Backyard Foragers

Title screen
Path selection screen
House scene
Recipe book
Plant location
Plant inspection
Tea preparation scene
Tea completion
Congratulations screen

Inspiration

Developed by a trio of techy nature lovers, we sought to incorporate our shared interest in the outdoors into our project. Concerned by the growing separation between individuals and the natural world that lies just out the back door, our team sought to implement a fun but educational game to help people reconnect with nature. Our solution involved offering our players a tailored gaming experience based off of their local ecosystem, thus those living in the Northeast can learn about flora local to them just as much as players in the Southwest can! Making the outdoors accessible to all was one of our top priorities!

What it does

Choose one of three paths-- chef, herbalist, or brewer-- and expand your knowledge of the field by learning proper foraging techniques, new recipes, and related flora! Meant to help connect individuals to their local ecosystem, Backyard Foragers matches the unique biome of the player for a tailored gaming and learning experience.

(The current implementation of the game is to demonstrate the possibility for expansion using our own backyard as an example! Chamomile was chosen as the highlighted plant; it is present all throughout North America thus making our demo applicable to a wide audience)

How we built it

All the assets were created within Aseprite and Krita. Game implement was developed within the Unity game engine. Unity is C# based application, and by creating and utilizing various scripts, we were able to bring the game to life.

Challenges we ran into

Working in Unity presented many challenges to our team, especially considering that none of us had previous experience with the software. Our problems began with familiarizing ourselves with Unity’s version control-- Unity DevOps Version Control. Considering the fast-paced nature of hackathons, time was against us from the start, but our dedication to creating hand-drawn sprites, title cards, tile sheets, and assorted assets only exacerbated the struggle to manage our time effectively. Scaling our pixel art properly also posed a large problem as you can probably see. Some of our graphics came out too low-resolution for the full game-play screen. Another challenge our team faced was the scripting. Applying multiple scripts to a single character quickly became confusing and muddled. All of this is to say, we learned a ton! And while our game clearly has a long way to go, the challenges we faced at sheInnovates prepped us well for the long road ahead.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The sheer amount of product we were able to create in such a short amount of time is a big accomplishment to us. We created practically everything seen on screen through hand-drawn pixel art made within the last 28 hours. Being able to create a functional game in an engine that none of us were familiar with previously, was an achievement!

What we learned

This project was a great introduction to the practical application of game design and implementation. Our team had little to no experience in all the applications and engines we used for this project so everything was a first for us. Everything comprising this project was an ability to learn, from background scene drawing, sprite animation, C# scripting, audio handling, post-processing, etc.

What's next for Backyard Foragers

We have a lot of ideas for expansion, this is just to name a few (in no particular order)…

Regional/ Seasonal: our most ambitious and exciting expansion would allow us to customize the plant population for the region and season accurate to the player, for the most relevant education.
Different paths: Different tracks for the player to specialize in (Chef, Herbalist, and Brewer)-- each with a focus on different plants and fungi.
Expansional Plants: In a more completed version of this game we would like to have a plethora of plants to learn about with different uses associated with them, and proper/sustainable foraging practices.
Character customization: A core concept of our game is accessibility, we would like our players to feel seen and represented through personal customization of the avatar.