Ark Hualien

Taipei | The Trail to Mars: Can You Keep Your Crew Alive

Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS

High-Level Project Summary

“Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS” is a game to let players learning much knowledge of the universe. On the premise of maintaining educational significance, maximizing playability and expandability, especially for the target audience, is one of our main goals.In this seemed fantastic but realistic world, event-driven journeys can lead players to learn innumerable profound and meaningful mysteries from many fields of study. In this game, a 2D side-scrolling video game, many kinds of characters can not only simply move around but also have a lot of properties to emulate real physical movements.In conclusion, this game is forward-looking, technical, and has potential for applications.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/HsS5BVXJYkc

Link to Final Project

https://github.com/JCxYIS/NASASpaceApp2021-TeamHualienKing

Detailed Project Description

“Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS”

(Image: The game title.)


Game Title

“Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS”

(In short, “Ark Hualien”, or also as known as “Yuzhouzhanjianhualianhao”)


Game Play Link

＞＞＞ Itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜

＞＞＞ Itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜

＞＞＞ Itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜



Team “Ark Hualien”

“We are Ark Hualien. We make games. We believe that games can be both amusing and beneficial to the world.”


Team Members

  • 陳彥全 (CHEN YAN-CYUAN) (Leader)
  • 洪裕翔 (Yu-Xiang Hong)
  • 鍾安 (AnJung)
  • 劉子雍 (LIU ZIH-YONG)
  • 張允昇 (Chang Yun Sheng)


Team Introduction

Hello everyone! We are the team “Ark Hualien”, consisting of five junior students from NCU (National Central University) in Taiwan. We all have been interested in Astronautics and other associated fields of study for a long time. Fortunately, we noticed this wonderful NASA Space APPs Challenge Hackathon recently. In our opinion, it is time to seize this perfect opportunity to challenge ourselves in this awesome event. Therefore, we all group together to join this incredible hackathon, looking forward to having a nice and unforgettable journey.



What “Ark Hualien” is

“Beyond mountains, there’s space. ‘Conquer the world’, what we ask.”


Brief Introduction

(Image: Some assets in this game floating in the cosmos.)


This, “Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS”, is a game emulating the whole immersive space journeys with several chosen crews, from Earth, through the universe, and finally, to Mars. With the wings of Ark Hualien ruling the waves of starlight throughout the space, with the cabins of spacecraft floating out to the Milky Way across the sky, the seemed fantastic but realistic journeys in this game would lead players to discover innumerable meaningful profound mysteries within the cosmos beyond the sky.

Close doors and fasten seat belts; organize energies and measure skills; make coffee and take deep breaths. Rather than just still look on the shining red planet hanging on the horizon, prepare to launch the new unforgettable journeys!


Game Genre

(Image: The game title screen.)


Simply saying, “Ark Hualien the Spaceship of the COSMOS” is a 2D side-scrolling video game, in which players can control many kinds of characters with different roles on the spacecraft in the process of the voyage from Earth to Mars.

By controlling them to do proper treatments to handling events in dangerous journeys, players should try their best to let the spacecraft and all crews inside can successfully reach the final destination, Mars.


Characters

(Image: The character selecting screen.)


In this game, players can select three from all characters at the beginning of the playthrough. Now, there are four characters with different professions, each profession has its unique expertise to do some specific works or actions. Every crew has its “health bar” which would be modified by lots of situations.

Be careful to choose crews to perform this tough task, because different crews may bring different methods to solve crises in this difficult voyage.


Stage

(Image: The map of the whole cabin.)


The main stage in this game is inside the cabin of the spacecraft, where, the most of time, those characters would move, work, and do other things. There are several major devices in various places throughout the cabin. Although there are not many, every device has its irreplaceable functions, each of which is important to the voyages. According to the different expertise of crews, they can do different actions with these devices.


Events

(Image: The event popup screen.)


(Image: The other event popup screen.)


Majorly, this game performs event-driven journeys from Earth to Mars. There would be many kinds of events that randomly occurred in the process of the whole journey. From minor faults to catastrophic failures, these events cover various fields and many of them are based on real histories of missions in the Apollo space program.

