Help/Support

What do I need in order to run the game?

You will need the following to run the University of Mars video game from AstroVenture and related components:

• computer — an Apple computer running macOS (10.13+, "High Sierra," or newer), a PC running Windows (7 or newer), or Linux-based PC. The developers have targeted the game builds towards computers about six- or seven-years-old and newer; most hardware, video cards, etc., within that time frame should perform satisfactorily
• a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 720 pixels. Important: enabling "Full Screen" on monitors with higher resolution is NOT recommended! Doing so may alter the appearance of some parts of the game unpredictably. You should reduce your monitor's effective resolution with a Display control panel if you wish to make the game window appear larger.
• an active internet connection is suggested (to save data to the instructors' database, access the "Encyclopedia" and supplemental materials, and various Flash applets or movies contained therein)
• An up-to-date web video player (or a browser with native MP4 or WebM capability like Firefox). Most browsers can already handle our video files natively, so you do not need to install anything extra; however, additional resources can be found if needed, like browser plug-ins (see your browser's settings for "addons," "plugins," or "extensions") or standalone video players (e.g., Videolan VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/).

How do I purchase the game?

You can purchase the game here

Be sure to use the same email that you want to use to record your progress in the AstroVenture database when you play the University of Mars game. Choose a password that you will remember in order to be able to download the game after filling out the form. If you forget your password and cannot download then you can request an email to reset it.

How do I download the game?

After you have purchased the game, log in with the email address and password you entered on the purchase page. You will be taken to a page where you can download the game.

How do I install University of Mars once I have downloaded it?

To Install on macOS (10.13 or newer):

1. First check if your operating system is macOS 10.13 "High Sierra," or newer. On the pull-down menu on the top left of your screen under the apple select About this Mac and see if it says macOS 10.13 High Sierra, or something newer (10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, 10.15 Catalina, etc.). If your macOS version is below 10.13, please see this Apple support page for information about updating your macOS.
2. Download and locate the UniversityOfMars.zip file.
3. Unzip the files (double-click on the ".zip" file, and the macOS "Archive Utility" or your preferred utility will do this) to a location you will remember and will be able to easily access on your computer.
4. Inside the unzipped folder ("UniversityOfMarsMac"), open the folder called "UniversityOfMars" and double-click the "UniversityOfMars.app" file to start the game. Depending on your Finder and/or System Preferences, the ".app" extension may or may not be visible by default, but the .app should be in the folder called "UniversityOfMars" with a little Earth-Mars globe icon.
5. If you see a pop-up message like "'UniversityOfMars.app' is an app downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?" you can click on "OK" or "Open" to continue to the game.
6. Upon clicking "Start" on the startup screen,
   • Enter the email address you used to purchase the game as the user ID at the prompt.

For computers running Windows (7 or newer)

1. Download and locate the UniversityOfMars.zip file.
2. Extract / unzip the files (right-click on the ".zip" file, and choose "Extract..."). You may have "7Zip" or another preferred utility installed to handle this. Extract the ZIP archive's to a location outside of the .zip "folder" that you will remember and will be able to easily access on your computer. Important Note: This ZIP-extraction step is important to ensure your game progress data is saved reliably. It may be possible to run the game from within the "ZIP[.zip]" file itself without extracting the files to another location, first, but you will lose data-saving and other functionality. Be sure to extract the files to another location outside of the downloaded .zip archive, and run the game from the extracted set.
3. Inside the extracted / unzipped folder ("UniversityOfMars"), find and double click the ".exe" file to start the game. Depending on your default folder views or system options, the ".exe" extension may or may not be visible by default, but the .exe should be in the folder called "University of Mars" with a little Earth-Mars globe icon (alongside, rather than inside, the folder called UniversityOfMars_Data).
4. If you get a pop-up window warning about the possibility of malicious software when you try to start the game, you can bypass this by clicking on "More Info" below the message text, and then below click on the newly-revealed "Run Anyway" button.
5. Upon clicking "Start" on the startup screen,
   • Enter the email address you used to purchase the game as the user ID at the prompt.

For computers running Linux

1. Download and locate the UniversityOfMars.zip file.
2. Unzip the files (use your preferred unzip utility) to a location you will remember and will be able to easily access on your computer.
3. Inside the extracted / unzipped folder ("UniversityOfMars"), find and run "UniversityOfMars" to start the game. It may have a little Earth-Mars globe icon and will be alongside, rather than inside, the folder called UniversityOfMars_Data.
4. Upon clicking "Start" on the startup screen,
   • Enter the email address you used to purchase the game as the user ID at the prompt.

