Creation of a mobile game about environmental sustainability

Creation of a mobile game about environmental sustainability Final Report Víctor Enrique Alcázar López Thesis supervisor - Prof. Antonio Chica Calaf June 26, 2018 Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Report Scope ........................... 1 1.2 Document structure ........................ 1 1.3 Formulation of the problem ................... 2 1.4 Objectives of the project ..................... 3 1.5 Context .............................. 3 1.6 Analysis of scope ......................... 4 1.6.1 Scope ........................... 4 1.6.2 Risks ............................ 5 1.6.3 Methodology and rigor .................. 6 1.6.4 Project management tools ................ 6 1.6.5 Monitoring ........................ 7 1.7 State of the art .......................... 7 1.7.1 Stakeholders ........................ 7 1.7.2 Research on the subject ................. 9 1.7.3 Video games on the market ............... 16 1.7.4 Game Engines ....................... 18 1.7.5 Conclusions ........................ 18 2 Prototypes 19 2.1 First prototype .......................... 19 1 2.1.1 Idea ............................ 19 2.1.2 Mechanics ......................... 20 2.1.3 Teaching methods ..................... 20 2.1.4 Conclusions ........................ 24 2.2 Second prototype ......................... 24 2.2.1 Idea ............................ 24 2.2.2 Mechanics ......................... 26 2.2.3 Teaching methods ..................... 30 2.2.4 Conclusions ........................ 30 2.3 Thrid prototype .......................... 30 3 Final game 32 3.1 Introduction ............................ 32 3.1.1 Idea ............................ 32 3.1.2 Mechanics ......................... 35 3.1.3 Teaching goals ....................... 37 3.2 Player interviewing ........................ 37 3.2.1 Survey questions ..................... 38 3.3 Technical features ......................... 38 3.3.1 Notication system .................... 39 3.3.2 Town ............................ 39 3.3.3 Map and Pathnding ................... 40 3.3.4 Villager .......................... 42 3.3.5 Resources ......................... 43 3.3.6 Buildings and Factories .................. 43 3.3.7 Level Conguration .................... 43 3.3.8 Serialization ........................ 43 3.3.9 Translations ........................ 44 3.3.10 Day/Night cycle ...................... 44 2 3.3.11 UI components ...................... 44 3.3.12 ReWild console ...................... 44 3.4 Cut out features .......................... 45 4 Project management 46 4.1 Temporal planning ........................ 46 4.1.1 Programme ........................ 46 4.1.2 Project phases ....................... 46 4.1.3 Schedule alterations .................... 48 4.1.4 Gantt diagram ...................... 49 4.1.5 Approximate duration .................. 50 4.1.6 Resources ......................... 50 4.2 Economical Management ..................... 51 4.2.1 Human Resources ..................... 52 4.2.2 Hardware ......................... 52 4.2.3 Software .......................... 53 4.2.4 Licensing ......................... 53 4.2.5 Indirect spending ..................... 53 4.2.6 Total budget ....................... 54 4.2.7 Conclusions ........................ 54 4.3 Sustainability ........................... 55 4.3.1 Economical area ...................... 56 4.3.2 Social area ......................... 56 4.3.3 Environmental area .................... 57 4.3.4 Conclusions ........................ 57 5 Conclussions 58 5.1 Work done ............................. 58 5.2 Interviewing results ........................ 58 3 5.3 Future work ............................ 60 Acronyms 61 Glossary 62 Bibliography 64 4 Abstract This projects aims to nd an application for current research about Serious Games for Education about environmental sustainability into a mobile game application. Keywords: Serious Games, Sustainability, Environment, Mobile Games, Education, Games. Acknowledgements I want to thank my love, Paula, my family and all of my peers and playtesters that contributed to the poject in one way or another. Special thanks to Guillermo Serrahina, Gerard Belenguer and, last but not leat, to my thesis supervisor, Antonio Chica for his guidance. Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Report Scope This document aims to provide a insightful description about the process of building a mobile videogame about environmental sustainability using Unity and a detailed explanation of two other approaches that the thesis authors found to be not adequate. The report, though, does not aim to be a step-by step guide on how to build such a game, as it would prove very tedious and unproductive. It has been chosen to only provide insight on key gameplay elements and technical decisions that will enable future endeavours in this eld to build a similar project or extend the current one with easiness. 1.2 Document structure The document is divided into several chapters, and each one provides dierent information on the project based on its topic. Below, an explanation for what each chapter aims to tell can be found. 1 Introduction This chapter explains the investigation work done previous to the project's making, aswell as giving the reader context about how the report is structured and what it is about in detail. Prototypes This chapter is about the prototyping phase of the project. It will read as a description of the three prototypes developed during this phase, as well as the reasons they were used or not as the nal game. Final game This chapter will dive into the details of the nal game's design and its technical features. It will also feature a section in which the questions proposed for the player interviewing phase of the project are written down on. Project management This chapter explains the methodology followed for developing the project, aswell as the sustainability aspect of this project. Conclussions The last chapter wraps up and summarizes the work done, then goes o to explain the future work the thesis authon suggest can be done on top of this project, aswell as sharing the project's results with the reader. 