Hello my name is… Intern! Space Intern is an interactive story RPG where you play an intern on NASA’s first mission to Mars. Your crew faces a variety of challenges and dangers, and as the Intern, it’s your job to make sure everything and everyone returns home safely. If you succeed you can add this to your resume, but fail and you'll be stuck floating in space. Play through a fun story, solve puzzles, and learn about the real science of long-term space exploration. Don't forget to check your email for warnings, tasks from other crew members, and messages from family. Space Intern runs on any modern browser that supports WebGL and was built in Unity for Astronauts ages 10-14.
The Space Intern aims to introduce and explore the aforementioned challenges astronauts will face when traveling by simulating a roundtrip mission to Mars. To help the mission succeed the player "Intern" will be tasked to accomplish a list of everyday activities delegated by mission control and their fellow crewmates. The game incorporates tasks such as discussing topics on sleep patterns, dealing with hyper and microgravity, cosmic radiation, physical exercise, and meal planning, to mention a few.
- Made by a diverse team of varying ages and educational backgrounds including kids.
- Integrates a cohesive storyline of a simplified yet realistic space exploration experience
- Engages the target audience through a variety of minigame activities of spaceflight-concerned tasks
- Provides users with an opportunity to interact with astronauts in the game, wherein players can experience what it’s like working under actual professionals, and have a taste of their work
- Provides a real impact on students as Space Intern can easily be integrated within classroom work and browsing on NASA’s website
- Provides an integrated educational user experience (eg. displaying “quick facts” pop-ups in minigame introduction cards/instruction pages or “notification” style animation during the minigames)
- Accessibility: Developed on Unity as a WebGL for HTML, Space Intern is easily accessible on the web and consequently can be deployed into NASA’s website for wider public access.
- Space Intern integrates culturally relevant references within one minigame (eg. Importance of preparing and sharing meals in dealing with isolation in space)
- Provides interactive user experiences through the decision-making process that affects the quality and direction of your player's space mission (eg. completing assigned tasks for minigames)
As Filipino-Americans we have also included our culture of “salo-salo”, which translates to “eating together” as vital to crew mental health and camaraderie. We want to emphasize to young children the importance of eating together and how preparing meals is a language of love and will be important as we venture into space.
Make decisions and solve puzzles in a variety of story minigames that affect the health and safety of their crew.
- Don’t forget to check your email and tasks every day
- Floating equipment can be hazardous! Velcro everything down.
- Learn how food is prepared in space and why mealtime is so important
- Don’t forget to sleep! A growing intern needs a lot of rest.
This project was developed using the Unity game engine and compiled as a WebGL file. Unity was used since it has a flexible workspace which enables us developers to simulate space environments.
- Github Repository (Game Code) https://github.com/Koniiro/SpaceIntern
- Figma - Brainstorming and Prototype
- Krita - Concept Art
- Illustrator
- Unity - Minigames
- Yarn Spinner for Unity - Interactive Story Dialogue
- VSCode - Preferred IDE
#Mars #videogame #SpaceAppsNYC #SpaceAppsMNL
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.