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We are building Quander, a game world that contains five QIS-themed mini-games and collectable rewards. The mini-games integrate QIS concepts including superposition, probabilistic outcomes, entanglement, measurement, and quantum circuits. All of the main characters have a superposition aspect, featuring vampires (bats + people), zombies (dead + alive), and a werewolf. You are a young vampire, Molly Cule, whose genius cat, Tangle, has had an explosion in her lab while experimenting with her quantum computer. Parts of her quantum computer have landed throughout the village, and you are helping her get back her parts. This is complicated by the fact that others found the parts! Her archnemesis next door, Byte the dog, is holding onto parts just out of spite, requiring you and Tangle to beat him at the QueueBits game. In Buried Treasure, Byte also buried the parts in a cemetery, which your friend Wolfie is willing to help you find, but he's afraid of the cemetery in the dark (which is unfortunate, because he is only a wolf at night once a month), so you can't waste his efforts. Other parts were found in the yard of the local vampire blood bank, and villagers put them in their secured vaults navigated by the entangled twins (Twintangled) Fran and Ken. Across the village, an absent-minded chef has been using quantum gates to fix his cupcake orders in Qupcakes. Finally, in Tangle's Lair, you search Tangle's vaults for spare parts but using simplification rules to accelerate quantum circuits being used as pass codes to locked rooms.

You can play our experimental game here: https://quander.cs.uchicago.edu

Cast of Characters

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Molly Cule

You are Molly Cule, and your genius cat, Tangle, has destroyed your basement ... again. Now you need to help gather Tangle's quantum computer components or she'll never stop meowing.

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Tangle

Molly Cule's beloved, genius cat. "The basement is my lair, but quantum is my flair," she says! In order to focus on her work, she moved to the basement to remove herself from the temptation of sleeping in warm sun spots. She has been working hard on various implementations of quantum computers, but she drew so much power that it caused a surge and blew up her equipment. She needs your help to gather the computer components around town. 

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Byte

Tangle's arch-nemesis - the dog next door. An equally cerebral creature, he typically spends his time playing games of chess and tic-tac-toe with neighborhood dogs, stealing their treats when they lose. He just happened to find a grid of qubits, so he challenges you to a game to win them back!

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Fran and Ken

Raised from the dead, these twins have a special connection - when one steps forward, the other does, too, even if there is a wall in from of them! This skill makes them uniquely qualified to guard specially-constructed dungeons that no other creature can navigate. Control the twins to search for the computer parts that are secured within the vampire blood bank!

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Chef Scatter

The chef at the local Qupcakery is the nicest guy you'll ever meet - but accuracy is not his specialty. This absent-minded chef makes delicious chocolate, vanilla, and mystery cupcakes, but always seems to give the cupcakes to the wrong customers. Imagine his delight when he found some of Tangle's quantum devices, allowing him to quickly fix his mistakes and deliver the customers what they want. He just wants to get far enough ahead to fund his own purchases. Help him by fulfilling his orders fast enough to purchase the new devices, and he'll let you give the parts back to Tangle.

Mini-Games

UChicago

Diana Franklin

David Maldonado

Irina Lee

Tianle Liu

Grace Williams

Jonathan Liu

Shivani Puli

Liuhao Wu

UCSB

Danielle Harlow

Devon M Christman 

Liliana Garcia

Matthew Bennett

Kaylee Laub

Collin Lejano

Charlene Patenaude

William Huang

Edwin Yee

Raina Kakani

UIUC

Emily Edwards

Filament Games

Funded by National Science Foundation

2115780 and 2115843

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