Inspiration
After hearing the theme i was honestly at a lost, i brainstormed alot of ideas both alone and with some close friends who became became my team members on a different project. Whilst we were ideating i couldn't help but think about the impact of the theme. I for one use technlogy everyday, but some of my best spent days following my new habit of reading audiobooks were spent waking up early, eating breakfast and walking. And it took hearing it out loud to realize that. So i wanted to create a project that could evoke that same feeling for people but in a more interesting and engaging medium.
What it does
Digital Devour is a game, but don't let your pre-conceptions fool you, its far from a shallow experience with the sole intent of keeping you playing a common demoninator in todays market. Digital Devour has you take the position of an AI, with the objective of helping humans. You will hold acturall conversations and attempt to resolve issues through a series of scenarios, afterwhich you will learn about the impact of your actions. You will come to understand the limitations of technology and AI by becoming that very thing. and you'll have fun in the process.
How we built it
Digital Devour isn't just a simple chat-box game, in an effort to truly challenge myself at my very first hackaton. Not only did i tackle two major projects, but i wanted to build them in completly differnt and difficult environments. For Digital Devour i choose Roblox Game Engine, being a lesser known language and having little to no built in functionality for accessing external api. I took up the challenge of fully implementing Generative Artificial Intelligence utilizing perplexity.ai, and external database solution Mongo DB for storing and accessing crucial data for each scenario. All systems were completely and solely developed by me, with the occasional feedback from small test sessions i held with those in my room.
Challenges we ran into
AI- It might seem come as a surprise to some or perhaps it's to be wholly expected but the implications of using generative in a framework with barely any support for it was the lowest of issues on my priority list. As i tacked with the parameters for the prompts themselves for hours. Variouse generative api providers have there own in-built set of rules that they're models adhere to and showcasing creative freedom within constraints tends to be quite difficult. Art- I wanted to make an impact with every single part of my project, that meant that even my color choice was intentional. So if that meant spending 2 hours looking at tens of hundreds of games and there color pallets along with the meaning behind them, then so be it and as a result i choose soft and muted colors to represent to represent gentleness and hope, and most importantly a human connection. (Or so i've read)
Accomplishments that we're proud of
As this is my First Hackaton WOO. I am just beyond proud that i not only showed up, but participated. I wanted to take this opportunity and everything i had to offer me by its reins despite my otherwise "frail" disposition and lack of self-confidence i wanted to prove mostly to myself that i could do it. And after over 24 consecutive hours of being away; a good portion of which has been spent purely programming. I can give myself a tap on the back, good job you.
What we learned
The list is almost too long to write down.... almost
- Generative AI "Tuning"
- Custom Networking logic
- Pixel Art
- Graphic Design
- Color Theory
- Database Solution
- How amazing 'Thai Tea' is
- Flask Servers
- AI Navigation Algorithems
- Custom Grid Generation
- Custom Nav Map Generation
- Open AI Library
- Python To Java Code Conversion
- Andddddd... i had you there for a second
What's next for Digital Detour
Honestly i had so much fun working on this project, and play testing it with some of the amazing participants at hacklahoma. If the reception during the showcase is well recieved i'll definitly find time to refine the idea, draw up a clear story board with more scenarios, features, and ofcourse suggestions from the audience. And bring it to life. I always though it was a narcisistic statement to say something as presumptiouse as "I created life" but that's exactly what finishing these projects felt like.
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