The Subsyst Simulator is a clicking web-game designed to increase the awareness and knowledge of players about sustainability and food. In the simulation, players manage a food-energy-waste system to sustain a costal city.
Fact sheet:
Development team: INTUIT
Release date: May 23rd, 2020
Platform: Online/Web browser on PC or Mac
The game is playable online (PC/Mac only) at https://eplundare.itch.io/subsyst-simulator
Features: An online idle/clicking game about sustainability and food. Manage food, energy and waste to sustain a city. Explore food types, energy resources and waste processing methods.
Conferences/Workshops: 13th International Symposium on Visual Information, Communication and Interaction (VINCI 2020), artistic research workshop at the Royal Danish Academy (2020).
The game was originally developed as part of my final project for the Visual Game and Media Design master programme at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Its development continued as part of a research project in the same institution.
The game was designed with the purpose of transforming players, by increasing their awareness and knowledge about some of the challenges of food systems and circular economy for food.
Global learning objectives. The game's content was focused around three main learning objectives: to learn about the role of cities in food systems, resource regeneration and food production and consumption costs. These objectives are based on information from the Ellen McArthur Foundation's Cities and Circular Economy for Food report.
Skill map. The map shows the connections between the global learning objectives and the possible actions and different resources within the game.
Mind constructs. Images collected using Pinterest (left) by five interviewees. This information was used to understand the mind constructs (right) of users, regarding waste and sustainable food.
Design document. The information from the Ellen McArthur Foundation and the user research findings served as the foundation of the design document, which represents the main activities, actors, locations, and resources of the game.
Simplified core flow. This diagram served as a guideline to define the classes and UI implementations in the game.
Detailed core flow. This diagram served as a guideline to identify the incremental values of in-game resources.
Interactive visualization concept.
Subsyst credits:
Alexis Emmanuel Lozano Angulo - Lead Game Designer, Artist and Programmer
Alessandro Canossa - Primary Investigator
Luis Laris Pardo - AI Programmer and Data Analyst
Sai Swarup Mohanty - UI/UX Designer
Special thanks to
The Royal Danish Academy for funding the research and development of the game.
Michael R. Schmidt for his feedback about the code and optimization of the game.
Mauro Martino and Carl Emil Carlsen for their feedback on the data visualization aspects of the game.
Christoffer Holmgård for his feedback on the development of the AI bots.
Christian Laumark Hansen and Miki Anthony for their feedback on the gameplay mechanics of the game.
The students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela, the students and staff from the Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán (UPY), and testers from around the globe. Their time testing the simulation and their feedback have been meaningful contributions to the development of the project.
Michael R. Schmidt for his feedback about the code and optimization of the game.
Mauro Martino and Carl Emil Carlsen for their feedback on the data visualization aspects of the game.
Christoffer Holmgård for his feedback on the development of the AI bots.
Christian Laumark Hansen and Miki Anthony for their feedback on the gameplay mechanics of the game.
The students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela, the students and staff from the Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán (UPY), and testers from around the globe. Their time testing the simulation and their feedback have been meaningful contributions to the development of the project.
Some of the 3d models are from a low poly package by Synty Studios.
Contact:
Alexis Emmanuel Lozano Angulo - aelozanoa@gmail.com
https://eplundare.itch.io/subsyst-simulator
