Insect Edutainment Minigames — Life Cycles, Pollinators & Orders for RPG Maker MZ

Part of the MZ Minigame Collection. This plugin is one of a growing library of themed minigames for RPG Maker MZ, from board games and puzzles to sports, casino and crafting. Mix and match to fill your world with things to do.

👉 See them all: https://itch.io/c/8090415/mz-minigame-collection

Turn your game’s garden, forest or school into a science lesson players actually want to play.

Insect_Edutainment.js adds three entomology minigames and a browsable codex, with a built-in database of 18 insects across 9 orders — and every game ends with a fact card.

🐛 Life Cycle Sorter

An insect is named. Put its stages in order. Teaches complete metamorphosis (egg → larva → pupa → adult) versus incomplete (egg → nymph → adult) — and on Normal/Hard, distractor cards like “pupa” for a grasshopper catch anyone who’s guessing. Cards carry stage glyphs; Hard adds a 20-second timer; every round ends with that insect’s own fact.

🐝 Pollinator Run

Fly a bee through a meadow. Nectar keeps your energy up — but the lesson is in the bonus: visit the same flower species twice in a row and you’ve pollinated it. The bee visibly carries pollen, a per-species tally shows what you’ve pollinated, and hornets and pesticide drift are the hazards real pollinators face.

🔬 Order ID Quiz

Read two anatomical clues and the metamorphosis type, then identify the order: Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Odonata, Blattodea or Mantodea. Stuck? SHIFT reveals an example insect for half points.

📖 Insect Codex

Every insect grouped by order, with diagnostic traits, the life-cycle chain drawn as glyphs, and facts. Perfect for a museum map, a biology classroom or a naturalist NPC.

Add your own insects

A Custom Insects plugin parameter (name, order, metamorphosis, larva name, two facts) feeds the codex, the sorter and the quiz automatically — or push records at runtime with InsectEdu.addInsect({...}).

What you get

• ✅ 3 minigames + codex, all drawn by the plugin — no images required
• ✅ 18 insects, 9 orders, 36 facts, 27 order traits, 6 general facts
• ✅ Pass-percentage parameter so Result = 1 means “they learned it”
• ✅ Saved high scores, stat breakdowns, Score/Result variables and a finish Common Event
• ✅ Keyboard, gamepad and touch controls; project font; stock-style fades
• ✅ Middle-school reading level; facts are general-knowledge biology

Plugin commands

Start Life Cycle Sorter · Start Pollinator Run · Start Order ID Quiz · Open Insect Codex · Show Random Insect Fact

js

InsectEdu.start("sorter", { rounds: 5, difficulty: "Hard" });
InsectEdu.openCodex();
InsectEdu.bestScore("pollinator");

Controls

Game	Keys
Sorter	LEFT / RIGHT move · OK pick · CANCEL undo · touch a card
Pollinator Run	UP / DOWN fly · touch top / bottom half
Quiz / Codex	menu controls · SHIFT = hint
Any canvas game	SHIFT ×2 = quit

Compatibility

RPG Maker MZ 1.6+. No dependencies. Adds scenes only; nothing is overwritten.