My Project

As a student at NYUAD, I really love our campus cat, Caramel. She makes being here even better. I enjoy graphic design, and it’s fun for me to draw. I’m also getting into coding, and I want to learn more about it. So, I had this idea for a project I call “Catsaway.” It’s a game inspired by Caramel. In the game, she can fly around the campus without crashing into the pointy palm tree corners. Instead, she gracefully glides through the soft palm leaves. To make her fly, you just press the spacebar. It’s a way to enjoy a little adventure through our campus. This project lets me combine my love for art and my interest in coding, turning my fondness for Caramel into a fun game.

My Game starts with my landing page that have 2 options either to start the game directly or taking you into the instructions page.

how my project works and what parts you’re proud of (e.g. good technical decisions, good game design)
I’m happy with how I brought Caramel to life in the game. Players get to control Caramel as she gracefully flies around our campus, avoiding obstacles like pointy palm trees. I’ve also made sure the game feels like NYUAD by adding familiar buildings and fluffy clouds.

I’m proud of the technical choices I made. The game has different parts, like the start page and instructions, to make it easy to play. I even added sound effects, like a cheerful jump sound when Caramel takes off. Players can restart the game or go back to the start page with simple key presses.

Some areas for improvement and problems that you ran into (resolved or otherwise)
During the development of my project, I encountered a few challenges and areas for improvement. One major issue I faced was optimizing the game’s performance. As the game got more complex with added elements, like the buildings and clouds, I noticed some slowdowns. I had to spend time fine-tuning the code to make sure the game runs smoothly, especially on lower-end devices. This was a valuable lesson in optimizing game design.

I had to work on enhancing the game’s instructions. I realized that players might need clearer guidance on how to play, so I made improvements to ensure that the instructions are more user-friendly.

Another challenge was making sure that the game’s look and feel truly capture the essence of NYUAD and Caramel. It required some iterations to get the graphics just right and create that immersive atmosphere.

While these challenges arose during development, I’m happy to say that I addressed them, resulting in a game I’m proud to share. The process of tackling these issues taught me valuable lessons in game development and design.