Description

Plasticity is a 2.5D cinematic platformer about a young girl named Noa who explores and decides the future of her post-oil, plastic-ridden world. Set in the future, in a world where plastic consumption never ended, leaving lifeless cities, flooded towns, and widespread disease in its wake, players will make choices that either help or harm the environment and its inhabitants. After a certain point of the game is reached, a ten year time-skip occurs and players will confront how the choices they made on their journey had a resulting impact on the communities around them.

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Release Date

May 24, 2019

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Price

Free

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Supported Platforms

Initial release for Windows PC

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Project History

This game was developed by a team of 30 students from the University of Southern California. Aims Zhang and Michelle Olson met in an undergraduate game design class in 2018 and realized they shared a passion for environmental sustainability. They created an initial prototype with the goal of encouraging players to think about their relationship with plastic consumption, and bring awareness to the ways in which the overconsumption of single-use products can harm communities and animals. The final version of the game was developed over the course of 9 months for a USC Games capstone class, Advanced Games Project, with mentorship from USC Environmental Studies faculty. The game contains 20-40 minutes of content and shipped for free on Steam in May 2019.

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Abstract

Single-use products offer a cheap and easy solution to inconveniences we encounter in our daily lives, but can have devastating long term effects on the planet. A plastic bag someone may have only used for ten minutes is both difficult and costly to recycle, and often ends up in our oceans or a landfill site where it can take over 100 years to biodegrade. Furthermore, the microplastics it degrades into can contaminate soil and water, harming wildlife, entering the food chain, and even ending up in our bodies.

 

Plasticity uses interactive play to teach its players about sustainability and the environmental impact of products designed to be used once and discarded. The ease of using single-use plastics is represented in the design of every puzzle in the game, where some solutions to puzzles are more convenient and readily apparent than a more sustainable approach. Through the game’s design, Plasticity asks its players to be introspective and reflective about their choices and what effects their decisions might have on their communities in the future.

 

When people make sustainable or unsustainable choices in their daily lives, they may never get to see what kind of impact that had on the world. It can take years to see the effect our collective actions have had on the environment. By utilizing a time-skip, Plasticity is able to give players immediate feedback and show how the decisions they made throughout the game had a resulting effect on the animals and communities of the game.

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Awards​​​

• Games For Change, "Best Student Game" Finalist (2020)

• IndieCade, "Official Nominee" (2019)

• Jam City, "Bazillion Dollar Idea" Winner (2019)

• Green Engagement Fund Recipient (2019)

• Intentional Play Summit, "Best Student Game" Finalist (2018)

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Exhibitions

• Museum of Design Atlanta Full Circle: Design Without End Exhibition (2022)

• Indie Megabooth at GDC (2020)

• A+D Museum Designing Worlds Exhibition (2020)

• IndieCade at E3 Exhibitor (2019)

• Stevens Innovator Showcase, "Official Selection" (2018)