Project Description

Cosmos Sterrenwacht is opening on April 2nd. For this opening, they required 3 games for 3 installations to support the exposition about the Sun and Solar System: The Solar System Game, The Atom Fusion Game and The Time Traveler Game. Studio Sundae – this semester’s team of interns – is improving the prototypes developed by Otter Scope. The improved versions will be displayed on the 6th of May 2022 at Expeditie NEXT and implemented in the observatory by June 10th 2022.

Team

Personal Contribution

Overview

Restructuring of the Solar System Game
Restructuring of the Atom Merger Game
Tutorial Implementation of the Solar System game and the Atom Merger Game

Solar System Game

Beginning

In this game, the player will learn about the Solar System. The player can fly through space in a spaceship. When the player “lands” on a planet there will be information about that planet displayed on the screen. The game has a dual-screen setup, meaning that it will be played with a beamer and a screen that is placed in the installation. The main(beamer) screen will display a top-down view of the Solar System and the spaceship. The second screen will display static information about the planet that the player lands on. The game is designed to be a single-player and a local multiplayer, meaning that it is to be expected that one or two people can play at the same time. The hardware controls are a joystick and a button, mapped to the keyboard, making the game work with a split keyboard.

Final Deliverable

A minigame was implemented for the second screen, thus attracting attention to it. The first version was implemented for Expedition Next. After the feedback was gathered at the event, a second iteration of the minigame was made and tested.

Atom Fusion Game

Beginning

In this game, the player will learn about the process happening inside the Sun. The main process is nuclear fusion. The player will need to combine hydrogen atoms to create new atoms. The game will have a progress bar that will increase based on how many atoms the player combined. During the game, there will be sunspots and sun flares triggered either by the player or just by progressing the game. The game will be played on a touchscreen and the screen will be duplicated on a beamer. The previous controls for the prototypes were mapped to the keyboard.

Final Deliverable

The final installation required the use of a touchscreen instead of mouse and keyboard. The controls had to be remade to fit the hardware used at the observatory. An information screen was added to give hints to players.