Inspired by the iconic Space Invaders, Aussie Invaders is an exploration-based game that brings awareness to children about Australia's native wildlife and the invasive species that are threatening their survival. The ultimate aim of this is to promote the growth and understanding of Australia's vast flora and fauna within future generations.
The game involves a player walking around a map with both native and invasive species scattered around it. Upon finding a native species, it becomes unlocked, and players can generate a random species of that animal category. Upon finding an invasive species, players are prompted to play a Space Invaders like game whereby they must defeat the invasive species. Only after defeating an invasive species, is it considered unlocked. The player wins once all the animals are unlocked.
This team project was done as a part of the course DECO1800 at the University of Queensland which focused on incorporating datasets into a web-based application using APIs. The datasets used were the Conservation status of Queensland wildlife, SoE2020: Major threats to fauna species and the SoE2020: Major threats to flora species.
The game was coded primarily using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It uses the HTML canvas to display the game and switch between the Pokemon-style free foam and the Space Invaders style shooting game. API calls were used to retrieve data from the datasets and parsed accordingly for use in the game. I have provided screenshots of different features in the game below.
Note: This portfolio page provides a very concise summary of the project. If you would like to learn more, feel free to get in touch.