EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery

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  Title Card

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  Roulette

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  GamePlay

Overview

Are you ready to embark on a thrilling environmental adventure? Introducing EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery, the ultimate hidden object game with a twist! Dive into a polluted forest filled with various types of trash, from paper to plastic and beyond. Armed with specialized tools, your mission is to clean up the mess while uncovering hidden wildlife.

Pollution on beautiful landscapes is a harsh reality, animals are trapped within trash, leading to a decline in the quality of life for both us and the ecosystem. At EcoTrader, we're committed to making a change. Through our gaming experience, we aim to educate future tourists and locals about the dangers of a dirty environment, how to clean it, the importance of cleaning it, and the hidden beauty within every landscape. “EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery”' is a game for everyone, casual, yet meaningful, set in the picturesque Chilean location of Valdivia.

But there's a catch – you start with just one tool to clean. Will you get the pliers for paper, the pointer for plastic, the magnet for metal, or the gloves for glass? As you clean, you'll earn progress towards unlocking more tools, making your cleanup efforts more efficient.

But here's where it gets exciting – you can share tools with friends through Google Wallet! Simply scan their QR code and import their tools into your game, fostering teamwork and collaboration in the fight for a cleaner environment.

With the objective of discovering all the hidden animals, EcoTrader offers a challenging yet rewarding experience for players of all ages.

So, are you ready to save the planet? Join us at EcoTrader and make a difference, one tap at a time!

Inspiration

We, as a team, are proud of our surroundings, the views on our country are remarkable, however, we are facing a big issue, trash. It ruins our views and damages our local wild-life. Asking our peers, very few of them could tell whether a piece of garbage was recyclable, or even how to pick it up without getting harmed. Some of them barely notice when there is trash around, and do not recognize the damage to our culture. We figured, if we could show how beautiful our surroundings are, and how damaged they are, people could take action. But how? That is when the idea of “EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery” came in, we will inspire people to take virtual action on environmental damage, through collectible items they can get from their community or by themselves, through recycling and fixing the environment.

What it does

“EcoTrader” is a gorgeous Game that represents our local wildlife, and how trash makes it difficult to appreciate. Through picking up trash with the right tools, the environment reveals itself to be quite beautiful, and you might find some local wildlife too. “EcoTrader” is a game for everyone, and you need everyone to win, well not everyone, but a handful of people. As you play along, you can exchange the trash you picked up for tools. However you get a tool when you first boot the game (that you can add to google wallet), but through community you can ask for tools in other peoples google wallet, and add them easily to your own inventory. Be careful not to damage your tools, as they can be broken, and you will need to add them again.

How we built it

“EcoTrader” was built as a team, we brainstormed what we wanted to do, and from there we divided the tasks, from sound effects, to development to art, all of us worked really hard to make our dream game a reality. In the game design area, we focused on defining the functioning of the different game systems, taking care of what is most accessible, engaging and fun for the players. The area of development worked with Flutter and Flame, getting to know the best practices while coding what was needed, the art department worked with pixel art, taking into account endangered chilean species for the animal models, and the sound effects team developed beautiful ambient music and sounds to take the player on a trip to Chilean wildlife.

Challenges we ran into

As a team, coordination was really important, however, we were all trying to balance our regular jobs with this project. Finding time to get together was a challenge, but as we all are passionate about the project, no major setbacks were caused by this. Another setback was getting to know our own landscapes, and with which one we wanted to work on, that was beautiful but easy to develop. On the other hand getting the main mechanics to work was also a challenge, since we wanted to mix and match a regular app with a game, getting to know Flutter, while also handling integrations was difficult but extremely rewarding.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

Getting together on the first meeting and having the semi-final draft ready was really rewarding and it motivated us all. But when we first got the demo, it was another kind of proud, we had worked so hard in learning a new technology, working with art, when it was not our specialty, that we all felt immensely proud. When we showed the prototype to our friends, was also a great experience, taking into account all their feedback and applying it to make an even better product.

What we learned

While working as a team we figured out how to take positive feedback and apply it to our conduct. We were working against the clock, so the stakes were high. We really wanted to end up with something that meant something, that represented us, so we needed all the feedback that was possible, as you may know, when you work alone you do not see your own faults, we learned to appreciate our team, with its perks and quirks. On a technical note, we learned how to develop a flutter app from the ground up, and how to import our dreams into a tangible app. On the other hand, getting the Google Wallet API to work alongside our app, was also pushing our limits, since we had never before integrated an API, let alone a Google API, but getting the passes to work within the app, and in the wallet, was a great step into a tangible game.

What’s next for EcoTrader

We want to grow community, grow the need for getting our landscapes clean and beautiful as they are, we want to get to know our own wildlife. There is so much in store for “EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery”, getting it into the cellphones of other people would be a dream come true, seeing how the community thrives and recycling becomes more popular, seeing more people picking up what they left behind. We want to make a change, through “EcoTrader: Valdivia Recovery” we will be able to do so. We also want to encourage others to take action not only online, but on their surroundings as well, that is why, upon launching the game, we will launch a hashtag in which gamers from all around the globe can show off their polluted environments, before and after they cleaned. No matter how small or how big the impact, if we all work together, we can make a change.

Built With

• flame
• flutter
• google-cloud
• google-wallet-api