Sweet Fleet (Obby Racer)

• 

  Dynamic platforms like moving pistons to challenge player's hand eye co-ordination while jumping.

• 

  "Harmful" veggies like rotating carrots and static banana arches to act as kill zones where player respawns at last checkpoint.

• 

  Unpredictable scaling of mushroom that hinder the player mid-jump. Cookie boosts allow for high flying views!

• 

  Randomized locations in the level "sushi dance" where platforms are randomly generated and pineapple ranges emerge from the ground.

• 

  Gruesome looking final test where player requires precise awareness of space and timing, especially to avoid pointy spikes!

• 

  Leaderboard layer where players can spawn on podiums after finishing races and socialize with friendly competition.

• 

  Markets where common, rare, and heroic items provide different powerups of player like speed, jump, and coin multiplier!

• 

  The subgame "Lollipop Showers" which unlocks every 3 hours where players look forward to coming back and catching lots of candy currency!

Inspiration

Although I loved creating single-player 3D games though Godot, I had an urge to push my boundaries by developing multiplayer games. This contest submission not only turned out to my first-ever published world in Meta Horizon, but also a great opportunity to learn how to implement socially interactive features in my games. Drawing inspiration from the vibrant, colorful aesthetics of Overwatch 2 and action-packed gameplay of Minecraft Parkour Warrior, a simple theme of healthy vegetables vs junk food race clicked in my mind, which I enhanced throughout my design.

What it does

Sweet Fleet implements a checkpoint system, progressively challenging players with a variety of custom-imported veggie obstacles. Harder levels implement unpredictable, random motions of platforms, keeping the player nimble on their feet. Animated textures for dashing boosts using Custom UI, and visual/sound effects for "cookie jumps" keeps the gameplay rich and engaging.

Users can collect candy currency to buy attachable entities in three different markets, and customize their outfits to power-up their stats: speed, jump, coin multiplier. Every three hours, a special sub-game called Lollipop Showers unlocks in which the player rushes to catch as much candy from the sky as possible in one minute. This sub-game, wearables, and candy currency are tracked via persistent variables, keeping the user coming back for more!

How I built it

I used Camera API to vary the perspective of the user primarily using first-person, third-person, and pan camera (in case obstacles are unclear on mobile). I also used Custom UI to provide clear instructions to the user and allow them to buy wearables in the market. Custom imports were borrowed from a variety of sources.

A variety of tools like Blender, DeepAi, TurboSquid, and Pixabay were used to borrow and create publicly shared assets.

Challenges I ran into

One of the difficulties I faced was learning how to create a multiplayer lobby system in which different players could read different messages from the same Custom UI. I was able to learn how to create a player manager and faced setbacks until I discovered binding strings. Thus, I was able to utilize the documentation of Meta Horizon to gain knowledge of multiplayer systems.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The accomplishment I am most proud of is that I dedicatedly worked for 85+ hours throughout the design, implementation, and testing of Sweet Fleet. Furthermore, I was a complete beginner to typescript! I am proud of the fact that I was able to use some of my experience in Java and javascript to not only learn the syntax of typescript but also to create my own custom features.

What I learned

I learned that sometimes it benefits the overall user experience by keeping the game controls and rules simple. For instance, I initially wanted to make a sub-game similar to paper.io in which I could use the depth-first-search algorithm to find groups of chained entities. However, I eventually resorted to a neat gameplay of falling lollipops.

What's next for Sweet Fleet

I not only want to add more checkpoint levels to Sweet Fleet but also create more levels in the "cake"-like structure of the map. I have another subgame in mind which is similar to a 3D version of flappy bird. I would also like to enhance the socialization and interacts by adding projectiles with which the players can sabotage each other's progress!

Built With

• blender
• deepai
• horizon
• meta
• typescript
• vscode