PocketPup

Main screen

Inspiration

Our team loves games. Before even coming to HW, we wanted to make something we knew we could enjoy and share with others. After a quick brainstorming session at the event itself, we decided to get out of our comfort zone and try experimenting with technologies we've never used before. The result of this is PocketPup: A virtual pet with real needs.

What it does

PocketPup is a virtual pet whose needs change according to the weather (in real time, thanks to The Weather Network's cool API). It encourages players to perform real-world physical tasks to ensure that their virtual pet is happy and in good health.

How we built it

PocketPup is built entirely using Unity3D and C#, and the character model for the pup is created using Blender.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge was figuring out how to integrate the Weather Network API into Unity. We also ran into some trouble when we had to create particle effects in sync with the real-time weather.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our Pup model is very expressive, and the fact that the in-game weather mirrors the real world is, in our opinion, simply awesome.

What we learned

We learned how to effectively use version control tools to distribute tasks in a team, as well as integrating new technologies into our existing skillset. Also, this has kinda become our team motto: Nothing is impossible if you work as a team.

What's next for PocketPup

It will require deeper knowledge and experience with the tools we are using, but we hope to implement a system through which your virtual pet can be taught some tricks, and an in-game currency system, the currency for which is earned through real-world tasks.

Built With

Submitted to

Hack Western 4

Created by

I worked on the scene layout, and the script to modify the daylight orientation. I also created the skeletal script for instantiating the particle systems.

Shivaansh Prasann
A software engineering student with a deep passion for game development and mixed reality.
I brought the pieces of the project together by using C# to program game logic, animations and http requests.

Nick Crawford
I like to make cool stuff
Without any previous experience in C#, I managed to learn and write 100+ lines of code which fetched live data from the WeatherNetwork's API (Exclusive Access to HackWestern Attendees) and pass that data between objects thereby allowing the Pup's state animation to change!

Ralph Maamari
I love coding and networking!
I largely contributed towards programming the artistic features of the game including the dog and weather animation, which were arguably two of the most difficult tasks of this project. I also provided technical support for using Unity.

Frank Wang