Boom City

Inspiration

As students living in the Seattle area, we have witnessed firsthand the problems caused by urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is often characterized with rapid expansion of low-density residential housing, single-use zoning, and sole reliance on private automobiles for transportation. It is correlated with higher energy use, pollution, traffic, and lower community cohesiveness. In addition, urban sprawl contributes to natural habitat loss and wildlife destruction. One way to combat urban sprawl is by implementing something called "smart growth" in cities. Smart growth is defined as a management strategy meant to direct the growth of cities. It is meant to promote economic growth, while focusing on creating livable neighborhoods. There are 10 principles included in smart growth: 1) An increase in housing opportunities for all. 2) The creation of pedestrian-friendly communities. 3) The encouragement of citizen participation in the community decision-making process. 4) The development of communities that are distinctive and unique. 5) The creation of opportunities that are favourable to the private sector, since private-sector involvement is essential to smart growth. 6) The integration of a variety of land-use types into the community. 7) The preservation of open space, agricultural areas, historic structures and sites, and environmental resources that provide critical services to the area. 8) An increase in transportation choices. 9) The support of urban development that includes, rather than excludes, existing neighbourhoods. 10) The design and construction of compact homes and businesses that use energy efficiently. (Source: https://explore.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/urban-sprawl) As game developers, we wanted to address the problem of urban sprawl through developing a game where the player has to face municipal problems and abide by the principles of smart growth. Through this game we hope to raise awareness on the issue of urban sprawl and communicate its importance to inspire action, and provide resources that people can use to get involved in their own communities.

What it does

"BoomTown" is a 2D interactive local government simulator where the player is the mayor of Smartopolis. The game’s purpose is to highlight and inform players about the many real world issues found in everyday cities, surburban areas, and towns, specifically Urban Sprawl. By playing this game, players are engaged in learning about the benefits of Smart Growth Communities and inspired to take action in their own communities! Along with our game, we also developed a website that educates the user on urban sprawl and smart growth, and provides resources for the user to get involved in their own communities and create change.

How we built it

We used Godot to develop Boom City, and Figma to create our informational website UI. We used Pixelorama to create the assets for our game.

Challenges we ran into

We faced challenges with coordinating between our teammates because conflicting schedules led to a lack of in person meetings in the beginning of the hackathon. However, we overcame this by working independently to brainstorm ideas, then meeting online to narrow down on one and refine it further. In the end, we were able to coordinate our tasks remotely and finish our project successfully!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our game and website idea, the execution, and using game development to address a real world problem.

What we learned

We put a lot of research into our project. We learned more about urban sprawl, smart growth, and how cities enact legislation that address urban sprawl. Specifically, we researched legislation Seattle has introduced in the past two years to address issues relating to housing, transportation, and the economy. In terms of technical skills learned, we improved our efficiency in creating modular and flexible art assets, and creating scalable code.

What's next for Boom City

We plan to take the short demo game that we created for this hackathon, and expanding it to be more comprehensive of the topics relating to smart growth. We would also like to add more gameplay features to make it more interactive and engaging. For example, adding power ups to introduce more tools, adding a city council to advise the player, and improving the UI. We hope to add an overarching story and turn the game into one that you can play over a longer period of time, showing real life metrics of how a city can grow over time if smart growth actions are taken. We also plan to find more resources for the user to learn more about how they can get engaged in their community by implementing a database of resource links, allowing the user to search for their city-specific resources.