What is "Don't mine the lava?"

Aimed for 2 players.
Cooperate with your friends!
Grab as many diamonds as you can!
Don't fall into the lava!

"Don't mine the lava" is a game targeted towards 2 players - one builder and one player. The goal of the builder is to assist the player to gather as many diamonds as possible by building pathways for the player.

But beware! There are limited blocks to build with, and the lava is continuously rising. How many diamonds will you be able to grab before you succumb to the heat?

Goals and Motivation

Our goal with this game is to explore and integrate interaction and graphics. We believe that the best way to do it is to create a game, incorporating both interaction and graphics at the same time!

Moreover, we wanted to spread joy and laughter and other emotions with this game that people can share with each other. That is why we enabled cooperation between parties.

Equipped with a depth sensor camera, we are able to read the input blocks of the builder, and then using Unity, we create a mesh that resembles the structure. The depth sensor camera provides the height of the building blocks, making it a suitable component to have in the making of the game.

Technologies

Unity

A 3D engine that serves as our base for powering our game. Unity is a very popular and commonly used engine for various purposes, but mostly known for game creation. It uses C# programming language to interweave the various components, including, but not limited to physics, animation and visual effects.

Blender

Blender is an open source 3D computer graphics toolset that we used to create more complex models, such as the character and the diamonds. Blender is capable of many other things, such as motion graphics, 3D printed models, art and more.

Intel RealSense camera

A depth camera that we use to read data in order to build the interaction with our game.

Challenges and Obstacles

We faced numerous challenges and obstacles throughout our journey in the making of the game.

In terms of development, one particular challenge we encountered was to integrate the depth camera feed into the Unity engine.
Specifically: How do we read and interpret the data, and how do we manipulate the data to for our purpose?

Another obstacle we faced was how should we design the game so it's enjoyable for the player and the builder. What kind of information do we display to each participant?

Finally, we wanted to implement the game and using VR, packaged with jumping in VR. However, time proved to be scarce, and it was unfortunately omitted from the final version of the game. Jumping with the keyboard is still possible.

Lessons learned

We learned a bunch from doing this project - mainly about hardware integration. Apart from that, we also learned about game design.

We learned how the integration worked, how the Unity Engine worked, how to convert the data we received from the depth camera to the Unity Engine.

Our Team

Staffan Al-Kadhimi

Lead Programmer

In this project, my core objective was to implement the core mechanics.

Hugo Heyman

Game Design

I focused on the design and the core mechanics of the game, working for the best possible player experience.

Kajsa Buckard

3D artist

I have developed the 3D objects with the focus on the character and his movements.

Laura Bonde Holst

Animation Integration

My main focus was integrating the character and interaction in the game, as well as testing the game.

Kok Siang Ng

Programmer and Web developer

In this project, I focused on implementing different game mechanics.
I also developed this website.

Don't mine the lava