Research:
We learned a lot from our entity in class, we took pages of notes. For the Serious game idea i came up with, we need an immense amount of expertise, we need it from BART among other sources to accurately represent horses and their behaviors, especially when the horses are scared/stressed, so that an horse AI can be programmed accurately, and it needs to be incredibly accurate for both the lives of horses and firefighters. We also need a large catalog of horse barn layouts with their building materials for accurate Massachusetts representation, so that when the firefighters train using this game, the setting is more likely to be useful and accurate. We also need the expertise of firefighters who have dealt with barns fires, preferably horse barns as to make sure the progression of the fire while firefighters are trying to save horses is also accurate.
I’ve said accurate plenty of times while writing, but lives are on the line, if something isn’t accurate enough it could get not only horses killed but firefighters as well.
Brainstormed Serious Game Idea:
- Genre: VR Firefighter Horse Rescue Simulator.
- Core Mechanics: Real-time horse barn fire with accurate horse decision and action of which the firefighter must interact with in an attempt to save them from the ongoing fire. No direct firefighting as the firefighters already know how to do that, only saving horses under a strict time limit and dangers. Multiple Barn setups and randomized fire and horse situations.
- Game Reference: Note: There are practically no games with direct animal rescue mechanics (I found a VR puzzle game video instead, as this game needs to be highly interactive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQx_RkCZpMU)
- Style Reference: clean, no need to distract if not mechanical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXuyOKNmFHE
- Main Goal: The main goal is to teach firefighters how to not only save horses during a barn fire but also to teach firefighters practices that will save their own lives while also rescuing horses.
- Meeting the Goal: We do not need to to teach firefighters how to fight fires but we do need to teach them how to handle horses. We can do that by allowing the firefighters to interact with virtual ones in the immersive environment of VR, with it we can give firefighters the closest thing to hands on experience without actually setting any barns ablaze with horses inside.
- Unique Attributes: Real-time simulation of possible events, the realistic event where the firefighter cannot save them all sometimes, and also showing the dangers to the firefighter’s own life when dealing with scared horses.
Team Members:
Myself,
A serious game problem 