Pygame Hungry Hungry Hippos

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  game over text that displays scores for each hippo.

Inspiration

We wanted to create an arcade style game that would allow us to be able to touch upon the beauty of games like pong, space invaders, snake, and pacman that shared an unique quality for simplicity. These games have held a special place in our hearts and the hearts of people everywhere who have had the pleasure to partake in this simple yet enjoyable games. When we realized that there was no computer game, to our knowledge, that translated the popular game "Hungry Hungry Hippos" to software, we began developing the code to do just that.

What it does

There are four color-coded Hippos in each direction of the playable window, with a mass of physics-defying balls of food (our touch) that bounce across the screen. The goal of the game is to control the hippos (wherein the the key Q activates the Hippo on the left, the key Z for the top, the key M for the bottom, and the key P for the right hippo) to move and "stick out their necks" to collect as many balls of food as possible with remaining time of the game.

How we built it

Used Pygame, a module built upon the Python language. We leveraged our understanding of Python loops, lists, and dictionaries, and the Pygame documentation which provided us with useful in-built functions to employ to make the game functional and enjoyable.

Challenges we ran into

Initially, there was a problem with the pellets food (the balls) being "absorbed" by the hippos upon contact. Once that kink was worked out, we encountered a major issue with the way in which the hippos would move to "eat" the food. They would have to move in and out (i.e., stick out their necks) to be able to catch the balls of food.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Using the Pygame module and the Python language to create, in what would be our first, a medium-large scale project as freshmen. We leveraged the coding techniques learned from our class- particular CSE 115- and our new found propensity for problem solving, which we are relative newbies at, and yet, somehow survived through development to submit something that we are proud of.

What we learned

-How to leverage our programming techniques form class to develop a functional game

-What to do when we encounter an issue that seems unsolvable (we come at from a different angle, use print statements)

-How to design a project from scratch

-How to work as a team and collaborate with others to code a project

-How to diagnose bugs when they come up and fix them

Built With

• pygame
• python