FLOATS

What is FLOATS?

Inspiration

In Australia, although only 4.5% of reported cases have been children with mild or no symptoms they are still vectors for the spread of COVID-19.

Children are usually reluctant to follow instructions such as wearing a mask all day, washing their hands, and having to stay 1.5 meters away from their friends. In order to minimize infection, we need to create fun games encouraging children to actively engage in preventative measures!

We've taken inspiration from the classical Flappy Bird game, and adapted it in a more relevant context, our current pandemic situation.

What it does

Our goal is to not only educate young children in particular, but also to spread awareness of the impacts this virus can bring to us. We have attempted to create a comedic game Our ideas is to create special mechanics for each item present in the game, each bringing cool effects for the player to not only enjoy, but also to mirror how these essential items can limit transmission of the virus!

How we built it

Our team designated roles from designing icons and backgrounds to be featured in our game, to coding in pygame and creating different game modes in order to appeal to our audiences.

Challenges we ran into

Most of us have been learning as we go! Communication and distribution of tasks may have also been a challenge we faced, but we've gotten there in the end!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We've learnt new concepts and ideas, coded in pygame, designed cute icons and made new friends :)

What's next for FLOATS?

In the upcoming future, FLOATS has prospects for expansion and further updates. We want to work towards further education on other pathogens and their respective treatments. This would allow for society to become educated on what over the counter drugs they could purchase or when it is necessary to see a professional. Our aim is to lessen the burden on the healthcare system by reducing the incidence of preventable diseases and promoting precautionary measures. More modes, environments and a rewards systems via partnering up with other organisations will be coming soon to different platforms.

Submission

Git repo link: https://github.com/fasfdasdasdasdas/FLOATS.git

Slides: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zAFgevOnSFQ4ZWTYMTJ3tMxPJig4_b0NkBzlLB8RgfU/edit#

Description of the project and its features:

We have designed a desktop COVID game specifically targeting young children in order to educate them and raise awareness of current and future pandemics. This game takes inspiration from ‘Flappy Bird’ and features 3 different game modes and speed levels in order to engage users. Developed using Pygame, we have intended to shift backgrounds as players advance further in the game, to reflect the different places affected by the virus.

The Mask Collector Mode is one game mode with the objective of collecting 5 masks before promoting the necessity of masks. Each time you collect a mask, positive connotations and boosters speed up the player, in order to make it more interesting for the kids. Mechanisms include: jumping up and down, moving left and right via the space-bar and arrow keys, requiring both hands for users to minimise face touching. Each time the virus hits a random person moving on the ground, they will catch the virus. The aim is to make sure you don’t give the virus to someone via catching the required items. We hope to not only teach children and make them remember.

References to any open source or third party material used in development:

freeCodeCamp.org 2019, Pygame Tutorial for Beginners - Python Game Development Course, YouTube, viewed 29 August 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfWpgLFMI7w&t=201s.

Tech With Tim 2018, Pygame Side-Scroller Tutorial #1 - Scrolling Background/Character Movement, YouTube, viewed 29 August 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=710&v=PjgLeP0G5Yw&feature=emb_title.

Tech With Tim 2018, Pygame Tutorial #2 - Jumping and Boundaries, YouTube, viewed 29 August 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DNswzCkqk.

Tech With Tim 2018, Pygame Tutorial #3 - Character Animation & Sprites, YouTube, viewed 29 August 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdsNBIzsmlI.

Tech With Tim 2018, Pygame Tutorial #4 - Optimization & OOP, YouTube, viewed 29 August 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfnRywBv5VM.