Muzzy Lane Software, developers of educational game titles such as American Dynasties and the Making History series, announced that it has secured a multi-year SBIR Phase II grant from the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The grant will support the development of games that promote science education in middle school students.
Muzzy Lane Software was competitively selected to receive the grant based upon a game design proposal developed in cooperation with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Researching areas of the middle school science curriculum, Muzzy Lane and FAS created a game prototype focused on cellular biology.
DARPA's grant will be used to create a suite of immersive science games that expand upon Muzzy Lane's initial design work. Once finished, the games will be available via Muzzy Lane's Sandstone, a browser-based online gaming service.
"We're very happy to have DARPA validate our approach with the Sandstone service," said David Martz, executive producer for Muzzy Lane's project. "Its architecture addresses the hurdles that we've seen in our work designing and deploying learning-games, and we think it solves many of the problems that have limited the success of serious games projects."
Muzzy Lane will partner with FAS in further development, and expects to work with K12 Inc. on in-game curriculum and pedagogy.
