Inspiration
Something I've always asked myself is, why do games feel fun, but studies does not, especially when they touch on the same subject? For example, when I take digital logic design, making digital circuits bore the life out of me, but then I boot up Minecraft and spend 4 hours designing circuits in the game for a simple music player. What is it that makes games so appealing?
The answer isn't flashy colors, or music, or anything like that. Games give you a sense of progression and instant feedback for what you do. Even when you fail in a game, you can try again, and if you succeed, you get stronger, have something to help you, which incentives players to continue playing and continuing to achieve.
Our game is built with this exact concept in mind. Tying learning to progression. Make learners feel like they're getting somewhere, instead of "Oh I finished one homework, here's 3 more with no rewards".
What it does
At a glance, its a simple game. Take perks, go shoot enemies. Nothing too special, there's a lot of those on the App Store. But what separate us from other games isn't that. Its integrated learning. When you answer a question, you are given something - a "perk" that makes you character stronger, which incentivizes learners to continue acquiring more items by learning more concepts.
For this prototype, we used simple placeholder questions for simplicity. In the future, questions sets will be more varied, covers more subjects, and allow for even more gameplay variety.
How we built it
We used GameMaker to build the game, as it is one of the most beginner friendly tools out there.
The core loop of the game is as follows: Answer a question to get a "perk", engage in combat using it, repeat until you reach the final boss.
We utilitized what GameMaker had to offer, from Global Variables to track perks to its intuitive interaction system for enemies and player.
Challenges we ran into
During the first few hours the venue was rather chaotic, and we dealt with a huge skill gap which made ideas brainstorming a challenge. We sketched out a lot of ideas, anything from a full fledged Gacha game to a website of sort, or a building game. But, with only 24 hours and 2/3 of us being first-timers and freshman, we cannot simply make anything too complex or beyond basic coding knowledge. We decided to settle on a basic game about firing arrows and moving enemies, and introduced fun via the variety in loadouts, so no two runs are the same.
As two of us were also not familiar with developer tools such as GitHub, it was a challenge trying to get projects to be up and running. However, after some hassle we found a way to divide the workload and combine them into one united, functional product at the end.
While we tried to integrate some form of Gemini AI API calls into the game, it had proven to be beyond our abilities. We are still happy with what we came up with so far.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- We had an playable alpha build within less than 24 hours, which was an incredible feat.
- Introduced a simple yet fun perk system, different combinations of even simple stat changes means every run feels different than the last.
- Small variety in gameplay (survival/elimination/boss) further adds variety to gameplay, keeping things engaging for learners.
- Personally, I helped my teammates get started on their coding journey and shipped something demoable in the progress. They learnt how to use GameMaker and perform AI integration, and this project would not have gotten this far without their help.
- (Also karaoke was so fun)
What we learned
Scope above all. Scope creep is the #1 killer of projects, in and out of hackathons. I personally have been the victim of this. A simple, working prototype beats an ambitious but barely functional one every time.
Practical teamwork: task assignment, guidance with patience and having plans ahead are key to success in the ever-changing world of programming.
What's next for Knowledge is Power
Finishing and polishing MVP: third perk set and boss fight.
More "levels" covering various subjects at various levels, and Gemini AI to enhance learning (hint dropping, virtual tutoring and fresh question every time)
More variety in enemies and perks, allowing for even more gameplay replayability.
Save or load perk unlocks, so progressions are permanent and encourage exploration of different subjects.
Polish: graphics, art, SFX, music, better balance, smoother gameplay and more helpful instructions.
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