Earth-to-Mars: a VR Serious Game for Leadership

Business / Non-Profit Category

By eLearning Studios

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Description: Earth-to-Mars is a Serious Game designer for two-player interaction. While one player experiences the mars-base environment in virtual reality, their partner runs Earth’s Mission Control using their table’s interactive “Mars Manual” to provide critical guidance. During their mission, the players will encounter and navigate a number of incidents requiring them to inform, collaborate and negotiate in order to resolve serious challenges.

Skills and Ideas Taught: Earth-to-Mars is a leadership skills game for helping executive be more effective in their day job. Sometimes called, “soft-skills” this VR game lets executives explore in a neutral (non-work related) environment, their reactions to stressful conditions. The game specifically explores:

  1. Dealing with the unknown (Ambiguity)
  2. Recovering from Failure
  3. Communicating Under pressure
  4. Exploring Empathy
  5. Negotiating in the Moment
  6. Learning Awareness

Goal or Challenge: Earth-to-Mars is a VR game that challenges executives in a similar way to how Mission Control was trained in the Apollo Missions. Mission Control practiced rigorous simulation trainings. the Simulation Supervisor would throw problems into the routines to test mission Control’s ability to adapt. In this way, they improved their ability to talk fast, think fast and be prepared for emergency. Similarly, Earth-to-Mars pairs up executives to test their communication skills, problem-solving strategies, and coping with stress.

Primary Audience:  Executives, professionals, and leaders.

Assessment Approach: Executive  education doesn’t have formal or summative assessment, but it does rely on 360-feedback tools. Our client partnered with an independent third-party vendor  for assessing behavioral improvements. They partnered with Honeycomb Works to create a unique “honeycomb” on six essential behavioral skills linked to earth-to-Mars. the assessment is longitudinal. Subscription is 12 months, allowing executives to work on their soft skills over a period and to play the game more than once to mark progress.

Game Engine: Oculus VR

Operating System: Oculus Go

Platform: Oculus Go and Tablet (two-player game)

Special Hardware: Oculus Go and Tablet