Bite the Byte! Extinction Rewired

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  Home page, displaying options to play, visit the game shop, and see the leaderboards.

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  Efficient battle map highlighting unlocked levels in pink. Player can engage in battle by clicking on the buttons. Created using NoesisUI.

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  Tutorial pop-up telling instructions for new users, optimizing experience.

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  Focused Interaction allows player to click and drag to draw symbols, and hurt enemy robot

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  The player is drawing a pink symbol pattern to match the left-most symbol in black robot's code.

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  Regular XP level-ups for game progression: open up new dinosaurs and upgrades for purchase.

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  Icelands Biome: Faster and stronger flying enemy robots with more complex symbols

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  Dinosaur shop: Pteranodon (Vicious Aerial Dinosaur) ready for purchase with 60 fossils.

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  Dinosaur shop: Triceratops (Legendary Herbivore) is yet to be unlocked because player level is insufficient.

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  Upgrade store: Player is upgrading the health of home base. Other upgrades include slowing down enemy and increase recharge speed.

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  Leaderboard screen encouraging friendly competitions and social engagement

Inspiration

Searching for ideas to elevate the mobile touch controls in Meta Horizon, I came across the creative “On-Screen Drawing” UI in the 2016 Google Doodle. To implement such an effective, fast-paced Focused Interaction, I was able to learn scripting from “Minimon Move Remix” by Dave Mills.

What it does

This tower-defense-type game involves players rapidly drawing symbols to eliminate waves of apocalyptic robots. Players ally themselves with dinosaurs to use special powers like damage/healing. Game progression involves reviving more lethal dinosaurs (11 types) from the game’s shop and upgrading the home base (15 ways) to face increasingly strong/devious robots.

How I built it

I utilized NoesisUI to create animated sprite-sheet graphics for the 7 enemy robot types, the colorful interaction panels, pop-ups, and the shop. Furthermore, the PortraitMode API was excellent for creating a natural, top-view scene of battle. Persistent variables, GenAI sound effects and haptics were integrated to improve the user experience and retention.

Challenges I ran into

Due to the large size of the NoesisUI files, and the high compute loads generated by the scripts that produce waypoint motion, my original vision for the game was impossible because of extreme lag time. Thus, I had to come up with workarounds like using pre-calculated co-ordinates and a reduced frame rate.

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

I am pleased with the shop as it urges for decision-making: Which dinosaur: water, land, or aerial? This feature allows gameplay to be dynamic, allowing players to share new unlocks and upgrades on social platforms.

What I learned

From feedback I received, I was able to take away that the flashing cursor prompts in the tutorial helped immensely with New User Experience. Additionally, I learned that creating a level map helps organize the levels the player chooses from.

What's next for Bite the Byte! Extinction Rewired

• Improving graphics of dinosaurs engaging in combat with robots
• Making multiple robots pose threats simultaneously.
• Creating a third biome: volcanic (in addition to the existing grassy fields and icelands)

Built With

• cameraapi
• deepai
• meta-horizon-desktop-editor
• noesis
• pixabay
• typescript