Koala Space Program

People's Choice Semi-Finalist

Koala Space Program made it to the People's Choice Semi-Finals (Top 25)

THE CHALLENGE: Space Route 66
Journey to Mars

Develop a game or virtual reality experience that allows users to build and explore a futuristic spaceport. Potential utilizations that could be incorporated:

  • Horizontal and vertical launch and landing
  • Suborbital and orbital tourist facilities (hotels, crew training experiences, exploration theme park attractions)
  • On-site spacecraft manufacturing facilities
  • Processing facilities for space resources
Explanation

Space is an enormous and hostile environment and new devices or projects are tested via unmanned robots. Sometimes, however, we need to send a living organism out there so we can closer examine the effects not made immediately obvious. It's been done with monkeys back in the mid 1900s, and now, it will be done with koalas to test the relentless wasteland on Mars.

That is, with this simulation.

Our goal is to create a realistic environment where our space koalas will have to explore, maintain, and build a self-sustaining life where you- the player- is the mayor of this colony.

You will obtain research points by risking your koalas' lives by sending them out to find resources, mineral, and what have you and having them bring those materials back. Each time you do so, you are rewarded with some degree of research points. It should be noted that if there should be any martian catastrophe as a result of solar flares or dust storms, koalas outside of their safe regions (their living quarters) will meet an untimely fate.

Research points are then used to research the creations of new buildings. They range anywhere from hospitals to observatories, as well as trips back home.

Build supplies are the absolute necessity to maintaining your colony. Build supplies are required to build living quarters to support a larger population, to build factories to gain a steady supply of more building supplies, farms/agriculture, water purification facilities, and more.

Food and water are needless to say the foundation of your colony; without it in abundance, eventual catastrophic events will see your demise.

There are a lot of difficulties with maintaining any community within hostile worlds, and with that comes a lot of strategies. Explore freely but don't get caught up with the scenery. Bob McGee back at home base will be wondering where his mayor has gone when the food drops and a meteor strikes right in front of his door.
That said, do you think you have what it takes to koalanize Mars?


Brief Breakdown:

  • Life on Mars
    • Catastrophic events: Solar Flares, Dust Storms, Earthquakes (Mars-quakes?), Meteors
    • Micromanaging:
      • Do you exile someone because they don't have any purpose yet, or do you continue to keep them around because you don't want to cause a riot?
      • Building and managing facilities
      • Resource management
  • Gameplay
    • Build and maintain colonies
    • Keep your koalas happy so they don’t riot and cause more damage
    • Explore the world in first person
Resources Used

Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, Bandicam, Blender, Cinema4d, Google Drive, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Paint, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Visual Studio 2015, MonoDevelop, Sony Vegas Pro, SoundCloud, Turbo Squid, Unity3d, and 3dsMax

Made inHonolulu, HI USA
from the minds of
How they did it