Jetpack Geography!

Answer geography questions as you fall towards a beautiful neon map, using your jetpack to land on the correct country. Race friends, collect landmarks, and complete your atlas!

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Inspiration

I love globes and maps of all kinds and I loved Carmen Sandiego as a child. That game and games like it, were formative to my childhood and taught me a lot (though I was always playing for fun, not to learn).

What it does

For this iteration, I wanted to add progression in a way that felt natural in the game and had the same vibe of learning while playing, not playing to learn. The Atlas represents the ultimate goal of Jetpack Geo, to build your own living atlas. I hope to add many more interactive elements in the future to push it even further.

During development it was helpful to have NPCs to test multiplayer features like drop ranking. I left them in because they would constantly enhance my own play experience, and after my daughter told me "I like playing with the bots because I can slow down and watch where they land when I don't know the answer". They also greatly enhance the scenery when they drop while you're looking at the new Atlas.

Finally, with a new focus on stars because of progression, I wanted to do something for the players who don't hang back. Nerds like me who want to show off their geography knowledge as well as their jetpack agility. So I gave the crown an explosive upgrade and included proper rankings for each drop, with a special call out for the top three.

How we built it

I continued to learn Blender and was able to texture all of the landmarks in two modes, with more advanced materials using PBR. This turned out to be a large learning experience, which was stressful but appreciated in the end. The rest was in Horizon Worlds Editor.

Challenges we ran into

Oh the learning curve on advanced texturing into horizon is so steep! NPC behavior between the editor and mobile has proven inconsistent with my implementation. Changes to countries and landmarks is a lot of work, since there are a lot of them.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am really proud of the map. I love the camera for the atlas, I think it adds a lot of drama. The world feels much more alive, even when playing solo.

What we learned

I learned that Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt, and dozens more factoids! I also learned (again) that my eyes are a bit larger than my stomach, this was an intense month and I'm looking forward to doing some optimizations and refactoring.

What's next for Jetpack Geography!

More cosmetics and landmarks and questions. I want to try an AI announcer. Making the NPCs more unique, and do more things in the world. World variables for unlocking large map features for all players. Last but not least, a real VR release.

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