To Install on Chromebook (requires enabling Linux, and using the "Terminal" app)

1. If you have not previously done so, you will need to first install/enable Linux on the Chromebook, as follows:
   • (if you have already done the Linux-installation steps, you can skip down to step 2, below)
   • Open the Chromebook's "Settings" menu, which can be done opening a new search window (from the "Launcher" button in the very bottom left corner), and typing "settings"; then the settings "app" ("gear" icon) may be the top result, to click to open.
   • Near the bottom of the settings menu navigation list on the left, click on "Linux (beta)."
   • If there is no "Linux (beta)" option showing up, try clicking on "About Chrome OS" at the bottom and check to see if there are Chrome OS updates to get, first.
   • If even after any applicable Chrome OS update(s), there is still not a menu item in Settings for "Linux (beta)," then it may be that the Chromebook model is too old for the OS that would include it (skip remaining steps).
   • In the Linux settings window, click "Turn On."
   • Then click "Install" — and expect to wait a few minutes for the process to complete.
   • When the installation step is done, the newly-enabled "Terminal" app should automatically open with a command-line input window. Leave it alone for the moment.
2. Download the Linux copy of the game (e.g., "UniversityOfMarsLinux.zip") file.
3. In the ChromeOS folder views, this seems to behave similar to Windows — where you can double-click to "open" the UniversityOfMarsLinux.zip and examine its contents without actually unzipping it; do that (open the .zip file in a folder view), and then drag/copy the contents of it to a new linked drive/folder called "Linux Files" over on the left side of the window; this has the effect of unzipping the files and moving them to their needed location.
4. To run UniversityOfMars:
• Open the "Terminal" app if it's not already open; typing "Terminal" in the general "search" bar works — the Terminal app will probably show up as the top result (a little circular ">_" icon), and then just click on it.
• A Terminal command-line input window will open up (if it were not open already) with [username]@[virtual-machine's-name] ("penguin" is often the default).
• Type the following command to be sure you are in the Linux virtual machine's home folder (which should include what was copied into that "Linux files" area in the game-installation steps): pwd ... and then press enter. This returns the name of the current working directory.
• Type the following: ls -al ... and press enter. This should show a list of all the files and folders in that location (which for a newly-installed Linux virtual machine may only include "UniversityOfMarsLinux" because we just copied that there).
• If you see "UniversityOfMarsLinux" in the list of files, then type: cd UniversityOfMarsLinux ... and enter. This will "change directory" to the game's containing folder.
• Type: ls -al ... and enter. Again, this will list the files in that folder, which should include at least "UniversityOfMars.x86," "UniversityOfMars.x86_64" and "UniversityOfMars_Data" (and a "read me" too).
• To determine which version of Linux you have installed (the 64-bit version or another), type this command: uname -m ... and enter. If the next line suggests you have the 64-bit version (i.e., it says something about "x86_64"), then you can ignore the file just called "UniversityOfMars.x86" (or even delete it); make sure to always keep the UniversityOfMars_Data folder, in the same place as the other file(s).
• If the 'uname-m' command returns a result other than either 'x86' or 'x86_64' then your system may not be able to run the UniversityOfMars Linux version.
• Enter this command: chmod +x UniversityOfMars.x86* ... which makes the executable files actually executable.
• To run the game program, type: ./UniversityOfMars.x86_64 (or ./UniversityOfMars.x86 if the result of step 7 suggests you should use that version) ... and enter (just be sure the "." and "/" are in front of it, like that). That should start the game running in a new window.
• When done playing, you can close the game program (just clicking the [X] box up in the top-right corner of the game's window should be fine), you might need to also type: exit ... in the Terminal app window, to close it too (or maybe clicking an [X] on the Terminal window is enough for that, as well).
5. Later, when you return to play the game you do not need to go through all of these set-up steps all over again. Just repeating steps 5 ("cd UniversityOfMarsLinux") and 9 ("./UniversityOfMars.x86" or "./UniversityOfMars.x86_64") is enough to re-open the game.

Additional Notes

• It is best to play the game while on a computer with a live internet connection. This way your progress & performance data are automatically synced to an online database, for your instructors to track and award credit for completing the parts of the game. If you do not have an active internet connection you may still play the game and your progress will be saved locally, and the database will get updated when next you are online; however, you will miss out on a good deal of important lesson material (e.g., the "Encyclopedia" links) if you play the game without internet access.
• If you are playing the game on a public computer, it is recommended that you download / unzip / install the game on your own removable drive (such as a USB memory stick or other external drive) to avoid having to re-download it every time you switch to a new computer; files created locally on a public computer's internal drives may not be preserved after you log off.
• Multiple users can play the game on the same computer, but each will need to have set a unique ID (each user signs in as a "Start" with their own email address.

Please email info@theastroventure.com for help with any aspects of the game purchase and installation or any questions not addressed here.