1.3 Formulation of the problem Environmental sustainability has been a key topic for the past few years. It has been demonstrated [Ins17] that our current level of consumption and, by consequence, resource-depletion has and is having a very harmful impact on planet Earth and its biosphere. Several measures are currently being taken [Age16] by corporations and governments alike, but our planet may be calling for a more fast and radical change in our way of perceiving nature. 2 Activists and NGOs Independent environmental activists and NGOs may be interested in this project's conclusions, as those can be used as a tool for activism and/or for gaining reach and support. Target audience The target audience for this game will be people with a capacity for understanding the dynamics of natural resources exploitation and the implications in the environment - and also has a smartphone. This population segment will consist of a subset of mobile game consumers that pass the age of 8, as this age has been demonstrated [DH09] to be enough to grasp concepts as abstract as the one previously mentioned. 1.7.2 Research on the subject There are numerous papers that work on the subject of serious games about education for sustainability. The majority of the work on this eld relies on more traditional gaming experiences, such as board games or role playing experiences in the classroom or via interviews with real life stakeholders. During the course of the research process, several games have been analyzed and will be briebly explained further below. From UNESCO's guide on simulation and gaming for environmental education [Tay83] Spring green motorway It is a roleplaying game about the building of a motorway through a village and its outcomes on all stakeholders. It is thought of as a classroom experience, with each student getting the role of a dierent stakeholder in a sutuation of conict regarding the building of 9 a highway that runs through the middle of a once quiet and pacic english village. The houses game On a A4 sheet of paper, students must stick some previously built paper houses to it following a certain criteria. The game aims to teach students about the implications of urban planning and pushes them to understand new criteria and ways to understand city layout design. The poverty game It is a card game about poverty and disease and how they relate to farming practices and the environment. The players take the role of an Central African village and have to plan ahead the various inconveniences that may arise during the season. Caribbean sherman This is a game about understanding the issues with exploiting the environment and the problems it causes to workers and their families alike. This game in particular focuses on shing in a caribbean island. From Sage Publishing's Simulation and Gaming special issue on Climate Change In this issue of Simulation and Gaming, connections between climate change education and simulation, gaming and debrieng are drawn. The issue highlight the importancy and eectiveness of raising awareness about Climate Change (CC) via gaiming experiences. The following paragraphs will consits of the game's title and a citation to the paper it was originally developed in. Then, a brief description of its focuses and teaching methods will be provided. 10 A Simulation of International Climate Regime Formation [KA13] Present a classroom simulation that specically addresses the international relations dimension of global warming. Keep Cool [Eis13] Integrates issues of GreenHouse Gas (GHG) mitigation, climate-change adaptation, and global politics. Greenify [LCJCS13] Game that uses social networks to promote actions against climate change. A Perspective-Based Simulation Game to Explore Future Pathways of a Water-Society System Under Climate Change [VvdBO + 13] The case study is water management in the Netherlands under future climatic conditions. The game dynamically maps the involved actors' norms and beliefs relative to water management within a scenario exercise. It is about conicting points of view and is played with eld professionals. Land Policies for Climate-Change Adaptation in West Africa: A Multilevel, Companion-Modeling Approach [DB13] The game presents another local-level adaptation study in West Africa. If Local Weather Was Our Only Indicator: Modeling Length of Time to Majority Belief in Climate Change [SWR13] Focuses on the perception of climate change. The long-term, gradual process of climate change is dicult to apprehend for both individuals and communities because local, fast-uctuating weather patterns vary from year to year. Integrating Climate-Change Mechanics Into a Common-Pool Resource Game [FKK13] This paper reects on the challenges in the design of climate-change games. 11 From Sage Publishing's Simulation and Gaming issue on Natural Resource Management The following games' investigation focus is natural resource management. Each game focuses on one or more resources and simulates one or more in game stakeholders that have special interests on the resources being focused upon. The following paragraphs will consits of the game's title and a citation to the paper it was originally developed in. Then, a brief description of its focuses and teaching methods will be provided. SHRUB BATTLE [DM07] Shrub battle is a game about understanding the development of vegetation in rural areas, and how its development may aect the landscape and, in turn, the touristic interest of the region, all while having in mind the necessities of local farmers and ranchers. KARKONOSZE [KKM + 07] This game explores the conict over the exploitation of the Karkonosze mountains in Poland. The skiing industry is rapidly taking over the natural resources the mountains produce for its own benet. This is a game about balancing nature conservation eorts versus economic development in the region. Microworld gaming of a local agricultural production chain in Poland [MMS + 07] This game explores sustainable farming and Ecoagriculture. BUTORSTAR [MLE + 07] Butorstar explores the complexity of the Wetland ecosystem and its conservation by focusing on the principal stakeholders that benet from it. From herder to scientists, the wetland is a very valuable ecosystem that aects animal welfare and the livelyhoods of many people. 