Concept

I will be creating a short video game/interactive experience where the player walks through a post-apocalyptic ruin picking up artifacts that provide hints about the people that once occupied the space. It’s unknown to the player when and where their character is exploring, as well as who/what the playable character actually is (human, robot, alien, etc.) By the end of the game, I want to reveal to the player that they are roaming the long-abandoned remains of St. George Terminal on Staten Island, just across the Hudson River from the New York City skyline. By this point in time, the city has receded several meters into the ocean and now exists in a subtropical climate. In order to build the game’s world, I will define a plausible timeline for climate change based on current climate science. The environment that the player explores will be built around this backstory.

Here is a working production timeline:

I have spent the first few weeks conducting research to define the game’s location and outline its background story. In truth, the first 3 stages (Research, Narrative Prototyping, and Storyboarding) have blurred together as I’ve produced environmental sketches that constitute a brief storyboard, but have yet to wireframe UI elements or sketch artifact concepts.

Constructing a timeline

I drew on findings from several peer-reviewed and government publications to construct a plausible timeline in which human-driven climate change has brought about the collapse of society.

Most of these details will not be revealed to the player. Rather, they will inform my imagination as I fill in the details of the immediate game environment.

Timeline of Global Collapse due to Climate Change (2030 to 2200 and beyond)

• 2030s: The Arctic is practically ice-free during the summer (“Predicting the Future of Arctic Ice”). Sea-level rise becomes a significant problem, causing coastal cities like New York, Miami, and Mumbai to invest heavily in costly infrastructure to protect against flooding. Political disagreements deepen over climate policy and expenditures.
• 2040s: Extreme weather events become the new normal, causing mass migrations and straining global food supplies (“Climate Change Indicators”). Population displacement and scarcity of resources like potable water as global population peaks (Liu et al.) lead to regional conflicts. Concerns about the vulnerable global economy inflame political disagreement over appropriate next steps, derailing initiatives for combatting climate change.
• 2050s and 60s: Agriculture yields are significantly impacted (Lyon et al.), leading to food shortages, soaring prices, and food rationing imposed by nations around the world. Many nations start abandoning green energy projects, and projected ‘business as usual’ (worst case) climate change scenarios start becoming realized.
• 2070s and 80s: Uninhabitable regions emerge across parts of the world like south Asia and equatorial South America as wet-bulb temperatures begin regularly exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (Buis). Mass migration reaches unprecedented levels, leading to border conflicts and refugee crises. As climate-induced tensions increase, global cooperation declines, and nations prioritize their own survival. Fossil fuels re-emerge as the main global energy source due to growing desperation for cheap energy, accelerating climate change and escalating international conflicts over ownership of oil reserves.
• 2090s: Since 2020, average temperatures across the world have risen by as much 4 degrees Celsius in many parts of the world (Lyon et al.). Sea levels have risen by about 1.3 meters (Van de Wal et al.). Vast areas across the tropics are uninhabitable due to regularly fatal wet-bulb temperatures; much of the subtropics is also uninhabitable due to high temperatures and insufficient food and water supplies. Borders begin closing as climate refugees overwhelm existing infrastructure and resources in host countries. Global economic systems falter as supply chains break down due to diplomatic tensions.
• 2100s: The world economy collapses as extreme weather events like droughts and storms derail already-struggling supply chains. The breakdown of food supply and healthcare systems cause famine and disease outbreaks. Major Antarctic ice shelves begin collapsing, setting in motion an accelerated, catastrophic rise of sea levels; over the following 2 centuries, the sea will rise as much as 8 additional meters (Van de Wal et al.). Nations begin declaring full-scale war as social unrest boils over.
• 2110s: War becomes global and begins targeting industrial, agricultural, and population centers like New York. National governments and economies begin collapsing, leaving behind regional factions concentrated in areas with habitable temperatures and locally available resources.
• 2120s – 2140s: Wars between remaining societies continue thinning the human population before eventually subsiding. Decades of conflict have destroyed infrastructure and caused technological development to stagnate and revert, leaving remaining societies ill-prepared to rebuild into large and complex civilizations as they struggle to establish large-scale agriculture in the new climatic conditions. Famine and disease continue to thin populations.
• 2150s – 2200: Small pockets of human civilization continue to survive, but although human industrial activity has virtually ceased, global temperatures continue to rise due to feedback loops set off throughout the past century (Lenton et al.).
• Post-2200: Due to the rippling effects of past human industrial activity, the remaining human population shrinks over the course of centuries down to pre-Agricultural Revolution levels. Humans leave behind very little evidence of their existence after 2200. It is unclear what ultimately happened to humanity.
• In-Game Present (unknown year): The area of the former New York City is devoid of human life and has been reclaimed by nature. Buildings, roads, street signs that haven’t totally disintegrated or eroded away are falling apart, faded, and overgrown with plants resembling those of the subtropics. The average summertime temperature is now 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit), or about 10 degrees Celsius higher than in the present day (Lyon et al.). Sea levels have risen by about 10 meters (Van de Wal et al.). Most of lower Manhattan is entirely underwater.

Works Cited

Buis, Alan. “Too Hot to Handle: How Climate Change May Make Some Places Too Hot to Live – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.” NASA, NASA, 9 Mar. 2022, climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/3151/too-hot-to-handle-how-climate-change-may-make-some-places-too-hot-to-live/#:~:text=Raymond%20says%20the%20highest%20wet,begun%20to%20exceed%20this%20limit.

