Quest Academy is live on various app stores and is being used as part of a training program to prepare kids for in-person field trips into the cave. You can find it:
…for laptop and desktop PCs at the Windows Store,
…for Macs (Intel and Apple Silicon) on Apple’s Mac App Store,
…for iPhones and iPads on the Apple iOS App Store,
…and for ChromeOS, Android phones, and Android tablets on Google Play.
