Fun (5/5) : Wake is a game featuring astonishingly simple yet thoroughly engaging gameplay! It relies on a story and characters written with great subtlety. The dialogues are believable, though perhaps a bit too abundant. We discover the protagonist through a logbook of exceptional visual quality and impressive emotional depth. In itself, the gameplay consists of tasks such as clicking on sea creatures, navigating in a submarine, and organizing collected data (which is often automated by the game). There is no platforming, no combat, and no deep strategy—the richness of the game lies in exploration and progression. Each completed mission rewards resources that allow for submarine upgrades, which in turn unlock new mission opportunities. The game thus leverages three core motivational drives (Chou, 2012): Epic Meaning & Calling, Accomplishment & Development, and Unpredictability & Curiosity.

Learning (5/5) : From an educational perspective, this game is a model to follow. Rather than merely showing what the world of marine biology looks like, it places players directly in the shoes of someone practicing the profession. Players are not passive observers; they experience it firsthand. This can contribute to developing not only scientific thinking, but also professional identity/reasoning. Furthermore, the game makes a remarkable effort not to over-romanticize the work of marine biologists. The in-game missions are directly tied to the real-world tasks of a marine scientist: data collection, experimentation, modeling, and argumentation. The "argumentation" component is particularly rich, as it forces the player to genuinely reflect on the data they have gathered. Although the tasks are streamlined for better gameplay pacing, they remain relatively true to reality in that they are simple, repetitive, and involve periods of searching. For instance, if a mission requires identifying the salmon population in an environment, players must navigate blindly to find enough individuals to estimate the total count. The gameplay thus remains as realistic as possible—without ever making the game boring. Quite the opposite!

Science (5/5) : The marine creatures featured in the game are real, and the documentation provided about them is extensive, making it an exceptionally rich source of information. Moreover, the game offers far more informational content than what is strictly required to play, which is ideal for curious players who love to dig deeper. The game has a runtime of about 10 hours, which is massive for an educational game. The tasks performed by the player are grounded in authentic scientific operations. In short, the game’s content is generous, top-tier in quality, and brilliantly contextualized!

I highly recommend using this game in the classroom! (Because progress is saved via a code, players can continue later—perfect for substitute lesson plans!)

This was a very cool game! I loved the topic of underwater habitats, the species that inhabit them, and how each affected one another. The game mechanics were a little tough to get at first, but with prompts, once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty smoothly. This game is an awesome representation of aquatic environments. I was thrilled that the first mission was a kelp forest with sea otters because they are my favorite animal! The game makes you work through the scientific method and only allows you to make conclusions after experimenting to find the results. I think it’s not only great for learning about aquatic environments, but also a good overview of the scientific method. The story is engaging enough that I wanted to keep progressing through the story. It had enough storyline to supplement the learning portion. Definitely worth playing!

This was a fun game to play. It's a little clunky to go through the play and conversations and maneuver between things, which made it take time to play. But I was invested in finishing the game. There was a mystery to solve woven through while you went through jobs. The jobs themselves were fun and got more detailed. I appreciated the need to collect data, find parameters, and use tools to model. I wish it could have been accomplished a little easier when needing to do multiple species data, without having to continually click on the add water and find the site, etc. When you get very lost in what you should do there are helpful prompts, but occasionally I did get frustrated!

It's also nice that progress is saved so you can leave the game and return later without starting over!