Game Title
Carbonbusters

Developer Name
CO2 Studios

Short Promo Blurb
Reimagine car-centric infrastructure to reduce transportation emissions in this green transit sim.

Full Description
You’re a carbon specialist contracted to help reduce emissions in various cities. Your goal is to build improved transit paths and lower carbon emissions to 0%. Make sure to prevent emissions from reaching 100% to avoid an environmental disaster.
The game begins with a car-dependent city with high transportation emissions. The player must change the infrastructure in the city to reduce transportation emissions and gain political support/approval by making a positive impact on the citizens. This approval will allow the player to make larger and larger changes, for example, beginning by putting in bike lanes and building up to tearing up a highway to build a rail line.

Promo Image(s)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JbzZ3aU8yCalgdMNKrCls0l3SVedT0aq?usp=drive_link

Promo Video
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JJNAaz_KFJNIn5F5ezv0vbFJhpVlmPks/view?usp=drive_link

Artistic Statement / Use of Theme(s)
Our game incorporates the theme of the jam by focusing on the significant impact of transportation choices on carbon emissions and their correlation with climate change. By engaging players in the transformation of car-centric suburbs into environmentally friendly, livable spaces, we aim to educate and inspire them about the importance of sustainable infrastructure. Players experience firsthand how reducing emissions can positively affect the environment, reinforcing the theme of "Change the Story."

Our artistic intentions are reflected in several unique design choices. We decided to use political support as the currency instead of money, emphasizing the social and political aspects of urban planning. We also chose to model parking lots, which are often overlooked in city games, to highlight their space inefficiency and potential for better uses. By emphasizing pedestrian and bike infrastructure, we aim to counter the car-centric focus prevalent in many city games, such as Cities: Skylines, which often default to suburban sprawl and car-dependent urban layouts.

Inspirations behind our work include the minimalist visual design of Mini Metro and the thought-provoking insights from Molleindustria’s "Games for Cities" talk. We draw on the engaging game loops of city and transit sims like SimCity and OpenTTD, while deliberately subverting the conventions of games like Cities: Skylines and SimCity. By focusing on sustainable solutions and the complexities of improving existing infrastructure, we aim to offer a fresh perspective on urban planning and transportation in gaming.

Through our game, players learn about the intricate balance of urban development, the importance of sustainable infrastructure, and the transformative power of individual and systemic change. This project not only aligns with the jam's theme but also strives to educate and inspire players to envision and create a more sustainable future.

Development Summary
In total, 12 people were involved in this project. Our original idea was for players to build transit cities, but due to the scope, we decided to narrow it down to walkable cities where players can add sidewalks, bike lanes, and lampposts. Initially, we dreamed of including more transit types like buses and metros/rail, but we focused on cars, pedestrians, and bikes since pedestrians and bikes could be modeled similarly, unlike buses and rail which would require managing multi-person vehicles on schedules.

We encountered several surprises during development. Setting up a day and night cycle visually was much easier than we anticipated, thanks to Godot's user-friendly animation players. However, we were shocked to discover that Godot doesn't support FBX files, requiring us to reformat our assets.
Pitfalls included our collective lack of experience with Godot, which we had chosen as a challenge. We also failed to break down tasks early on and plan for each milestone adequately. Some issues with GitHub led to the creation of multiple branches, with some buggy branches left unresolved. It was challenging for our programmers to collaborate because we didn't granularly plan or paper prototype early enough, leading to the need to rebuild some systems due to incorrect assumptions.

One of the hardest things to cut from our concept was the inclusion of trains, which we hope to add in later versions. Our downfall was not wanting to cut any features, resulting in a crunch at the end to make everything happen—worth it?

Release Plan
Current releasability:
Minimum Playable Prototype

A couple of us plan to keep working on the project in the future until the steam release