Overview:

Sophomore year I had the opportunity to work at Champlain College’s Emergent Media Center. The project I was on at the time was for a partnership with ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Burlington Vermont. “Lake Quest” is an interactive digital installation at ECHO. Tablets are set up at various places around ECHO where visitors can sign in to their virtual journal by swiping an RFID sticker. Once they sign in, they will be able to play games and the journal will keep track of their progress and badges that they have collected. “Lake Quest” launched alongside ECHO’s “Playing Together: Games” exhibit.

At it’s launch, “Lake Quest” contained two games and the journal.

Lake Invaders:
This game is an infinite runner where the player must catch all of the invasive species without disturbing the native ones.

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Algae Officer:
A game of strategy, Algae Officer has players managing the resources of the nearby towns and cities so that they can expand. While they are trying to grow, the players must make correct choices so that the lake isn’t affected by algae blooms.

The Journal:
The main navigation section of the game. Here players can edit their profile, view badges, answer trivia questions and choose what games to play.

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My Role:
I was hired on near the end of the project to help with the journal portion of the project and getting assets in. I worked with another programmer to redo the badge system and the trivia section. We made both sections data driven with XML files. The trivia was split into 5 categories and questions can be added easily using the XML file. All that is needed is the question, answers, and the correct answer. Once that is given, the trivia section will build itself and cycle through questions.

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  • Language: Java with AndEngine
  • Role: Junior Programmer
  • Team Size: 11