DartWorld

DartWorld Main Menu: Choose to Play, View Leaderboard, or Explore Collections on a rotating 3D Earth!
Pick your mode: Adventure for relaxed learning, or Challenge for timed, competitive play!
Choose your difficulty: Easy, Medium, or Hard: each mode adjusts the challenge and scoring!
Climb the leaderboard in DartWorld: the faster and smarter you play, the higher you score!

Inspiration

We were inspired by the international community at Dartmouth College. As international students ourselves, we wanted to build something that celebrated the diversity around us: a way to learn about where our peers are from, and also proudly share where we come from! DartWorld was born out of our curiosity, excitement for global cultures, and the spirit of connection across countries.

What it does

DartWorld is an educational geography game where players use hints to locate countries on a 3D interactive Earth. Each correct guess unlocks fun facts about a country's culture, language, cuisine, sports, and more. Players can choose between relaxed "Adventure" mode or competitive "Challenge" mode, and track their scores on a real-time leaderboard as they "conquer" countries through learning.

How we built it

We built DartWorld using Unity and C#, with UI designs created in Figma. We also integrated Gemini AI to generate dynamic hints and learning prompts throughout the game. The project involved building an interactive globe with raycasting to detect dart throws, setting up timers and point deduction systems, creating smooth UI transitions between scenes, and designing multiple game modes.

Challenges we ran into

Since it was our first hackathon, we had a lot to learn very quickly. One major challenge was aligning the dart accurately to the 3D surface of the globe using raycasting. Managing scene transitions, integrating timers, and balancing UI design with game logic were also new for us. Collaborating across different parts of the game (scoring, UI, hints, database) under tight time pressure was another big challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that we built a fully playable, educational, and themed experience from scratch in a short time. We're especially proud of how we stayed true to our original inspiration (celebrating international diversity!) while also learning entirely new skills in Unity, C#, database integration, and AI hint generation. DartWorld really captures the spirit of what we set out to create and what Dartmouth College is to us.

What we learned

We learned how to collaborate under high pressure, how to structure a full Unity project across multiple scenes, how to implement 3D raycasting, and how to build interactive, themed UI. We also learned how powerful it is to root a project in something personally meaningful; it kept us motivated and excited throughout the whole hackathon.