Swim, Die, Repeat

A third-person sim-game spanning the life of a sea turtle, an animal highly impacted by human activities ranging from pollution to coral reef acidification. Our goal was to grant players empathetic insight on these obstacles faced just to survive, and how human societies have paid for their explosive development using the "life" of the environment as currency. 

Stages of Life

The game begins with the character as a hatchling, crawling across a beach at night towards the sound of the sea. The scene was purposely designed to be barren and disorienting, to mimic the challenge baby turtles face in the wild at this stage of life. While the player will (hopefully) eventually find their way to the shoreline, many real life turtles take a wrong turn and die to highways, pets, or other predators. 

The next stage is the juvenile, where the turtle explores the ocean on its own, seeking both food and safety to allow itself to grow. In this stage, the scene is scattered with a mix of delicious jellyfish, plastic bags mimicking jellyfish (which will choke/restrict the movement of our poor turtle), and live sea mines left from past human conflicts. Survival becomes difficult.

Third, is the family stage. At this point, the turtle has met its mate, and together, they must navigate the same dangerous waters to reach a safe location to raise offspring. With a second turtle on-board, food requirements increase, and the space they take up increases as well, making it easier to collide with dangerous obstacles. 

With the family stage complete, the turtle has successfully survived long enough to reproduce, and the player is given a choice of power-ups for the next generation (i.e. faster movement, extra health, durability), thus simulating the adaptation of the animal species to the harsh conditions created by humanity. The game restarts, and the next turtle begins its journey.