Dragon Daycare

Title Screen
Bedroom Scene
Kitchen Scene
Nursery
Dragon Case
Dragon Traits
Minigame Arcade
Tic Tac Toe Minigame
Travel Abroad

Inspiration

The inspiration for Dragon Daycare comes from pet care games such as Bubbu, Bubbu 2, My Dragon, Zen Garden, and PetZ. The initial idea and concept for Dragon Daycare came to fruition during an in-person brainstorming session we had during Meta Connect last month.

What it does

Dragon Daycare tasks the player with adopting dragon eggs from the Nursery, for a price, then incubating those eggs in the Hatchery until they are ready to hatch. The rarer the egg the longer it takes to hatch, but the profits are worth the wait! Once an egg is finished incubating, the player hatches the egg and is awarded a dragon into their inventory, the dragon carries both unique traits and randomized skin and spotting colors that can been seen when caring for and traveling about with your chosen dragon. The rarity of the dragon and it's randomized traits drive the value of each dragon. The player can then perform care tasks to replenish the dragon's happiness meters which in turn grant the XP required to level up, unlock new areas, unlock rarer dragon eggs, and unlock addition slots in the Hatchery. There are 4 different care tasks, sleeping, eating, relaxing, and bathing.

How we built it

We utilized Meta AI in many ways while building Dragon Daycare, from scripting, to sound generation, to 2D artwork, 3D models, textures, and it even drives our shopkeeper Sasha! We also used Meta AI for designing our first merch collection drop for the World. While we leveraged Meta AI for many aspects, many of the 2D elements are hand drawn, and our dragon was hand sculpted in Nomad Sculpt and textured in Blender. We also made use of the public asset library for scene elements, sounds, scripted templates, and VFX.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges we ran into was the 10kb max size limit for Persistent Variables, we found out about this limit the hard way but ultimately reached a solution. Both the Dragon Case and the Hatchery fetch and store somewhat complex data for each slot, and we were running into an issue storing that data, but we found the solution in the API and relied on compression and decompression functions to be able to store more complex dragon data. With these functions we are able to store more data for each dragon such as skin and spotting color values, various trait values, birthday, sell value, and more across play sessions, and for the Hatchery we are able to store more complex incubation data for each slot such as egg type, start time and date, hatch time and date, and more across play sessions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the fact that even though everyone on the team lives so far apart, we were able to work together and turn our idea into reality for this competition. Everyone on the team contributed something special to the process of creating Dragon Daycare!

What we learned

We learned how to better use various creation tools such as Horizon Desktop Editor, Nomad Sculpt, Procreate, and Blender, and also how to better leverage generative AI throughout the process to compliment and speed up those workflows.

What's next for Dragon Daycare

We want to take more time and really drive home the progression systems in the game, as we feel there is a bit of room for expansion on the current systems. We also want to make use of the new FBX animation feature to rig and animate our dragon models. Beyond the submission date we also have plans for live ops and the release of promotional materials. We would also like to add customizable wing skins in the future.

Built With

ai
blender
metahorizon
nomad
photoshop
procreate
typescript

Submitted to

Meta Horizon Creator Competition: Mobile Genre Showdown - Reloaded

Created by

*Technical & Creative Lead*
I led both the technical development and creative direction of Dragon Daycare. I also worked as PM for both the game as well as the Devpost submission, working closely with each team member on a variety of different tasks and media.
Using TypeScript I built and implemented the core game systems by leveraging the Core, Camera, UI, NPC, and Avatar AI Agent APIs. I provided concept art in the ideation stages of the project, worked closely with the 2D and 3D artists for a cohesive art style, and designed the visual layouts for the HUD and various UIs. I led daily brainstorming and scene building sessions, and provided the team with the tools and resources needed to succeed. I was also head of AI Integration, ensuring that we leveraged every single Gen AI tool available in the Desktop Editor.

Austin Egge
XR Game Dev / Mobile Game Dev / Game Design / Project Management
a real ideas guy, a go getter, co-game technical design, co-environment design, lizard care specialist, a whole lot of here and theres, dreamer, public relations, research and development, quality control, voice acting, team hydration mentor, i worked a shift for the employee parking lot attendant so he could go to a red wings hockey game so technically parking lot attendant, social media czar.

Dale Three
Hey guys, Dale here
I focused a lot on art design and helped in all ways I could including brainstorming, 2d assets, Ai generation, texturing and 2.5d layouts . From 3d models to 2d static images and UI design concepting. Environmental Design using Blender , Photoshop, and AI was a fun experience on this project !

Aaron Heyman
Hello my name is Aaron I've been a 3d creator here at Horizon Worlds since beta. Looking forward to the growth weve been building for!
I worked on the technical design efforts as well as focusing on optimizing 3D models and animations, including rigging the dragon mesh and leveraging platform tools to achieve desired animation effects. This project was a great opportunity to explore new tools, find creative solutions, and push the boundaries of the platform's capabilities.

Josh Kaplan
I focused on 2D artwork and helped guide the overall art direction with Dunder and Austin, I contributed several hand drawn pieces to the project including the HUD buttons, menu buttons, and other artwork that I designed in Procreate. I also helped with scene building in Horizon.

Sassy Babi