Tea Time

A cozy, mental health, tea-farming game

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Tea-Time

All game assets (drawings) were made by me, Mandy-cyber. Feel free to use them <3 A cozy mental health game submitted for HackUnited hackathon.

Detailed written explanation. (Submitted via DevPost) Must include: Inspiration What it does How we built it Challenges we ran into Accomplishments that we're proud of What we learned What's next

Inspiration

As someone who has struggled with depression since childhood, HackUnited's theme of 'Mental Health' deeply resonated with me. I knew I wanted to create a truly impactful project but... I didn't know what it should be. At first I thought to do a website, maybe an app, but for this particular theme it seemed a bit overdone. I wanted to create something fun, unique, and just as impactful as a site full of resources and advice. The solution? A game! What better way to calm down, slow down, and regroup your mental health than with a cozy, no-pressure, farming game full of hearts, tea, and affirmations? That's a rhetorical question hehe.

What it does

More like, what do you do. In 'Tea Time' you are this weird plant-ish looking character I created, and your days are spent planting tea herbs, selling them to a shop keeper, reading affirmations in your journal, and scavenging wild herbs. Simple, cute, and routineful, Tea Time gives you the space to relax with zero expectations or pressure. You can grow lavender, chamomile, basil, and hibiscus, as well as buy tea of those types too! But speaking of 'buying' there is no coins, or dollars, or formal currency like that. Instead, you trade in hearts. When you farm you gain more hearts, when you read your affirmations you gain hearts, and when you sleep you gain hearts. Why? Tea Time is all about rewarding you for taking care of your mental health and, in the case of this game, this happens when you farm, read happy things, and sleep!

How I built it

The tools I utilized:

  • pygame a game development library in python
  • Tiled a tmx map editor/creator
  • TexturePacker a spritesheet creator and formatter
  • PixelStudio an app for drawing pixel art

Challenges I ran into

Time! Even as I write this I am rushing out of my mind. Since I wanted my project to be fully my own, I decided to draw all the game assets myself. Every pixel you see on the screen? I drew that! hence why I only actually started coding in the last 16 or so hours of the hackathon. This meant that the game did not have as many features as I had initially planned... worth it though, right? Another challenge was learning how to use the Tiled map editor. It's a tool I have used only once before and so there was definitely a steep learning curve!

Accomplishments I'm proud of

  • Functional day/night cycle
  • Functional 'trade' mechanisms
  • All original pixel art

What I learnt

  1. More about sprite usage in pygame
  2. How to use the Tiled map editor in a more advanced manner
  3. How to design and scale pixel art sprites for smooth animations

What's Next

Well... develop the game some more! I had an absolute blast making it this weekend and I cannot wait to bring it further when I have the time to be slow and steady!

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