Bonk Team

Taipei | Space Quest: The Game

Run Your Own Space Company

High-Level Project Summary

We chose the challenge “Space Quest: The Game” , and we accomplish the requirement of the challenge i.e. “teach players about space from the perspective of the architectures and challenges of exploration” by creating a 2D click-based game. In our game, you play as the CEO of a new space company “Bonk Space”. In each round, the player can organize a space exploration mission from the ground up, make decisions such as the spacecraft of the mission. Also the player has to take budge and risk into consideration, since we want to mimic the costly and dangerous nature of space missions.We hope through our game , we can make worldwide learners to enjoy the excitement of space exploration.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDM5Duw1dFs

Link to Final Project

https://bonk-team-nasa.web.app

Detailed Project Description

How We Addressed This Challenge:

Space industry is in a booming phase, companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have gained more and more influence on the space industry. Thus, space exploration is no longer exclusive to the government sector, but private companies and government agencies are working together to push the frontier of human civilization. Due to that reason ,we decided to build the game from a space company’s point of view. Players can learn about budgetary control and risk management ,failing to accomplish those two goals will ultimately lose the game. Through this game, the player can have a unique experience of managing a space company and organizing a space exploration operation all by himself/herself , Ultimately teaching players about space from the perspective of the architectures and challenges of exploration.

How We Developed This Project:

Firstly, we compose the overall structure of the game , then we all take different responsibility in the project . Some come up with different scientific questions using the NASA provided open data, some design the gameplay mechanic. While others write the actual program and draw in-game graphics. We use the Google drive service to coordinate our thoughts and check each other's working progress. Then, we use the front-end framework Svelte to build the actual game , we also use the cloud platform Firebase to host our web app so that people around the globe can play our game. Furthermore, we use Git and GitHub to store our source code ,and we utilize Photoshop to produce in-game digital drawings.

Game Structure:

Some of the in-game image:

Space Agency Data

We use the space agency data mainly in two different ways. Firstly is the game data, more specifically the different cost and different success ratio of different spacecraft , ranging from Space Shuttle to Saturn V rocket , and the cost and weight of different missions like JAXA’s upcoming JFY2024 mission. The data NASA and other associate space agencies provide give our game a solid connection to real world space exploration. Though due to game balancing reasons we have changed some real world data to make our game more enjoyable. Secondly are the scientific questions. Nasa includes interesting information in the resource , for example astrobiology and some specific techniques that are used across different space missions (like “gravity assist”). Some of the information then brought to the players in the format of digital entertainment .We believe our game can inspire younger learners to learn about the amazing universe we live in.

Hackathon Journey

This hackathon held by NASA is both challenging and rewarding for all of the teammates. We all have different skill sets that are suited for different parts of our project, like programming , game-design and drawing. Since the time is so short, coordinating between teammates is crucial if we want to finish our game in time. For example, once the overall game structure is decided , our team is separated into two parts ,one for designing the game mechanic, the other composing different space-related questions, the two groups have to make adjustments according to each other's needs. Once these two jobs are completed, there are still things like writing code and making demo videos, which also have to work simultaneously in order to finish the project in such a short time period. We believe this hackathon gives us valuable experiences , makes us become better team players, and we would like to participate in similar events in the future.