Baagh-chal

Losing Screen
Gameplay
Gameplay
Winning Screen
Snap QR

Inspiration

Growing up, our dad would tell us stories of playing Bagh-chal in Nepal, using nothing but hand-carved wooden figurines. When he eventually taught my sister and me how to play, we didn't have those wooden pieces, our board was a scrap of notebook paper, and our game pieces were scribbled with colored pencils. We wanted to preserve that bond and the thrill of the hunt, so we teamed up as sisters to bring our family tradition from a piece of paper to the entire world on Snapchat.

We wanted to preserve that bond and the thrill of the "tiger hunt" for a new generation. We teamed up as sisters to digitize this tradition, evolving it from a piece of paper into an interactive 2D experience for the global community on Snapchat.

What it does

Bagh-chal is a traditional strategic "hunt" game. One player controls four tigers, attempting to capture goats by jumping over them, while the other player controls twenty goats, aiming to surround and trap the tigers so they cannot move. This Lens brings that high-stakes battle to life in Augmented Reality.

How we built it

We built this 2D strategy game using Lens Studio, focusing on a smooth UI and responsive touch controls. Player plays as goats.

Two-Phase Logic: We developed a seamless transition from the Placement Phase (dropping 20 goats) to the Movement Phase (strategic sliding).
2D Asset Design: We created custom 2D sprites using genAI for goat and tiger pieces while also ensuring it looks crisp on mobile screens.
The Grid: We mapped out a 5x5 intersection system (think alquerque board), ensuring the tigers and goats move exactly as they have for centuries on a 2D plane.

Challenges we ran into

We hit a major roadblock with the Screen Text components; a tricky TypeError regarding "scale" almost stalled our UI. We had to dive deep into the hierarchy to ensure our instructions stayed within the "Safe Region" on every type of phone. The math behind the tiger's "jump" was also a puzzle. Initially, the tiger pieces were making illegal jumps to capture goats. To ensure a tiger at $ (x_1, y_1) $ correctly captures a goat and lands at $ (x_3, y_3) $, we validated the landing point using:

$$|x_1 - x_3| = 2 \quad \text{and} \quad |y_1 - y_3| = 2$$

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud to have successfully translated a physical family heritage into a digital 2D format. Seeing our father's favorite childhood pastime fully functional, complete with capture logic and a reactive UI. after multiple test runs, we realized the tiger(computer) wasn't making moves during its turn. We're so glad we decided to test our game extensively which allowed us to find flaws and correct them.

What we learned

Through this journey, we learned that the best technology is the kind that brings people together. We sharpened our coding and 2D UI design skills, but more importantly, we learned how to translate a physical heritage into a digital future.

Developing logic for two different character classes (Tigers vs. Goats) required deep-diving into conditional pathfinding and collision-detection overrides. We gained experience in Screen Transform hierarchies, learning how to implement a "Safe Region" responsive UI that maintains 2D aspect ratio integrity across diverse mobile hardware.