For our 2020-2021 capstone project, we have developed educational game for mobile platforms, intended to help young children learn about the interactions and components within a neighborhood. The user has access to four tiles- house, road, bioswale, and wetlands, and can arrange them on a 5 by 5 neighborhood grid to raise and lower scores in three benchmarks- flood management, pedestrian safety, and housing / quality of life.
Our project partner is Fatima Taha, a Geology PHD candidate at Oregon State. Her studies focus on bioswales, which are channels between the road and sidewalk which redirect rainwater runoff and harbor vegetation and trees. Taha's goal for this project is to allow users to learn about the components of the neighborhood and their interactions by playing the game, then assess their knowledge of bioswales through a survey after completing the game.
The game is developed using Unity as the game engine. The game scripts are written in C#, and are used to control the mechanics of the game, such as dragging tiles, rotating the screen, and calculating score. The UI is created through Unity's UI features, the skybox is designed in Adobe Illustrator, and the tile assets are sculpted in Blender.