When an event occurs, there would appear a popup message box describing what is the content of this event and hints of how to solve it.

On this message box, which can be recalled by clicking the list of challenges, click “Roger” or “Got It” to normally close the message, or click “Learn More” to open the external link to some authoritative website, e.g. NASA, to learn more about similar events in real histories and other associated knowledge, to achieve the purpose of entertaining and teaching.

Special thanks to NASA for providing numerous associated data.


Win & Lose

(Image: The winning screen.)


(Image: The losing screen.)


The main target of this game is just “successfully reaching Mars”. Therefore, if this goal is reached, this turn of gameplay wins. Congratulations!

Instead, if, before reaching Mars successfully, one of the crews selected on the spacecraft is dead, that is, whose value of its “health bar” is equal to zero, this turn of gameplay loses.


Difficulty

(Image: The difficulty settings screen.)


After beating this game once, the game difficulty selector is enabled in the bottom left corner of the game title screen. Try to choose “Hard” instead of “Normal” to challenge to reach Mars with a more tough voyage.


Controlling

(Image: The main game screen.)


In the main stage of this game:

  • Switch among characters with number keys “1”, “2”, and “3”.
  • Move a character with arrow keys “🡄”, “🡆”, “🡅”, and “🡇”; or “W”, “A”, “S”, and “D”.
  • Use the left button of the mouse to click buttons.
  • Move a proper character on a proper device according to current events would automatically interact. If possible, there would be a circular progress bar appeared, which is needed to be waited to fully complete the interaction.



Why “Ark Hualien”

“We choose to go to Mars. We choose to go to Mars… We choose to go to Mars in this game and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because this game will teach us to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that playthrough is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”


For the Mars Exploration Program

About 28 years ago, Mars Exploration Program was formed in 1993 which now is still funded and led by NASA. This program has performed many difficult and meaningful missions, which all achieved considerable results. Researches on Mars would be a considerable degree of development in the future.

After we chose to go to the Moon, now, we choose to go to Mars and do other things, not because they are easier, but because they are harder. As the planet producing the most fantasies for humankind throughout history all over the world, Mars is so attractive that many people are interested in this attractive planet, regardless of age. That is why we chose this as our challenge in this hackathon.


For the Target Audience

According to the requirements of the challenge we chose, the target audience who would play this educational video game is middle schoolers (about 10 to 14 years old). Therefore, considering their possible interests and knowledge reverse of associated fields of study, we should produce such a proper design of the frameworks of this game that it is possible to try our best to maximize playability on the premise of maintaining educational significance, and by the way, perform much expandability for educators of these students to let them add or modify the content in this game, e.g. stages, events, and characters. The goals above are the most important things ever while we are developing this game.


For “Hualien”

To memorize the sweet homeland of one of members in our team, whose name is not allowed to be called directly, there is a cooperative consensus having been reached by each member in the team, determining that we had better to demonstrate our deep affection for this precious land in this game, in terms of result, titling this game with this touching name of that memorable field, Hualien, which make it efficiently to share such significant local feelings throughout the whole world, by this rare opportunity in this hackathon, at this place, at this time, in this world, together with our invaluable friends, who and us believe that this unforgettable miss can be delivered not only within the vault of heaven, but also into the deep sky far far away.



How “Ark Hualien” is made and work

“The program of this game radiates sacred energy of BUGS which the normal humankind cannot comprehend with their pitiful mortal minds.”


Notes

(Image: Using “HackMD” to note.)


To make a great game, we should make a great design first; to make a great design, we should make a great idea collection first; to make a great ideas-collection, we should make a great notes management; to make a great notes management, we should find a great notes management platform or software, that is, “HackMD”. Accordingly, in the process of this hackathon, we use it a lot to develop constructive productions.


Images

(Image: Produce arts of graphics.)


Some of the members of our team are such very reliable amateur artists that we can produce enormous exquisite graphics by ourselves using some digital painting software like “Sketchbook”, “Krita”, “CLIP STUDIO PAINT”, and others, to make this game more attractive and have a high degree of completion.

