Mundane gamification – Bum around the Byrne Dairy parking lot sipping sweet green tea while your friends skate around.
I made this game pretty hurriedly when I was first introduced to Python. Honestly the code behind it is almost more interesting to look through than the game itself. These huge blocky pixels making up the characters and scenery were manually programed when I was in a rush to produce the game for crit, and I laugh to myself thinking that this was really the easiest way I knew how to do it.
Character animations like sipping the tea was done by copying/pasting a series of the same character sprite, making adjustments as needed. The background was done in the same way, and I think I even broke the arrays up into two side-by-side sections because the whole scene was too long to fit right to my own style specifications.
Another endearing aspect of the game was my attempt to add complexity to how the player’s health is calculated. There is actually a calorie property as well as a weight property to the player character which affects the player’s health score. Every time the player takes a sip of Arizona Iced Tea, they lose health, but also their calorie count increases. Calories are decreased when the player moves around within the limited space, but taking sips adds to the calorie count at a far faster rate. Abundance of calories affects the players weight property, which in turn affects their health score if it falls outside the 100-150lb range.
I think the most peculiar part about this game is how these “mechanics” are not real at all apprent when you play – you just take sips of tea and watch as your bank account gets drained and your health gets hopelessly lower and lower. The health score also doesn’t affect how the game works beyond telling you that you are unhealthy, and so this arbitrary binary of health and fitness is just prescribed to you.
It’s not exactly my most impressive work but I really cherish this weird expression of a mundane scene I was very familiar with in middle school. A can of tea is a dollar and buddys are there, still skating in the same little place.
HUW MESSIE 