12 VPA-KERALA [WE07] In this paper, a game was developed to explore the topic of the management of coastal zones. The authors use video-lming techniques to create an interactive educational tool, a Visual Problem Appraisal (VPA) on integrated coastal zone management in Kerala, southern India. First, students are given a ctional mission and initial knowledge of the context by watching a documentary. Then they get the opportunity to perform virtual interviews with local stakeholders based on audiovisual material. Finally, they explore the use of VPA directly with stakeholders and they discover that the mere projection of these lmed interviews succeeds in enhancing social learning and collective management principles. From other papers ATOLLGAME [DPJ + 06] A game about managing freshwater lenses, that is, water reserves built up by rainfall below tropical islands, accessible through a well. This lenses provide its own set of challenges when managing them, as their overexploitation may lead to saltwater entering the wells because of the wet limestone the lenses are found on top of. The game simulates the relations between landowners, public ocers and other stakeholders. RIVER BASIN GAME [LSY04] A River basin management game, where the water is simulated using marbles and a board on a slope to represent the river basin. Players use small sticks to derive marbles for their own use just like irrigators would do. On the basis of several experiments in Africa, the authors discuss the ability of this simulation game to generate new ways to eciently manage this resource. 13 PIEPLUE [BLP07] Pieplue is about river basin management. It's a game that combines the use of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and computerized simulation, as it facilitates the exploration of a large range of time scales, the thesis authors explain. The authors designed a test bed that makes explicit the diversity of interactions among water users. It also provides an opportunity to establish a debate on water sharing amidst overall water use. This game aim to explore the relationship between farmers and the water in river basins. DUBES, MÉÉRVISTIE, and others [BvD07] A series of games about policy development. Players may take upon the roles of stakeholders, clients, analysts and much more to explore the relations of changing policies to a large ammount of natural resources. Propose a six-dimension typology of functions associated with games in policy-oriented contexts. JOGOMAN [CJD07] A game about water management in peri-urban areas. Players will explore the various dynamics in urban development regarding to land and water usage by taking upon the roles of various stakeholders. Architects, enterpreneurs, public ocers and tennants will have cooperate to nd sustainable solutions to their needs. The authors point out that games provide a useful learning environment to construct and share understanding about concepts, procedures, and behavioral patterns. FISHBANK-ILE [QUSM97] A game about sheries management and its delicate dependance on the natural resources it depends on. 14 The author uses traditional experimental economics to simulate the problem and proposes a formal approach to evaluate the benet of a debrieng session after a gaming experience. In this paper, the authors deemed noteworthy that players who beneted from knowledge exchanges tended to perform better than those relying on their own judgment. Surng global change [Aha06] This game allows one to walk through the complex argumentative landscape along changing roles and to identify societal consensus. Water Wars [Hir10] Game about water distribution in New Mexico. MAE SALAEP [BPTB07] In its paper, the authors describe a series of simulation games involving members of a community in Northern Thailand. The paper's authors have developed a sequence of three dierent simulation games representing the same area. Each one of them deals with a specic issue brought up during the previous gaming session. The benet of this iterative approach is to allow stakeholders to deepen their understanding of the dynamics of natural resource management while, at the same time, rening what aspect of it is more important to them. This games focus in watershed management. They provides a context to simulate water and land management in watersheds and how farmers and other stakeholders are aected by it. 15 1.7.3 Video games on the market A variety of videogames have explored the subject of environmental sustainability. Below there can be found a brief explanation of the basic mechanics of some videogames. Mobile games Several games in the mobile market loosely follow the tone of this project, based on a keyword search on the Android Play Store, we can extract a collection of games that are valuable to get inspiration from based on the project's objectives. Although a lot more games have been downloaded and played by the Researcher, only a handful have been found to be related with the project's objectives. Below it can be found a list of those games with an analysis of it in the context of the project. Pixel Farm Farming simulator game played in portrait mode with a pixel art aesthetic. Some mechanics about planting and harvesting seem interesting. My Oasis Zen game about growing a garden in your mobile device. It is aclicker game with low-poly 3D graphics. The player experiment a bonding experience with their tiny simulation, and can be a viable way to communicate with them. Dont Starve Itisasurvival game about resisting the harshness of nature and various monster attacks. Some mechanics like exploration and the dynamics of creature Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) might be useful for the project. 