Carl, Defender of Waves

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  Working with collision sensors provides a smoother swimming experience

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  Creating art using Vector

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  Blocks of code

Inspiration

I wanted to make a quick, fun shark game that I could do myself while I take a break between finals. I was inspired partly by the classic Sega game Ecco the Dolphin, featuring a swimming protagonist with a little personality.

What it does

Play as a shark who helps out his community by picking up trash in a short online Flash game. I took some creative liberties with the features so keep an eye out for fun secrets hidden within.

How we built it

I used MIT's Scratch game engine and built-in sprite and audio libraries, while coding all the blocks myself from scratch (pun not intended).

Challenges we ran into

The hardest step was figuring out movement physics, since essentially all of the objects in the game are moving EXCEPT for you. So, with a limited canvas size and many independently moving parts, I had each sprite reference the map's coordinates at an accelerating speed. Adjusting these objects to toggle and move around without looking too disjoint required a lot of small adjustments and workarounds.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finally submitting my first solo Devpost project! Also, being able to take a much-needed break to create something fun.

What we learned

How to work with acceleration, fashion makeshift for() loops out of Scratch's blocks, and working with hidden sensors.

What's next for Carl, Defender of Waves

I usually come back to my old Scratch projects to update them every so often, so you can expect to see more features added in the coming future! Maybe I'll even extend the map to add new areas

Built With

• flash
• scratch