The character Nero and the hybrid game of the same name were conceived during my bachelor's degree in graphic design.
Inspired by the 2014/2015 water crisis in São Paulo, Nero and his game aim to incetivate elementary school kids to be more mindful when using water.
The game is meant to be used in the classroom, helping teachers to engage students in the topic, by offering a playful approach to water related issues.
The game is centered around a water shortage at Nero's school. The players soon learn that this happened because of a monster invasion in the water cycle, on the game board. In order to bring the water back to the school, they need to expel the monster, by moving along the board collecting "defense cards" and installing "water collectors".
There are five different types of monsters in the game, each representing one actual problem that affects water. For example, the Bacteria Monster represents water contamination caused by bacteria.
Apart from the monsters that are already in the water cycle, new monsters are eager to invade the game. Nevertheless these monsters can be fought off, by having the player play the mini-games on the accompanying tablet app.
Each monster has its own augmented reality mini-game, and determines whether and the monster is going to enter the game together with its strength.
However, when getting to a question field on the board, the players can increase their chances of success in the upcoming mini-games by answering questions about water on the app.
Having been conceived as a group project, I was responsible for the game concept and 3d content including modeling, shading, texturing, rigging, animating and 3d printing using Blender, as well as the Android application created from scratch using Unity(C#) together with the Vuforia plug-in for augmented reality. It features one fully functioning mini-game, four mini-game simulations, watchable in augmented reality, a quiz and a digital manual. I was also responsible for creating promotional videos using Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere.