MergeUp!

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  Getting the game objects to work at 5am, very satisfying.

merge-up

Project submission for HackExeter 2022

A puzzle-platformer where you control 2 blocks that can be merged together through maze-like levels.

What does this have to do with "Unity"

Our game is centered around the use of merging different blocks to advance through different puzzles. In a way, our core game mechanic is "unity". We wanted to create a game about bringing things together as one in order persevere through different challenges, and we feel like this concept achieves this in a way that we thought would stand out.

How did we split up the work?

Since our project is a game, it was surprisingly easy for everyone to find something to do, even if it wasn't necessarily programming. If one person was developing the framework, another would be writing our the properties and physics of different objects. All of us did what we could, even though we would also need to leave to handle outside stuff every-so often.

How does it work?

The project is written entirely in python, and uses the pygame library for graphics and game development.

After unsuccessfully trying to use other platformer frameworks but it wasn't scalable for our concepts so we ended up creating our own framework from scratch so that we could efficiently add each game object in a clean and simple fashion.

The usage of interfaces and superclasses gives the game a solid base to be developed on, and allows easy scaling.

We created a variety of game objects using this framework: doors that you can only pass through if you're merged or split up, power ups for merging blocks together and splitting them back up, spikes that reset the level. Even though we were only able to get to a prototype, developing the project was a lot of fun.

Challenges that we faced

Time management. Deadlines are bully :[

This is the first hackathon for all of us, so we were all new to dealing with tight deadlines. Our idea was very cool, but unfortunately too ambitious. If we were to compete next year, we would focus much more on how we would budget our time.

Setup And Running MergeUp

Requires an installation of python v3.8.x or greater and the pygame module to run.

Once you have that installed, simply run the main.py file from a command prompt or an IDE.

Built With

• pygame
• python