Additionally, we used many beautiful images in public domain from free open resources from the Internet, including but not limited to NASA, especially thanks to creators of these arts.


Programs

(Image: Code the program of this game.)


(Image: The game is based on “Unity”.)


This game is developed on one of the most famous game engines, “Unity”, which is both powerful and easy to use. With Unity, we use “C#” as the main programming language used inside the game scripts program, which is edited by “Visual Studio Code”. One of the members of our team is a “super Unity master”, who is very handy for Unity so that we can develop this game in short 48 hours.


Deployments

(Image: This game can be played on the website.)


＞＞＞ itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜

＞＞＞ Itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜

＞＞＞ Itch.io link: https://jcxyis.itch.io/ark-hualien ＜＜＜

Although we develop this game majorly on Windows 10 and Mac OS, thanks to the ability of cross-platform Unity, our game program project can be easily developed, compiled, packaged, deployed, and played among many different operating systems. Additionally, because of the hard work day and night of our programmers, this project can be packaged as such a light-weighted program that it is possible to let this game program be available on the website, which makes it easier for most of the people to play this game.

Space Agency Data

Data Sources


NASA and Its Partners


Others



How we use those data

Our project, Ark Hualien, is an educational game. And our approach to this project is that making a game that can let the player (junior student) learn knowledge about space while playing.

Because of the topic (“The Trail to Mars: Can You Keep Your Crew Alive”) and our project goal, we use these open data to design lots of interesting events that player needs to solve. While an event is being solved, there will be a message box on the screen, and there will be some space knowledge from open data in the message box. By that, the player can learn that information while playing Ark Hualien!

Hackathon Journey

“How would you describe your Space Apps experience?”

We feel that the activity in those two days is youthful and passionate. Although we almost did not sleep a wink in these two days and feel very tired, we discuss together, laugh together in the process of making our project. That is the best memory of our college life!


“What did you learn?”

In the hackathon, we have crafted the project all from scratch. During the process, we have learned a lot of abilities such as discussing the topic, teamwork with partners, programming a game, drawing materials, writing the official document, searching open information, making a slide and video, even giving a short speech, etc. To sum up, we have had a very fulfilling weekend and all of us have grown a lot!


“What inspired your team to choose this challenge?”

We are a group of students who love to play and make games. By chance, one of us found the information about this challenge. We saw a lot of interesting topics, and finally, chose the topic which related to making a game. In simple, the reason we chose this challenge just that we saw there has a topic related to making a game by coincidence.


“What was your approach to developing this project?”

Our project, Ark Hualien, is an educational game. We hope that the users of this project can learn from playing, not playing from learning. We also expect that this project can enter the public view through this activity, and it can make people knowing the problems of current digital teaching materials, even set off a wave of new generation digital teaching materials.


“How did you team resolve setbacks and challenges?”

Before we started making the project, we assigned works to a teammate who is familiar with the work. That will reduce the situations of we meet the difficulties as possible. Then, if one of us still meets some difficulties and he does not know how to solve them, he can write the problem to our online board which is used to store all information about our project. When any one of us does the work to a part, he will see if there has some problem that needs a hand. Following this model, we can use human resources efficiently and can solve all problems indeed.


“Is there anyone you’d like to thank and why?”

We want to thank a person who is the one of English advisory committee. He gives a lot of suggestions for our short video, presentation, helping us improving the introductions of our project very well!

References

Data


Images & Videos


Music & Sound Effects


Fonts


Tools

Tags

#NASA, #SpaceApps, #Astronautics, #Universe, #Space, #Mars, #Survive, #Unity, #2DSideScrolling, #ArkHualien, #BestGameForeverMaybe

Global Judging

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

The Trail to Mars: Can You Keep Your Crew Alive

Long-distance space travel comes with a multitude of health risks, but it is difficult to imagine the combined effects of these risks, especially for those who are not fluent in NASA jargon. Your challenge is to create an educational game for middle schoolers (approx. ages 10-14) that focuses on keeping an avatar alive and healthy during a voyage from Earth to Mars and back, and that identifies the most difficult challenges and the biggest risks involved in human spaceflight.