Final Project

I have decided to scrap my initial idea for a final project, and have instead decided to create a simple multistage game.

This game is intended to be an educational experience about the environment and human history. The game starts with a player in a forest, the style and POV of which is similar to an early Pokemon game, and the player is able to navigate the forest, which is also populated by animals. The player must walk about and interact with the trees, which will be “chopped” down to make a vehicle. The player can also interact with the animals, who will react positively.

Once the vehicle is completed, the player is taken to a world map and can go to three other stages, collecting resources for more complex and modern vehicles. However, as the player moves on to the other stages, interacts with more animals and constructs more vehicles, the environment reacts more and more negatively, with the animals becoming hostile and the landscape burning and becoming desolate. Eventually, the player is left alone on the planet, free to explore the desolate landscapes of the world alone.

I plan on creating a physical controller, similar to the nunchuck on the original Wii with a x-y joystick and one button.  I also hope to create the controller using clear acrylic, with LEDs inside that change according to how much destruction the player has caused the environment, starting with a green controller,  to a yellow one and finally to a red one.

The materials I need are:

  • Clear Acrylic
  • Several RGB LEDs
  • One X-Y Joystick
  • One Push Button
  • One Arduino
  • One Prototyping Board
  • Screen or TV to present game

I think that the most challenging parts of creating this project will be creating the game, because I am not so confident in coding the game mechanics and am sometimes not confident in my programming logic skills. I am also worried about the game design and the assets I use, especially the visuals and the music/audio. I want this game to be simple but effective in immersing the user into the meaning of this game. Lastly, I am in the process of creating the game and everything is going relatively smooth. However, I want the game to be coded efficiently so that I do not have hundreds or even thousands of lines of code. I want to be able to replicate stages and objects’ behavior properly so I do not have to copy code between different classes.