Thor's Journey for Treasure

Inspiration

My inspiration for this project came from what I learned in COP1000. I don't have much, or any, experience in coding or Computer Science so relying on Alice 3 was my basis for determining my inspiration. When it came to the design, characters, and ideas, I just went with what caught my eye in the props section. I also wanted a creative way to use the "if" function which I had recently just learned in class.

What it does

The program/game is a very simple game that tests your luck and demonstrates the "if" statement from Alice. The game starts with Thor appearing in a unfamiliar place. He walks towards a large-gated door with treasure behind it. The goal of the game is to get the "key" and unlock the door. The main part of the game is the "if" statement that is used to ask the player if they would like to (1) go left or (2) go right. Thor ends up in a different scenario depending on what decision the player takes. Thor can either be eaten by the monster on the left route or receive his hammer and destroy the door on the right route. Basically a very small guessing game. It isn't really much of a game, but it was built with the purpose of it becoming so much more than just that. I could definitely include more routes and decisions but it was already tough dealing with what I had to work on currently.

How we built it

I built the game on Alice 3, a relatively unknown block-code program to many of the Shellhacks participants that I have talked to. Alice 3 provides me with many pre-installed/default props, functions, procedures, and commands that allow me to create the project that I have now created. Walls, characters, and bushes were all generated through Alice's prop system. I was also able to utilize "if, "move," and "turn" functions to create movement through my character and lead him to certain decisions that the player can answer.

Challenges we ran into

There were many challenges that I ran into during my process of creating the game. Every time I would think or create a new idea that I was looking to add into the game, there would always be a problem associated with it whether it was intentional or unintentional. The limited my progress but I was still able to make it through the problems and solve a majority of my issues. One glaring issue that still remains in my game is the clunkiness and not smooth movement of the arms and legs. The arms would only swing from the front and never back, the movement legs do not look natural, and the legs would clip through the temple after the character walks up the stairs. Another challenge that I faced and was unable to solve was the issue with creating a new "scene" level containing character movement. After pasting the "scene" level into one of my block-codes, instead of the code initiating all of the movement all together at once, the block-code will treat the "scene" level as a "do in order" block. This made it so that the character would initiate leg and arm movement only after moving forward and up. I think this is a bug since I was able to fix that problem by pasting the entire movement code into the "do together" block instead of a simplified "scene level" code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am proud of being able to endure the length of Shellhacks and manage to create a project all by myself. I had no assistance whatsoever and I only learned to use Alice just about 3 week ago. The fact that I was able to complete such a project, even if it isn't amazing, is quite astonishing to me. I also feel accomplished about resolving many of the issues and making something eventually work.

What we learned

As I continued to progress throughout my game, I learned more about Alice and the many other functions and tools that I could utilize. The camera tool was a tool that I used many times within the game and made the game look really interesting with the movement and angles. I didn't know that we could mark cameras or objects in order to keep them in place for other camera movements. It made for some intriguing moments within the decision making of the character. It also added some suspense while using the above view during the scene where Thor was blocked off and had to face the monster. Overall, I was able to test out a bunch of Alice features and was able to learn a bit more about them.

What's next for Thor's Journey for Treasure

I most likely will not touch Thor's Journey for Treasure in the future despite its many flaws, but I will continue to learn more about programming and hopefully polish my skills for the future. There are many things that I would like to learn and try out so the game should be successful to me at my current level. Perhaps in the future, I can look back at Shellhacks 2022 and remember this specific project and potentially try to improve on it. After all, seeing my past mistakes and flaws in the future can allow me to see how much I have grown.

Built With

• alice