Lockdown Well-Being

Inspiration

Lockdowns are very difficult times to get through. I myself have been there. The feeling of being alone, not meeting anyone, boredom, and anxiety is all just unbearable. At times there were virtual classes; these were fun and interesting because of the computers and iPads, but still who would've thought they could be compared to school. The numerous hours of the day spent inside to take these classes was just intolerable. I couldn't even motivate myself to do anything because of the sheer boredom! Oh, those were not good times.

My inspiration is to stop this ennui among people by creating a game to spread awareness about the importance of a person’s well-being.

What it does

My game - Lockdown Well-Being - encourages people (who are stuck in Lockdown) to become more sprightly, energetic, and active without succumbing to sadness. During Lockdown, people may become idle or lethargic, and this can develop a foundation for many consequences. These consequences can include adequate fat, increased boredom, and other negative effects.

My game showcases these consequences through the well-being of the character measured in the game. Based on the activities carried out by the character, the well-being factor is calculated and whether you win or lose is determined. By doing this, my game raises awareness of the consequences of inactiveness among players, and encourages them to be more cautious and active.

How we built it

I used three applications to make my project :- Scratch (for coding) and Google (for getting images).

Scratch :- 1) Creating different costumes for the character. 2) Coding

Github :- 1) Check-in at different times to show progress. 2) Adding pictures of the code.

Google :- 1) Getting images to use for sprites.

Key Features

Some of the key features of the my project are :-

1) It is an interactive game because :- a) The game has many buttons which adds to the aesthetics of the game :- i) Sound on/off button ii) Game start button iii) Game quit button b) When the game character touches objects, the objects light up. c) Keyboard buttons are used to start/stop an action/activity like sleeping or reading. d) There is a command panel at the bottom of the screen that shows the player what key to press to carry out an action. e) The values of the well-being meter changes depending on the activities of the character.

2) It measures the well-being of the game character based on the activities carried out.

3) If the character is idle, then the well-being of the character reduces due to the increased boredom.

4) The characters’ costume changes depending on the activities it does creating the fun element in the game. The characters’ costume changes when the character reach the below places in the game :- a) Sofa :- The characters’ costume changes from standing to sitting. b) Computer :- The characters’ costume changes from standing to sitting. c) Dining Table :- The characters’ costume changes from standing to sitting. d) Bed :- The characters’ costume changes from standing to lying down. e) Indoor Cycle :- The characters’ costume remains the same (Standing).

How to play:-

Objective of the game is to keep the Well-Being Score high. If your score drops to zero, you will lose the game.

1) Press the start button to play 2) Use the arrow keys to move the person towards the activities 3) Press 'b' to start the activity 4) When the activity starts, the Well-Being Score will increase but after some time, the score will start to decrease - Too much of anything is not good. 5) Press 'e' to stop the activity 6) Repeat this for different activities by moving around

Challenges we ran into

I can say that I did run into quite a lot of challenges. I faced difficulties in getting sprites (in Scratch) to communicate with each other through broadcasts, getting the logic right for some features of my game, and the simplest of them all; just choosing a costume for the different sprites!

Another challenge that I faced was that I unintentionally opened two Scratch websites, so the website got corrupted. But, I was able to recover from this as it was only a few minutes of coding that had not been saved.

Getting through all these problems was not easy, I just decided to do things the calm way. I took a sheet of paper and a pen, listed down all the things I had to do, and worked out each one of my problems. So, with some time, it finally worked out!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

To begin with, I started off using multiple variables for each sprite, but midway in my project, I tried to not make the code so complicated and use only one variable for many actions. It took a bit of twerking to wrap my head around the concept and program it, but soon, everything was sorted and my game was much easier to code. Another big step in my programming journey was that I had fine tuned my button-making skills in Scratch through this project. I had also learnt how to make a toggle button (for music/sound) in Scratch effectively.

The last thing that I am proud of, aside from doing the project, is participating in the Hackathon itself!A

What we learned?

I learnt many things from doing this project. Most of the things that I learnt are also the accomplishments that I’m proud of (mentioned above). To bring them (the accomplishments) up again, I learnt how to make one variable applicable for many uses, I improved my skills to program buttons in Scratch, and I learnt how to make a toggle button (for music/sound) in Scratch.

Apart from these, I also learnt to manage my time and to prioritise tasks to to complete the game.

What's next for Lockdown Well-Being?

So, what’s next for Lockdown Well-Being? I would develop the game so that it can transform the default character of the game into the person who is playing it by requesting for their physical features, like height, weight, etc. This will allow for the player to know how active they have to be to stay fit and occupied.

Soon, Lockdown Well-Being can become a mobile app to make it more accessible. I could also add many more activities to reduce boredom like, a steps counter, and an accomplishments table. Other rooms could also be added and can be customised as per the players’ choice to personalize their experience.

As of now, these are my goals for making Lockdown Well-Being a more trustable and interactive choice of an awareness-spreading game.