Growthcat | Devpost

Inspiration

When the hackathon started, I was discouraged by the seeming complexity of other teams' projects, and the seemingly technical skills I would need to make a decent project, but after speaking to two of my upperclassmen, they encouraged me to make something regardless, something within my skillset, something that I find fun. And so I made this, inspired by them. The theme was "growth", and the first idea in my head was a text stick figure that just becomes longer when the user says so, I thought that would be a funny contrast to the much more intricate projects of the groups around me, so I decided to make that.

What it does

There is a text art of a cat, and you are given the option to elongate his legs, torso, or neck, and then the text art gets updated to reflect your changes, and you can reach one of 5 endings depending on how you go about this

How we built it

I opened a python file, and used the limited skills I learned at GCSE to start making the program, not very complicated at all

Challenges we ran into

The only unique challenge for me, was actually making the text art, this was my first time, so I was nervous as to how I'd go about it, but it isn't as hard as I thought, and I think my growthcat doesn't look too bad. The second text art issue was that I had to break it up into multiple strings, in a way that I could recreate it in many different shapes and lengths. The strings look very weird and broken in the python file, but after some guesswork, and some testing, I got it to work.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am proud that I decided to do something, and that I made a program, I am happy with myself for this :), it will be something I look back on fondly, much better than coming out of this hackathon empty handed.

What we learned

That even if I feel out of my depth in an environment or competition, It's better to give it a shot and do something, rather than just sitting back and watching. Your attempt doesn't need to be big, or complex, just something that shows you put some effort into the task. It can be a rewarding experience, even if you don't get anything out of it.

What's next for Growthcat

I mean, if people REALLY like it, I'll consider making it a AAA game, and release it on consoles and PC. And then perhaps I'll make "growthdog", and then "growthoctopus", creating the "growthanimals" franchise