Description

In Shape-Shifters, you play as a hero character trying to destroy as many enemies as possible. The enemies appear in different shapes, in order to destroy them, you have to shape-shift yourself to the same shape as your enemies’ when approaching them. Prepare yourself as the enemies do not come alone, you will have to think fast in order to defeat them!

Image of Shape-Shifters game

How to play the game?

Each shape you are in represents each quantum state: Triangle for |0>; Square for |1>; Polygon for |s> – superposition state. To shape-shift, you will need to change your current quantum state by passing them through either the gate X or H (Hadamard). You can do that by typing X or H on your keyboard. Typing J for your character to jump. The more specific rules relating to the gates and the quantum states will be available in-game at section “How to play”. Don’t worry, it will be very simple! The game only focuses on challenging players’ calculation speeds and familiarities with basic quantum physics states and gates (X and H).

Image of Shape-Shifters game

How was this game made?

The game was made at Aalto University in Spring 2021 by Team 6 – ShapeShifter as the project for Quantum Game 2021 course. My team only has 1 member, me. I took care of all the processes from designing the characters’ forms, backgrounds, effects, etc to developing and debugging the game. The initial idea was made and re-made a lot of times to form the game I have at the moment. I am not so experienced with quantum physics, hence, thanks a lot to the mentors that had instructed and helped me create a suitable logics for the game.

How is this related to quantum?

The shapes of the characters are represented by quantum states (|0>, |1>, |s>). Players have to remember the rules for passing them through gates X and H well and apply that knowledge quickly in a paced environment. I find representing the states indirectly through the shapes will make the game more aesthetic, and create a bit more challenges for players to process the calculation. But no worry, the game starts at very slow pace so that anyone can get familiar with the system before something challenging shows up.

Tools

Adobe Photoshop
Unity 2020.1.11f1

Credits

Binh Pham – Game design & Graphics design & Level design & Animation & Programming & Debugging
Sounds from Freesound.org

Binh Pham

Play now!

https://play.unity.com/p/webgl-builds-50590/edit

Download

Game files

Source files

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/