GreenBud

An Environmental Game

The prototype to the right is interactive.

Bud Interaction

Upon opening the app, you are onboarded via tutorial conducted by a slug. He directs you to water your bud with the Waterdrop button above the plant, which is only displayed when the plant is active via tap. Within the prototype, you can only provide 50 waterdrops, and the debit is not shown in the waterdrop inventory at the top left of the screen.

With enough watering, the bud will grow from a small plant to a larger plant. Once it is big enough, you virtually plant it on a map that corresponds with the real world. You can enter augmented reality from the map when you get close to a Green Park to see all of the buds planted in a particular location. You can plant all of your plants in one place, several places, or together with friends.

After a bud is planted, seeds take its place on the main screen. After being watered, these seeds grow into a baby bud and the process starts over. On the home screen, the camera button sends you into an augmented reality on which the characters are superimposed. You can then take pictures with your buds in whatever physical space you are currently in. In addition to a cactus character, there would be different species of buds: pine trees, willow trees, palm trees, agave plants, etc. This diversity is unfortunately not reflected in the prototype.

Earning Waterdrops

The accompanying mechanic of the game that fuels the bud ecosystem is the process by which you earn waterdrops: by completing and logging environmental activities and habits. There are multiple ways of doing this, but all take place in the Log Activity section, which is accessed by tapping the drop and plus sign at the bottom right of the home screen. Once in that section, the first method to log an activity is by tapping the plus button and searching for the activity. All of the activities that match the query will appear and you're able to mark the activity as completed from there. If the activity is not already on the app, you can manually add an activity. These activites can serve as crowdsourced activities to add in the future.

The second way of adding an activity is by one of four categories: Waste Reduction, Nature & Community, Saving Energy, and Conscious Eating. Tapping the category leads you to a submenu of all the relevant activites. From there, you can log the activity.

The last way to add an activity is through the two quick menus. Recent shows most recently logged activites and Favorites shows activites that have been tagged with the heart icon filled in at the top left of the activity's box. If an activity has already been logged for the day, the drop icon is filled in and you are unable to log that activity for drops for the day. These more nuanced states of activites are not interactive in the prototype, but you can tap an activity that has already been logged for the day to see the alert, "You already completed this activity today."

Finally, you are able to gain bonus drops by completing Drop Challenges, like completing a given activity every day for a week or a month. Through the Discover section, you can sign up for particular challenges after reading an article about it, such as eating vegetarian on a particular day or days in a row.

Friends & Discover

At the top right of the home screen are three menu items: Friends, Discover, and Settings. The settings page is straightforward. It shows your username and the option to log out or change your password in addition to connected social media accounts and the option to unlink them.

The Friends section contains notifications for friends who have visited your garden and watered plants for you or sent you waterdrops. The Ranking section shows all of your friends in order of how many waterdrops they have accumulated by logging activities. Add Friends gives you the option of connecting your social media accounts to add or invite friends (depending on whether or not they already use the app).

The Discover section is a collection of articles about environmental topics. When an article is marked as read, you can earn waterdrops. Sometimes a particular Drop Challenge will be associated with the article. If you read the article, accept the challenge, and complete it, you gain bonus drops in addition to the amount of drops you would gain from logging the activity outside of a challenge.