Hyper Ecofarm
A real-time farming strategy and resource management game
Brief Introduction
Hyper Ecofarm is a real-time farming strategy and fast-paced resource management game that simulates the ecofarm system. The game is inspired by the Chinese integrated farming system. In Hyper Ecofarm, players are trying to build up an ecosystem, and balance the system dynamically to keep the farm running healthily.
Background
Hyper Ecofarm is my solo thesis of Game Design MFA at NYU Game Center.
My Role
Hyper Ecofarm was my solo thesis project. I programmed and drew assets and found sounds and music for the project. I was also a project manager and took responsibility for promoting. After I was awarded Sloan Grant, I found another three collaborators - a programmer - Vivi Yu, an artist - Zuoyang Liu, and sound designer - Corey Bertelsen. I concentrated on design, programming, and project management after that.
As a project manager:
- Organized every week’s meeting with mentors
- Development plan and budget
- Kept eyes on the process
As a game designer, I worked on:
- Iterative design (playtest, analyze feedbacks and heuristics, and adjust game designs accordingly)
- System design: Diagram
- Game pacing & balancing
- UX design
- Tutorial/Learning Curve design
- Worked on playtesting every Thursday, collected feedbacks and iterated on designs
As a game developer, I implemented:
- Worked on UI, gameplay, tile generator effectively using JSON, Observers, State Machine, Flyweight, Singleton patterns
- Debugged and troubleshot to make sure no bugs in the builds for playtesting on every Thursday
- Ensured game assets are efficiently integrated into the game while preserving artistic integrity and performance
- Developed features and functionality within the Unity platform for deployment to Android and iOS targets
- Delivered high-quality version to playtest every Thursday with bugfree and efficient gameplay, controls, UI surface
Award and Prize
Hyper Ecofarm is one of the first gaming award winners for Sloan Science & Film award, given to student creators working on projects to advance the public’s understanding of science and technology: Sloan Project.
Latest Updates
Now I collaborated with an experienced programmer, a great artist, and a talented sound designer. We have new art assets and UI interface. The game is now on both iOS and Android. I’m doing weekly playtest at NYU Game Center Playtest Thursday.
You can watch a video about Hyper Ecofarm on YouTube or play it on itch.io.
Visual Showcase
