Crescent Loom Launches its Kickstarter Campaign
It was announced by Joseph ‘Wick’ Perry, the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to develop a video game that teaches the science of neural circuits called Crescent Loom.
Check out the trailer of Crescent Loom, featuring some gameplay footage:
“Players in Crescent Loom are given a physics-based toolbox for basic bodies and neural circuits and then will be presented with a series of challenges. In finding solutions to these puzzles, Perry hopes that players will implicitly come to understand the basics of how their own brains work.
The Kickstarter campaign has a goal of $20,000 to fund one year of full-time development. An online alpha demo is available that allows players to share their creatures via a link.
Features
- CREATURE EDITOR — A brain is pointless without a body, so a physics-based construction tool allows players to weld bones and stitch the muscles of their creature.
- NEURAL CIRCUITS — Connect neurons to coordinate muscles using an intuitive “loom” inspired by the diagrams in scientific publications on invertebrate nervous systems.
- COLLABORATION — Save, share, and modify creations online with a simple link.
- LEARN SCIENCE (accidentally) — Gradually learn the concepts underlying our ability to move by solving puzzles in an alien ocean.
Background:
Perry fell in love with the neural basis of behavior while getting his undergraduate degree in 2013, but struggled with getting an intuitive sense of how these circuits operated. Diagrams are not good at depicting dynamic systems, and scientific simulation software is detailed to the point of being impenetrably complex.
After finishing his degree and his first Kickstarter-funded game, Perry is now bridging the gap between academia and accessibility. He hopes that Crescent Loom will do for neuroscience what Kerbal Space Program did for orbital physics; make the science interactive and allow people get an intuitive grasp of how it works.”
For more information on Crescent Loom, visit its Kickstarter page.
