Shaq-athon

• 

  Antagonist

Inspiration

As we were all beginners and new to the hackathon and coding world, we decided to take on the challenge to learn as we go during the hackathon and create the best project we can. We decided to use the current viral media sensation Michael Dapaah also known as Big Shaq as our protagonist. We developed several features under a priority listing and starting coding together and learning how to implement and use at best efficiency basic Unity Features as well as several useful different C# scripts with whom we were all novices. We implemented features as the 24hrs passed and kept working through our priority list to get a complete and functional video game.

What it does

Shaq-athon is a simple top down shooter that aims to get the user to survive constant wave of charging enemies in a small enclosed room with a variety of weapons to fight them off. We aimed to reach the perfect balance of competitive basic game play with score keeping as well as interesting game play with the small armoury variations.

How we built it

We decided on a list of features we wanted to include and separated them between the members of our group. Each member was assigned to research how to code and develop a certain feature and how it was going to correlate with the other tasks that the other group members were working on. This ensured that the code was clean and well organised as well as allowed us to learn how to use this new program in the most efficient way possible.

Challenges we ran into

Being absolute beginners coding with C# as well as with using Unity and for most of us doing anything game development related, we spent a lot of time learning how to code and create the features we wanted to implement. However we all greatly improved our skills and by sharing with each our codes and how they worked it allowed us to greatly improve our skills in the matter. Most of the group managed to power through the night to maintain a constant learning curve with this new software while some members went to get a good night sleep to be able finish the final touches for our game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed from 0 prior knowledge to build a fully functional game. The game is short when it comes features but it reflects perfectly our skill level and the importance of learning as a team and operating as a unit to ensure maximum efficiency.

What we learned

From our coding point of view, we learnt to go from very basic unity to being able to handle and construct different scripts to control our game. From a team and personal point of view, we learnt the importance of a solid and well constructed team where bringing everybody's skills and capabilities into action!

What's next for Shaq-athon

Shaq-athon was an amazing learning experience for which we are all thankful for. We have decided to continue working on Shaq-athon to keep adding features that we were not able to implement during during Hacknotts. We aim to get it into a complete game with different levels and scenes, difficulties, a complete GUI as well as an evolving story and main character focusing on continuing improving our unity skills rather than creating the game with good graphics and backstory.

Built With

• c#
• tiled
• unity