Biodyssey - IB Biology adventure game

The Muddle is scrambling the science of life, and you are the only recruit who can unscramble it.

BIODYSSEY is a pixel-art adventure for the browser that teaches IB Diploma Biology by making you play it. Step through the portals of the Observatory of Life into four hand-built realms, talk to the locals, learn the content, solve the puzzles and face the Misconception Monsters: creatures made entirely of wrong ideas. The only way to beat them is to know your biology.

Four realms, forty quests

• The Molecular Deep: water, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, enzymes, respiration, photosynthesis, DNA replication, protein synthesis and mutations.
• Cytopolis: cell structure, membranes and transport, organelles, specialisation, water potential, cell division, chemical and neural signalling, gene expression, viruses and the origins of cells.
• The Living Isles: diversity, classification and cladistics, gas exchange, transport, defence against disease, reproduction, inheritance, homeostasis and muscle.
• The Wide World: evolution and speciation, natural selection, adaptation, niches, populations and communities, energy flow, stability and change, conservation and climate change.

Each quest teaches through short illustrated lessons, field discoveries around the map and a run of challenges, then ends in a boss fight.

What you will actually do

• 50 different mini-games: run a gel, fill a Punnett square, translate mRNA at the ribosome, build a membrane, route photons through the greenhouse effect, split a finch population with a river and watch selection act.
• Boss fights with a mechanic of their own (12 in all): keep your oxygen up so your hits stay aerobic, stop water flowing the wrong way across a membrane, fire an action potential past its threshold, and more. Every mechanic is the biology you are being tested on.
• Exam-style practice that isn't a worksheet: command-term dojo, mark-scheme challenges, data and graph questions, "spot the error" rounds and a Misconception Mirror that makes you rebut common mistakes.
• A Simulation Lab with climate, ecosystem, epidemic and population sandboxes.
• An Arcade Cabinet for timed runs of your favourite mini-games against your own best.
• A Rematch Arena where you can face beaten bosses again for up to three stars, or in Hard Mode for a title.
• A daily puzzle (the Calculation of the Day), weekly events, a Shift Office and an Exam Hall.
• Collect and customise: ATP and glucose economy, pets, a backpack, and a tailor with outfits and accessories for your recruit.
• A mistake memory that remembers what you got wrong and brings it back in a Recovery drill until it sticks.

Built to be learned from

• Tap or click any underlined term to see its definition, or have the text read aloud. Plain-English and dyslexia-friendly text options are in Settings.
• Wrong answers explain why they are wrong.
• Keyboard, mouse and touch all work. Reduced-motion and other accessibility settings are included.
• Your progress saves in the browser, in three slots. Export a save code to move it to another device.
• Teachers can hand out topic codes to point students at a specific topic.

Good to know

• Runs in any modern browser, desktop or mobile. No install, no account, no network needed once loaded.
• Aimed at students working through IB Diploma Biology (SL and HL content is marked), and useful for anyone curious about how life works. Recommended age: 14+.
• Not affiliated with, authorised or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization. "IB" is used only to say which course the content follows.
• Pixel font: Press Start 2P (SIL Open Font License), bundled with the game.