Wall Sheep

Inspiration

As college students, all of us have a common thing that we wanted to do: Make money. Coming from a background of low-to-moderate income household, all of us previously wanted to expand our wealth such that we can sustain ourselves in this world. As we grow older, we and other peers have been introduced to trading in high school. During COVID, we all saw the opportunity and wanted to familiarize ourselves with how the market works, and what steps it takes to slowly build out wealth. With a couple hundred dollars that we loaned from our parents, we took the risk and now have portfolios that range within the five to six figures.

We want to transfer these skillsets onto the younger generations: For those didn't grow up with money; for those who want to make their lives better; For those who want a chance. We want to bring these values into a fun game that all audiences want to enjoy. By doing so, they can slowly learn and build up the skillsets to start trading in real life with the confidence to do so!

What it does

Wall Sheep is a simulation game where players manage their finances while navigating daily life. Players earn money through activities like working at a factory, invest in a dynamic stock market, and must pay recurring expenses such as rent. The stock market fluctuates over time with realistic mechanics like volatility, sectors, and market hours. Players must balance income, spending, and investment strategies to survive and grow their wealth. To win, the player must be able to earn a portfolio of 1 million dollars overtime. Have insufficient funds, and the game loss is given.

How we built it

We built Wall Sheep using Unity and C#. The core systems include:

A custom time system to simulate days, hours, and events like rent cycles
A stock market engine with stochastic price movement, sector-based shocks, and candlestick tracking
A portfolio system for buying/selling stocks and tracking gains/losses
UI systems for menus, notifications, and interactive panels
Audio managers for music and sound effects across scenes
A save/load system using JSON serialization to persist player progress

We structured the project using manager-based architecture (e.g., GameTime, Banking, MusicManager) to keep systems modular and scalable.

Challenges we ran into

Some of us come from various background: A couple of us are in majors that demonstrate that understand the knowledge necessary to learn the fundamentals of stock trading, while the others are in majors that handle the technical portion of the game, such as coding, debugging, and other various implementations required to create the game. Working alongside this, we faced many conflicts between the knowledge of both parties (i.e. Including/Excluding features that may be feasible before the deadline, learning to collaborate using GIT, Supporting/Resolving conflicts between game mechanics, etc). Nevertheless: We tore up endless nights and school days to proudly present a game that can provide a functionality to our vision!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Integrating into a completely different game engine (Godot -> Unity) within the last two weeks
Building a fully simulated stock market system with candles, volatility, and sector behavior
Music and audio creation
Implementing a functional save/load system that preserves game state
Creating a cohesive gameplay loop involving work, investing, and survival
Designing a system where time meaningfully impacts gameplay decisions (event shocks that influence the market)

What we learned

We learned that very inspirational games like these require much amounts of dedication and effort into our ambition. With only a team of 4, we were able to accomplish many tasks that a normal developer team would take months to build. However, we did have to exclude some of our game mechanics for the deadline sake. Without these mechanisms, the idea of playing the stock market wouldn't be as influential as to how we experience it in real life.

What's next for Wall Sheep

By obtaining a large developer team, we aim to fully integrate the stock market into full force, such as adding buy/sell orders, creating PUTS/CALLs, adding newspapers and information that help influence the stock market, etc.

We also plan on integrating the glossary terms as achievements, such that the player can consistently learn what they are doing, as well as techniques that can be unlocked.

We hope that you enjoy our game as much as we do!