The Pack

The Pack is an open-world puzzle game. Set in a world where healthy ecosystems have faltered and water and food are scarce, it is up to you and your Pack to help restore the environment, while learning computational thinking skills along the way! You find yourself waking up in Algos, a barren land where the only way to bring balanced life back is to replenish water sources and find varied seeds that are scattered all over the world! You can’t do it alone, and can’t stray too far from water, so you and a “Pack” of helpful creatures set out on an adventure across Algos. Throughout the game, you must find food sources to attract your own Pack made of local Algos creatures with special skills that will help you in your new environment. These creatures have functions like digging, moving, holding, grabbing and bumping, skills that will help you collect seeds and bring water to dry areas. When your Pack has more than one type of creature, you can combine them in a sequence (also known as an algorithm) to perform complex tasks and overcome challenges. Learning and mastering how to use these algorithms is the key to finding all of the seeds and restoring harmony to Algos! The Pack is a science and math-based game created by the New York Hall of Science and Design I/O. The game encourages problem-solving and computational thinking as well as enforces basic coding principles. Educational guidelines are available to download free from NYSCI's website. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1543144. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.