Inspiration
The inspiration for this project was the desktop buddies, also known as Ukagakas, and the prompt of going into the unknown. Not only does this Ukagaka allow for the user to venture into the unknown, but it also allowed our team to do things some of us had never even attempted before.
What it does
This helped is designed to educate the user on different explorative tips that'll prepare them for four different biomes. While it comes off as a simple project, Ukagakas were not originally intended to operate with so much dialogue specific to unique characters. We had to twist the Ukagaka's code to something incredibly complex to make it work as we intended. It has over 1,000 specific lines of dialogue which are unique for every character with nearly every function the ghost has.
How we built it
Ukagakas are created by using the Japanese coding language, Yaya, and run through SSP application. Every Ukagaka has a shell which are the sprites that each character has. Each character has at ten poses which each display different emotions which are called upon in the code as they speak. We used Ibis Paint to hand draw all the designs and expressions for the characters.
Challenges we ran into
The largest challenge our team faced was that three out of four of the team members are not even in the field of computer science and were not at all technically versed as other participants. Thus, fighting through the anxiety of the monotonous process of coding was hard for them to overcome. Another issue we faced was the time constraint of one of our members who needed to leave early the first day. Before leaving, she needed to complete 30 different individual drawings which would make the shell for our ghost.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Even though the challenges previously mentioned did plague the team, we were able to complete the rigorous tasks of creating the desktop buddies in a foreign language within the miniscule time constraint. We also managed to complete the entire project with the premature departure of one member. Our three non-coders were able to complete the majority of the front end coding while our more advanced user managed the back end development.
What we learned
Many people who come to hackathons are usually at least majoring in a field of technology. Three out of four of our teammates did not even know how to code coming into this event, but they came out learning many new skills after their dedication to learn the language.
What's next for The D.A.R.K. Aiya
An Ukagaka is a project that could always be updated and further improved as time goes on. Within the code, there is a command that will allow for Network Updates. This lets us, the developers, distribute our project to others and then upload an updated version of the project into our directory. This will let the ghosts update by themselves without needing for the files to be directly sent to the users.
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