Save the Turtles

Playing the game
Ending message

Inspiration

I knew I wanted to build a video game as I have never coded one before. I debated whether to go with a space themed game, to stick with the name of the hackathon, or do a game for social good. I decided on the latter, as there are many problems that still need to be solved. I did a little bit of research to find a topic that would work with the game format, and I decided on ocean pollution.

What it does

This is a one player game, where they are the turtle. They use the arrow keys to move up and down to avoid plastic that floats in the ocean. If they run into some, they lose a life. When three lives have been lost, the game ends and displays a message. As time goes on, the game speeds up to make it harder for the user.

How we built it

I built this game using Python and the package Pygame, on the platform Visual Studio.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge I ran into was with images. I wanted to be able to use them directly from the internet, but I couldn't figure out how to do that so I had to download them. I also had issues with the empty space around the actual image of the turtle and the plastic, as those would collide into one another and would make the program think a life had been lost.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment I'm proud of is getting the background to move seamlessly. That took a lot of trial and error. Another is getting a minimum viable product out in time.