The Catastrophic project continues, involving co-production between students and staff. After initial development and launch in 2018-19, Catastrophic 2.0 was co-produced with two interactive media students in summer 2019, with support from one of the original student developers, and launched in 2019-20. Additional cards are being created by current module students through a related assessment, while a number of biology undergraduates who used Catastrophic 2.0 in 2019-20 developed their own ‘expansion packs’ of additional cards, indicating support and enthusiasm for the game. We're working on some really exciting ideas for expansion in the future, supported by our crowd funding project on the University of York YuStart platform in June 2022.
Catastrophic has been successful in terms of student engagement and perspectives. Engagement with the game remained high during 2018-19 with more than half of the 200+ strong cohort claiming expansion packs that were made available throughout the year. Positive comments in module feedback related to Catastrophic supporting different ways of revising, being motivating and engaging, and (crucially) helping students to understand links between topics. The game will remain a central part of teaching in animal and plant biology at our institution for the foreseeable future, and is also being played elsewhere, with copies sent to colleagues at two UK universities for testing, and others downloading cards from the website for printing around the world. We even made a digital version on Tabletopia to facilitate play during remote/socially distanced learning in 2020-2021, which you can play via our Play Online links.
We want you to play Catastrophic too - you can download the latest cards or go into the archive, and play for education or for fun. Watch this space for news on availability of the printed game, and please let us know how you're using it by getting in touch, through this website or via social media.