Turning My Struggles into an Award-Winning Hackathon Project: Challenges for Women in Tech and Mental Health Awareness
Tags: octograd2020
Published: 2020-05-20 07:25:48

# Escaping the Negativity 2019
My partner and I wanted to work on a project that surrounded some common issues women may deal with on a day-to-day basis, and we hoped to help encourage them to persevere as well as let them know they are not alone. We researched on google that the top three most common challenges that women face are inequality/discrimination, not fitting in, and a lack of support and understanding. Using the idea of Cry of Fear's Camera Flash scenes, we adapted it into a metaphor for the subconsciousness where a player can be easily trapped and lost in darkness. Many of the phrases used in this game allude to the topics mentioned in our research, involving thoughts or words that were said that can weigh you down in difficult situations. The negative messages are symbolic of the negative thoughts that can easily consume our minds and keep us spiraling, while it is the positive ones that can help us move forward.

[Note]: #githubsdp 
I'm going to miss using the github student developer pack. I hosted and got my first domain name from namecheap, and I've used AWS & Jetbrains IntelliJ for my classes. Extremely helpful and good experience in trying out these tools for long-term without having to pay as a student.

## My Final Project
 A lot of information on the project itself can be found on this [devpost](https://devpost.com/software/escaping-the-negativity).

Like any maze game, the goal is to find the right path to reach the other end. In our game, the path to escape is by following the positive messages hidden among all the negatives on the maze walls. The player must use their flashlight to find them and navigate the maze using the WASD keys and their mouse.

## Demo Link
{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu56e_c6KOc&feature=emb_title}

## Link to Code

[Note]: # {https://github.com/airada/AH_2019}

## How it was built it
We built it using Unity in C#. The artistic aspects such as the visuals on the walls were created using Krita. 

## Challenges we ran into
With little to no experiences using Unity, our main challenge was simply learning how to navigate and transform our ideas into moving parts. There were also many scary moments when we thought our working code was going to be overwritten since we were also new to using git and github.


## Additional Thoughts / Feelings / Stories
The project I'm most proud of is Escaping the Negativity. I've never felt such a wide range of emotions in only 24 hours. My partner and I created this game during our second hackathon ever, AthenaHacks 2019. Our simple 3D maze game, symbolizing a dark mind and spreading mental health awareness, (surrounding common challenges for women in tech) won the Best Game award. In that moment, everything felt like a dream. We tirelessly struggled with the learning curve for unity and using git, as our only experience was a workshop we took that day. We initially thought that our game wasn't that great, because we failed to add all the features we really wanted. However, other students and staff were coming to our table asking about our project, wanting to play our game, and then telling others about how fun it was. Once the judges from Activision came, we were especially in awe that they loved our idea, despite the game being unfinished. The praise we received from everyone was truly unexpected and made each debugging struggle worth it. Winning the Best Game is a memory I hold dear, especially since the idea for the game was something I was passionate about.


[Final Note]: # (CONGRATULATIONS!!! You are amazing!)