View source for Backyard Universe

{{Short description|Planned augmented-reality game by Molecular Reality Corporation}}
{{Infobox video game
| title = Backyard Universe
| developer = [[demonpore, inc.]]
| publisher = [[Molecular Reality Corporation]]
| platforms = The "Molecular Gaming Console" (planned)
| released = Unreleased
| genre = Augmented reality
}}
'''''Backyard Universe''''' is an augmented-reality game that [[Molecular Reality Corporation]] announced in 2021 and then dropped. It is the last of the eight "Molecular Games™" in the company's advertisement "[[We're on an epic quest (advertisement)|We're on an epic quest]]", and its description there is the only one on record: "go out and find cells and molecules and view them in Augmented Reality".<ref name="dis22">{{cite web |title=Scientific and technical overview |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |date=December 2022}}</ref> The title is missing from the 2022 memo "[[Early Releases on Maxine's Quest]]". Its description later reappeared under the name of another game, ''[[Raindrop Planet]]''.

== History ==
The game appears in two versions of the advertisement: the one the company reproduced in its December 2022 overview and an undated one, kept in its files, that names the console the demonpore 2600.<ref name="dis22" /><ref name="records">{{cite web |title=Company records |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |date=October 2026}}</ref> The sign-up form that followed asked each new member which early game they would choose. Seven titles received votes in a sample of 135 answers, and ''Backyard Universe'' was not among them.<ref name="records" /> Neither was ''[[Bloodstreamer]]'', the other title dropped.

A later remake of the advertisement, which gives the address [[epicquest.bio]], lists no ''Backyard Universe''. Its last entry is ''Raindrop Planet'', with the line "go out and find cells and molecules and view them in Augmented Reality".<ref name="records" /> In the 2022 memo ''Raindrop Planet'' had been a game about microbial ecology with "GPS-tagged soil, water, and filtered atmosphere samples" among its samples,<ref name="early">{{cite web |title=Early Releases on Maxine's Quest |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |year=2022}}</ref> and in May 2026 the company's plan for its [[universe wrapper]]s summarized it as "Raindrop Planet (backyard water)".<ref name="plan">{{cite web |title=Company records |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |date=2026-05}}</ref>

== Related plans ==
The idea of finding molecules outdoors outlived the title. The December 2022 overview proposed a [[World Particle Project]], "a comprehensive catalog of particles in terms of size, shape, charge, and other characteristics, indexed by biological source and, with environmental samples, GPS-tagging", and predicted: "Using these signals, we believe our players will be the first to name many microorganisms known only through DNA sequences, without physical measurements or sightings." To check the instrument's results, players would have done "correlative analysis at home with the samples that they source locally", using cheap USB microscopes, pH strips and microbalances that the company planned to ship.<ref name="dis22" /> A signal that no one can yet match to a particle is an [[Unidentified Signal Producing Event]]. The company's software tour promises "XP and glory" for identifying one.<ref name="tour">{{cite web |title=EQBio-OS tour |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |date=2026}}</ref>

The same outdoors appears in the company's description of its volunteers. Its chatbot of the time told visitors: "Unlike other 'corps', M.S.S.C. does not require you to leave home and go to some faraway place. The 'faraway place' is all around you!"<ref name="records" />

== Augmented reality ==
Augmented reality lays computer images over a live view of the real world, usually through a phone's camera or a headset. The term is generally traced to engineers at Boeing around 1990, who used it for headsets that showed wiring diagrams over a worker's view. The best-known game of the kind, ''Pokémon Go'', released by Niantic in July 2016, sends its players outdoors to find creatures that appear on their phone screens at real places. No company source compares ''Backyard Universe'' with it. A text dungeon the company drafted in 2025, ''[[The Disclosure Crawl]]'', turns identified signals into "USPE Pokémon" under the slogan "Gotta Sense 'Em All!"<ref name="crawl">{{cite web |title=D&D: Disclosure Crawl |publisher=Molecular Reality Corporation |year=2025}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Molecular Streaming Corps]]
* [[Citizen science]]
* [[List of unrealized Molecular Reality Corporation projects]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{EQBio games}}

[[Category:Molecular Reality Corporation games]]
[[Category:Unreleased video games]]