Aqualood

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15QyD3m0n6sTwnWYPZ8373X6VAX7Kczyi/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109888414437933116320&rtpof=true&sd=true

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r7ldir1iMzEX4vCt8R9vAagYoODaI0V0/view

Starwalker was designed with education in mind, but unlike many other games in the same genre, we tried to make it as fun as we could, with a complementary artstyle that isn't too childish for our age group of 10 to 14-year-olds. The basic idea of the game is a trip to mars and the problems it poses for the astronauts.

So, after all, how exactly does our product work and why is it better than other competitors? Firstly, our product is to be seen as a gateway for children to develop a passion for space and science by presenting it in a very friendly and entertaining way. We hope that our game can successfully help children understand important matters by using this filter of simplifying things and presenting them as a cartoonish game. However, behind every single level, there is a touch of truth behind it. While each level is loading, a screen will pop up displaying important information taken directly from the Nasa research probes and data systems that addresses a very crucial aspect of space traveling, whether it is about the launch of a rocket or the lifestyle of the astronauts, even down to how they keep in touch with people on Earth. And so we believe that the very fact that we can cover every single important part of a space expedition while also making it easy to take in and fun to focus on, we think our game would be a very good starting point for future astronauts and scientists.

We put our heart and soul into the game over the past days in hopes of inspiring the younger generation and showing them that science is not another useless subject, but one of the most interesting and exciting. So in truth, our goal is to lead children on a path that makes them passionate about science and who knows, maybe one day those children will accomplish what we are struggling to do now: A Trip to Mars.

In terms of tools, resources, and software we made all of the art used in the presentation and in the game in-house during the duration of the hackathon. The art style is appropriately made for the age group we are targeting, being attractive but at the same time funny 2D art beaming of color. On the software side, we used Unity and C# to code the demo of the game, Adobe XD to design our different levels and Adobe Photoshop to draw our assets, the animations for the level were also made in Unity. As for the presentation we used Google Slides to put it together and created our own custom theme.

The data we used regarding our project was inspired a lot by the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover whose data and the journey we inspired on to see just how would a trip to Mars actually look like. We took and manufactured many of our ideas for minigames from important steps that had to be taken from the Nasa Science group responsible for our rover, such as calculating the trajectory and keeping the signal and solar panels in check). Despite this, we also informed ourselves from the Space Radiation ebook made by Nasa where we studied radiation in space and other harms that might be of utmost importance in our trip to Mars. We also compared the information with other third-party websites where we could cover all the risks of such a journey. Other than this various amounts of videos about astronaut’s lifestyles were watched in order for us to familiarize ourselves with their life having the ultimate goal to better incorporate it in our children-friendly game.

From finding the limits to what we could achieve and moving forward to the thrill of the presentation and the pure excitement of being a part of the winners, it was all an unforgettable experience. What Space apps though is that no matter how good the people in your team are nothing gets done without good teamwork and a good understanding of the idea. And expanding on the concept of our idea, the motive for which we picked this challenge is that we are an up-and-coming game studio looking for experience which can only be truly garnered when you find yourself in tough spots. The approach we took is to map out a solid concept of our game, research the technical part of it, create all of the artwork and lastly code it all together using Unity. Thinking back on it all, the most important part of this process was getting to know why we are doing this and the answer came back far more impactful than we ever dreamed: To inspire the younger generations about space travel. With the help of mentors and of course the team members, we talked about each problem that arose along the way and managed in the end to solve almost all of them. If there's anybody that we would like to thank, it would be the organizers for such a wonderful opportunity and the mentors for giving us feedback and even teaching us some new concepts.

For the game itself, we used Unity as a game engine and C#. All the art was made by us using Adobe Photoshop with a graphical tablet. The information for our research was extracted from the following sites:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbor_spa%C8%9Bial#Lansarehttps://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/space_radiation_ebook.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-020-00124-6

#art #space #educational #game #mobile #aqualood #andreitotoro

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.