Welcome to the Ceros Ski Code Challenge!
For this challenge, we have included some base code for Ceros Ski, our version of the classic Windows game SkiFree. If you've never heard of SkiFree, Google has plenty of examples. Better yet, you can play our version here: http://ceros-ski.herokuapp.com/
Or deploy it locally by running:
npm install
npm run dev
How To Play
- Use the arrow keys to turn the skier.
- The skier will crash if they hit an obstacle. Use the left/right keys to move away from the obstacle and then down to resume skiing.
- At some point the rhino will appear, chasing the skier. It will inevitably catch the skier and eat them, ending the game.
Time Limit
Solutions should be submitted within a week of receiving the challenge. We expect the challenge to take at most two hours of your time. We understand that everyone has varying levels of free time and we'd rather you take the time and produce a solution up to your ability than rush and turn in a suboptimal challenge. If you require more time, please reach out to us. Look through the requirements below and let us know when you will have something for us to look at. If anything is unclear, don't hesitate to reach out.
Requirements
Throughout your completion of these requirements, be mindful of the design/architecture of your solution and the quality of your code. We've provided the base code as a sample of what we expect. That being said, we're sure there are ways the that the design and architecture could be better. If you find a better way to do something, by all means, make it better! Your solution can only gain from having a better foundation.
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Add a New Feature:
Add in the ability for the skier to jump. The asset files for the ramp and the jumping skier are included. All you need do is make them jump.
Acceptance Criteria:
- Jump ramps are added to the game world and appear randomly as the skier skis.
- The skier should enter the jumping state when they hit the jump ramp.
- The skier should also enter the jumping state when the user presses the spacebar.
- The skier should do a flip while jumping, at least one cycle through the jump images provided.
- While jumping, the skier should be able to jump over some obstacles:
- Rocks can be jumped over
- Trees can NOT be jumped over
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Documentation:
Update this README file with your comments about your work.
- What did you do and, more importantly, why you built it the way you did.
- Are there any known bugs?
- Did you do any bonus items?
- Tell us how to run it, either locally or through a cloud provider.
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Be original:
This should go without saying but don’t copy someone else’s game implementation! We have access to Google too!
Grading
Your challenge will be graded based upon the following criteria. Before spending time on any bonus items, make sure you have fulfilled this criteria to the best of your ability, especially the quality of your code and the design/architecture of your solutions. We cannot stress this enough!
- How well you've followed the instructions. Did you do everything we said you should do?
- The quality of your code. We have a high standard for code quality and we expect all code to be up to production quality before it gets to code review. Is it clean, maintainable, unit-testable, and scalable?
- The design of your solution and your ability to solve complex problems through simple and easy to read solutions.
- How well you document your solution. We want to know what you did and why you did it.
Bonus
Note: You won’t be marked down for excluding any of this, it’s purely bonus. If you’re really up against the clock, make sure you complete all of the listed requirements and to focus on writing clean, well organized, well documented code before taking on any of the bonus.
If you're having fun with this, feel free to add more to it. Here's some ideas or come up with your own. We love seeing how creative candidates get with this.
- Provide a way to reset the game once it's over
- Provide a way to pause and resume the game
- Add a score that increments as the skier skis further
- Increase the difficulty the longer the skier skis (increase speed, increase obstacle frequency, etc.)
- Deploy the game to a server so that we can play it without having to install it locally
- Write unit tests for your code
We are looking forward to see what you come up with!!
New Game Additions
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Jump ramps added to the game world and appear randomly as the skier skis.
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The skier can enter the jumping state when they hit the jump ramp.
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The skier can also enter the jumping state when the user presses the spacebar.
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The skier will do a flip while jumping when using the ramp. The skier will not do a flip when regular jumping without a jump ramp. This decision was made to allow for more variety of animations and also it is unlickely that a skier can do a whole flip doing short jumps.
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While jumping, the skier is able to jump over some obstacles:
- Rocks can be jumped over
- Trees can NOT be jumped over
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New weight attributes for obstacles to determine the probability of drawing a specific obstacle. This was added in order to keep the probabilities clean and allow easy additions for other obstacles later on. This also allows to create different levels later on with different biomes using specific probabilities.
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Game speed increases with every jump ramp. If you don't want to get caught by the rhino use the jump ramps in order to gain speed.
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Pause Menu was added. It can be triggered by pressing P or Esc on the keyboard
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A score was added to the game that will increase with time, jumps and flips
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A Game Over menu screen was added that will be displayed when the skier gets caughed by the rhino.
How to play
The game can be played here: https://jdrechsler.github.io/ski-game/
Try to collect as many points as possible! Don't get caught by the rhino. Use the jump ramps in order to gain speed. BUT beware of obstacles in the world. Trees cannot be jumped over.
Available Hotkeys:
- Arrow keys: Used to navigate within the game world
- Jump: Let the skier jump. The skier can jump over rocks but not trees
- P / Esc: Pause the game