NetworkAR for ALL

Making recess more interactive and productive. All with a single game. Let's make reality better with virtuality.

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Inspiration

It was when I was in the 3rd grade of schooling when I first started talking to my classmates. Yes, you are talking to an introvert here. The only time children get to enhance there interpersonal skills and other practical skills by themselves is during Recess time. This is when all the extroverts go out and talk to every child in the school, but, the introverts sit somewhere in the corner slowly finishing up there lunch. Reports from WHO state that 75% of depression patients are introverts. The introverts face so much in their life because of this. Many become one as they are too shy. This gets so much worse for the differently abled and special children. If there is no one to cheer them up, they break down and lose all their confidence.

The inspiration to my hack today were the following questions: _ " What if there was a gaming platform where everyone was dependent on each other, removing the differences between these children? " _ _ " What if the mechanics of this game required people to interact with as many new people as they can? " _

The inspiration to the game strategy and gameplay was taken from _ Minecraft _ and _ GTA _

What it does

The game is designed in such a way that every other person in the game depends on all the players in their surroundings. It is a mission completing game. The game serves missions to these players such that they full fill each other's requirements.

Every mission is about collecting a set of commodities in their inventory such that it is enough to make a new item. For example, bricks, wood and paint are enough to make a house. The players need to either find rarely available hidden boxes and also be lucky enough to get what they want, else, they have to use the (unrealistic) money in the game to purchase things or exchange things from other players. To know if the other player has the required item, both have to be friends with each other. Shaking hands with each other adds them to friend list database of one another.

This loop makes people interact with one another. The game sparks a topic to begin the conversation between 2 people which is proven to be the most difficult step for anyone. Getting into a habit and practice of talking to others can slowly remove the signs of introversion in people. The conversation required for exchanging or purchasing is a high-level conversation and can really be helpful for helping children in their growing stage.

How I built it

The game that I am talking about is only in forms of proof-of-concept. There exists no serious flaw in the idea presented which could lead to the game to be impossible to be developed. Please refer to the _ 'Challenges I ran into' _ section for more clarification.

Images were edited using Paint3D on windows 10 for adding Virtual objects.

Challenges I ran into

Conditions of emergency for all my team-members made me the only person in team. Lack of skills for AR development was truely regretted by me.

It was a completely new field for me as game development and mixed reality development were completely out of syllabus for me. Finding out and understanding the requirements for the game helped me develop the different elements of the game along with the rules/policies required for them.

My belief and trust in the possibility of the idea to be a good one made me take up the challenge of developing a proof-of-concept of the idea. My vision to help children come out of their introverted nature gave me motivation. Facing the difficulties I have gone through after nurturing my introverted nature since childhood is also a factor for my vision of helping them and aiming to make this game.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

There was a lot I learnt. I fought bravely with my resistance to stay an longer at the hackathon. It was my stubbornness to not leave without presenting my idea. I know I failed in making even a prototype of the game at the hackathon, but the happiness of atleast presenting my idea in the given constrains overcomes it.

It was a mind strengthening experience I would say. It is not easy to be awake the whole night, not working on any code being a tech guy, but only a presentation. With all team member gone, it needs some serious self-motivation to keep going.

What I learned

Being a full-stack developer helps a lot.

What's next for NetworkAR for ALL

Finding people with a similar mindset and vision, ready to work with me on this project. Making recess more interactive and productive for children. All with a single game. Making reality better with virtuality.

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