-
Main menu display
-
Instructions
-
Create your swarm!
-
Watch their interactions as time progresses
-
Notebook entry to record observed behavior
-
Hypothesize and check when you're finished to see how you did!
-
Who will make up your swarm?
Inspiration
There's no doubt that our future revolves around science and technology. So how do we encourage young minds to consider science careers? In our strategy-based simulation game, we combined scientific concepts with an interactive platform. With our game, we hope to inspire players to use problem-solving and critical thinking skills to further their knowledge.
What it does
Swarm is a game that requires players to use observation and strategy to form hypotheses on how bacteria behave. To play, the player places 'good' bacteria around the screen to their preferences. Also on the screen are randomly generated 'bad' bacteria. The ultimate goal of the game is to correctly identify the instances where each 'good' bacteria will either reproduce or die. The instances are determined by location and contact with another bacterium. To keep track of progress, a notebook feature is included along with a "check" feature that allows the player to see if they guessed correctly. Speed and reset features are also included to allow the player to control their simulations. Other included features include a bacteria species index, detailed instructions, and generation (cycle) count.
How I built it
To create this game, we used the Unity Game Engine and C#. For visual aspects, we used GIMP and a Wacom drawing tablet.
Challenges I ran into
Before Hackathon, we were both very new to game development. Learning the features and getting used to Unity definitely took some work. We were also determined to make something that was personal to us, but useful for others as well.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We were able to successfully create our game in less than 24 hours! We worked very hard to overcome (lots of) roadblocks and design every aspect of the game how we planned.
What's next for Swarm
We hope that people become more interested in concepts like this. By using similar ideas from Swarm, we hope to apply this to many more STEM fields.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.