Do you know everything there is to know about the Red Fort? What about the Charminar? There is indeed a lot that children and even adults are yet to learn about India's ancient monuments, which bear testimony to rich cultural heritage. And while reading about it in History books might not be everyone's cup of tea, this game by students of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham can surely help. Providing a detailed insight into India's monuments, how they came to be and their significance and place in the country's history, Treasure Hunt, developed by the college's Team Yukthi, is a must-play for all.
This unique game helped the students of Amrita's Chennai campus become one of the winners at Toycathon 2021. Explaining how the game works, the leader of the team of five, BTech first-year student R Amrita Laasya, says, "The web game has been created in the form of a board game that includes a treasure hunt across India that connects several monuments by a path. In this multiplayer game, players can move their pieces along the path based on how the dice rolls."
According to Amrita, players will be asked questions after every turn, based on the action cards that have bee prepared. "If they answer correctly, they will get 50 keys and there's a penalty of 20 keys for every wrong answer. The player who is the fastest to collect 500 keys is the winner," explains Amrita. Questions will be based on the particular monument where the player's piece lands after the roll of dice. The team hopes that this free game will enlighten the players about Indian history and that too in an interesting manner.
But that's not all. Amrita says that they have also developed an app along with the web game. "It is for additional reference and interested players can use it to be redirected to blogs and other information about the particular monument," she says. The app also includes practice quizzes for the game, where players have to answer multiple-choice questions in 30 seconds. "We have also integrated a three-dimensional street view in the app so that the players can have an immersive experience and see the monument virtually," adds Amrita.
The team of students wants to improve the user experience and is working towards more immersive graphics. "We are also looking forward to integrating the app with the web game so that the process becomes seamless. However, we are looking for external collaborations to accomplish this," says Amrita. The team is entirely made up of first and second-year BTech students specialising in Electronics and Communication or Computer Science. "We have used Javascript to design the website while for the mobile app, which works on Android and iOS phones, we have used Flutter," informs Amrita.
Amrita says that they are yet to publish the game for public use. They presented the prototype at the Toycathon and according to Amrita, they will be publishing it as soon as they integrate better graphics and make it more attractive. "We need more coding knowledge to make it suitable for the market and therefore, we are seeking support from the industry," says Amrita. The students worked remotely for most of the game development and it took six months for them to complete it. "The first three months were spent on learning how to make it and we made the game over the next three months," recalls Amrita.
