Sustainable Saga

Sprite of the villain
Background for the village
Quiz after the boss fight

Inspiration

The inspiration for Sustainable Saga stemmed from the game named Prodigy. We wanted to have an open adventure game that would also be educational. The focus was to make sure the users were able to learn about sustainability, but also be engaged and have fun while doing it.

What it does

Initially you are loaded into a town named Fleetwood. By talking to non playable characters around the town, you learn about Waste Monger (representation of unsustainable actions like deforestation). Eventually you learn how to take this villain down and fight him to save Fleetwood.

How we built it

We used Pygame in Python to build the code as it was pretty efficient and easy to use. We built the game by transitioning between game modes like ‘topdown’, ‘platformer’, and ‘Forest’. All of these had unique mechanics such as ‘platformer’ which had ways to attack and ‘forest’ which had ways to move in all 4 directions while interacting with NPCs.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge we ran into was switching between the game modes (different areas). This led to unexpected NPC positions that we fixed through trial and error. Other challenges included: frame updates, collision detection, dialogue management, and more.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are really proud of how we were able to build a game that was both engaging and educational. By implementing features like moving around, speaking to NPCs to gain knowledge, and fighting a boss, we are proud of how smooth our game ended up feeling.

What we learned

We learned how to make a product both engaging and a great tool for learning. Through things like visuals, information, audio, and gameplay mechanics, we learned about the factors of making a game the perfect learning experience. We also deepened our knowledge on sustainability and what the future holds for us if we don’t make a change.

What's next for Sustainable Saga

In the future, we plan to continue to bug test our game by sending it to people who are interested. Also, a plan of ours is to make a survey that these testers will do to give us both feedback and strengths. We want to improve this game and optimize it to the perfect balance of being fun and educational.