berkl.io

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  start screen: this is where you choose your bear type and start the game

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  game in progress: bear moving around

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  game ends: the case where you run into the wall. you can always play again

Inspiration

We were inspired by cute bears. Go bears :)

What it does

You are a professor bear that lost all their student cubs on the UC Berkeley campus. Explore the campus and find all your cubs!

In berkl.io, you use arrow keys to move a professor bear through the campus map and gather cubs. Obstacles like trees and buildings make the journey more difficult, and your bears must not venture beyond the screen or the game will end!

How we built it

The bulk of this project was built in JavaScript (combined with CSS, HTML, and Node.js). Cubs are initially generated in random locations and the game repeatedly renders and updates the characters while the professor bear moves through the map and collects cubs. The design of the game took many rounds of iteration and discussion to get just right.

Challenges we ran into

Lacking experience in JavaScript and Node.js meant that we began with a lot of unsuccessful fumbling with code. But a key factor in being able to overcome these challenges was having a clear vision and flexibility to downscale or reimagine various aspects of the game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Having never built a web-based game before, and not being JavaScript or Node.js aficionados, we weren’t super convinced we could pull this off. But the fact that we were able to get a working game up and running on the web without sacrificing design demonstrates the power of an all-nighter.

What we learned

Mainly we strengthened our JavaScript, Node.js, and design skills. Reading through guide after guide of game development, we also got a sense for how the approaches and techniques used in this problem space can be quite different from other types of software development—and how we could adapt them to our own web application.

What's next for berkl.io

Some features already in the pipes:

• Dynamic game maps that scroll as you move
• Multiplayer modes
• New gameplay mechanics
• More campus features and cute bears

These didn’t all make it to our finished MVP, but we’re keeping our eyes on the future and have branches in our repo with some of these changes already in progress.

Our long term vision, however, is for berkl.io to become an open source project that other Berkeley students can actively contribute to and drive the creative direction of!

Built With

• css
• html5
• javascript
• node.js