“BROVER, meanwhile, merged two highly unlikely inspirations: the Bill Gates and Bill Clinton (among many others) backed Code.org initiative and Will Wright’s evolutionary experiment, Spore. The end result? A rover builder that teaches crucial skills like programming and why it’s a bad idea to put wheels on every conceivable surface of something except the one that makes it move.” - Rock Paper Shotgun

B.R.O.V.E.R was originally developed during a Game Jam (Dark Side of the Jam) graciously hosted by the folks at the Night Rover Challenge, a program of the Cleantech Open and a NASA Centennial Challenge at NASA Ames. We were so incredibly inspired by the atmosphere, tools, and assets available to us that we just had to continue the momentum and finish what we started. We want our game to inspire folks to learn more about science, space, and engineering and most importantly, have fun doing so!

The B.R.O.V.E.R team is a diverse group united by our passion for this game:

• Angelo Yazar - Programmer/Game Developer
• Lita Yazar - Game Developer
• Yekta Yazar - Game Designer
• Jose Mayo - 3D Modeler
• Chelsea Barackman - Game Producer, Aerospace Engineer
• Nick Dominikovic - Consultant, Aerospace Engineer

Unique game play: B.R.O.V.E.R is a physics-based space simulation puzzle game where you plan and execute a mission to accomplish the level requirements .  You design and build a rover part-by-part and program its movements but remember, your field of view and actions available are determined by what you place on your Rover.   

• Choose parts that together would fulfill the requirements.  You pick the parts, you pick the placement. It’s all completely personalized. Some example parts to choose from:

                         - Power Subsystem (Solar Panels & Batteries) 

                         - Communications Subsystem

                         - Command & Data Handling Subsystem

                         - Scientific Instruments Payload              

Deploy Rover

• Program rover: plan sampling and movement while keeping an eye on your energy budget. Example commands:

                         - moveForward(); 

                         - moveBackward(); 

                         - rotateLeft();

                         - rotateRight(); 

                         - takeSample(); 

                         - toggleNonEssentials();

• Send program to Rover and watch it execute your commands
• Reprogram the rover based on current information. If the rover encounters a problem, attempt to find a way out of your situation using only the parts and instruments you included during design. For example: if you have a sample collector you can test the soil and send that data back to earth. Unless you didn't add a solar panel and run out of power...

• As you execute your mission, you will encounter critical mission events that will force you to adapt, reassess, and change the approach or scrap the mission entirely. 

In our current prototype, players can build their own custom rovers and deploy them to the moon. Once on the moon you can issue short programs to the rover, and use the data streaming from the rover to navigate the lunar surface.

While the demo is playable there is still a lot needed in order to make a complete game. Including:

• Licenses for Unity3D
• More rover parts
• Missions and objectives
• More subsystems
• Nicer looking user interfaces
• Music and sound
• The ability to save and share rover designs and mission logs

Your contribution is directly going to help us create a high quality game with excellent visual design.  

You can also help B.R.O.V.E.R out by spreading the word via any form of social media!

Comments/Questions?

Contact the B.R.O.V.E.R team at the following:

• Twitter: @BroverTeam
• Email:  brover.rover@gmail.com

All backers will get access to the demo when they back the project. We will manually e-mail you a link, if you don't get an e-mail within a day, let us know!