Science is expensive. Well, not the kind where you stick nails into lemons and make fruit batteries, but I’m sure all that genetics-related boffining requires a fair chunk of change. Imagine teaching the practical side of this stuff? Can’t be cheap either. That’s where Labster steps in — a virtual lab built in Unity that uses complex simulations in a delicious game wrapper to educate, without the need for pricey hardware.
Like something right out of an Ace Attorney game, students can solve individual test cases using real-world science and tools. While most don’t sound particularly exciting (yeast fermentation, yeah!) there is one that tasks players to figure out a murder using forensics.
As you can see from the video and the screenshots below, you interact with objects in the scene much like a point-and-click adventure. You even have an anime-styled virtual assistant.
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Unfortunately, given the heavy focus as a serious education tool, one to be marketed to universities and similar institutions, it isn’t available for regular consumption. The pricing scheme is subscription-based, after which cases can be bought piecemeal to suit certain curriculums.
Going by this interview with Labster CTO Michael Bodekaer on TechCrunch, the focus appears to be on iPad, but he says it could be deployed on “Androids, Mac, PC [and] all web browsers”. The game already has a customer in Stanford University (among others) and has been “tested by more than 10,000” over the last 12 months.
Labster Introduction Video [YouTube, via TechCrunch]
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