Inspiration
Unique culture that connects common laymen, speed-runners, engineers, evolutionist and more; the idea of minimizing outcomes, and maximizing those most suited for a particular environment. This concept is known by the game community as, 'min-maxxing'.
What it does
Trowel is a simple game that highlights the mechanic of evolution over time. The user plays as a character, 'Brombly', who slays ent-like creatures and gains specific power-ups for doing so.
How we built it
Every team member chipped into the largest aspect of the project; the mechanics. However, besides this aspect, each team member specialized in a different area of production such as programming, art, and sound design. Our final product runs with Unity, and utilizes standard mouse-and-keyboard movement.
Challenges we ran into
Technical challenges, of course, were present. Collision issues, poor audio mixing, and art style conflicting with functionality were all prevalent in the beginning. When mental faculties began to fail and our sleep-depraved team entered a hyper-focus stupor, most issues were approached as expected inconveniences. This helped with the psychology of the project greatly and much to our surprise.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Entirely unique soundtrack and hand-tailored pixel art produced a close replica of the combines imagination of the team. Additionally, our ability to overcome programming barriers and technological hurdles grew noticeably stronger over the course of this event. Finally, we are proud of how close we have all came to each other through collaboration and group implementation.
What we learned
Aside from the obvious technical aspects of coding, art, and sound design, we learned how better to communicate and forecast difficulties as they arise. One of the team members (the same member who writes this summary) was very nervous coming into the project, as they did not know the others very well. However, after bonding through overcoming obstacles, sharing life stories, and solving issues together, the member counts the rest of the team as great friends.
What's next for Trowel
Greater sound design, more detailed art, levels, and enemies, and higher functionality of the core idea of min-maxxing (greater weapon variety, upgrade-able abilities, etc.).
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