Quantifying QUARTETnary as a tool for science education

In 2024, we published QUARTETnary - the card game about the geological time scale with the help of almost 400 Kickstarter backers. In QUARTETnary, players collect sets of four cards belonging to a certain geological time unit with the aim of obtaining the most complete geological time line to win the game. Consisting of 60 beautifully illustrated and colourful cards, QUARTETnary has players explore all the important events in Earth’s history: from dinosaurs to humans and from the formation of the Alps to the formation of the Himalayas.

As of January 2025, all Kickstarter backers have received their games, meaning that people around the world are now starting to play QUARTETnary. This is an excellent opportunity to quantify QUARTETnary’s educational benefits and see how it fares as a tool for science education in addition to being a fun game to play. 

To quantify the educational benefits of playing QUARTETnary, we asked initial playtesters and Kickstarter backers to fill in a survey before playing QUARTETnary (118 respondents) and after playing QUARTETnary (35 respondents as of January 2025). The surveys assess players’ knowledge of the geological time scale and the history of the Earth through both self-assessment (“How much do you know about Earth’s history?”) and objective questions testing knowledge of specific events (“Which geological time period(s) ended with a major mass extinction?”) and the order of events (“What happened in the same time period during which the Sahara was formed?”). By comparing the results from the before and after playing QUARTETnary survey, we are able to assess if and how players’ knowledge on the history of the Earth improves through playing QUARTETnary. In addition, we gather subjective feedback through the surveys on what players think of QUARTETnary both in terms of being fun to play and as an educational tool. 

Our results show that the number of people who can correctly identify the colours of time periods increases from approximately 50% to 75% by playing QUARTETnary. In addition, the five time periods with mass extinctions are more often correctly identified with for example 31% of people correctly identifying the Ordovician as having ended with a mass extinction in the before survey and 60% of people doing so in the after survey. Overall, people enjoy playing QUARTETnary with 85% of respondents giving QUARTETnary an 8 out of 10 or higher. 

Note that our results are biased in terms of demographics, with a significant amount of respondents being highly educated (with over 41% having completed a PhD in the before survey) and already familiar with the nomenclature of the geological time scale (almost 50% of respondents give themselves a 7 out of 10 or higher when asked how familiar they are with the names of the geological time scale in the before survey). 

Looking towards the future, we will announce the rudimentary idea and timeline for the next game of The Silly Scientist. Just like QUARTETnary, our new game rocks! And yes, that is a hint for the theme of our next game…