Murphy's Toast Games

Factsheet

Developer:
Murphy's Toast Games
Based in Barcelona and Palma

Founding date:
February 2, 2016

Website:
http://www.murphystoastgames.com

Press / Business contact:
contact@murphystoastgames.com

Social:
twitter: @MToastGames
facebook: @murphystoast
instagram: @mtoastgames

Releases:
Evolving Planet
Archaeological Research Initiative
Julia A Science Journey
Ancestors Stories Of Atapuerca

Description

Murphy's Toast Games is an independent studio that creates transformative gaming experiences to foster curiosity and to promote scientific thinking.

History

This adventure started in 2014 in Barcelona. Part of our team worked in SimulPast: a large-scale project aiming to apply computer simulation to archaeological research. SimulPast was quite succesful in terms of scientific output, but we were worried about public outreach: how could we explain to the public how we were using supercomputers to understand the past? We decided to exploit the similarities between simulations and games to create something new: a video game about scientific research. The initiative was successfully funded and we started the development of a game that used simulation to explore the archaeology of a distant planet. Two years later we released Evolving Planet, and Murphy's Toast Games was born on the crossroad between research, public outreach and gaming.

The reception of Evolving Planet took us by surprise. In a single year the game generated good ratings and over 100.000 downloads, which is quite a success for the limited budget of a scientific dissemination project. We were wondering if we could repeat the experience with a different setting when we got involved on the ATAEVE project. The development of Ancestors: stories of Atapuerca was built on our experience with the first game. The main goal was to promote learning through engaging game mechanics and an intense use of environmental narrative. Ancestors war released on 2018 and it is freely available for ios/android devices

We move forward to 2020 and the pandemic that changed our relation with science forever. Suddenly global health, viruses and vaccines were the main topic of conversation in the streets while scientists became influencers known by everybody in social networks and TV channels alike. This is the type of challenge we at Murphy’s Toast Games love to tackle, so we decided to develop a video game not only about science, but about the people that make it happen. At the same time, we were curious about how video games are capable of captivating our attention and promoting learning of very complex game mechanics. So, we decided to transform this idea into a participatory project where players are part of scientific research itself just by playing our game. Our idea was successfully funded by the PANDEMIES programme of the Catalan Research Agency during 2021. Does it sound ambitious? Indeed it is! Julia: a Science Journey is a radical change from previous developments and for this reason we have structured the publication in different episodes, being the first one available for free. Have fun playing Julia while you help scientists understand how do we interact with video games!

We want to continue making games to explain the exciting findings that scientists make every day. If you agree with us and have some ideas feel free to contact us!

Projects

• Evolving Planet
• Archaeological Research Initiative
• Julia A Science Journey
• Ancestors Stories Of Atapuerca

Team & Repeating Collaborator

Xavier Rubio-Campillo
Director

Jaume Mayans
Artist

Ferran Illa
Programmer

Celia Corral
Writer & science content

Kevin Marín
Writer & learning research

Luka Gómez
Sound & Music

Daniela Kropeit
Graphic Design (past member)

Maria Yubero
QA Testing (past member)

Guillem Laborda
Programmer (past member)

Jorge Caro
Writer & archaeology content (past member)

Guillem H. Pongiluppi
Artist (past member)

Contact

Inquiries
contact@murphystoastgames.com

Twitter
http://twitter.com/MToastGames

Facebook
http://facebook.com/murphystoast