Enduring Cavern: Exponential wins Rep. Jared Huffman’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s Second District

When asked what inspired the creation of Enduring Cavern: Exponential, the student said, “I was inspired by my own experience with education games, where they consistently failed to captivate me. When analyzing these games, I determined these games tried to tread the line between math and game, yet it always fell to one side or the other, creating a game too boring in its math or a game with too little math. Hence, I thought of a new solution: immersion. If a game created a lively world and an intriguing user experience, the player could find themselves genuinely interested in an educational game. Where other math education games may be satisfactory in a classroom, there’s no doubt that, when given other games, the student would choose those. This can be seen in the game ‘Prodigy’, where it is extremely based upon a common game genre (the RPG) where the only real math integration is random pop-up math questions. With this system, if this player had the option to play another RPG, they’d naturally choose the one without those troublesome math problems. But if the world of the game creates interest and the gameplay actively involves learning (even if its math), it can create unique player engagement that could even draw interest from other games.”