Tempestuous Turrets

Inspiration

With the technological landscape expanding ever so rapidly, it has had a great impact on the gaming industry, for better and/or worse. Games have become ever so complex, resulting in the creation of many technological masterpieces, however, it has become harder than ever to just jump in and enjoy playing a game or two with a friend or sibling.

Well, it WAS harder than ever. Then came Tempestuous Turrets, and gaming has never been the same since. Tempestuous Turrets offers a vastly different experience, allowing for siblings, friends, family, relatives, neighbours, teachers, crushes, even your local Starbuck barista, to come together and engage in a fun game of Tempestuous Turrets together.

What it does

Tempestuous Turrets simplifies gaming by making it accessible to as many people as possible. Our goal is to give people a memorable time with the ones closest to them. With the use of only ONE button, each of the four players can control their own turrets to shoot through obstacles and at each other, taking part in bitter-sweet rivalries and friendly competition to see who is truly the most tempestuous.

The main objective of the game is to be the last turret standing. You want to eliminate all other turrets on the map being wary not to get caught in your own cross-fire as there is always the occasional chance that your own fired shot may ricochet off the wall and relieve you of your chance at victory. There are a variety of maps to master and dominate, as well as a varying degree of strategies to explore and experiment with using the two ammunition types; the quick and rapid single shot spray, or the powerful and beefy, hold shot. Come check it out for yourself at: http://tempestuousturrets.tech/!

How we built it

Tempestuous Turrets is built using the Unity game engine and C#. We wanted to create something unique, but also special to us, which is why we created all of the art assets ourselves during the hackathon. We started simple, with just turrets that rotate and shoot projectiles. Then, we let our imagination take us through creating fun, hilarious, and exciting maps with a variety of obstacles. At last, we used Github Pages to host our WebGL Game and get our domain name from domain.com.

Challenges we ran into

Although we all love new challenges and learning new things, 2 of our group members have little to no prior experience with Unity and C#. This made our process a little less than ideal, but someone needs to make all the art, right? Staying up all night was no less a challenge as well, as our eyes have never felt heavier.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of every member in our team. As a result, we were able to capitalize on our strengths and support each other throughout the entire development process. More importantly, we were able to improve upon each other's weaknesses and strive to be better together.

What we learned

We learned a lot about game development in Unity and C# in general, as well as the overall game development process. From the original ideation phase, to the refinement of that idea, to asset creation, art direction, sound design, and the most obvious of all, programming. We truly were fortunate to explore and gain experience in most of not all of these fields. Another extremely important skill we learned was the true power hidden within a can of Monster energy.

What's next for Tempestuous Turrets

We plan to venture further, specifically into the realms of mobile development, in order to bring Tempestuous Turrets to every phone on the planet, making it accessible for all. We also stride to improve the overall gameplay loop through the introduction of power-ups, which would grant players special timed abilities. This would add a new dynamic to gameplay as well as help to flesh out and further shake-up the game mechanics.