High-Level Project Summary
Our games, 60 Seconds to Mars is a simulated strategy game where player need to keep their crew alive during their venture to Mars. We want to create a quick and learning solution for our target audience (10-14 years) of a game which is fun and knowledgeable. When they progress in game, the game will provide scientific knowledge on what happen to human body in space. So, we use the 5 hazards of spaceflight from NASA as challenges which in return we hope to bring exposure and provide fundamental knowledge of space exploration.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
60 Seconds to Mars is a strategy survival game which players need to keep crews alive by assigning them tasks while venturing toward Mars. We use the 5 hazards of human spaceflight as challenges. This is a fast pace game test players' alertness in-game and last 60 seconds. Players drag and place on boxes to perform task within the space shuttle.
In detail to our game, crews have stats consists of health, energy and stress. They are draggable using mouse click and are assignable to perform task in ship.
The red cube, Health, represent the life of the crews. The crews will take damage during disaster struck. When it hit zero, the crew will die and become non-interactable. The player loses if all crews die. It is restorable in Medic Bay.
The energy in Blue represent how much energy the crews have to perform task within the ship. Energy will regenerate when crews are idle. This is just gamification purpose for our player to assign their resource in-game.
The orange represent stress. Crews stress will increase the longer they proceed in space. It has the chances to increase after crew completing task. Stress will affect performance. The more stress they have, the more time they need to completing task and has chances to hurt themselves. This reflect the isolation in space as the crews work without much communication from Earth.
For the shuttle section, the yellow represent the ship health and will be damage from disaster. The game is also over when the ship health reached zero. It is restorable in the engine room. It represent hostile environment. The crews only home in space is the space shuttle.
The food is represent in green cube. Food are diminish constantly for each crews alive as their sustenance during the mission. It is restore in Greenhouse. It food reach zero, it will damage every crews on ship. It represent the distance from Earth as food cannot be resupply from Earth and must be regrown in ship.
Every modules in the shuttle has its function and also disaster struck within them. Players can drag the crew into the task box to start or repair the function.
We also introduce the danger within space like for example, space radiation. Space Radiation will occur in-game after a time pass. Players can assign a crew in the Life Support System to activate a temporary magnetic shield to prevent damage on crews. This is to represent the danger of radiation in space.
Moreover, we also implemented the effect of microgravity on the crews. When players are getting closer to a planet eg (Earth, Mars). The crews will feel weak by giving an instance of energy loss. We want the effect to be stronger when heading back to Earth.
We will provide a mini cutscene during the start and end of the game as storyline.
We develop this games using Unity. We code the function in C# script. The graphic (eg.logo, button and background) are develop in Adobe Photoshop. We use Audacity to edit or record audio. Adobe After Effect to produce our video. Our game is deployed in simmer.io.
Space Agency Data
We use data from NASA website, specifically the NASA Human Research Program. We read and understand the articles. Then, we squeeze and summarize these knowledge into our game. We use the 5 hazards of human spaceflight as challenges that hinder our players' victory.
Hackathon Journey
This is my first time joining the hackathon and as solo. Before the day of the event, I am not sure how hackathon works and so I watch some Youtube video of it and see how other people experience. Regardless, I was told a month ago about this event, excited and decided to join it anyway specifically, Space App Sarawak. I am happy that this year Sarawak is able to host the event. I am confident to pick one of the challenges, The Trail to Mars: Can You Keep Your Crew Alive, because I work as a digital content creator experience in making digital app. During preparation, I made research for my content like images, sounds or anything I want to applied in my games. While building the project, I have sleepless night rushing everything but it was worth the efforts and experiences. I enjoyed my time during the hackathon and hope to join more in the future.
References
Research:
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp
5 Hazards of Human Spaceflight
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/5-hazards-of-human-spaceflight
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-mars-spaceship-big-falcon-rocket-diagram-2018-9
ISS - International Space Station - Inside ISS - Tour - Q&A - HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-Xm3_Ze1o
Images & Visual Resources from:
Working on Destiny - https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_382.html
Robotic Workstation in Destiny Lab - https://www.nasa.gov/content/robotic-workstation-in-destiny-lab
Radish plants are pictured inside the station's Advanced Plant Habitat - https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/radish-plants-are-pictured-inside-the-stations-advanced-plant-habitat/
A pair of Astrobee robotic assistants are pictured flying around - https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-pair-of-astrobee-robotic-assistants-are-pictured-flying-around
Astronaut Thomas Pesquet works on the GRIP human research experiment -https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/51483402188
An empty U.S. spacesuit in the Quest airlock - https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/an-empty-us-spacesuit-in-the-quest-airlock
https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-people-space-portrait-7169837/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-spacesuit-touching-a-control-button-7660833/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-a-spacesuit-7672273/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-spacesuit-standing-on-a-ladder-7661508/
Audio Resources from:
Tags
#space, #travel, #Mars, #Earth, #game, #application
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.