Apathetic Apothecary

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  NPC

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  Sprite sheet

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  Cooking Background

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  Background

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  Djorchertwitz

Inspiration

Our inspiration for this project was influenced by WiNGHacks themes of women empowerment as well as the forestry theme of their branding. Everyone on the team empathized with women who have been judged and mistreated simply for being a woman. We wanted to explore a character who goes on a journey understanding this. We wanted to also draw on the traditional image of women as witches and healers. Within the woods, our main character combats her self doubt by learning about the natural world and crafting remedies. Our game takes place in a magical forest setting that balances aspects of femininity, healing, independence, and resourcefulness. We were further inspired by games like Stardew Valley and Skyrim for how the character explores and interacts with the world.

What it does

Explore from a cycle of backgrounds, foraging for randomly generated plants. This specific project is actually intended to be a tutorial level for a bigger game. It gives instructions on the game mechanics as the character moves around to get them used to all the interactions.

How we built it

The project was built in C++ utilizing SFML. We tried to make most of our own assets, using drawing tablets and software like Photoshop and Clip Studio. The project was hosted on a Github repository so all team members could collaborate on making it. We also met up in-person to bounce ideas off of and support each other.

Challenges we ran into

We had some issues getting the project to run and continue running on everyones’ devices. SFML is not the most intuitive install, especially with Mac computers. Additionally, the use of different IDE’s complicated updating files. One teammate was rendered mostly unable to code due to these problems, while the others faced merge conflicts for what they did. The complexity of the project also tested our knowledge of C++ and SFML, where we ran into many bugs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We chose to use SFML due to its graphic capabilities. At the moment, our game is fairly art heavy and we’re proud of the enchanted forest setting we captured. Additionally, we have an original character with an animated walk cycle that can be controlled by the user, interactive plant elements, and an inventory. Since our game is about exploring the surrounding world, we are proud of the way it captures the feeling of being in a forest and collecting plants.

What we learned

We learned how to use SFML and C++ in ways we had not utilized before. In the process, we learnt about game development and design. We grew to understand what practices worked and where we may want to focus our time and effort in future.

What's next for Apathetic Apothecary

The first thing to do would be to clean up existing code and functionalities. Next would be to expand upon the game. Eventually, we would want levels with an overarching story. The immediate next step would be to add more cooking mechanics and interactions with NPCs to enrichen the world the player is exploring.

Built With

• c++
• sfml