Miner Inconvenience

Inspiration

Our principal inspirations for this project are the classic slide-scroller games with a unique pixel art style. We wanted to create a game that was not overly complicated or hard to get into so our creation could reach as many people as possible. In addition, the simplicity of the game reflects our coding capabilities. We did not want to set unachievable expectations for ourselves, so by sticking to a good base game, we were able to deliver a complete product.

What it does

Our project is a miner vs zombie shooter game for users to enjoy whether they are waiting for the bus or want something to do on their study break. The goal of the game is simple: shoot down all the zombies before they reach your character. The zombies spawn in waves which increase in complexity every 10 levels. Every 5 levels, users must face a boss to get the chance to collect health. Whilst playing, power-ups will randomly spawn to help the player along their journey. The best part of the game is that it's infinite, so as long as you keep eliminating zombies, they will keep coming back for vengeance!

How we built it

We built our project on Scratch, a block-based coding language we were taught in high school. We decided to use Scratch because we found it would make it simple to translate our ideas into code. In addition, Scratch provides a platform for other users to interact and find our game, which is a nice bonus.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we faced in Scratch was using the cloning feature. This was essential to our code since we wanted multiple zombies on screen at the same time that all had the features, but at times the code would bug out for unknown reasons. It took a lot of patience to go through the code block by block and find out what was causing the issues. In addition, Scratch as a whole was irritating to work with at times. While it allowed us to make a lot of our ideas simply come to life, there were some things that we wished we could have just typed out by hand instead of having to fumble around with Scratch's at times, limiting features. However, the biggest challenge was that two users could not work on the same project at once. This meant we constantly had to copy over code and double-check that everything made it through the transfer before moving on.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The biggest thing we are proud of after completing this event is being able to deliver a functional product. We both are very new to coding and not knowledgeable in this field so the fact that we were still able to create something is very rewarding.

What we learned

We learned that organization is key when working on a coding project. It is very easy to get lost in all the things that need to get done, but having a to-do list, checking in with each other frequently, and focusing on the big picture was a big help.

What's next for A Miner Inconvenience

While we are already able to reach several users on Scratch, we think it could be cool to feature our game on a Flash game website or even turn it into an app. This was definitely a fun side-project for us, but why not dream big!

Built With

• lexica
• scratch