Groovy Derby: Link To Fullscreen

Groovy Derby: Link To P5

Concept:

The concept for my project was inspired by the co-op game It Takes Two, where two game characters set out on a journey that is filled with cooperative minigames and obstacles which they have to overcome. As such, I wanted to create a minigame where the game is only “playable” if two people are communicating and working together. Combining with themes from arcade games such as a limited number of lives and endless generative spites, I created Groovy Derby where two players have to input the correct order of key combinations in order to score points in the game.

Project Workings:

For my project, I am extremely happy with the character design and the way that they move and interact with each other. Although they don’t move from their position, the way the characters match each other movements in almost an animated way had relived me of a lot of stress. Particularly because I was really worried, I wouldn’t be able to have the characters move in a certain way and the game would look super chunky/ blocky. I think looking at animations and working frame-by-frame really helped my character movements, and in the end I had 5 frames/ designs for the characters to move. If there is anyone looking for “animated” characters, I recommend breaking down the movement into pieces and seeing how they would look on screen.

On the technical end, I am happy with the game mechanics and interactions between the user input with the creatures. I also really worried on how to connect the key pressed and possible decrement of the combination from the creature encroaching onto the characters. For that, I created player and creature class methods that checked the first combination with the input of the user, and if it matched, then the first combination would be removed. If it was the wrong input, the creature would keep moving towards the center, and if it reached a certain range within the players, a life would be lost.

As for improvement on the code, I believe the code can be more optimized as some parts were copied pasted, then the variable was changed to match what I was trying to do. I wish there were more randomization in the code because after round 6, there is a 1/3 chance for any of the creatures to be loaded in. On the game design part, I wish there were more user feedback such as when a life is lost, when a button is pressed, when the game is starting, additional sound effects, etc,. However, given we had ~1.5 to 2 weeks to complete this project, I am happy with the end result and progress that I was able to implement into my project.

Player Class

let playerHead = width / 33; // ~50 pixels
let distanceApart = width/ 26 // ~65 pixels
let player1 = new playerCharacters(player1Color, distanceApart, 0, playerHead);
let player2 = new playerCharacters(player2Color, -distanceApart, 0, playerHead);

player1.player1Moves();
player2.player2Moves();
player1.playerHitBox(player2);

Final recommendations for people on a time crunch, but want their design to look nice, I had used Canva to design a lot of my background and additional image/text that didn’t need to move. For the game sounds, I went to a free sound effect website and download clips, then looped it in p5. For custom fonts, I went to a free custom fonts website and make sure to have a .ttf file or it might not work as intended. Last, I want to mention that the heart design was generated was AI generated because I couldn’t determine the vectors/ shapes needed for my design.