Meet the Team

Development Process

Nature Quest is an educational mobile game that aims to encourage children (k-8) to explore the UCI Ecological Preserve interactively. It introduces engaging minigames, cute “Sprout” characters and fun rewards to make learning about nature interesting and accessible for younger users. The project was built using Unity game engine and developed for Android devices. 

The project began when we approached the UCI Nature staff with the idea of finding new ways to engage younger students, since majority of the work they do is with college level students. The initial idea was to create a Pokémon GO like game that used geolocation to encourage users to visit marked sites around the preserve. In our first couple of meetings with our sponsors we focused on developing the concept for the game beyond the initial idea. An important idea that came out of those first meetings was using the game to engage visitor's senses. To get visitors deeply engaged in listening, observing and feeling the world around them. From this we developed a strategy of building mini-games that that each highlight a different way on engaging with nature and different species at the site. 

We developed three main mini-games Bird Listening, Party for Plants, Word Match. The Bird Listening game encouages visitors to listen for birds and count the number of calls that they hear. Party for Plant ask the player to identify the different phases of growth that Buckwheat cycles through every year. Finally, Word Match ask visitors to study the leaf texture of the Black Sage plant and describe its qualities. In addition to the mini-games we built a Collection feature. When players successfully complete a mini-game they are rewarded with a Sprout trading card which is added to their permanent collection to be accessed and viewed at any time.

A strict time constraint was on of the greatest challenges we faced during development. We had only one quarter to conceptualize and build the application. This resulted in us developing and building as we were still coming up with ideas and discovering for ourselves what we were making. To handle this challenge we worked in an iterative and progress fashion. We quickly developed mid-fidelity mockups in Figma that allowed us to convey the general concepts to our sponsors and receive feedback. We then took those mock ups and started work on the UI in Unity. This allowed us to quickly learn Unity's UI system even though our final designs weren't complete. As work was being completed in Unity our UI/UX team built the high fidelity finalized UI designs based on feedback from sponsors and input from the development team. While this iterative process meant that we had to repeat some work, it was valuable because it let us get feedback and learn the tools in a short amount of time.

During this development period communication with our sponsors was highly valuable. We maintained consistent communication through weekly meetings and regular email exchanges. Our sponsors provided us with a lot of scientific insight about the different species at the preserve. With their help we were able to pick a few key species to highlight in the game and provide accurate scientific information in the mini lessons that come before each mini-game.

Tools

Documentation

Code Repository

The codebase for the project is stored in a GitHub repository. The project was built in Unity and requires downloading and installing Unity 2022.3.55f1 to work. For an detailed  explanation on how to set up and work with the project please  visit the README.MD on the GitHub home page.

GitHub Link: https://github.com/armonamini/Nature-Quest 

Design Files

All design work was completed in Figma and Adobe Illustrator. Figma was the main tool for organizing and presenting prototypes and has all the completed art assets.

Figma link: https://www.figma.com/design/BKc8Fh1nHizbXecqqOccWs/Nature-Quest-Wireframes?node-id=1315-897&t=2W12DoWPQVOWwFin-1

Asset Files

Additionally, all assets including presentations, documentation, and deliverables are stored in a shared Google Drive folder.

Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PsPspDp0WtXXJjeeGOlVXvXDn3gVTEFU?usp=sharing

Evaluation

For this project, we engaged in several rounds of feedback both with our sponsors and with test users. Some of the most important feedback we got was from our classmates. From them we learned that our application was missing basic moods of interaction on the map, such as pinch and zoom, that users would expect.
In addition we completed several types of formal reviews included and ethical review, accessibility review, and design review. The design review was especially important because designs from Figma to Unity was not always a 1 to 1 transformation. Often there were slight differences. Our design review ensured that those differences did not impact the overall usability.

Final Product

Features

• • Interactive map guides users through the Ecological Preserve

  • Educational mini-games that are connected to designated points of interest.

    1. Bird Calls - Listen and count how many bird calls you hear.

    2. Plant Phases - Observe the growth phases of key plant species and share your observations with the Ecological Preserve staff.

    3. Word Association - Feel the leaf textures then select the adjectives best describe what you feel.

  • A reward system in the form of collecting Sprouts trading cards that encourages exploration and learning. 

Technical Details

• Built and developed in Unity game engine.

• Target platform: Android mobile.

• Real-time location tracking by using Mapbox SDK.

• Plant data provided by UCI Nature staff.

• Developed using Agile methodology with 2-week sprint cycles. 

Demo