EnviroMaker

Make decisions and use your resources wisely to race to the environment's aid in this board game with a virtual dice roller/card drawing system.

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Inspiration

Our project was inspired by the gradual mounting pressures of growing environmental issues, such as climate change. As these issues worsen, more and more are we faced with difficult decisions that force us to consider how much we value the environment versus our quality of life. The idea for this game was born from a desire to explore these ethical dilemmas that are sometimes overlooked when discussing how to tackle the environmental issues we as a society face.

What it does

EnviroMaker is a board game that does the following:

1) Physical gameplay. Players will use a gameboard, game pieces, and physical in-game currency to play the game.

2) Computer-assisted dice rolling and card selection. Similar to a die, players will use a user-friendly interface to generate a number between 1 and 6. Players will also draw a card virtually, through the UI.

3) Encourage reflective thought. Players must make difficult choices about environmental crises to try to progress to the end of the game. This encourages group discussion among players.

How we built it

EnviroMaker has a physical component and a digital component. For the game board, game pieces, and capital/wellbeing tokens, recycled materials (cardboard and scrap paper) were used. For the dice rolling and card selection mechanism, we used the Angular CLI to create a simple web app. Our website randomizes the cards drawn and simplifies the process of playing the game, making it easier to focus on the game itself as well as allowing for future additions and features

Challenges we ran into

  • Sourcing physical resources and tools (paper, glue, cardboard base)
  • Figuring out the core design philosophy for player progression in the game
  • Creating a resource management system that is fair and engaging for players
  • Programming a card management system that randomly distributes cards based on a dice roll

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As with any hackathon, we are very proud of how we created a comprehensive board game in <36 hours to fulfill the challenge. Our best efforts were spent on the brainstorming and creative design process, as we developed a fun and engaging game that challenges the players to think critically about the environmental issues that have a global impact on our generation. Additionally, we were able to implement a randomized card-dealing system which players could interact with; a digital solution to complement our physical components.

What we learned

  • Real-world environmental issues and the associated potential ethical considerations
  • Collaborating on a creative planning process in a way that is organized, flows, and lends itself to new ideas
  • How to create a web app using the Angular.js framework
  • Using Javascript to dynamically update web pages in real-time

What's next for EnviroMaker

  • Increasing the scope of the environmental issues discussed
  • Having the web page publicly hosted and the game open-source, for wider availability
  • Varied topics of focus
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