LearningHax

Inspiration

Coming into the competition, two of us really wanted to work on a 2D RPG tile game, and since only one of us had experience with coding this style of game, the other three of us thought it would be an interesting experience to try out. Originally, we were leaning towards a traditional combat based RPG, but inspired by puzzle and educational RPG games and the talks given about using our code to make an impact, we decided to write code that taught people how to code. Considering that games reach an incredible amount of people, this will be a great way to teach people code.

What it does

This RPG game allows the player to control a character and join in the character's journey as he learns to code. Soon after the start, the character realizes he is in a world of code, and uses his new found knowledge to solve problems with the worlds code that increase in difficulty over time. It teaches students how to code since the characters journey of learning becomes that of the player, and thus reaches out to a new generation that would rather spend their time playing a game. Furthermore, we created a website for people to be able to learn about and download the game.

How we built it

We built the game in Java, creating the tiles and sprites from scratch using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and doing all the coding of the game in Java. We created a single scrolling maps with tiles and NPC's that the player could interact with, and differentiated between tiles that caused collisions and those that could be walked over. Finally, we created a variety of dialogue scenarios to make the experience more immersive for the user, including interactive dialogue. The website was made in Html and CSS with multiple tabs to provide information, credits, and updates for users.

Challenges we ran into

It was our first time using pixel art, but our amazing artist Eli learned quickly.
Coordinate systems with a scrolling map in Java were a pain.
Implementing the collision system

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We made amazing pixel art for our first time using it
We implemented a pretty glitch free collision system.
We made our first real website.

What we learned

How to create pixel art and make sprites in Photoshop and Illustrator.
Learned how to use Java coordinates to create maps, input entities, and include collisions.

What's next for LearningHax

Their are a variety of features that still need to be implemented, including the completion of the story, with further learning opportunities for users, multiple map locations, more interactive dialogue, and more.