GAMES WORLDMAKING
GAME/UI DESIGN | SUMMER 2023
Instructor: Damjan Jovanovic | Partner: Jack Freedman | Software: Unreal Engine5, Blender, Midjourney
Real-time simulations are an exciting new way of modeling urban phenomena. Going beyond drawing, mapping, and diagramming, we leverage the power of Unreal Engine to create a small toy world consisting of a playable model of a fictional ecological machine, set in a dynamic and responsive environment.
With the help of Blender, we model the machine components in the language of hard surface science fiction to create a fictional ecological construct, a toy machine that exists within the simulation. We develop the machine parts library, learn about dynamic systems, look into simulation games such as SimCity and SimEarth, as well as other visually led games (Citizen Sleeper), as precedents for the work, and explore how to utilize game workflows as ways to address urban issues. We utilize the Unreal Engine to develop a real-time rendering and exploration tool that will serve as the foundation for the game.
The main defining logic of this machine is: it uses energy and produces waste; it affects the environment and is affected by the environment; it forms loops. This, incidentally, is the foundational insight that James Lovelock has had in his “Gaia hypothesis”.