16 Animal Crossing Pocket Camp A simplied version of the original Animal Crossing series for mobile devices. An industry giant with a very high ammount of polish. The general tone of the game generally is harmonious with nature, and its mechanics can be used to convey a sense of connection with nature Desertopia An idle clicker game that consists of watering a desert to help nature in it sprout again. The general idea behind it aligns nicely with the objectives of the project and some ideas and mechanics could be used for it. Pocket Plants A garden simulator game with a cartoon-y art style. Some of its mechanics and tone might be useful for gaming experiences oriented towards children. Greening 2 An idle game about terraforming tiny planets by absorbing water and several other elements from asteroids and using them to fertilize the planet's soil. Very in depth with its mechanics and achievments, might be worthy to further explore for implementing a late game progression system. Phone Story Phone Story is a game for smartphone devices that attempts to provoke a critical reection on its own technological platform. Other platforms Eco Online MMO about crafting resources and coordinating to help save the planet from climate crysis. Climate Game Climate Game is an interactive online game that sets you on a quest to settle on an uninhabited island covered by green trees and thick forests. 17 SimPachamama SimPachamama is an agent-based game to reduce deforestation and make policy maintaining happy and developed society without biodegradation. McDonald's Game Players indulge themselves in the complex process of managing a supply chain in the food-focused corporation like McDonald's. Cities: Skylines Cities: Skylines is an interesting computer simulation game focusing on city building and management. 1.7.4 Game Engines Dierent Game Engines were considered for developing this project. Amongst all possible solutions, the Unity game engine was chosen for this project. The reasons for this choice are the exibility and extensibility of the engine, the aordable price for personal use (Free until the project receives 100 thousand dollars in funding or revenue) and its powerful capabilities for multi platform development. 1.7.5 Conclusions Despite extensive research in the subject, it is evident that not much of it has been applied to mobile gaming experiences. The project will be developed with one of the most popular and well-tested Game Engines in the market, and having in mind various mobile video games that are somewhat related to the project's objectives. All of this is done in order to ensure that the idea and the implementation of it on a mobile device is executed having in mind all the possibilities, both from the point of view of academic research and of mobile player-game interaction for obtaining interesting and applicable results. 18 Two forms of gameplay would have been drawn depending on their long term environmental sustainability. The unsustainable one would have been oered to the player as a rst contact with the game, the sustainable one being unlocked once the unsustainable one is completed, as a way of providing the player with a contrasted version of what actions have they used on their rst run as opposed as to the second one. There would have been three stakeholders the player could control in this game: Adventurer The Adventurer helps control the population of goblins in the area. Shopkeeper The Shopkeeper buys and sells various items to and from the Adventurer and the Farmer. It also produces rened items. Farmer Sows and harvests the land. Produces raw items from it. Each one of them would perform dierent actions wether the game is trying to make the player choose the unsustanable path or the sustanable one. Game objectives: Unsustainable path The adventurer has to eliminate all goblins on the island because they attack the population. Once the goblin population dies out, the island would be safe, but the ecosystem would suer greatly. Game objectives: Sustainable path The adventurer has to plant plenty of trees to help the forest grow again and keep goblins from attacking the 25 village. This means that the goblins get to live in peace, and the island retains its ecosystem health. 2.2.2 Mechanics The game ow and the mechanics vary greatly depending if the player is playing through the sustainable path or the unsustainable one. Game loop: Unsustainable path The main focus of this path, as said previously, is for the Adventurer to kill goblins. Each battle depletes the Adventurer's health, so she has to ll it up with Health potions. Health potions are made from Salamandertail, a cticious ingredient harvested from Salamanders. Each time an adventurer buys a health potion, then, the whole process of obtaining it is reinforced. Salamanders need to be fed Palmroot, a cticious plant. In this path, though, the names of the stakeholders are changed. The Shopkeeper, given that she produces magical potions, is the Magician. The Farmer, given that she gathers resources from animals, is the Rancher. Adventurer 1. The Adventurer kills Goblins. 2. The Adventurer levels up if experience is enough. 3. Goblins drop Gold. 4. The Adventurer buys Health Potions from the Magician. 5. The Adventurer uses Health Potions to tend his wounds. 26 6. Go to 1 if the number of killed Goblins is < 100. 7. The Adventurer has exterminated all goblins, the game is over. Magician 1. Buys Salamandertail from Rancher. 2. Brews Health Potion from Salamandertail. 3. Sells Health Potion to the Adventurer. Rancher 1. Plants Palmroot. 2. Buys Salamander Eggs. 3. Waits for the eggs to hatch. 4. Waits for Palmroot to grow. 5. Harvests Palmroot. 6. Feeds Palmroot to Salamanders. 7. Harvests Salamandertail from Salamanders. 8. Sells Salamandertail to Shopkeeper. This path accelerates the deforestation of the island, and drives the goblins further into the town, fact that causes the Adventurer to be increasingly more brutal taking them down. goblins, in turn, get angrier at humans. The path culminates with the destruction of the island's ecosystem, then, the game asks its players if they are interested in other kind of approach to the problem. 27 Game loop: Sustainable path The main objective of this path is to control the goblin population using non-violent tactics while rebuilding their natural ecosystem. As a ways of controlling the population, the Adventurer must feed Goblincake, a cticious meal, to captured goblins before releasing them back to nature. Goblins who are fed will take longer to attack the town again. Goblincake is baked from Goblinfruit, a ctitious fruit the Farmer produces. It is the job of the Farmer to win the game this time, as it's her duty to plant trees in her lot of land. In this path, the Adventurer, given that her job is one of a more pacist kind, is dubbed the Ranger, and the Shopkeeper becomes the humble Cleric, now selling hand-crafted pies to the Ranger. Ranger 1. Buys Goblincake from Cleric 2. Captures Goblins. 