Compost Chaos

Sort, play, and save the planet in our eco-adventure game! Learn to recycle right and have fun making a difference. Are you ready to take on the recycling challenge?

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Inspiration

In a country where consumerism is the norm, there is no surprise that we produce a large amount of trash very year. On average, 75% of Americans' trash is recyclable but only 25% is ever actually recycled. This is a huge gap and we knew instantly that this was the problem we wanted to tackle. Imagine a day where everyone is well informed on recycling processes and identification, our norm would be a more sustainable planet.

What it does

In this 3D game, you are working in a recycling factory where items come in through the conveyer belt excitedly waiting to be given new purpose. Your job is to take the items off the belt BEFORE they reach the end and place them in their corresponding bins - Compost, Plastics, Paper/Cardboard, and Batteries. You're already a winner by learning these important distinctions but if you want to win at this game, you will need to correctly sort all the items as the belt gets faster and the items start coming in a lot more.

How we built it

This game was developed using Unity and C#

Challenges we ran into

The main one we ran into was object collision relationships, more specifically- the intricacies with things like the conveyer belt moving in one direction, the character being able to pick up items, placing them in bins and all without having the in game character interacting with the wrong aspects of an object and randomly spinning or leviatating. This took up a couple of hours and we certainly learned a lot from the random bugs we'd unlock each time we thought we had a solution.

This was also both of our first hackathons so one of the major challenges was adjusting to the fast paced and little to no sleep nature of the event, it was really fun learning from workshops and events but it was difficult to manage our time trying to do as much as possible while still being productive on the project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Submitting a completed project was our main goal and we are extremely proud of achieving this feat. Another main achievement was seeing our idea come to life in the way we wanted without making drastic changes for the sake of time or difficulty, the same idea we went in with was the same that came out.

What we learned

For one of us, it was the first time working on game development and it was a very fun, interesting and educational journey- I don't think I would've learned and delved into game development as much had it not been for this fast paced event. For the one with prior game development experience this experience was filled with lots of new aspects and problems he had never seen before, especially the game logic- it's a beautiful thing that every game is unique but with unique things come unique and never before seen problems.

What's next for Compost Chaos

We hope to add complexities to the items that come through the conveyer belt, like a plastic plate with food on top. In this case the user would need to go to the compost been first, go to the optional sink, and then the plastics bin. Another feature we are hoping to explore is having a summary once you leave the game showing the possible new items that came form all that you recycled correctly. Adding more complex items brings the idea of recycling closer to home for most people and with enough playing this game I truly believe people will consciously think about what they're throwing away and what can come from it if recycled.

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