Acabattle

Inspiration

Inspiration comes from watching televised/live streamed competitions of head-to-head games. The sheer excitement from just watching two of the best players in the world at a game go at it, filled with comebacks and underdog stories, inspired us to try to carry that feeling over to education.

What it does

The game is intended to pit two players, or two teams of players, against each other in various game modes to beat the other side in a race for the cutoff score. Correct answers award points dependent on difficulty level and time spent answering. At the end of a game, the scores are reported to a file and sorted, displaying a leaderboard of the best players. In Turn-Over, the game is turn-based: the two sides alternate between each other answering questions. In Streak, the game is streak-based: one side continues answering questions (of increasing difficulty level) until one is answered wrong, and then the next player enters. In Add_Questions, a player can enter a question editor to create their own questions to add to the game.

How we built it

The code is made in C++ using Sublime Text as a text editor, Ubuntu 18.04 as a compiler, and Windows 10 as the operating system. The logo was designed using Adobe Illustrator and the demo video was made using Adobe After Effects.

Challenges we ran into

Connecting the front-end and back-end components of the project is still an issue we have; in retrospect, C++ may not have been the ideal choice for a project like this. Even so, we looked into user interface options with C++ and while none of the options we found were able to work with our code, the search process itself was quite useful in suggesting what languages could have been used instead.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our code, while far from complete, demonstrates a prototype algorithm for detecting accuracy of a mathematically valued question within a margin of error, using a complete the square problem as an example. Once the file parsing was successful, the testing worked and the use of the time and srand commands allowed for different randomized combinations of values each time.

What we learned

C++ likely was not the best option for a game like this. If this project could be reset, options like C# or Python could have worked much more fluidly with a user interface.

What's next for acabattle

Code translation is likely the next step, although the design is also still a work in progress. An additional "battle royale" type game mode may be added in which streaks of correct answers to questions attack other players, who counter with their own streaks of correct answers, until only one player remains.

Built With

• adobe-aftereffects
• adobe-illustrator
• c++