Polynesian Seas

Role: Programmer
Team Size: 6
Project Length: 4 Weeks
Genre: Education

In Polynesian Seas the player explores Polynesia in a traditional Polynesian sailboat from a top-down perspective. They travel to different islands to talk with navigators to learn about culture and sailing techniques. The navigators provide hints that lead the player to more islands. The game's goal is to educate a younger audience about Polynesian culture.

For this project our team was tasked with creating a game for 6 to 9 year olds that focuses on a minority. Our team decided on Polynesia as our topic. After many iterations we ended up with a education sailing game that teaches kids about culture in Polynesia.

Theme

Research

When making a game that is mainly focused on educating the player you want to make sure you are well informed. The islands we chose to use are Hawaii, Samoa, Mo'orea, and Tahiti. The final island is not based off any specific island.

The movement I created was a 2D top down movement system. The boat will rotate in the direction you are moving.

Our game is mainly a narrative experience so having a dialogue system is essential for the player's experience.

Dialogue

Since our game was created over 4 weeks we had plenty of time to readjust our idea and iterate on the ideas we liked. Our group went to QA testing 2 times to have other Champlain College students test our game and give us feedback. We would iterate our game based on feedback. Here is an image of some of our feedback from the 3rd week of development.

Iterations

Movement

Dialogue

For this project I utilized Ink, a narrative scripting tool by Inkle, to allow my team to create dialogue without even being in engine. Using Ink helps reduce the complexity of writing and implementing dialogue for the rest of the team. Ink also allows me to create variables in its own IDE and use them.

Navigation

Since our game is aimed at children from ages 6 to 9 we wanted our game to be as accessible as possible. We didn't want the game too be too difficult since the focus is on education.

Navigation Arrow

The navigation arrow is an arrow that only shows up when you are too far away from an island. Each island has its radius that will make the arrow go away when you enter it. The arrow will change targets when you enter another island's radius.

Notebook

The notebook shows what islands you have and haven't been to. The notebook will update when you visit a new island.

Star Compass

The star compass is the Polynesian equivalent to the compass most people are familiar with. You can acquire the star compass from Opunui, the NPC on Hawaii. Opunui will draw the star compass in your notebook after you ask him about it.

Shaders

This project was my first time touching the Unity's shader graph. I used shader graph to create the ocean effect.