Disaster School

An aurora ripples green over the lake, one porch bulb pops, and the whole string goes dark. Inside the log schoolhouse Dad keeps reading. He points at the page: in a series circuit, if one part fails, everything stops. You give each bulb its own path, and five of the six come back on.

Pine Lake is a small invented valley: a schoolhouse with a classroom, a kitchen, a loft and a porch, a garden slope above it, a seismograph hut, a science dock and, across the water, two solemn gadget-loving neighbours whose plans always fail. Dad teaches, calm and dry, from the Big Book on his lectern. Mum runs the Pop Quiz Desk, Big Sister helps anyone playing alone, Little Brother asks the question at the end of each round, and the family dog shows how cosy the house is. You are a new pupil, in your own avatar.

A round lasts about six minutes. The Weather Radio names the storm and Dad opens the chapter. Your crew spreads out to three stations and sets them up while the sky changes, then three waves arrive and you repair, carry and adjust in the lulls between them. Every station is hands-on: drag a copper strip into a loop, slot wool into a cold wall, drop sandbags on a slope and watch blue arrows show where the rain will run. When something fails, the model shows what happened and one sentence from the chapter says why.

The book is the hero. Every fix is an experiment from a named chapter, and the Report Card at the end names the book and class each idea came from. Questions never stand in the way of play; they wait, optional, at Mum's desk. The weather is silly, never scary. Failure means cold cocoa, a damp rug, three hats on Dad and a dog sulking on a chair. Nobody is ever hurt, and the game never pretends to teach what to do in a real emergency.

The first release has Pine Lake and four storms, each with three stations. Lights Out has a lantern bench, the porch lights and a breaker board. Deep Freeze has warm walls, a cocoa run and the lake's ice. The River Rises has a sandbag ridge, rain barrels and a supply ferry. The Wobbly Day has early-warning levers, a shake table and an epicentre map. Crews are one to six pupils; a solo player gets Big Sister's help. Nine chapters from Primary Science, Middle School Physical Science and Middle School Earth and Space Science stand behind the stations. Chat is off; a ping wheel does the talking.

Progress is your Field Book: a page for each chapter, with a stamp for every station you finish and gold stars for the quiz questions you answer. Filling a storm's pages earns wardrobe items such as an aurora scarf or raindrop boots. Each Saturday one storm gets a twist, like fog over the ridge or a second aurora, which then stays in the Almanac for good, and new storms are planned. There is no shop and no currency. Teachers can run private lessons with a host panel that switches storms on and off, pauses the clock and puts the page on every screen.

Based on the Scolavo Press curriculum: every station comes from a chapter of its science books, and the family comes from the curriculum's own short films.

Disaster School is a complete game design for Roblox. Development has not started.