Games for Our Future Gamejam

By | April 17, 2018

Games for Our Future Game Jam is a collaboration between EarthGames, University of Washington and Seattle Indies. The idea was to create serious games that built around the theme of climate change. Unlike other game jams where we just showed up and make something, this event was organized to connect researchers with game developers.  A few weeks before the jams, the organizers created several events to help participants learning more about climate change and research around it. We missed a couple of the talks, but managed to come to the one a week before the game jam, where UW researchers would do lightning talk about their research to the developers. We also had some mingling time so we get to talk more to these researchers and hear their stories in detail.

During the game jam, I pitched a couple ideas related to animal migration. A couple other people also pitched similar idea, so we decided to form a team. PG joined our team too. We created Habitat Hopper, a top-down puzzle game where player can help a family of goat migrating to a better place by affecting the surrounding environment. We introduce concept of green bridge, reclaiming farming lands, and also planting the goat’s favorite food to lure them away. We also put man-made structures like city and road, to show how human structures can affect creatures ability to survive.

Although the topic of this game is really serious, we try to make the game more light-hearted with using cute goat, silly music, and board-game hex terrains. To our surprise, this game won the second place for Judge Favorite award.

You can download and play Habitat Hopper on GameJolt.  Seattle Indies write a good recap of the event as well, which you can read here.