Petsuamai

Petsuamai loves you!
Example of Petsuamai's different reactions
Petsuamai in action on my stream
Petsuamai in action on Bongo1987's stream

Inspiration

My whole streaming career I have been so passionate about interactivity, I have created a few interactive games for Twitch, such as Tic-Tac-Toe but each one has only ever included 1 or 2 players. I really wanted to create something that could be collaborative so everyone can get involved. This lead me to think about what retro things I used to love as a child. TAMAGOTCHI! The ball began rolling!

What it does

A viewer must purchase an Egg with their channel points. This egg then needs to be kept within a certain temperature range by using channel points to warm or cool the egg. After a certain amount of time looking after the egg, it will hatch (unless you heat or cool it too much then it will die :( )

Once hatched the Petsuamai will start requiring attention. It will need feeding, playing with, poop cleaning, showering, putting to bed and treating with medicine. Depending on how well the Petsuamai is looked after the more these stats could deteriorate to the point of death.

We have also made a game of higher or lower to play with the Petsuamai. This is where all the viewers get one vote each to choose higher or lower. The answer with the most votes is selected. The Petsuamai's mood will increase more depending on how many answers the viewers get correct.

This will only take up 2 channel point slots on Twitch due to using the Edit Reward function, allowing me to channel the name and description of any channel point. This in turn gives me the option of having UNLIMITED channel point rewards for further expansion.

There is also the option to auto complete / reject channel point rewards to make this game fully automated so the streamer can just focus on their stream.

How I built it

Petsuamai just works using OBS and LioranBoard with a very clean and easy installation method. There are no browser sources needed as all the animations were made to be lightweight and not impact computer resources.

I built this just using LioranBoard as I don't know any standard programming languages. I created Petsuamai by splitting it up into modules. Tiredness, Hunger, Sickness etc. This meant I could keep adding more features down the line such as a discipline module where the Petsuamai will disobey the Twitch Viewers and refuse to eat etc.

I created all the animations and images into small gifs as this kept everything light weight and it also meant anyone could overwrite these files with their own to have custom Petsuamai's and animations! This also meant redistributing the game was easy and allowed the users to completely customise to to their liking.

Challenges I ran into

My main challenge was the lack of time. This project has only been in motion since March 14th (12 days as of writing this) as i didn't actually know this hackathon was a thing. Viewers were requesting me to take part!

The next challenge was balancing the Petsuamai. I struggled to find an equal ground where it wouldn't be a burden on your channel due to being really needy or spamming in chat etc. This was the longest stage of development as time constraints meant I had to balance whilst building.

There were modules that were planned, one stated above, the discipline module. There was also a weight module planned too. These stats are actually implemented in the game but not actually active. These were cut again due to time constraints but can be added in easily due to the modular style of Petsuamai!

Accomplishments that i'm proud of

I'm extremely proud of the on the fly learning I have been doing to create this since i'm not actually a programmer. Not only that but I have been building this live on Twitch and offered support throughout the journey.

I love the way the project as a whole came together so quickly as it seemed to difficult when i first theorised it, but i have shown myself that anything is possible with a little thought and a lot of effort!

I'm really happy with the difficulty system i have implemented that can be adjusted depending on how many viewers you have to make it easier or harder for them to maintain the Petsuamai.

I also found a feature that I wish could be implemented into the Twitch Channel Point API and that is the ability to limit votes but only when the channel point becomes active. This means when the game of higher or lower starts, each viewer can only vote once, until the next round when it becomes available again. I did actually manufacture my own way for doing this by telling LioranBoard someone had already voted if they voted twice or more then refund them their points!

What I learned

Keeping focussed can be difficult under pressure from time and also stress from not being able to do something straight away. I also learned that taking a break and even just asking opinions from people can really change the way you think as a creator. This probably wouldn't have been possible if I didn't listen to the feedback from my viewers. One last learn would be to not beat yourself up if something isn't possible, just stick a pin in it and move on for now!

What's next for Petsuamai

It is going to be release on the StreamUP website. I am then going to showcase how people can create their own animations, then share their creations, with their permission on the website to build a library of Petsuamai users can choose from.

I'll also be adding more modules after the discipline and weight ones, although i want to keep these a little bit of a surprise ;)

PLEASE NOTE - UPDATE

I have made modifications during the last day of this project so the YouTube video is outdated. Here is a full rundown of the Channel Point API Uses in Petsuamai:

Create Channel Points automatically during setup
Reconfigure Channel Points on the fly. This allows Petsuamai to have unlimited Channel Point Rewards so it can be infinitely expanded as it can change the name, description and cost of the Channel Point and trigger those at certain events.
Automatically remove inactive channel points so they can't be accidentally used.
Auto Complete / Reject option available for streamers.
Error detection. This will refund channel points that have accidentally been double pressed before the Twitch API can turn the channel point off.
A voting system where each viewer can only use a channel point once during the higher or lower game. I did this by checking if a person has already used the channel point and automatically refund them. This gave me more control over limiting than what the Twitch API traditionally allows as their API only allows limits per stream, even the per user can only be used per stream.