“Climate Change Indicators: Weather and Climate | US EPA.” Environmental Protection Agency, 26 July 2023, www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate.

Lenton, Timothy M., et al. “Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against.” Nature, vol. 575, no. 7784, 2019, pp. 592–595, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0.

Levermann, Anders, et al. “The multimillennial sea-level commitment of global warming.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 34, 2013, pp. 13745–13750, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219414110.

Liu, Junguo, et al. “Water scarcity assessments in the past, present, and future.” Earth’s Future, vol. 5, no. 6, 21 Mar. 2017, pp. 545–559, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016ef000518.

Lyon, Christopher, et al. “Climate Change Research and action must look beyond 2100.” Global Change Biology, vol. 28, no. 2, 2021, pp. 349–361, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15871.

“Predicting the Future of Arctic Ice.” National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 11 Aug. 2020, www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/arctic-ice-study.

Van de Wal, R. S., et al. “A high‐end estimate of sea level rise for practitioners.” Earth’s Future, vol. 10, no. 11, 22 Oct. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ef002751.

Picking a location in the NYC metro area

I wanted the player to be able to see the New York skyline from an interesting vantage point. I did some quick reading about locations in the areas surrounding Manhattan—specifically ones with wide open views of the skyline across a body of water (which I felt would drive home the motifs of rising sea levels and post-apocalyptic desolation). I identified the following potential locations.

Brooklyn Heights Promenade

Photograph by Myrna Suarez. Published online at https://www.nyctourism.com/places/brooklyn-heights-promenade

• Simple yet iconic walkway fences
• Intersection of manmade structures and plants
• Close view of the skyline (but One World Trade Center somewhat hidden in the back, might also be more demanding to model/render)

Hoboken Waterfront Walkway

Source: https://www.visithudson.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sinatra-Park-2.jpg

• Simple and aesthetically pleasing location right on the water (maybe too low?)
• Great view of the skyline (but closer, might require more involved modeling of the skyscrapers)

St. George Ferry Terminal (Staten Island)

Screenshot from “NYC Staten Island Ferry Ride : Whitehall Street to St. George Terminal (September 10, 2021),” published to YouTube on September 15, 2021 by ActionKid.

• Great singular location
• Opportunities for artifacts: signs, refugee belongings
• Opportunity to imagine regrowth of native flora from the Mt. Loretto Unique Area
• Interesting features for submerging in water
• Distant view of NYC skyline (simpler to render)

Water’s Soul (Jersey City pier)

Water’s Soul by Jaume Plensa. Photograph by Timothy Schenck. Source: https://www.njfamily.com/what-is-the-meaning-behind-the-new-80-foot-sculpture-on-jersey-city-pier/

• 2020 sculpture by Jaume Plensa intended as a call to protect the city’s waterways
• Relates to the game’s commentary on climate change (but fairly new and perhaps not recognizable, could also be tricky to model)

I ultimately settled on St. George Ferry terminal. Not only does it provide a singular, modular area in which I could fit the whole game, but its use as a transit point makes it potentially very relevant to the climate refugee crisis from the story timeline.

Environment sketches and basic storyboarding

I drew a few locations within St. George Terminal based on footage from a video tour of the complex. These locations are depicted from the point of view of the player’s camera and are shown in the order they will appear to the player.

Starting Starewell

Down the hallway – “Welcome” sign and terminal exit

Doorways to the outdoor viewing platform

Final location – the outdoor viewing platform

Here is a rough diagram of the level map and the player’s traversal path. Note that the player spawns in the top-right of this diagram:

Finally, here’s a visualization of how I arrived at the theoretical water level that I depicted in my sketches (the base image is a screenshot I took of the actual St. George Terminal in Google Earth, which also provided a dynamic scale that I used to visualize 8 meters at the location shown):

Things to consider going forward

I am debating whether this location is too far from the Manhattan Skyline. I want the final reveal of the city to be clear and dramatic, and worry that depicting the skyline far in the distance will dull this impact. At the same time, I’m also considering that it will be simpler to render the skyline far in the distance as a moderately-sized 2D image rather than closer-up as a high-res image or even 3D models.

For now, I still feel the merits of St. George Terminal as a location outweigh the drawbacks of its distance from Manhattan, and that switching to a different location will significantly delay my overall progress. To provide an enlarged view Manhattan from Staten Island, I might incorporate some sort of binocular functionality or animation at the end to give the player a dramatic, blown-up look at the post-apocalyptic skyline.

I’m also trying to plan the level layout to allow for simple, modular environment modeling beginning with the start and end areas. This will guarantee a functional end product Keeping this project’s time constraints in mind, I’m also planning to build the game level areas in order of importance (beginning with the start and end areas, and then adding areas in between modularly). This will allow me to guarantee a functional end product regardless of roadblocks in modeling the less important areas.

Finally, as shown in the environment sketches, my current plan is to visualize the sense of post-apocalypse through flooding, foliage growth, broken glass, and worn surfaces. Notably, I am not planning to model fundamental structural damage (e.g. fallen ceilings, piles of rubble, etc.) in order to keep the 3D modeling workload manageable (although this may change as I start making progress). One concern of mine is the plausibility of having a building without catastrophic structural failure this far in the future—especially when it’s going underwater and potentially subject to Atlantic superstorms. My working justification is that the amibiguity of the game’s timeframe frees me from having to design reasonable structural failures based on the time span, weather conditions, and construction materials. In other words, I am simply defining the in-game present as some point in time that allows for intact buildings alongside significant climate change and the (apparent) disappearance of humanity.