Galactic Treasure Hunt game

Players can fly to real nearby star systems by themselves or in a team and carry out missions to search for alien objects.

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Inspiration

I volunteer as a galactic cartographer for the European Space Agency's Gaia Mission's Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. I've created many maps of the galaxy and helped to publish several papers on hot or nearby stars. The Gaia Mission has revolutionized our view of the Milky Way but is largely unknown to the general public.

I wanted to create an astronomy-themed game with Gaia Mission inspired skies and information about our local galaxy. Like all good games, the first (and second) goal is to have fun but the educational information is in the background for people who are curious.

I submitted the original version of this game to the first mobile content in May. This second version has many bug fixes and has been completely reorganized to add more progress (including a training course and 9 missions) and more star stations.

What it does

The Galactic Treasure Hunt uses the Horizon Worlds sublevel system to create star stations at five real nearby star systems. Each of the four starships has its own set of star stations it can visit. The sublevels are loaded and unloaded as the starships travel around. Persistent variables are used to keep track of all the objects that each player has collected.

The game has 9 different missions that a player or team can complete by collecting specific objects at the star stations.

How we built it

The game was built using Blender-created models, Meta-supplied models and TypeScript in the Horizon Worlds desktop editor. The Gen AI system was only released in the EU two or three days before the contest deadline so I only used it to create one simple robot used for room decoration.

Challenges we ran into

Many of the desktop editor bugs I ran into during the first mobile contest were fixed while I was working on this second version of the game. While not perfect, the desktop editor is now a much more stable tool.

This time I would say that the main difficulty was the difficulty of testing multiplayer scenarios. The TypeScript console is only available in the single player desktop editor. Games would be much easier to debug if the TypeScript console worked in multiplayer games.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Recruiting a team of play testers. This time around there were 4 or 5 play testers who helped me test the mission system and find bugs in multiplayer interaction. The game is far more stable as a result.

What we learned

I learned a great deal about multiplayer issues. The game works much better for teams as a result.

What's next for Galactic Treasure Hunt game

For this second contest, I've implemented most of what I wanted to do for the Galactic Treasure Hunt game. At some point I'd like to organize an event in the game to get some feedback and perhaps invite an astronomer to give a talk in the game.

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