The Park

Inspiration

We had a really hard time figuring out something we could do with the little experience in coding we had. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that a visual novel would be the best fit for our programming skill set. We wanted to kind of base this story around our team though. So, a lot of the aspects of the characters come from us. One member of our team, specifically immigrated here to go to school, and two members in our team are LGBTQ+, and these are the core themes discussed in our game.

What it does

The Park is a visual novel created in the Ren py engine and vs code. It allows the user to interact with a story about discrimination. The actions they choose decide the fate of the characters at the end.

How we built it

We started from a mere idea. We worked collaboratively to develop a baseline for the story. Then, Chloe and Ben continued to develop the story further and wrote the script. After the development of the script, Jaiden wrote the backbone of the code, including setting the background, showing and hiding characters, and coding the dialogue, Lastly, Annie finalized the code by adding options, graphics, background, and a counter to decide the fate of the characters, based on the options the user chose.

Challenges we ran into

Our first major challenge was figuring out what our project was going to be. Since we all had very little coding experience, our options were very limited. The next major challenge was the scripting and story-boarding process of it. It was very difficult to create a thorough and thought out story, especially since none of us had ever really written something like this before. Another challenge that the back-end side of our project faced was learning how to us Ren py. The hardest thing, though, was the time crunch. Since we had so little time, we also got very little sleep. This lead to us being so exhausted, at some points, that we couldn't properly function.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a group, we are incredibly proud to have completed a project in 24 hours. In the beginning, we had no ideas and honestly thought we weren't going to be able to do anything. Luckily, we were able to pull through, and we are really happy that we have a finished project. Overall, we are really proud of all of the teamwork, communication, and creativity that went into this project.

What we learned

Jaiden - The hackathon was nothing but a learning curve. As a first-time participant, I learned about devpost (what it is and how to use it), what a hackathon entails, and the profound dedication it takes to complete a project in a short 24 hours. As a back-end developer, I learned how to code in ren py, how to efficiently use vscode, and how to collaborate on back-end development. I personally learned that I'm not sufficiently creative, I can't stay awake for 24 hours, and that when I'm driven, I can do anything I set my mind to.

Chloe - This was my first hackathon ever, so there was a lot I learned. As a first-year, computer science student, I was pretty worried about what me and my team would be able to do. Luckily though, we learned that, when put under pressure, we are able to come with anything. I was more involved with the scripting and story-boarding process. I learned that scripting is really hard. I have always struggled with writing and English, in general, so this was definitely a challenge. Overall, I learned how to properly work with a team, how to write a decent script, and how to work while being very sleep deprived.

Ben- From this experience I learned a lot myself, what it is like to work on a team, and what it is like to struggle and be independent. I learned that I'm not the best writer but I am very creative when it comes to making a story come together and building an engaging story with a good plot. Writing a script is very hard work and I think that I couldn't do it alone. Working on a team that had synergy and was on the same page was something I had never experienced before. We were relatively effect when working. although there definitely was a lot of things that we could've done different. I think we all should've been working on the script before moving on to coding the game I think that would've saved us a lot of time. Being on our own with this project was also something I've never experienced. The only word I can use to describe the feeling is liberating. I truly can't believe that we completed a game and wrote a good story.

Annie - This hackathon was exhausting but it was worth it in the end. As a first-time participant as well, I learned that coding with Jaiden was really useful, and I'm impressed with how limited time I had but still managed to somehow finish a beta version of the game. This was also my first time staying up more than 24 hours for a project so really taught me how to prepare for these types of scenarios too.

What's next for The Park

While, we are very proud of the game, it is clearly a beta version. If we were to continue developing this project, we would continue to flesh out the characters, the setting, and just generally further the development of the story. We would like to create more choices for the player and to make the game a better experience for the player. Overall, if we were to develop this project further, we would just want to make the actual story portion of this game as best as possible.

Built With

• renpy
• vscode