Dino Fruit Feast

Inspiration

I was inspired by fun, colorful puzzle games like Mario and other great platform games, as well as the idea of making healthy food approachable and fun. I really like this weekend's theme and wanted to have fun with it as I got a little too serious and bogged down in code during my last hackathon. So, this weekend I wanted to keep things light and entertaining! I'm also interested in nutrition and how to make it engaging across different platforms, so I wanted to explore subtle ways of gamifying eating fruits and vegetables for a youth audience.

What it does

It's a short video game where you play as a little dinosaur character in an interesting environment. You navigate your way through the scene by solving movement puzzles and avoiding enemies. It also uses bright graphics and an enjoyable narrative while incorporating fruits and vegetables to make produce more interesting for the player.

How I built it

I used the Unity 2D engine and C# for Unity programming language. The images are not mine, and I've included credits below. However, I used the premade images in the Unity Animator to create animation sequences to bring more life and polish to the game, and I used the Unity Tilemap feature to create the environment.

Challenges I ran into

Defining the parameters for the Animator can be tricky, so it is a time-consuming process to make sure everything is set up correctly. Also, while I have some experience with Unity, I have limited experience with AI controls, so programming the enemy behavior was tricky but still rewarding and interesting.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud of learning more about programming AI behavior in a video game and practicing gamifying nutrition behaviors. I'm also proud of how much I accomplished in a short amount of time.

What I learned

I learned more about Unity's Animator and Tilemap and also about controlling the behavior of AI units through code.

What's next for Dino Fruit Feast

I want to add more text and narrative to sell the gamification elements. I also want to finish the level elements by adding a menu and end screen.

Credits

Dinosaur images designed by Arks on itch.io Platformer background, tiles, and enemies by Pixel Frog on itch.io Vegetables designed by Sev_4 on UnityAssetStore Fruit slices designed by ssugmi on itch.io

Built With

• c#
• unity