Veyra: Pebble Academy
Coming soon · pre-alphaA school life game we're building in Unreal Engine 5, the engine behind games you already know. You'll play a student starting again at a new school. Your character's challenges are designed to train the same skills you use in class.
Developed with Innovate UK and Bournemouth University
Coming soon. When it's ready, it will be part of the extra help for students with their own plan, starting from the skills their Skills Check flagged.
The story
You'll play a student whose parents send them to a new school as a last resort. Deadlines are slipping, focus is wandering and friendships are hard work. With Veyra beside you, you'll turn it around.
How it will play
Each part of the week will ask you to plan, focus, remember and look back, the way a real school week does. Training will start from the skills your Skills Check flagged.
Your in-game phone holds homework deadlines, invitations from friends and your planner. Say yes to an invite that clashes with your History deadline, and the planner shows you the crunch. Plan badly and you let someone down, or end up in detention.
Before each task you size it up: how long will it take, how hard will it be, which strategies will you use? Afterwards you see your result, your time against your guess, and which strategies paid off. That loop has a name: metacognition.
Classmates have their own lives and their own problems. Help them through what they're going through, and the bond between you grows. Say the wrong thing and you'll see how it lands.
Part-time jobs, the café, the shops, friends in the dorm. They all compete for the same week, like a real one. What you do with your hours is the game.
Your guide
In the game, Veyra will check in as you play, and you'll choose how to reply. It will notice what you did well, name it, and never rush you. Stuck? It will help you find a way through, without doing it for you.
The guide never claims to be a teacher, a therapist or a doctor.
When something is out of scope, it says so and points to a person.
The world
If training your brain feels like homework, it doesn't get done. So Pebble Academy is being built in Unreal Engine 5 as a place you'd choose to spend time in: warm light, real rooms and people with their own lives.
Every screen on this page comes from the pre-alpha. The art, the animation and the polish will all improve from here.
Who makes it
A game you'd choose to play gets played, and skills only grow with practice. So the game team and the science team build Pebble Academy side by side.
A creative director and Unreal Engine developers. They build the world, the fox and the screens you'll use, to the standard of games you'd choose to play.
Clinical researchers and a psychometrics lead. They design every challenge around a skill the Skills Check measures.
Founder and CEO
Creative Director
Technical Director
Partnerships Director
Production Lead
Technical Lead
The serious bit
The team making Pebble Academy is funded by UK Research and Innovation through an Innovate UK Smart Grant. Over 100 young people helped design Veyra, together with clinicians.
Not yet. When Pebble Academy is ready, your school will be able to offer it as part of the extra help for students with their own plan. There's nothing for you or your family to pay.
Questions? Your teacher or SENCO has the details. Back to For students