3. Feeds captive Goblins with Goblincake. 4. Releases Goblins to the wild again. 5. Goblins drop Gold. Cleric 1. Buys Goblinfruit from Farmer. 2. Bakes Goblincake from Goblinfruit. 3. Sells Goblincake to the Ranger. 28 4. Buys Treeseed from Farmer. 5. Makes Treesprout from Treeseed. 6. Sells Treesprout to the Ranger. Farmer 1. Plants Goblinfruit. 2. Collects Goblinfruit. 3. Sells Goblinfruit to Shopkeeper. 4. Collects Treeseed from trees. 5. Sells Treeseed to Shopkeeper. 6. Buys Treesprout from Shopkeeper. 7. Plants more trees. 8. Go to 1 if the number of planted trees is < 100. 9. Game won, Goblins will stop attacking the village because the forest is restored. This approach helps reduce the conict and harm between humans and goblins, an also helps convey the idea that wild animal "infestations" are a man-made problem that calls for a ecient solution that attacks the root of the problem. The path nishes when enough trees are planted back, and the goblins now have enough land to roam free. 29 2.2.3 Teaching methods The game would teach players about social dynamics and consumer responsibility through its mechanics. The metaphor of this prototype calls for taking a deep look onto society's already established loops and reect upon how, as consumers, interact with them. 2.2.4 Conclusions The prototype was considered unadequate at the end of the designing phase, considered too complicated and its design too rigid to organically convey this project's objectives. 2.3 Thrid prototype The design behind the third prototype was about managing a whole community and seeing the eects of human consumption from an eagle-view perspective. The player had to manage an entire town by building certain structures to keep productivity up, as more and more villagers enter the town. It gathers inpiration from The Houses Game [Tay83], as the main mechanic is about space management, DUBES and others [BvD07], because of their focus on policy development, and MAE SALAEP [BPTB07] because of its approach of dealing with chains of issues. It strove to teach the player about how industries arise from individual needs and how the former can greatly impact the natural resources in the area. This prototype was chosen to become the nal game because it was thought to be an interesting challenge and a useful learning device for the 30 players. This section will not be expanded further, as in chapter 3there will be a more in-depth explanation of it. 31 Chapter 3 Final game 3.1 Introduction The thesis for the nal game is about animal agriculture and its impact on planet earth. Animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to GHG emissions and climate change [GSH + 13]. Because this issue is widespread and easy to mitigate (consume more plant based options that replace meat in some meals, replacing dairy with plant based drinks, etc.) it was decided to be the main focus of the nal game and the project. 3.1.1 Idea Summary The nal game is about managing a small islander town by building the right structures in the right spots. It is a game about minimizing commute times as much as optimizing space for letting the industries operating in the community the space they will need. Specically, the nal game will simulate two industries: the meat industry 32 and the tofu industry. The player will be able to assest which one of them is more space-intensive and which one is not. The meat industry will yield lower ammounts of food for the same space needed for the tofu industry to yield more. Because of this design decision it is hoped that the player will understand the ecological benets of reducing and/or replacing meat in meals. In depth The game is a town management simulator, with inspiration from other games like Dwarf Fortress 1 , Oxygen Not Included 2 , and Rimworld 3 , . Story The main objective of the game is to nish all missions. The missions involve building new buildings, surviving a certain ammount of days, etc. The rst missions revolve around setting up the basic town structure: building homes, farms and ovens to produce bread, the rst and most basic edible in the game. The villagers will hold onto this diet until the villagers start eating meat. The missions become increasingly challenging as time goes on, up until the player gets to the point where the players gets a special mission, in which they are notied that their villagers no longer eat meat. When the game reaches this point, the players will nd out that it is actually easier for them to feed their villagers a plant based diet, as it's more space ecient. Some days after the last diet shift, the game will end and the player will be prompted with a survey to ll up. 1 http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ 2 https://www.klei.com/games/oxygen-not-included 3 https://rimworldgame.com/ 33 Gameplay The players does not interfere directly in the islanders life (the town's inhabittants), they engage by placing orders for the villagers to execute. The orders are set by building new buildings that the villagers will engage with. Buildings Each building, depending on its nature, creates certain orders that eect the town and its villagers dierently. Buildings have also a price for each of them. Money is obtained from the villagers each 3 days. Each villager adds between 25 and 45 resources to the resource pool. Below there can be found a description of the buildings and its prices. • House - A building where villagers can sleep. It costs 50 resources to build. • Warehouse - Building that enables villager to store resources into. It costs 100 resources to build. • Dock - Special building that makes possible new villagers coming to the town. It cannot be built. • Wheat farm - A building that produces 1 wheat after a seed has been planted on it by a villager. It costs 25 resources to build. • Oven - Building that transforms 1 wheat into 2 bread. It costs 75 resources to build. • Pig pen - Building that transforms 50 wheat into 1 pig. It costs 100 resources to build. • Slaughterhouse - Building that transforms 1 pig into 25 meat. It costs 120 resources to build. 