Deep beneath the lighthouse in an ancient harbor town, an even more ancient labyrinth awaits. When a young bearer of the lighthouse's fire falls into the labyrinth, he must master the hazards within to find his way home. Poikilia is an adventure/puzzle game that takes players through the twenty-four chambers of the labyrinth, challenging their preconceptions about color theory and demanding more and more complex puzzle-solving skills as they progress. Facing obstacles based on additive and subtractive color theory, players manipulate the color of the flames they bear to guide their avatars to each doorway and, eventually, to safety.

Designed as an educational game for middle-school-age students, Poikilia includes modular narrative components to allow for gameplay with and without story, as part of ongoing research on narrative in educational games.

The labyrinth reveals your true colors - what will you see?

Poikilia is a puzzle game and a learning game. The game has a narrative story, expressed through cutscenes and supported by its in-game art, but also offers a non-narrative version. Both use identical gameplay to expose players to basic concepts of additive and subtractive color theory, requiring players to traverse a maze that focuses their attention on the sometimes confusing behavior of light and color. Researchers will study whether either the narrative or non-narrative form of the game is more effective in promoting student engagement with, and understanding of, the topics. In particular, they will study whether the narrative can induce meta-cognition in players as a means of promoting active transfer and overcoming naïve conceptions.