Antarctic Project
This is my final year project for the Applied Immersive Game Design major at the University of Canterbury with a team of 2 people.
This project is still in progress, it finishes on the 8th of November.
Problem
The International Antarctic Centre (IAC) in Christchurch is an interactive exhibition space with the aim to educate people about Antarctica. Its exhibitions include sensory interactions (animals, Hagglund rides, 4D cinema, storm dome), many text-based exhibitions pieces, and atmospheric video footage. The IAC aims to distinguish itself from a museum by displaying information about Antarctica, the science in relation to the continent, and how the continent is affected by Climate Change.
Project
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Research
We researched Antarctica's geography, wildlife, scientific research, and how climate change affects the continent. We also researched Antarctica related applications which are already out there and technologies which we could apply to the IAC setting.
As part of our research, we had a meeting with our client to understand their needs and what they wanted out of the project.
As part of our research, we went to the IAC as users to experience what a normal visitor would. Then, we got a better feeling of where the gaps were that we could focus on and what type of users visit the International Antarctic Centre.
After visiting the IAC we decided to focus on Climate Change from an individual's point of view.
We researched more in-depth Climate Change and the views of individuals on the topic.
We found that young people think of climate change in a social context, while older people think of it more in an economic context.
Since young people are the ones who have a bigger motivation to learn about Climate Change, we decided to target our application at young adults from the ages of 18 to 30 years old.
The next step was to make our persona with the information we had gathered.
Brainstorming
We brainstormed possible ideas. For example an environmentally friendly tracking app, a VR game to show what the future would be if no climate action is taken, and a simulation game that shows you the impact of individual choices on the environment.
Project Proposal
We decided to go with the simulation game idea because we thought it would be more informative and engaging than a habit tracking application which requires the users to be more committed to it and which could result in less engagement. I created the project proposal and we presented the idea to our industry mentor and they approved it.
This project focuses on making individuals aware of how their everyday choices can have an impact on the environment, empowering them.
Download the Project Proposal
Sketching
I started sketching some ideas and getting feedback from my team. The sketching was about how the game would work and how we wanted to show things to our players.
Design
After sketching ideas and deciding what the game was going to be, I created some images which explain what the game elements are.
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I made some medium-fidelity mockups of what we wanted the game to look like since I had to create the UI and I wanted to have a better idea of what the final prototype would look like. I used Adobe XD to create the mockups.
Prototyping
After doing the mockups, I started doing some of the building blocks of the UI on Photoshop to be used on the actual game in Unity. My partner did the level design and I reviewed it and made some changes.
Next steps
The next steps are doing user research and see if our game actually makes people aware or empowered. I already did the questionnaires for the research.
Create a project report for the client.