34 It could be useful for the reader to consider the presence or abscence of colliders as a sign about wether the tile that has or does not have the collider is walkable (does not have a collider) or it is not (it does have a collider). Considering a tile to be walkable means that it will be navigable by our agent in this explanation of the A* algorithm. The function for invoking the A* algorithm is given the starting node and the destination node. An open set of nodes O is dened, containing the initial node. At each iteration of tis main loop, the algorithm determines which of its initial paths to expand. It picks the node O that minimizes the f function, that function being f(n) = g(n) + h(n) With n being the node the calculation is being executed upon and h being the heuristic function that calculates the distance between n and the target node. In this implementation of the algorithm, the distance between two adjacent non-diagonal nodes is 10, and the distance from a node to and adjacent one that lies diagonally adjacent to it is 14. This approach is used in order to approximate the value of √2 by multiplying it by 10 and rounding it up. As the reader may already have intuited, the reason why √2 is used to calculate distances between two diagonal nodes is because if we interpret the nodes to be all 1 distance away from each other and to be squares of 1 unit times 1 unit for its sides, a distance of √2 is, eectively, the distance separating two adjacent diagonal nodes. With this cleared up, we can continue on discussing the algorithm's implementation. If the chosen node n happens to be the destination node, we simply report the path and end the algorithm. 41 If this is not the case, we add n to the closed set C and start iterating over its neighbours, i.e. the nodes adjacent to it. If a neighbour m happens to not be in C , we add it to O . If m happened to belong to O , we update its g and h cost and not add it to O again. The new g cost will be the distance from n to m (the addition of all the nodes distances from the start to n plus the distance from n to m . The new h cost will be the distance from m to the target node. We delete n from O . If no more nodes exist in O , the algorithm has nished: no path has been found. On the contrary, the algorithm loops again. 3.3.4 Villager Villagers operate following a set of rules stablished by their AI. Villagers ask for orders to the Town as long as they don't have any unattended needs that need to be fulllled. Villagers break down those orders into several other phases, and then they approach each one of them dierenty according to its type. An other has three phases: Initialisation, Transportation, Completition. More complex orders are actually given to villagers by joining several orders. For example, for a villager to put a piece of wheat in the oven, the villager needs to rst go to the warehouse and then to the oven. This is achieved by enqueuing the order to feed the oven at the completition phase of its predecessor. Villagers use the pathnding algorithm explained above to navigate the island through the tilemap. 42 3.3.5 Resources In the nal game are several resources. Resources are every object that can be dropped on the ground and picked up. The town keep track of how many resources are stored in the warehouses at any given time. 3.3.6 Buildings and Factories Buildings are all objects that are static and cannot be picked. Factories are special buildings that, given a resource and enough time, they can transform it into another one. 3.3.7 Level Conguration For tweaking each game's variables such as the seconds a day lasts or the villager's walking speed, a singleton class has been used. Its values can be controlled through Unity's Inspector, which makes it very easy to tweak. 3.3.8 Serialization Serialization is done in order to keep player's progress stored across several play sessions. Various data is being serialized in the game. The map has to be serialized in order to not rebake the whole navigation on top of it each time the game is loaded. All the buildings, factories and villagers's positions and types are serialized. The ammount of resources stored in the town's warehouses is serialized aswell, as the number of days passed and several other metrics. 43 3.3.9 Translations The nal game con currently be played in two languages: Spanish and English. The translations are stored in a .cvs le, and the games pick the text to be shown to the player according to the language the player selected. 3.3.10 Day/Night cycle The game operates in daily cycles. Because of that, a system to help emulate a day and night cycle was developed to help the player get a better grasp of the passing of days with a visual feedback. The way this is done is by altering the values of the PostProcessingStack's shaders that alter the nal color composition of the image, turning it into a blue color when the night is upon the village, and reverting the image back to its inaltered state once daylight is again restored. 3.3.11 UI components Several UI components have been developed for the game, the majority of them being simple UI elements found in Unity by default such as the Button or the ScrollField. 3.3.12 ReWild console A language and a console to interpret it were developed to help on the game's prototyping phase. The language is a very simple one, cansisting of natural language phrases to indicate a certain act to be performed in the game. For example, a valid sentence in the ReWildConsole language would be: build house 1 1 44 That means that a house must be built at the tile x = 1; y = 1. 3.4 Cut out features Logger The Logger was an utility that reported important happenings in the game world. It worked in a way that text was shown on the bottom half of the screen, a line for each happening. It was cut out of the nal game because it occupied a lot of screen space and made having on-screen buttons very dicult. 45 Chapter 4 Project management 4.1 Temporal planning 4.1.1 Programme The approximate length of the project is four months and three weeks, from February 19th until june 29th. It is important to note that the duration of the project is approximated and that it can be aected by the chosen project management methodology and several other seatbacks. 