The aim of the universities group project module is for students to gain hands on experience working on projects submitted my real clients. Students from across various subject groups are encouraged to form multidisciplinary groups and bid for projects. Student groups then work in agile teams to design, develop and ultimately deliver a completed product according to the clients specifications.
Azolla’s aim is to bring sustainable travel to the mainstream, making sustainable efforts more accessible to travellers and service providers to have a positive environmental and cultural impact. Azolla’s ecosystem currently comprises of a sustainable travel booking app and the company aim to expand to introduce an online game and VR experience.
Azolla wishes to create a game that uses NFTs as a source of value to link back to the Azolla travel platform to be redeemed by users, and vice versa; travellers receive NFTs based on certain types of bookings that can unlock areas, characters, or powers within the game.
The Client proposed the following plot to help guide the design process for the game:
“Azolla wishes to create a sustainability-themed game set on Planet Earth, in a state of ‘dystopia’ in the 2100s”.
“The planet suffered several disasters caused by climate change and massive destruction caused by World Wars. Due to a global shortage of food and water supplies, many citizens died, however the remaining survivors managed to escape on spaceships. The survivors spent > time in space trying to find a new home, meeting new civilisations, and planning their dream to return to Earth once again. The objective of the game is to restore the planet back to a place where human civilisation can return to live and prosper.”
Based on this, the team drafted a concept for a resource management game which merges elements of city/settlement building games with classic 2d platforming levels.
- Players gather materials by completing platforming missions in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic earth
- Materials can then be used in the settlement to build new buildings
- Each building offers the player unique perks
- As the settlement grows the player earns credits which can be spent in the NFT store
- The NFT store allows players to unlock perks which can be used across the Azolla ecosystem
The prototype is intended to showcase the games main features and illustrate how the play to earn features could be implemented. As such, the prototype doesn’t support any active play to earn or NFT features, nor does it integrate connecting with other Azolla users, these are showcased using dummy menus for illustrative purposes only.
the prototype features:
- Interactive intro/menu screen with sample UI for storefront features.
- Fully functional settlement builder level with balanced in-game economy.
- 9 unique building types each offering gameplay buffs and bonuses.
- 2D Platforming levels with varying difficulty modes.
- Means to earn in-game credits to spend on Azolla Ecosystem features such as VR experiences and discounts.
The team was comprised of five students from across various university programs:
- 2 students from Sound Design
- 1 student from Computing
- 1 student from Game Development
- 1 student from Software Engineering
As a software engineering student with a background in game development my main roles in the project were, game design (during the planning phase) and gameplay programming (during the development phase).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13POgNZMkuVLohb8j2rl3Ieb7DUbLM_Xh?usp=sharing