5th Leg - A Game of Life Cycles | Oxford University Museum of Natural History

5th Leg - A Game of Life Cycles

Your challenge is to create a game that revolves around the life cycles of insects. This can be a board, card based, or computer game.These days, board games are as popular as ever. Many of these are based around succeeding in real life situations, whether this is being a settler in a new land, solving a crime, buying properties or even trying to combat and cure deadly diseases. There are even games that are based on the natural world around us, and that is what we want you to focus on.

Life Cycles

Animals grow, change and reproduce through their lives. This is their life cycle. Different animals have different life cycles.

Insects fall into one of two categories depending upon their life styles:

4 stage life cycle (complete metamorphosis). The four stages are egg, larva, pupa and adult. During the pupa phase much of the body is destroyed and rebuilt so that the adult insect looks completely different, and may well eat different foods, from the larva. Examples of insects with this type of life cycle include Butterflies and moths, Beetles, bees, wasps, ants and flies
3 stage life cycle (incomplete metamorphosis). The three stages are egg, nymph, adult. When the young hatches they look similar to the adults except they are smaller, and don’t have wings. Examples of insects with a 3 stage life cycle include: True bugs, dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets and earwigs

Your Game

In your game you could look at insect life cycles as a whole, maybe including detail about the different types of insect life cycle. You could focus on just one type of life cycle. You could even just focus on the life cycle of one type or species of insect. When designing your game, think about:

What an insect needs to be able to progress to the next stage of their life cycle.

How can you incorporate that into the game?

Make sure that you start with a simple concept, and then add in more different aspects if you want. If your game if too complicated, or takes too long to explain, you will struggle to find anyone who can play with you.

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