Season 18 (2024-2025) - Extreme Weather

It seems that every week in 2024 has brought news of some extreme weather event. Record-setting heatwaves on land and at sea, heavy rainfall, severe flooding, prolonged droughts, intense wildfires, and strong hurricanes are becoming increasingly common.

Adapting to weather, in all of its extremes, has long been a hallmark of life on Earth. From the ice age to the heat of the deserts to monsoons in rainforests, the inhabitants of Earth have learned to survive the weather usually seen in their environments. When patterns in the weather change and the frequency and nature of extreme events change, these survival systems are challenged.

Plants and animals are being forced to adjust their ways to account for weather events. These adjustments range from bird migratory patterns being disrupted by heat waves and changes to global air currents, elephant populations struggling to find watering holes, and even fish breeding seasons being disrupted by extreme changes in water temperature.

For humanity, these adaptations have profound influence on cultures and how we experience the world around us. Everything from the clothes we wear to how we build our homes is impacted by severe weather events. Building houses on stilts to allow for increased flood waters to pass through, tornado shelters, defensible space around structures for wildfires, more air conditioning on old power grids are all examples of these adaptations. As we stretch out from Earth, even our space exploration is influenced by the extreme weather conditions found on other planets such as accounting for solar flares and dust storms when landing rovers.

Weather that was once considered extreme is increasingly becoming the norm. What effects may this bring, and how will life adapt? Will we find new ways to harden our communities against these events? Will we retreat from the most vulnerable areas? What new extreme weather patterns may emerge?

The Oregon Game Project Challenge theme for 2024-2025 is Extreme Weather.

Teams should be creative in their interpretation and attempt to represent the theme in all parts of a submission - gameplay, story, art, and sound design.

We encourage teams to focus on the impact of adapting to extreme weather. From shifting climate phenomenon, harsh conditions for those in remote communities, and even futuristic settlements on other planets, how do these populations adapt to their extreme conditions?

Main Event

The Season 18 Main Event is May 10th at Western Oregon University!

Registration is now open in the Team Management System (TMS).

Documents For Season 18

Check out these for all the details on this year’s theme and achievements and how the competition works:

  • The Competition Manual for the season. This has the full theme description as well as rules and guidelines for the competition.
  • Achievements guide. These are specific things judges will be looking for when scoring your project.

Getting Started

New to OGPC and trying to figure out how to get started? Here is a checklist:

  1. Check out the Competition Manual to learn about the theme and how the actual competition works.
  2. Form a team. (The Competition Manual lists the requirements.) If you are a student, you will need to find an adult who is willing to be the team Coach.
  3. The create an entry in the Team Management System (TMS) (Click the Help link at the top of the TMS page to see a video of the process). This involves:
    1. The Coach makes an account and creates a Team.
    2. They then invite students to join.
    3. Students each make an account and accept their invite.
  4. Do some research on the theme. (You will share this research in your Game Portfolio document as part of completing one of the achievements.)
  5. Decide on what you want to build - fill out the Game Design Document portion of the Game Portfolio (See Competition Manual for details.)
  6. Register for the Main Event. (See Competition Manual for details.)