Planetary marching cubes for STEM sandbox game-based learning: Enhancing student interest and performance with simulation realism planet simulating sandbox

Games have grown to be an important part of our society and naturally, its incorporation with education has become a rising trend Together with the strong need for STEM talents, this paper proposed that STEM sandbox game-based learning video games could enhance students' interest and performance in the four disciplines. It is further argued that simulation realism, creativity and interactivity are three important components for this purpose. To promote their development, Planetary Marching Cubes (PMC), a development basis for STEM games has been discussed, along with a game developed with it, HelloPlanet. Students in primary and secondary schools have been invited to play HelloPlanet, and one of the main contributions of this paper is to demonstrate the improvement in both students' interest and performance in STEM. Students and teachers feedback are both very positive, implying that the education sector is fully ready to integrate game-based learning. When comparing with other methods of planet generation, most students picked PMC. This consolidates the argument of the importance of the three components, while also demonstrates the potential of PMC as a development basis for educational sandbox games.