Operation Atlas: Blaze Edition

Inspiration

LA is getting hotter. Los Angeles broke 28 high-temperature records last month alone - with inland neighborhoods hitting 100°F. Data shows that these temperatures disproportionately impact those in vulnerable communities, because they have historically been given less resources.

A solution already exists - ShadeLA, a USC and UCLA-led initiative with the research, the funding, and the institutional backing to cool this city before the 2028 Olympics. They focus heavily on decentralized communities all working together to create shade infrastructure.

One of their only obstacles is reach. People know it's hot. They just don't feel the weight of what that means for their others in their community, or that they can have any role in changing it.

This is the problem we are trying to solve.

What it does

Essentially, the player is trying to collect waypoints - titled "quests" - as they begin to overheat in the sun. At the same time, they are rapidly becoming dehydrated. In order to survive and complete the quests, they must go from shaded area to shaded area, as well as collect water to sustain themselves. Between "rounds," based on how they performed previously, they are able to add shade infrastructure to help them survive the next.

How we built it

We built the game using Unity for the Meta Quest 2. We had two 3D modelers working on animations and prefabs, while two others performed research and integrations into Unity.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled with unexpected merge issues and conflicts through github, as well as towards the end, Unity began crashing and randomly duplicating our assets, scripts, and materials.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

WE GOT IT DONE! All of our "shade" in the game is created by the positioning of the sun so it changes as the game continues. We created a system where the sun sent a direct raycast to the player. If the cast is broken then the player would be in the shade and would stop overheating.