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Nasa’s jaw dropping galaxy images published on September, broke the internet due to it’s monumental achievements. This cluster of exotic colors, abstract shapes, and random spreads demonstrate the beauty of the galaxy to humanity. 

These historical pictures would have not been possibles without the James Webb Space Telescope. First launched in Dec 25, 2021 and began it’s work on July 2022, this telescope has been a detrimental tool in helping enthusiasts explore space.

In an effort to understand it’s intricate mechanisms and functions, Team Adventurers has detailed a game prototype that serves to educate both children and adults.

Below is a breakdown of JWSP’s Adventure along with graphics that detail elements about the game. 

Adventure J is visualized to be presented in Android, IOS, and Application.

Tools used include Figma and Google Office Suite.  

Coding Language utilized is HTML, CSS, Javascript, and React Native. 

Gameplay Concept

JWSP’s Adventure is a vertical scroller game that’s available on both PC and Mobile. It’s main purpose is to indirectly raise the awareness of the James Webb Telescope by gamifying the process.

Goals

In total there are three levels that rise in difficulty. Each level introduces new hazardous elements (see obstacles below), new Satellite models, and new information about NASA, Satellites, and images taken by said satellites.

Obstacles

Adventure’s J main difficulty aspect comes from dodging obstacles across the galaxy. With each difficult (Easy, Normal, and Hard) a new danger is presented. These obstacles are:

Meteors: This initial obstacle is static, easy-to-dodge, and provide little to no challenge. In essence, it serves to familiarize players with the game mechanics.

Satellites: Horizontally moving, satellites serve as a slightly difficult obstacles that the player must dodge. On top of providing a challenge, obstacle satellites also educate the user about the dangers of space debris and it’s impact on navigation.

Solar Flare: During Adventure J’s hardest level, this hard obstacle obstructs an entire lane and forces the player to navigate through two other lanes. Solar flares teach users the dangers of Solar flares as well as tie in the space scenario.

Power-ups

While playing, Adventure J frequently presents players with power-ups that aid them through the level. These power-ups are:

Infrared Camera: James Webb Space Telescope’s capabilities would have not been possible without it’s powerful infrared camera. Players can directly pick up this ability to decrease the size of obstacles .

Fuel: By picking up fuel canisters, players can accelerate the speed of their machine to finish the level faster.

Gold-Plated Beryllium Mirrors: Another impressive aspect about the James Webb Space Telescope is it’s hive-like gold-played Beryllium Mirrors. When players pick up this part, they are granted a shield that allows them to survive crashes.

Rewards

What motivates player to continue playing is the reward itself. Hence, we ensured that Adventure J properly rewards users while teasing them about the next level. The main rewards include:

Interactive Cards: These dynamic cards are rewarded once a player finishes a level. Therer are mainly three types (Telescope Images, About Satellites, Fun Nasa Facts) and each section has three cards (9 in total). These card images are paired with text that gives context about the included process.

Other Machine Models: To educate players about the importance of telescopes, Adventure J will also allow players to switch out their playable character models with two others telescope: Hubble and Spitzer.  

Downloadable Telescope Images: We believe that once players earn their victory, they will be able to download James Webb’s stunning imagery and utilize it as wallpaper for their devices.

Levels

Adventure J is a relatively short game intended to be played occasionally alone or in a classroom. While the current time limitations put constraint on the project, Adventure J would have initially had 9 levels, but for the project’s sake they are three:

Junior Explorer (Easy): Junior explorer is the initial easy level in Adventure J, it’s simple, direct, with little challenge to offer. The only obstacles include meteors.

Space Enthusiast (Medium): Space Enthusiast is a medium difficultly level with medium content. Players will dodge meteors and moving satellites while collecting powerups.

Galaxy Scientist (Hard): Galaxy Scientist is the hardest level in adventure J, challenging players with meteors, moving satellites, and large solar flares.

Visuals

Adventure J has been intentionally designed to be as simple as possible, so that it can be accessible to a large crowd. The game will feature multiple visual elements to distinguish itself and be fun. The main visuals include:

Menus: Dynamic and obvious, Adventure J’s menu design is simple such that anyone can understand in a heartbeat how to navigate the game.

Level Art: Through visual artistic elements, Adventure J’s vector elements paired with the stunning galaxy images that act as background, the game is visually interesting.

Benefits of Making JWSP’s Adventure

We believe that simple educational games are largely impactful and useful in both personal and scholar settings. Whether it’s a pass time game during commute or used to educate a classroom, light, short, and direct games like Adventure J make an impact. 

Furthermore, developing accessible games equally raise awareness about the subject it revolves around (i.e: Adventure J and the James Webb Space Telescope) in areas where science is difficult to access.

Our choice to make the game available on all platforms (specifically Android) combats inaccesiblity in impoverished areas. Additionally, the game’s minimal elements equally allow machines with low processing power to play the game.

All of our project’s detail utilized data publicly provided by NASA. Specifically, Adventure J references to NASA’s library of all images taken by the different satellites, which constitutes for our images.

Furthermore, all text written on the information cards as well as the power-ups and obstacles were inspired by Nasa’s different articles and discussions about satellites, improving them, and the obstacles they face.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/images/index.html

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/multimedia/images.html

https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/

Speaking on behalf of the entireteam, the lead can confidently say that our experience was pleasant. Our team is made up of 5 random members who have never met themselves before, yet through this experience we have bonded and created valuable relationships.

As we were exploring the convention and it’s intricacies, the people responsible for the event introduced the different challenges. As many were presented, the James Webb Space Telescope challenge idea of creating a game interested our game.

While none of us had enough coding knowledge, our team members were able to make for each others’ shortcoming. For example, the team lead has game design Aknowledge while two members have graphic design and web development experience, and the other two members were skilled in gathering and summarizing data for research.

Throughout this hackathon, we’ve learned a lot including topics related to space as well as technical skills such as web development, robotics, and ethical hacking; on top of soft skills such as project management and leadership.

Image galleries:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/images/index.html

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/multimedia/images.html

https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/

Telescope structure and information: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/

#game #mobilegame #telescope #education