Design Statement
The theme was music, and we took it as a place coming back into tune. Backtide is set after a flood: the water has gone back, and a drowned railway station is being retaken by plants. Humun wakes at the top of a tower beside Carrobot, a small robot that took itself apart to keep her alive, and goes out to bring its four parts home.

Our key choice was to make listening and naming the core verbs instead of fighting. Carrobot reads each plant it finds, and every species recorded can be grown back as ground to walk on: lily pads across the water, roots for a bridge. The station is quiet at first; birds, wind, water and music return as it grows green, so the world is tuned like an instrument. The original theme recording plays, unmodified, over the last scene in the grass.

We are five students. One lead built the opening, prologue, station and ending and integrated everything; each teammate made one of the four lines behind the station's doors, so the world is literally made of our different voices.

Game Instructions (launch steps, controls, and gameplay overview)
Launch: Windows 10/11 64-bit with a Vulkan-capable GPU. Download the zip, unzip it anywhere, run StationOne.exe. The game starts in English; press F2 for Chinese.

Controls: A/D move · W/S move in depth where allowed · Space jump (press again in mid-air to push off Carrobot) · E interact · F analyse a plant · G fish (stand still near water) · J or left mouse: Carrobot shoots beetles · Q recall Carrobot · Tab herbarium · R back to checkpoint · F1 guide · right mouse drag / Z / C rotate the camera, wheel zoom · Esc pause.

Gameplay: wake in the tower-top workshop, walk down the flooded tower, and step out into Station One. Restore power, scan plants to record them, grow lily pads and roots to reach new ground, and go through the four doors (or ride the turntable east) into four team-made levels, each holding one of Carrobot's parts. Bring the parts home, install them at the roof workshop, and see the ending.
Lost? Press T: Humun thinks aloud and an arrow points to the next step. Stuck in a level? Esc → skip this level (the part still comes home). About 40–70 minutes.

Gameplay walkthrough video
https://youtu.be/AwQ_iFPtw18

Did your project use any AI tools or assets? If yes, please specify.
Yes. AI-assisted: code was written with help from AI coding assistants (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI Codex), and some 3D models (Tripo) and distant backdrop images (OpenAI image generation) were AI-generated; all were edited and integrated by the team. The story, level design, direction, music arrangement and the hand-drawn cover art are the team's own.