Inspiration
Our original goal was to create an educational game that, in one way or another, demonstrated some kind of quantum computing principles. We brainstormed a few different ideas, but eventually ended up with a maze game with quantum elements to confuse your path.
What it does
It's a simple game with three template levels, each level acting as it's own gate for qubits. You can play each level, and you're goal is to get to the right goal (out of 4) for what the output would be for a specific input into the gate in question.
For example, for the X gate, you start off with a cubit in the |0> state, and you're goal is to pick the end goal spot for that specific gate. In this case, putting a |0> qubit into an X gate would result in a |1> qubit, and so you need to exit through the |1> checkpoint.
How we built it
We employed an iterative design process to tackle the challenges. We started iterating through the UI elements, movement mechanics, and overall game design based on feedback and testing.
We utilized strategies such as sketching out level layouts, prototyping, and testing to ensure the game's flow and balance. We created and structured the levels, grid, and menus first.
The team worked on the model to ensure it functioned correctly and efficiently. This involved debugging, optimizing code, and polishing the game mechanics to improve performance and experience.
There was much unit testing done on each part of the project to ensure its functionality and to make sure that the user experience wouldn’t be compromised by small bugs.
Challenges we ran into
Some challenges we faced are as follows:
- Generating ideas for the game concept and designing the levels, grid, and menus, was the first challenge we faced.
- Getting the UI elements, particularly buttons, into the game was a big challenge. This involved issues with layout, functionality, and appearance.
- Adjusting the movement speed of the character within the maze was also challenging, as it was initially too fast, affecting gameplay.
- There were issues getting the code to work for when a maze is completed and how it should display a message and then go back to the main menu so the player can try a new maze.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We navigated working through software and tools that we didn't all have experience with, such as working with the pygame_gui module. There were some setbacks, but ultimately we managed to complete a fully functioning game that demonstrates some basic quantum computing ideas.
What we learned
We primarily learned the basics of building a game in python in general. There was a learning curve with developing a game in pure pygame without a proper game engine, but ultimately what we ended up putting together turned out pretty well.
What's next for Quantum Maze
Some of the main things that could be added next are additional levels with different starting qubit values, maybe a way to have different sizes of levels to add more complexity, and potentially some additional obstacles that you could encounter throughout the game that would twist reality in weird ways using quantum physics ideas.
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