About MurGame

Description

MurGame is a playful debris flow simulation, where players defend a quaint alpine village from giant mudslides. The game is aimed at players with a love for realistic data and behaviour, which is achieved through the game’s implementation of real-life debris flow data (RAMMS). MurGame is also used for educational purposes, to raise awareness of the costs and dangers of giant mudslides in Switzerland and what kind of countermeasures can be made in high-risk locations.

Context

Damage caused by debris flow are quite costly, though with some small upgrades to housing, they could be drastically be reduced. This game raises awareness of the amount of destruction giant mudslides can cause. Players build their own town and experiment which constructions are helpful. MurGame was first showcased at the Swissbau in Basel in January 2020, was released online on April 28 2020, and will be developed further as soon as there is more funding.

The game was co-developed with Geo7 and the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, SLF.This game uses realistic data provided by the SLF, implementing RAMMS (Rapid Mass Movement Simulation) to calculate a realistic debris flow depending on what the players build in their town.

The development was funded by Präventionsstiftung der Kantonalen Gebäudeversicherungen, Die Mobiliar and the Federal Office for Environment (BAFU).

Installing

Go to https://murgame.ch/

Firefox and Chrome recommended, works in Edge and Safari too.

It’s a Unity WebGL application, so there’s no installation needed.

Gameplay Instructions

You can change the language on the start screen (German or French). Tick the tutorial checkbox if you want a tutorial. (recommended) Use Mouse (Click, Drag, Zoom) or Keyboard(WASD to move, QE to zoom) to navigate the environment.

Build houses and other landmarks by clicking on one of the green or blue zones with house icons. A catalogue opens, with different buildings to choose from. The buildings have different prices and levels of attractiveness to the citizens. You can also choose different colors for some buildings, but it has no impact on the mechanics. Houses can further be upgraded by clicking on them and choosing from a catalogue of additional countermeasures. Every building has a remove option you can click in case you want to build something else and get your money back.On the top right is a counter on how much money you spent, how happy your citizens are, and a list of tasks you have to fulfill.

When you are finished with your town, you are able to activate one of two buttons on the bottom right. You can choose between a small or a giant mudslide, which will cover your village, depending how well you fortified everything. The game will then calculate the mudslide.The debris rushes down the hill and covers anything that will give way. By clicking on the button on the lower right, you can see a report of damage done and their cost, building costs and citizen happiness. After this, you can choose to get back to your village and change anything you like to see different outcomes based on that, or you can end the game.

The goal of the game is to build cost efficient villages that are safe from debris flow.

Videos

download files as .zip (186 KB)

MurGame Trailer

MurGame Gameplay

Images

download files as .zip (7 MB)

Logos

download files as .zip (276 KB)

Awards, Press & Recognition

Team Murgame

Binan Woll
Project Lead, Game Design, Graphics

Eleanore Young
Programming Lead

Melody Flora Zimmer
Programming

Yasemin Günay
Sound

Ralf Mauerhofer
Game Design and Communications

Jasmin Widmer
Marketing