We have developed a stellar and planetary evolution game for Facebook as part of an informal educational project. The game uses the “sporadic play” model of games such as Farmville, where players may only take actions a few times a day, but may continue playing for months. This framework is an excellent fit for teaching about the evolution of stars and planets: systems evolve in scaled real time (a million years to the minute), so that massive stars supernova within minutes, while stars like our sun live for weeks. The game has now been live for over a year, and has attracted over 35,000 players. Using a mix of data and evaluation strategies, we discuss play duration and retention; player demographics; and content gains. We close with a summary of our current opinions on the perils and promise of developing educational games using this platform and game framework.
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