The Road To Mars

https://youtu.be/j-9RC4e1UFQ

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10GUx4lSvmOz38mKkYIsG40NgMYqgPr5d?usp=sharing

The Road To Mars - is the Game where player choose who will survive through journey.

Our Project is MVP of Strategy Game for the challenge - The Trail to Mars: Can You Keep Your Crew Alive

The main events of the game take place in the not too distant future

Gameplay

With our final vision of the game, we addressed all hazards of such a journey to Mars.

The main purpose of this game - make the learning process about space travels easy and fun and inspire STEM education for youth.  

Our MVP already contains good visual effects and graphics in-game which should be attractive for young people.

Player will familiarize himself with the main hazards during such journey. And with this Game he will learn how to protect people in deep space from them. The importance of good planning is key to the success of any mission. 

The whole gameplay could be split into 2 parts - preparation for the flight and flight itself.

During the preparation phase, Player should be able to select crew members, passengers, prepare all systems, chose the best usage for available space in the cargo modules, select optimal start window etc...

During the flight, Player will monitor vitals for crew members and passengers and their mood, cosmic weather, different sensors, and will act in case of any dangerous events (or in order to prevent such dangerous events). The main goal of the game - keep crew and passengers alive!

Mission Concept

In the same time during the hackathon, we analyzed a lot of space agency data related to the challenge and tried to include or address them in the scenario of the game. Due to limited time on hackathon implementation of all these features could be done in the future.

Our goal was - to be as close to the real world as possible, so we used real calculations for spaceship size, its modules, space available for crew members and passengers, etc.

Sected trajectory of the flight has a direct impact on the duration of the flight. And therefore has an impact on the amount of food, water, and other supplies required for the journey. That's why we tried to implement orbit motion and trajectory for spaceship based on real data. Player will learn how to plan the whole journey and what must be taken into available but limited cargo space of the spaceship. What should be better - take additional food into cargo modules or put additional plant farms in these modules?

Player will learn about the number of calories required per person for the flight and important vitamins etc

The gravity field problem was resolved with the structure of our spaceship (inspired by https://voyagerstation.com/) - it will allow creating artificial gravity on the board. Required parameters also were calculated based on real data (https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/).

Mental Health modelling

Also in the future we want to include the Agent Based Modelling of human groups behaviour. Because it is very importand for mental health of crew and passangers.

We was ispired by Kerbal Space Program, Surviving Mars and so on strategies.

We used the following resource in order to define the trajectory to Mars:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/lets-go-to-mars-calculating-launch-windows/

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/chapter4-1/

we were inspired by the following resources (based on them included in target scenario option with cargo space for plant farm/food): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_pbs8dG1oM

https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/everydaylife/jamestown-needs-fs.html

Idea about bio-protection against cosmic radiation was born because of https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/microbes-in-space-jpl-researcher-explores-tiny-life

we also understood how co-related GCR and Sun radiation. So we will include in the gameplay such (almost) unexpected events as solar flames (inspired by https://www.nasa.gov/analogs/nsrl/why-space-radiation-matters ) and for these cases Player should equip starship with additional shields.

Also inspired by this article: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/how-nasa-protects-astronauts-from-space-radiation-at-moon-mars-solar-cosmic-rays

analyzing hazard of Hostile / Closed Environment we decided to include related factors as one of the main elements of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgGt03MjHfA

Some unexpected events may happen during the flight like a broken system for carbon dioxide reduction, or broken solar panels, false results from temperature sensors or oxygen level etc

after analysis hazard of isolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPinASEKA_I we understood that it could be simulated on the Earth in similar conditions like https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-selects-us-citizens-for-ground-based-simulation-of-life-in-space

and we came up with idea that each crew member will have their own set of psychological and mental characteristics. And it will be the player's decision - how to select and combine crew members in the best way before the flight since their professional characteristics will not always be aligned with their psychological profile

Software used in the project: https://assetstore.unity.com/, Source for animation: https://www.mixamo.com/, Models creation: https://www.blender.org/ and https://www.mixamo.com/

We implemented game intro and 4 main locations required for gameplay according to the scenario, plus switching between them.

We selected related music from open sources for each of these locations and situations

NPC health decrease modelling:

ncluding datasets concerning the following topics:

• Brain: https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-32/
• Immune system: https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-288/https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-211/
• Bone: https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-345/
• Heart: https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-270/
• Muscle: https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-326/https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-135/

It was an incredible adventure in the world of modern space science. The most important thing that we learned was to work fast and work hard. And everybody learned something from each member of our team. Somebody finds something in the technical sphere and somebody in art.

Our inspiration was space himself. And modern tryings to conquer it. IF now we look at space through telescopes. Soon we will look on infinity from the visor of the spacesuit. And our game is simulated that expected moment.

It was an interesting journey where our team through all obstacles become a monolith that can resolve all difficult tasks.

And for all that we want to thanks to NAU HUB in Kyiv that helped us with 24\7 support. Also, it was a huge help from our mentors Kateryna Ageeva and Alexander Butaluk. One by one we only lonely stars, but together we are galaxy!

Source of music: https://soundimage.org/

Assets for graphic: https://assetstore.unity.com/

Source for animation: https://www.mixamo.com/

Models creation: https://www.blender.org/ and https://www.mixamo.com/

We were inspired by this resource in order to address the problem with the absence of gravity field: https://voyagerstation.com/

Following resource was used in order to calculate the size of our starship: https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/

In order to protect crew and passengers from cosmic radiation, we propose to use fungi-based "anti-radiation" shield. We were inspired by this article: https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newschernobyl-fungus-used-in-space-experiments-7773034

#Mars, #Game, #Kyiv, #Kiev, #Ukraine,

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