Goose Gone Loose

start screen
end screen
gameplay

Inspiration

We were inspired by the lovely (totally not aggressive) geese on the Waterloo campus, and the simple, offline Dinosaur Game made by Google.

What it does

The iPhone serves as the input hardware that is used as the controller of of our mini game, Goose Gone Loose. In the game, players perform physical movements to control a campus geese that avoids obstacles and attacks pedestrians along its path. Our intention is to create a simple and fun game that is physically interactive for players.

How we built it

The iPhone has a built-in accelerometer, which is an internal hardware sensor that measures changes in speed, tilt, and physical movement around the X, Y, and Z axes. By utilizing the accelerometer, these raw inputs are converted into various gestures that can be detected (translation along the z-axis for jumping, quick translation along the y-axis for attacking, etc.). Thanks to this hardware feature, the iPhone can be used as a device for gaming input, similar to the Wii remote.

Challenges we ran into

Splitting our modular Godot scenes across a physics-based character, a scrolling landscape, and a spawning system was trickier than expected. Keeping collision layers, node names, and signal connections consistent across everyone's scripts led to a lot of "why isn't this triggering" moments. Balancing procedural obstacle spawning against a continuously accelerating game speed was an ongoing tuning challenge, since spacing needed to scale dynamically with speed instead of staying fixed. We ended up reworking our spawn timer logic more than once as the movement architecture shifted between camera-relative and world-relative scrolling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Using our collective skills and experiences to bring a game to life! *Combining our creative and technical skills to bring a fully playable game to life, from scratch, in a short amount of time *Getting creative with the hardware already in our pockets, turning an iPhone's accelerometer into a full motion controller without any extra equipment
Honoring Mr. Goose

What we learned

A few of us learned how to use the game engine Godot for the first time! We learned that a simple game concept, done well, can be just as fulfilling to build as a complex one, since it left room to focus on creative implementation rather than just fighting scope We also got hands-on with applying basic physics concepts (acceleration, axes of motion) to translate real-world hardware movement into meaningful in-game input

What's next for Goose Gone Loose

We'd love to add more movement types beyond jumping, flying, and attacking, plus a wider variety of obstacles to keep runs feeling fresh. We're also curious about expanding hardware support beyond just the iPhone's accelerometer, and polishing the visuals with finished art instead of placeholders.