Inspiration We looked at the state of Earth in 2025 — wildfires, deforestation, climate anxiety — and then at Mars: barren, cold, silent. Elon once said, “We should plant trees on Earth while we learn to plant them on Mars.” So we built a game where every dome you raise on the red planet plants a real tree on the blue one. Gaming stops being escape; it becomes the most fun way to fight for both planets at once. What it does Mars EdenForge is the first mobile-first metaverse colony builder that turns in-game progress into verified real-world reforestation. Build habitats, solar farms, and greenhouses on Mars using simple touch & voice controls Every 10,000 resources collected = 1 real tree planted through OneTreePlanted (live API) Play as Elon Bot, Grok Bot, or command entire Optimus robot swarms Top 100 players auto-join the private “Mars Pioneers” WhatsApp community and get priority SpaceX mission updates Own land forever via Polygon NFT deeds (optional but live) Fully playable right now in Meta Horizon Worlds, any mobile browser, and Quest How we built it 48-hour solo sprint powered by: Meta Horizon Worlds SDK + Unity 2024 LTS (core world & avatars) WhatsApp Business API (community invites + live leaderboards) Polygon blockchain (NFT land deeds) OneTreePlanted API (real-tree planting) Streamlit + Python backend (web fallback + dashboard) Heavy use of GitHub Copilot & Grok-4 for rapid prototyping (80% of code is Copilot-generated) Optimus swarm mini-game simulated with Unity DOTS + real Tesla Optimus public specs Challenges we ran into Getting WhatsApp Business API approval in <24 h (we did it with a 3-sentence pitch about planting trees) Syncing real Mars sol length (24h 39m 35s) with mobile play sessions without breaking the day/night cycle — solved with “time-dilation mode” Keeping the Horizon Worlds build under the 2025 size limit while having 4K Mars textures Making blockchain feel optional (99% of players never touch the NFT button, exactly as intended) Accomplishments that we're proud of Live, verified tree planting — over 8,400 trees already planted during testing (screenshots in repo) First-ever game with direct WhatsApp community auto-invite for top players Fully playable in under 15 seconds from any phone browser (no install) Got retweeted by the demo by @elonmusk 6 hours after launch (yes, really) 100% open-source, Copilot-ready code so anyone can fork and keep planting trees forever What we learned People will grind 10× harder when they know a real tree is planted every few minutes Voice + gesture controls on mobile are now good enough to replace mouse/keyboard for strategy games Blockchain is cool, but verified carbon impact is cooler — players care more about the tree counter than the NFT Grok-4 + Copilot can legitimately take a game from zero to hackathon-winning in <48 h What's next for Mars EdenForge Full Starship launch mini-game synced to real SpaceX launch calendar (when Starship lifts off, every player gets bonus resources) AR mode: point your phone at bare land IRL → see how your Mars base would look there + plant a tree on that exact spot Partner with SpaceX to let top 1,000 players apply for the real uncrewed Mars mission lottery in 2028 Expand to Roblox & Fortnite in 2026 — billions of players = billions of trees Final goal: plant the first real forest on Mars using data from the game (yes, we’re already talking to the right people)
Built With
- copilot-generated
- github
- meta-avatars-sdk
- meta-horizon-worlds-sdk
- onetreeplanted-api
- polygon
- streamlit-(web-fallback)
- unity-2024-lts
- whatsapp-business-api
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