Race Against Time

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  game demo

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  visual concept made by styly

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Inspiration

The inspiration for Race Against Time began with our observations during the MIT Reality Hack. As we looked around, we noticed an unsettling amount of trash scattered in the hackerspace. This observation led us to reflect on a deeper problem: while awareness of sustainability issues has grown significantly due to increasing exposure to media, news and environmental campaigns, awareness alone often doesn’t translate into meaningful action. This disconnect between knowledge and behavior became the driving force behind our project. Race Against Time was born to bridge this gap. We wanted to create an experience that not only emphasizes the urgency of environmental degradation but also inspires individuals to take active responsibility for their impact on the planet.

What it does

In the game, players are tasked with planting and watering five trees in a space increasingly overwhelmed by uncontrolled waste, representing the relentless pace of environmental degradation under modern consumerism. Players must strategically collect and use limited water resources—differentiating between clean and polluted sources—while combating the frustration of mounting trash and the urgency of a ticking clock. This game also builds contrasts, such as passive waste generation versus active ecological restoration, to convey the irony of humanity’s enviornemtnal ideals verses the reality of our actions.

How we built it

We used STYLY to craft a scene that blends nature’s liveliness inside a modern apartment filled with trashbags. After the prototyping stage, the entire mixed reality experience is made in Unity for Quest. We’ve utilized Meta’s MRUK and effect mesh to allow the game environment to spawn dynamically according to the player’s location. Trash prefabs were common wastes we saw at the MIT Reality Hack, which were converted via Polycam.

Challenges we ran into

It was difficult for the planted tree to detect collision with the water since the spraying water is created via particle effects and the progress bar of the tree’s growth to update whenever water collides with it. It was also hard to correctly spawn everything dynamically as prefabs with barely any assets in the scene. Since the game load base on your environment, we had difficulties creating world space interactable UI that need to spawn infront of users.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Making the MR interactions and logics fully playable in any in door enviornment.

What we learned

Idealing from our personal connection; Brainstorming is essential; Time is precious

What's next for Race Against Time

Creating more contrasting experiences between an aspect of our environment and our unconcious actions (e.g. mountain fires, overfishing, oil rig leaks etc..) to allow more people living in the urban area feel the disconnect between our environmental ideals and the reality of our unconscious actions.

Built With

• blender
• c#
• mruk
• styly
• unity