Swinburne University of Technology Student Game Wins Awards, Takes on Climate Change
If you had to make a game with the theme ‘trash’, what would you make?
Four computer science students took this challenge on and joined Ubisoft’s Australia Gam Jam 2024 competition to create a video game that confronts climate change and encourages communities to go green.
Majoring in games development, students Jaime Shirazi, Ian Scheepers, Marnus Jordaan and Hugh Craig, designed a game named ‘Rainbow Reef Turtle Chief’.
Earning the recognition from their fellow competitors, the game won the People’s Choice Award from the 50 game submissions.
The team were excited about the win, and happy to receive lots of positive feedback from fellow university game developers across Australia.
“It was great to see that we’d won any of the categories because we put a lot of work into it”, said Jaime.
“It was nice to know that our efforts had paid off.”
Rescuing your turtle kin
The games premise is simple: “The reef is overrun with trash. Coral is dying, and marine life has left. What turtles remain are trapped. Take control of a solitary turtle attempting to free his turtle kin and return the reef to its original splendour.”
The Ubisoft Australia Game Jam challenges student game developers’ skills, creativity and teamwork.
Game developers have just had under two weeks to bring their game to life.
Despite the tight timeframe, the team managed to create all 3D assets, audio and code within software explicitly for the Game Jam.
After the competition, players and fellow game developers had the opportunity to play each other’s games and provide feedback.
“It was nice spending a night or two playing other people’s games, leaving comments and just engaging with the other contestants”, said Marnus.
Effects of climate change
The students hope their game highlights the issues that the Great Barrier Reef is currently facing. It’s wildlife, including turtles, are being plagued by an increasing amount of trash and coral bleaching.
Home to 25 per cent of all known marine species, human-caused problems are letting one of the largest and most bio-diverse habitats slowly die.
The team urges players to help protect our reef, directing them to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.