Overseer

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  Screenshot of gameplay

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  Our game's logo

Inspiration

We were inspired by the idea that people’s emotions are often shaped by their environment, not by direct control. So we asked ourselves: what if a game reflected that? What if, instead of controlling the character, the player controlled the world around them, such as temperature, humidity, or climate, to help the character feel happier? In real life, you can’t always control how someone acts, but you can shape their surroundings to support them. That’s what our game is about: creating emotional balance by tuning external forces.

What it does

This game is a unique simulation where the player doesn’t control the character directly, but instead shapes the environment to influence the character’s emotional state. The character moves on its own using simple AI and reacts to environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. The player can place heat sources, cooling devices, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers across the map to change the surrounding climate. The character has preferred comfort levels, and their happiness increases when the environment matches those preferences. The objective is to create the optimal balance of temperature and humidity to make the character fully happy, reaching a 100% happiness level triggers a win state. This mechanic encourages players to think creatively, adaptively, and empathetically as they work to influence happiness without direct control.

How we built it

We created Overseer with Python and Pygame, merging basic AI behavior with fluctuating environment values and some basic devices. The character moves on its own towards optimal temperature and humidity areas while the player manipulates the environment through special devices. We tested the prototypes on Replit, used VS Code to make the main parts, and uploaded it to GitHub for the final code review and submission.

Challenges we ran into

Building this project was a long and strenuous road for us. Throughout this, the main issues we were having were primarily UI issues. Which included the smiley face when the character hit 90%+ happiness, not showing, and the "Win Screen" when 100% was reached, not showing. Unfortunately, with the time we had allotted, we were not able to complete debugging the smiley face issue, but on the positive side, the win screen does now pop up, indicating the game has been completed.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Making this project has taught us how to adapt to different UI of websites and platforms we were not previously familiar with. We are proud to have powered through all these issues and created a fully functional game. The main components of our game include automated AI movements that interact with their environments, dynamic environments fully simulated by the user, and progressive difficulty that increases as the game progresses.

What we learned

Building this project took us on a journey away from traditional gaming. In this, we learned how powerful indirect control over a character can be and how deeply the environment can affect a character. Speaking on technical skills we have gained through this project, some standout ones are Pygame tools and learning how to utilize it, and UI design, making it appealing to the user.

What's next for Overseer

For this project, some future updates we could push out could be adding more characters with their unique preferences, for example, one character could prefer a cold environment while another prefers the heat. Next, we could also add in obstacles and terrain, which can include walls and water in the environment, forcing the character to further adapt to the environment as well as changing the dynamic of the environment, adding another layer to the game. Finally, to challenge the user, making it more difficult to win, we could add resource management, limiting the resources the user can use, and making it more difficult to complete the game.

Built With

• pygame
• python