Rainbow Reef Turtle Chief

The reef is overrun with trash. Coral is dying, and marine life has left. What turtles remain are trapped. Take control of a solitary turtle attempting to free his turtlekin and return the reef to its original splendour.

The Goal

Rescuing trapped turtles will return other turtles to the reef, which can be used to revive the coral. Reviving coral will steadily remove the trash from the reef. When all the coral is revived, the player saves the reef and the game is won.

The Controls

The controls are displayed in the in-game tutorial. They are as follows:

Move — Left Stick/WASD
Camera — Right Stick/Mouse
Dash — Right Trigger/Shift
Call — Space/Left Trigger

The Team

Designed by Hugh Craig, Marnus Jordaan, Ian Scheepers and Jaime Shirazi.

Lead Programmer — Jaime Shirazi
AI and Pathfinding Programming — Hugh Craig
3D Modelling, Materials and Shaders — Ian Scheepers
Effects, Post-Processing and Lighting — Jaime Shirazi
Level Design — Marnus Jordaan
Music and Sound — Jaime Shirazi
Playtesting — Alexander Ward, Hamish Maudlin, Daniel Lamperd

Background

This is our team's first collaborative project, and we were very excited for the opportunity to work together on this jam. All 3D assets, audio and code used within this software were created by team explicitly for the Ubisoft Australia Game Jam 2024. This was one of our primary creative objectives that we challenged ourselves with. 

In order to retain the player's immersion, we strived to utilise as little on-screen text as possible. Lastly, we wanted to make a game that many different players of different skill levels and gaming backgrounds could enjoy, so we aimed for a serene experience without overloading the player with mechanics.

The Reef

The Great Barrier Reef and its wildlife, turtles included, are plagued by an increasing amount of trash and coral bleaching. Human-caused problems are leading one of the most beautiful natural structures in the world to slowly die.

In real life, it's not up to the Rainbow Reef Turtle Chief to solve this problem. It's up to us.

To help protect our reef, find more at https://www.barrierreef.org/.