Latinx Tree of Knowledge

Made for Latinx in Gaming's Unidos Game Jam

About

You're a little light exploring underground roots, finding nodes that represent historical figures from across Latin America. Each person you discover teaches you something about our history and gives you knowledge points.

Knowledge points helps you to place beacons to light up the way and to grow the tree of knowledge. By yourself, you can't fully grow this tree, but with a community you can and the community can help guide the way to other nodes in the roots of the Latinx Tree of Knowledge.

How to play

• Tap to move - your light goes where you tap
• Find nodes - they're scattered in the roots underground
• Learn stuff - tap nodes to read about the people and earn knowledge points
• Leave beacons - spend your points to place permanent lights that guide other players
• Grow the tree - watch the community progress bar (top-right) and tap it when it fills up

Challenge: Resistencia

"Build around themes of resilience, survival, or standing up against oppression."

My take: you're a beacon of light in the darkness, searching for historical figures to learn about our roots. The darkness and the unknown locations of the nodes represent oppression and lost history. As you gain knowledge, you literally light up the way for yourself and others.

The multiplayer aspect ties into this too - when you leave beacons for other players, you're making it easier for the community to navigate the darkness together.

Learning about our roots becomes an act of collective resistance. 
The more we know, the more we can illuminate, and the more the tree grows.

Background

I spent this year's Hispanic Heritage Month researching impactful people from every single Latin American country. Last year I did something similar but all that research just stayed buried in our game files, which felt like a waste.

So this time I made an open database that anyone can use—for games, school projects, whatever. Right now it has the people I researched for this 2025 jam (at least one person per country/territory). After the jam wraps up, I'm planning to migrate all the people I researched last year too.

After building the database and website, I had some jam time left, so I made this game to actually do something fun with all that research.

The database is free for anyone to use and contribute to. Because these stories shouldn't stay hidden underground.

Tech stuff

• Unity 6 - game engine
• Google Firebase Realtime Database - handles the multiplayer bits (beacons, shared knowledge points, tree stage)
• Procedural Tree Generator by MysticForge - creates the tree stages and scenery
• LatinX Roots DB (https://pretty-games.github.io/latinx-roots-db/)
• No AI was used in the development of this project

Collaborators

Just me, Tiago Sommer Damasceno. I recently became a father and stay-at-home dad, so I'm still figuring out how much time I can dedicate to game dev these days. Didn't want to commit to working with anyone and then let them down if dad duties had to come first.

What is Next?

1. Bring people I researched last year into the Latinx Roots Database
   1. currently it only has people I researched this year for this game jam
2. Add a way for people to create their own "rooms"
   1. in that way this project can be used in classrooms and kids can grow the tree from the start
3. Open source the Unity project 
   1. game jam codes are always messy 😅
4. Hire or Collaborate with an Artist
   1. The beacons, nodes, menu, background could use an artist's touch