Built in public
About MindQuest
A cozy pixel RPG where right answers power the adventure. Made by Ari Horesh.
Who makes it
Hi, I'm Ari Horesh. I'm a final-year medical student, and I've been teaching students since 2019 through EnterMedSchool.
I'm building MindQuest to make high school and university actually fun: a world where every right answer powers your mining, your fights and your boss battles.
From the build log
Read the whole build log
Why it's free to play
MindQuest is 100% free to play. Free forever.
The idea is to help people turn studying into a game. We want as many students playing as possible, because every player helps us make the game better for everyone.
Where the questions come from
Today's demos use simple sample questions, written for these previews and marked "Sample question".
Questions on real subjects are added only after they have been reviewed, and each one credits where it comes from.
In the game, players will vote on questions and flashcards. Weak ones are hidden and sent back for review, so the material keeps getting better.
The science
The science we build on
MindQuest is built around two study methods that learning researchers have looked at closely:
Retrieval practice (active recall): pulling an answer out of your memory, instead of reading it again.
Spaced repetition: coming back to what you learned over days and weeks, instead of cramming it all at once.
Read the research
In a review of ten common study techniques, Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice the most useful of the ten.
Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found that students who took recall tests on a text remembered more of it a week later than students who read it again.
Cepeda and colleagues (2006) reviewed hundreds of experiments and found that spreading study out over time beats packing it into one session.
MindQuest itself hasn't been tested yet, so we make no promises about results. These findings are why the game is built the way it is.
Short rounds, instant feedback and calm visuals: designed with ADHD students in mind.
Say hello
Write to hello@mindquest.org, or follow the build log to see what we ship next. Parents and teachers: start here.
Make your hero. Reserve your name.
Design your hero, pick a name nobody else can take, and we'll email you when the game opens.