Smort City

Inspiration

When we saw the prompt “Smart City”, we immediately wondered what it is exactly that makes a city smart. Since we didn’t know very much about smart cities, we figured that others would probably have questions too. So, we designed Smort City, an easy to approach game that explains the basics behind smart cities and explores the potential dangers that come with them. Technology can be really cool but it can present threats to our privacy and well-being as well, Smort City attempts to approach those threats in a light-hearted way.

What it does

Smort City is an idle game in which you inherit the position of CEO for the company Smort, Inc.. Your goal is to leverage your position in the company to take Smort City from dated city to modern metropolis. To do this, you purchase upgrades for the city which enhance its technology and earn your company more money from its residents - the Smorts. As the technology in Smort City becomes more advanced, the privacy afforded the Smorts dramatically decreases. We hoped that this progression would show the balance of convenience and safety versus privacy and corporate greed. The upgrades and progression are examples of real technological advances (with a couple exceptions) that might be implemented into real cities soon!

How we built it

We entered the competition with creating a game in mind. When we set out to choose the theme to pursue, we fell into the Future Cities category. We began by creating an outline of the game, which lead to creating lists of features and state machines to guide the flo, while keeping track of small details. To create our game, we chose Unity. Each team member picked a task: writing scripts, creating UI, as well as world-building and design. Each member worked on individual parts and pushed their creations into the project, where all parts were joined to make the final product.

Challenges we ran into

Zane: This was my first time using Unity. I’m primarily a traditional “software engineer”-type programmer and am used to a rigid structure in my programs where I can easily design and understand the connections between each piece of my program. I also did a lot of graphic design for this project, which is not something I usually do.

Piyush: My main challenge was getting used to Unity since this was my first time using it. I also don't usually do a whole lot of UI work, so that was something new I had to get accustomed to.

Collin: I ran into challenges with creating the visuals for the city, since it was a lot of setting up the people and car AI for pathfinding. A lot of it ended up being a lot more complicated than I ancicipated.

Nataliya: I ran into a few challenges. One of them was editing the music that was to be put into the world. The main problem was that I chose a song that was not made to be a loop, so I had to keep editing it, so that it would flow and I had little to no experience with audio editing. Also, since I was completely new to Unity, I had a bit of trouble with adding sound effects to cars driving. I was confused about how to check my cars, and I had trouble identifying where the sound should go.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Zane: The menus, title screen, and flavor text that I made all turned out better than I expected them to. I’ve always enjoyed playing quirky and silly video games and I was happy to be able to inject some of that into this project.

Piyush: I'm proud of the upgrade tree I designed, since I got to think about how to design them and implement them in a way that tried to minimize the amount of hardcoding. I think I succeeded for the most part, so it was pretty fulfilling. Collin: The city I made turned out really cool, and I had a ton of fun creating the difference visual indicators for the upgrades. The ones I got done turned out really neat.

Nataliya: I am proud of the music, since it was infuriating to edit, but gratifying to actually have in the game. I am also very proud of the sprites that I made for the widgets, since I think it adds a little bit of a unique touch to our game.

What we learned

Zane: I learned the basics of game design with a team and I also learned the basics of designing a game from scratch using Unity. I was able to participate in every aspect of the game’s design, from asset creation to logic design. Even though it was a small project, I feel like I gained a lot of experience in seeing a project through from beginning to end.

Piyush: I learned a ton about game design. I've never worked with a game engine before, and it was really cool to see how I could create a lot of things and leverage it's power.

Collin: I learned a lot more about game design and how to create cool effects and scenes in Unity.

Nataliya: I learned a different set of skills than I expected, like audio editing. I learned how to semi-navigate Unity (especially the collaboration part). I learned about the core of creating an idle game.

What's next for Smort City

Right now, _ Smort City _ is a commentary on the constant search for greater convenience at the cost of privacy. However, in the future, we want to expand it to a full-fledged game. We can expand the city, polish the visuals and controls, and add more meaning and context to the scores. We have a lot of ideas and are excited to expand on our project in the future!

Built With

• unity