Ctrl+Alt+Defeat

CtrlAltDefeat is a 2D fighting game developed during Hacklahoma 2026, inspired by the theme of "Use Technology to Achieve New Heights." Test your computer science knowledge against OU professors!

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Inspiration

It's difficult to find the motivation to study sometimes so a fun and interactive way to get students to enjoy studying is through games. Games where you can win or lose have an added pressure and intensity making the reward significant. That is why we chose a fighting game where you can both study and battle at the same time.

What it does

Ctrl-Alt-Defeat is a 2D educational fighting game based on computer science courses taught at the University of Oklahoma. Initially you have various options as your player where you can pick students with different attributes and abilities. When in battle professors prompt you with multiple choice questions during their attack phase. Responding correctly results in no damage taken. On your turn you attack the professor and decrease their hp bar. Diminishing their hp bar grants you victory, and you may proceed to challenge the next professor or revise with the same professor.

How we built it

  • Pygame
  • Eleven Labs
  • Liberated Pixel Cup
  • JSON Encoding/Decoding

Challenges we ran into

Working with branching and resolving merge conflicts. Creating a working implementation of the game within the time constraints. Acquiring clear and useful voice samples to generate new AI-generated voice messages. Ensuring consistent usability amongst different Operating Systems.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our original goal was to have one boss by the end of the time constraint. At the end of the time, we had three different intricately designed bosses. We are also proud of the sprites we created and other assets that we obtained. We are also proud to have made a working game within 24 hours, that we did not have to sacrifice UI designs or logical functioning of the code.

What we learned

We learned a lot with branching and resolving merge conflicts. Our coding journey also involved lots of debugging through experimentation and code walk-throughs. We gained a lot of experience with the pygame engine and working with AI voice generative models.

What's next for Ctrl+Alt+Defeat

Implement more CS professors and eventually integrate other OU departments. Sample more voice data from professors to generate better voice samples. Optimize code for performance and create more documentation.

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