Crayon Box Tournament

At Hack&Roll 2024, me and my team made a video game from scratch in 24 hours. None of us had any experience with game development, so it was a pretty challenging experience going in.

The game is a 2D platformer where two players go against each other. One player controls a “box” character trying to reach the finish line, and the other player uses a “crayon” to draw obstacles on the screen to block them.

The box player moves with WASD and has two abilities: a dash to gain momentum, and a phase shift that lets them pass through drawn obstacles for a short time. You have to think about when to use these, which makes the game more interesting.

The crayon player draws barriers and traps anywhere they want using the mouse. Since you can draw freely, you can come up with different strategies each round, so every match plays out a bit differently.

We made it a best-of-three format where players switch roles after each round so both sides get to experience each playstyle. There is also a comeback mechanic that gives the losing player a random powerup after each round, which keeps matches from feeling too one-sided.

The whole thing was built in Godot, which none of us had used before. It turned out to be way more manageable than we expected, and honestly it was one of the more fun projects I have worked on.