EDWARDS AFB, Calif. (KERO) — Battlecraft, a new browser game based off the classic strategy game Battleship, is meant to be an opportunity for students to learn how to read and plot a graph. The U.S. Department of Defense, Starbase Edwards developed the game, which is set right here in Kern County at Edwards Air Force Base.
Those who helped with the vision of the game tell 23ABC that with technology so prominent in today's culture, they thought there would be no better way to help them connect with students.
DOD Starbase Edwards Director Amira Flores says her team thought of the concept of the game during the pandemic.
"Essentially when we came up with this idea was during covid shutdown, but we wanted to get the most out of what students were doing when they were at school," said Flores. "We wanted to incorporate those mathematical and technology skills at home."
Starbase Edwards Inc. Technology Liaison Alfred De La Costa explains how the game works.
"You are presented either with a hit or a miss, and we got Dory here jumping up and down letting us know, 'Hey, you got a miss,' so you can click on Dory and now you're presented with a message from the DOD Starbase Edwards command control, which actually tells the student where they need to navigate from the point they just selected in order to hit the enemy aircraft," said De La Costa.
According to Flores, the process of turning the classic naval board game into an air attack video game took some time.
"It took about a year and a half from start to finish," said Flores. "It took where we had to produce a story, so it was more of an extension from our DOD Starbase lesson called 'flying on the ceiling,' and the concept came from Battleship."
De La Costa adds that they used planes straight from Edwards Air Force Base, home to many aircraft on the cutting edge of aviation technology.
"By putting aircraft from Edwards into the video game, it really does just add to the uniqueness of Edwards Air Force Base and really drives home that at Edwards Air Force Based, even through Starbase Edwards, we are just trying to be as innovative as possible, and trying to incorporate everything that we have and inform our community of the possibilities that are at Edwards Air Force Base," said De La Costa.
The game also features Edwards AFB personnel.
"You're introduced to the DOD Starbase Edwards command control, which consists of Amira and her team, the avatars," said De La Costa.
One of the biggest things students learn from the game is how to plot and read x, y coordinates on a graph. Students can click on Starbase Edwards control command avatars for hints about which coordinates to pick next. Follow the clues to make the hit and defeat the enemy aircraft.
Flores says it's the first project they've developed themselves at Starbase, and when they children were able to tour some of the planes at the base, they got to see how the game is used in the real world.
"He (De La Costa) was showcasing all of the different things inside of the cockpit and then we has like, 'This is the way we put in our coordinates,' and they're like, 'Yes, we just saw that at Starbase,' and that lightbulb moment, it just clicked on," said Flores. "It made me so happy because they had just learned about it, they played it, and they got to see it in real life."
The educational goal of the game is to help get kids excited about learning concepts in math from the perspective of real world applications. If you would like to try the game, click here to go to the website. The game will open in your browser. No download is necessary.
