Inspiration
This was initially inspired by a game I (Victor) have played very often over the past 5 months, which involves a mechanic similar to the one implemented, but without a time limit, or an arcade-ish setting.
What it does
It's a simple clicker game where you hit a material with a magic hammer. This hammer has a small chance of magically enhancing it to a finished product. But be careful! Hitting a finished product an extra time will break it irrecoverably.
How we built it
It was built in Unity 2022 with C#. Packages used were the "new" Input System, but besides that, mostly vanilla Unity development. All art was created during the event on Paint.NET, a free image editing tool.
Challenges we ran into
Initially, the hardest challenge was finding an artist, but eventually I gave in and started making my own, regardless of the lack of quality. Dividing work and communication was initially a challenge, but as soon as things were cleared up, Stephanie did a fantastic job getting UI and gameplay features working in a matter of a few hours.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I'm surprised how well the aesthetics ended up, and this inspires me to try making programmer art more for other projects. The speed with which we were able to iterate on the project far exceeds any expectations I held for the event, and I'm extremely thankful for my teammate for carrying the UI end, which is arguably my weakest point in Unity development.
What we learned
I think the most important lesson I learned this hackathon was that making a very short and simple project helps immensely to not only enjoy the rest of the activities at the event, but also not worry or stress nearly as much as an ambitious idea. Another huge focus was writing code that just worked. It didn't have to be the prettiest or most optimal or clean solution. If it got the job done, we moved on. I find that extremely important in a time-critical situation like this. It's not optimal for a bigger team or larger time span, but you have to adapt to the situations as best as possible.
What's next for Enhance!
This can actually take many directions. It can be integrated to a larger game with a collection of minigames, its art could be fixed up, and other small improvements like the inclusion of sound effects. The use of the Unity game engine makes porting the project to mobile platforms particularly easy as well.
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