4.1.2 Project phases The project consists of several phases of development, each with their dierent parts. Initial milestone The phase this section belongs to. During this phase, several aspects of the project will be thought out to help a better and more eective development of the project, such as the project's sustainability rating, its scope, its budget, 46 etc. Work on this phase can begin as early as the requirements for it are laid out, because it does not depend on any other phase of the project to be nished. Prototype development This phase consists of three parts: • Research • Prototype development • Prototype testing & nal prototype choice Each one of them being dependant on the one above it. Research can begin as early as wanted, as it does not depend on any other task. Final game development Once prototype development is nished, the nal game's development can begin. It is necessary for a nal prototype to be nished before further expansion of it. The development of the nal game from the nal prototype will span for four entire weeks. It is a tight deadline, although a lot of code and work will be recycled from the prototype. Player interviewing Interviews will be done in one week. The rst days will be destined to nd players and the rest to actually do the interviews, either being in person or online. For this phase to begin, the nal game has to be both nished and stable to ensue a correct development of this phase. 47 Final milestone This phase is the last one of the project, and depends upon the nishing of both phase 4.1.2 and 4.1.2, as the nal documentation cannot be written without those other phases concluding. 4.1.3 Schedule alterations It is probable that some alterations have to be applied to the project's schedule. Given the use of an Agile methodology, deadline modications are to be expected, although the use of short sprints can help the development to be adapted to run at a higher pace if falling behind schedule. There is a variety of seatbacks that can happen during the project's development. It could happen that the researcher does not nd a sucient ammount of information or cannot extract the needed information from the scientic papers in time for the project to begin development. In this case, help will be needed from the thesis supervisor for gathering information and recommending investigation lines. If the research nally yields a poor result, the developer will not start until a needed minimum of theory is available to work with. This may hinder the quality of the nal game, but because the development methodology used is incremental, it is sure that a playable game will be produced nontheless, although with a lesser number of the expected features. Another problem that may happen is that the game development takes too long of a time to be developed, either because of several bugs in the code or because extensibilty issues. This risk is mitigated by the fact that a very particular coding architecture will be used: Application Model View Controller Component (AMVCC). This architecture is used to handle large and complex codebases in Unity. Also, using an Agile methodology will 48 greatly help overcome any issue with bugs and non-functioning code, as it oers great exibility and adaptability to the development team. At the end of the project, a review will be made detailing to what extent the original plan has been followed thanks to the reports sent to the thesis supervisor. 4.1.4 Gantt diagram Below there can be observed a Gantt diagram depicting the duration the previously mentioned phases (and of its corresponding parts). On the leftmost column it can be observed the phases' name, and on the rightmost one the hours each one takes to be completed. The topmost row depicts the week of development the work will take place in. Arrows indicate task dependance. The colors on the cells represent the intensity of the work given a current time and a task. Yellow indicates medium intensity, while green and dark green depict high and very high intensity. 49 Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Hours Phase 0: Initial milestone Context and scope of the project 10 Project planning ↳10 Budget and sustainability ↳20 First oral presentation ↳10 Competence revision ↳10 Oral presentation and final document ↳→→→→→→→→→⬎10 Phase 1: Prototype development Research ↓20 Prototype development ↳→→→→→→→ ↓60 Prototype testing ↳↓20 Phase 2: Final game development Development ↳↓80 Phase 3: Player interviewing Interviews ↳↓40 Phase 4: Final milestone Documentation writing ↳40 TOTAL 330 4.1.5 Approximate duration A condensed version of the information on the duration of each phase presented on the Gantt diagram can be observed in the table below: Phase Hours Initial milestone 70 Prototype development 100 Final game development 80 Player interviewing 40 Final milestone 40 Total 330 4.1.6 Resources Several tools and resources will be used through the duration of this project: 50 at it from a social prespective. As for the personal gain extracted from this project, it is expected that all the people invested in this project gain further understanding about nature and our relationship with it, and that they gain condence in videogames as a useful tool for learning other than for entertainment only. 4.3.3 Environmental area This project is centered around environmental sustainability. Its aims are to teach environmental sustainability and respect for nature using modern and eective techniques. Because of this, the nal goal of the project is to make all players take into consideration their actions with nature in mind. This, in of itself, is very positive for the environmental sustainability of the project. 4.3.4 Conclusions A table summarizing this project's scores on the sustainability matrix will be included below. It is important to note that it is incomplete, as as the project advances more of the matrix will be possible to ll. Economical area Social area Environmental area Planning 7 9 10 As this project is not thought of to generate revenue, the economic area is rated lower than the other ones. It would be possible, of course, to get funding from the local government of Catalonia or from the Spanish Minstry of Culture because of the positive impact the nal game could have on the environment and the planet. Another possible sources of income could be activists and NGOs because of their interests being aligned with the project's objectives. 