HEAT WAVE: LAST BREATH

Inspiration

Human activities play crucial roles in climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. People living in poverty are often hit first and worst by climate change, but are least responsible for the crisis. This game explores the impact of climate change on socioeconomically vulnerable communities, through a focus on the case study of low-income Hong Kong residents living in sublet flats during the summer heat. Through our game “Heatwave: Last Breath”, we aim to provide a new perspective on the unequal impact of climate change and inspire players to work together towards a sustainable future.

What it does

The game takes place in Flat 14B, a 3-resident sublet apartment in Hong Kong.

It is currently in the middle of summer and Hong Kong has once again broken temperature records (just like in 2025, 2024, 2022...). From 12-5PM, the apartment gets dangerously hot and your body temperature increases by 1˚ every hour. To survive, your character must find ways to keep your temperature below 40˚C so you don't die of heat stroke. However, make sure you have enough money leftover to pay your rent at the end of the day! You have already missed a month's rent and your landlord is getting impatient.

Over the course of three days, each character must decide on an action each hour of the day from 12-5PM - where they must balance between surviving the heatstroke and affording rent for another day.

You get to play as one of three low-income residents, each with varying starting points: Xiao Ming, Xiao Mei, and Grandpa Chan.

Xiao Ming is a young male worker with a high school degree. He works from home and earns a salary of $400 per day.
Xiao Mei is a middle-aged female worker who dropped out of middle school. She works from home and earns a salary of $350HKD per day.
Grandpa Chan is a retired old man with hypertension. He receives a daily government pension of $43HKD per day. Luckily, his son, who works as a construction worker, gives him an additional allowance of $157 per day

Each character has their own health levels and incomes depending on factors of age, gender and economic status, leading to different levels of difficulty. This reflects how social factors can exacerbate the impact of climate change unequally on different communities.

How we built it

After agreeing on the challenge ‘Coding for Good’, we worked together as a team to research various social issues and decided to focus on the interrelationship between climate change and poverty. Particularly, as one of our teammates is from Hong Kong, we decided to narrow down to the specific case study of climate change impacts on low-income residents in Hong Kong. We chose to represent this issue through an interactive game simulating the survival experience of a resident living in a sublet apartment during the summer.

Considering the diverse skillsets of our teammates, we decided to split the project into various tasks to work on as smaller groups, of which include:

Research on the intersection of climate change and poverty, and a focused case study on low-income residents in Hong Kong.
Developing the backend code for the game on Python
Designing a user-interactive game interface with Figma

Challenges we ran into

How to find an unique idea regarding climate change topic and make it into an interactive game with meaningful message within.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are not only creating a fun game, but also insert an important message about the importance of small actions that can save our lives from the effects of climate change, a heatwave!

What we learned

We learned how to make a meaningful project, regardless of our different backgrounds and skills. Talent wins games, but teamwork win championships (Michael Jordan)

What's next for HEAT WAVE: LAST BREATH

Combining the front end visuals and back end code to make a complete game Varying temperatures throughout the day
Varying temperatures throughout the day
Heat Wave: Night mode
Typhoon Simulation