Odyssey - The Story of Science
Released Apr 2017
Odyssey is an enchanting and innovative science adventure game. Help Kai and her family escape their captors on the Wretched Islands - and learn the history of astronomy, mechanics, and scientific reasoning as you read Kai's journal and solve puzzles along the way!
75% positive · 305 reviews
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Where to buy
Steam $4.99
Can't confirm — worth a look
We couldn't confirm these stores carry this game.
Green Man Gaming Steam key Search IndieGala Steam key Search Prices in USD, as listed by each store.
Buying through an affiliate store helps support the site
Evaluation
Odyssey launched out of Early Access on April 19, 2017. In their launch announcement, the developers (Omkar and Vivek of The Young Socratics) explicitly stated that the game "now marks the point at which we consider Odyssey 'finished'." They noted that while minor tweaks or stability fixes might follow, the game had reached the state they wanted to deliver. They also acknowledged that this is the first of two planned Odyssey games, with a second intended to continue the story — but no concrete steps toward that sequel have been publicly communicated since April 2017. All developer activity ceased after the 2017 launch period, and no further content, roadmaps, or announcements have been made. The game shipped as a complete, self-contained product.
Evidence
Launch post explicitly states the developers consider Odyssey 'finished' at V1. They mention possible small tweaks but describe the game as complete. Also notes this is the first of two planned games, with a second intended to tie up the story.
Announcement of the April 19, 2017 V1 launch, exiting Early Access. Describes improvements made based on player feedback during Early Access.
Media
Details
Developer
Publisher
The Young Socratics
Achievements
7
Platform
Windows, macOS
Controller
—
Steam Deck
Playable
Players
Single-player
About this game
Odyssey is a unique science adventure game where you need to navigate across a group of islands in search of a 13-year old girl Kai and her family trapped and waiting to be rescued. The game has an explicit purpose of teaching astronomy and mechanics from the ancient Greeks to Galileo. It does so by taking the player through an intellectual journey as the player is physically navigating through the islands. Gaming is seamlessly integrated with a historical approach to science and storytelling, through Kai's in-game journal from which the player learns the story and the science content, which are needed to solve the puzzles. Players can expect a significant amount of reading. The game is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and is ideal for middle school and high school students and for adults who like to read about science.
"Imaginative and compelling" -- Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT
"An extraordinary step for science education" -- Bryan Brown, Associate Professor of Science Education, Stanford University.
"An innovative historical approach to teaching science" -- Jonathan Osborne, Professor of Science Education, Stanford University
"A wonderful 21st century meld of ideas" -- David Mumford, Fields Medalist, National Medal of Science Winner and Professor Emeritus at Brown and Harvard Universities
Details:
Drawn to one of the remote and uninhabited Wretched islands (in the Caribbean) by the distress call of 13- year old Kai, you find that all across the islands are barricades set up by her family, who are expecting a small group of unscrupulous sailors (pirates) to return to haunt them on the islands. At the same time, the family wants to allow rescuers to reach them. So while they expect the barricades to keep away the pirates at least for some time, they hope that a rescuer would be able to get through, with the help of clues planted by Kai inside fragments of text that the player would find scattered across the islands.
These fragments are pages from her journal that she wrote during her stay on the uninhabited islands, while her archaeologist Dad worked hard to excavate valuable Carib artifacts from the islands. She not only recorded the events that happened in her journal, but also her intellectual journey across 2000 years of astronomy and physics through Socratic dialogues with Dad, and her own observations and experiments guided by those conversations. She and her brother Sid also build a number of physical models as she debates, critiques and argues for her point of view with Dad. All of that is recorded in her journal.
But after a few unpleasant encounters with some nosy sailors, the last of which leaves the family stranded on the islands with their boat and radio smashed, and only a few days of time given to them to turn in all the valuable artifacts (including treasure) that the sailors believe Dad has found, they decide to plant barricades all over the islands to buy some time, since Dad's graduate students are expected to arrive within a month. To leave them clues about how to solve the puzzles, Kai tears up her journal and plants fragments all over the islands, so that the fragment in each place has clues relevant to the puzzle at that place.