57 Chapter 5 Conclussions 5.1 Work done A working game has been built and published to the play store. The game has been built over the course of 5 months. It contains 172 C# scripts with over 8000 lines of code in total. A great eort has been made to ensure the game would meet the requred personal standards the thesis authors hold themselves worthy of. Also, thanks to many playtersters and players, enough data has been gathered about the eectiveness of the game as a teaching tool. The source code for the project can be found at https://github.com/wextia/rewild/ . 5.2 Interviewing results Over 20 individuals, ranging from the ages 18 to 27 have completed the survey. If we recall section 3.2, 5 questions were given out to the players to ll up. The results for this questions will be given now. • I hold my experience with the game to have been an entertaining one. 58 • I noticed that the game was nished, complete and free of bugs. • I understood the game's premise through its mechanics. • I think ReWild is a good metaphor for exploring the premise. • The game has made me reevaluate my relationship with nature and i'm considering taking action in response to it. Players were asked to rate from 1 to 5, from a strong disagreement with the question's statement and to a strong agreement of it. For question 1, the median is 3; and the mean 3.65. The answers are pretty scattered in this one. Several players have not had many fun with it, although a signicant group of people rated it a 5. This may be beacause players are biased towards not expressing their honest thoughts to the thesis authors, despite the submission process being anonymous. For question 2, the median is 2 and the mean is 2.33. There were known bugs to the developer at the beginning of the interviewing process, and this has impacted the quality of the game very negatively. Time constraints were a factor, and with a tight deadline polish was very hard to achieve. Nontheless, many players nished the game without encountering any game breaking bug and only noticing visual glitches. For question 3, the median is 4 and the mean 4.35. This has been great news for the thesis authors, as it makes the project's objectives be reected onto the game. For question 4, the median is 4 and the mean 4.24. This only solidies what has been already noted in question 3. For question 5, the median is 3, and the mean is 3.32. This question has also had polarized results. Approximately 30% of the interviewed rated it 4 or higher, and roughly 40% 2 or lower. Nontheless, the authors are very 59 pleased with the results, as it highlights that as much as 30% of the players that played this game have understood its premise and want to take action on it. 5.3 Future work Although the nal game yielded pretty positive results, the thesis authors are certain about that some aspects of the game would benet from more work put onto those. To help polish the experience up, some extensions for the work have been proposed. 1. Adding more levels and variety to the game. This could be done in a way that enables players to experiment with other harmful behaviours a community may engage with the natural resources that benets from, such as oil drilling, intensive farming, etc. 2. Adding sound eects would help players be more immersed in the experience. 3. Adding real data in game to show the players the cost of their actions. It would need to be done in a way that feels integrated with the game. The mentioned extensions are thought to be a good starting point for future research on the subject. 60 Acronyms AMVCC Application Model View Controller Component. 48, Glossary: AMVCC CC Climate Change. 10 GHG GreenHouse Gas. 11,32 NGO Non-Governmental Organization. 4,5,9,54,57 NPC Non-Playable Character. 16, Glossary: NPC RPG Role Playing Game. 14 VPA Visual Problem Appraisal. 13 61 Glossary clicker A type of game the principal mechanic of which is to repeatedly press a single button to add an specic amount of resources to the player. A great volume of mobile games are clicker games. 16,17 collider Unity component that calculates collisions for an object. 40 goblin A fantastic humanoid creature with long, sharp ears and green skin, roughly the size of a human child. 24 idle A type of game where the player interaction is minimized and waiting often is the principal mechanic. 17 late game Phase of games that starts when the player has a rm grasp of the skills of the game and the majority of the content has been explored by them. 17 low-poly A 3D game art style based upon 3D models with a very reduced amount of triangles in them and a preference for not smoothing or hiding it. It is done to resemble the 90's style of 3D graphic rendering or just for obtaining a cleaner and more minimalistic feel to the game. 16 pixel art An art style for video games that aims to emulate the technical 62 boundaries that ancient 2D games possessed because of the limited resolutions of old displays. 16 portrait mode A way of playing mobile games. Games played in portrait mode are played with the phone in vertical position. 16 progression system The set of mechanics that control and dene how the player can feel a sense of progression through their playing experience. The rewards a progression system oers to the player ofter are a new set of mechanics, permanent resource gains or new content for the player to explore. 17 serialization The process of transforming objects in memory to plain text, for achieving persistance. 43 singleton A class that only has one instance in the project, and that instance can be accessed in a static manner. 39,43 survival game A type of game where the objective of the player is to survive -usually alonein the wild. Survival games are characterized by their crafting mechanics and their focus on the fulllment of the player's avatar basic needs. 16 tilemap A data structure that stores tiles (square sprites) that construct a map. 40 63 Bibliography [Age16] European Environment Agency. Climate change policies. https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/climate/ policy-context , 2016. [Aha06] Gilbert Ahamer. Ready-to-use simulations: SURFING GLOBAL CHANGE: Negotiating sustainable solutions. Simulation & Gaming , 37(3):380397, 2006. 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