Boopi

Inspiration

When I was a kid, the most memorable game I played on my first-ever iPod Touch was those paper-throw games where you flick your finger to toss a crumpled paper ball into a trash bin. I’ve always wanted to recreate that concept with my own twist, but this time, with a frog.That idea gave me the freedom to go wild with cute and funny creature animations, and to build a childlike, dreamy world that captures the nostalgia I associate with those early gaming memories.

What it does

In this endless runner, you help Boopi the frog jump from lily pad to lily pad by swiping up on your screen. Eat flies you find along the way to purchase cosmetics in the shop. Don’t fall into the water though, scary things lurk beneath, waiting for a yummy little snack!

How we built it

We set out to make a stylized game with simple shapes and memorable characters. Since we wanted to appeal to casual players and teens, we focused on creating vivid, dreamy visuals to grab the viewer’s attention and a simple yet replayable game loop that keeps them coming back.

Challenges we ran into

We mostly faced technical challenges along the way. For example, importing 3D assets and dynamically switching between animation states wasn’t fully supported, so we had to rely on a hacky workaround. Additionally, a few recent Horizon Worlds Editor updates broke some of our logic with Noesis and TypeScript, which forced us to rework parts of the code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were super excited after figuring out how to implement the hop mechanism, which is core to our gameplay. We managed to factor in the swipe angle and accurately translate it into the frog’s jump direction. I’m also proud of the visuals we developed using Blender’s texture-baking techniques to store realistic light and shadow information directly onto our textures. Early on, we also figured out instantiation for spawning endless scene elements, which helped shape the foundation of our gameplay loop.

What we learned

We learned a lot about properly importing assets, textures, and animations from other 3D apps into the editor. We also gained valuable experience with the Noesis editor—setting up leaderboards, dynamic quests, and the in-game store, all featuring playful animations.

What's next for Boopi

1 - We really want the game to feel more social, so we plan to introduce a proper lobby system where players can walk around and hang out before the game begins. 2 - Additionally, along with a game-changing multiplayer mode where you compete with friends to see who can hop the farthest, we also plan to add multiple biomes, with unique enemy types, that you can seamlessly travel through. This keeps the visuals constantly interesting and makes players want to keep hopping for more! 3 - We also plan to add a more fleshed out cosmetic store, add more quest variety, introduce more gameplay altering mechanics through obstacles, power ups, skill tree.

Built With

• ai
• genai
• horizon-apis
• noesis
• typescript