The puzzles are arranged in a sequence that mirrors the chronological progression of ideas in astronomy and mechanics. So the player would be learning the history of astronomy and mechanics in a systematic sequence as he/she navigates through the islands.
The first game which is being released in Early Access covers Chapters 1-3 of the adventure.
Chapter 1 covers the origins of science, and the shift from the flat earth of the Pre-socratics to the spherical earth and physics of Aristotle.
Chapter 2 covers the shift from the geocentric universe of Ptolemy to the heliocentric universe of Copernicus and Galileo.
Chapter 3 covers the tussle between Galileo and the followers of Aristotle on free fall motion.
The third chapter ends midway through Galileo's physics and we plan to continue the story in a sequel game, which would cover the following chapters:
Chapter 4 would cover the mathematics of uniformly accelerated motion as developed by Galileo (1D kinematics).
Chapter 5 would cover Galileo's ideas about inertia and the mathematics of projectile motion (2D kinematics) .
Chapter 6 would complete the birth of a new physics with the construction of the three Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation by Newton.
Meant for ages 11+.
"Imaginative and compelling" -- Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT
"An extraordinary step for science education" -- Bryan Brown, Associate Professor of Science Education, Stanford University.
"An innovative historical approach to teaching science" -- Jonathan Osborne, Professor of Science Education, Stanford University
"A wonderful 21st century meld of ideas" -- David Mumford, Fields Medalist, National Medal of Science Winner and Professor Emeritus at Brown and Harvard Universities
Details:
Drawn to one of the remote and uninhabited Wretched islands (in the Caribbean) by the distress call of 13- year old Kai, you find that all across the islands are barricades set up by her family, who are expecting a small group of unscrupulous sailors (pirates) to return to haunt them on the islands. At the same time, the family wants to allow rescuers to reach them. So while they expect the barricades to keep away the pirates at least for some time, they hope that a rescuer would be able to get through, with the help of clues planted by Kai inside fragments of text that the player would find scattered across the islands.
These fragments are pages from her journal that she wrote during her stay on the uninhabited islands, while her archaeologist Dad worked hard to excavate valuable Carib artifacts from the islands. She not only recorded the events that happened in her journal, but also her intellectual journey across 2000 years of astronomy and physics through Socratic dialogues with Dad, and her own observations and experiments guided by those conversations. She and her brother Sid also build a number of physical models as she debates, critiques and argues for her point of view with Dad. All of that is recorded in her journal.
But after a few unpleasant encounters with some nosy sailors, the last of which leaves the family stranded on the islands with their boat and radio smashed, and only a few days of time given to them to turn in all the valuable artifacts (including treasure) that the sailors believe Dad has found, they decide to plant barricades all over the islands to buy some time, since Dad's graduate students are expected to arrive within a month. To leave them clues about how to solve the puzzles, Kai tears up her journal and plants fragments all over the islands, so that the fragment in each place has clues relevant to the puzzle at that place.
The puzzles are arranged in a sequence that mirrors the chronological progression of ideas in astronomy and mechanics. So the player would be learning the history of astronomy and mechanics in a systematic sequence as he/she navigates through the islands.
The first game which is being released in Early Access covers Chapters 1-3 of the adventure.
Chapter 1 covers the origins of science, and the shift from the flat earth of the Pre-socratics to the spherical earth and physics of Aristotle.
Chapter 2 covers the shift from the geocentric universe of Ptolemy to the heliocentric universe of Copernicus and Galileo.
Chapter 3 covers the tussle between Galileo and the followers of Aristotle on free fall motion.
The third chapter ends midway through Galileo's physics and we plan to continue the story in a sequel game, which would cover the following chapters:
Chapter 4 would cover the mathematics of uniformly accelerated motion as developed by Galileo (1D kinematics).
Chapter 5 would cover Galileo's ideas about inertia and the mathematics of projectile motion (2D kinematics) .
Chapter 6 would complete the birth of a new physics with the construction of the three Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation by Newton.
Meant for ages 11+.
Are these done yet?
Last evaluated Jun 27, 2026
Something about this evaluation looks wrong Report illegal or harmful content