Game Developer Builds Video Game To Propose
When graphic designer and 2D/3D artist, Anders Howard, 24, wanted to propose to his girlfriend Steffany, 25, he wanted to do it in the most interesting way he could imagine. The couple had been dating for 5 years and originally met in their High School drama club but didn’t start dating until a few years later. As a video game lover and one capable of developing his own games he knew exactly what he was going to do to ask her to be his wife.
Along with a few of his friends (Jeff Aydelotte the programmer, Thomas Bennett Jobling the animator, Ian Buczkowski the musician and Justin Fong the rigger) he built Dinner Love and the Quest for Soup! – A Marriage Proposal Game.
The game begins with an extra-large Steffany trampling around San Francisco looking to increase her “Happiness” meter by filling up on food items (like cheeseburgers and cupcakes) but watch out for Hungraa the hobo looking to steal your food. In short order Mr. Hungraa has a change of heart and hands over a jewelry box to her.
Anders had his girlfriend play the game as a “tester” in front of a bunch of family and friends at her 25th birthday party. As she reached the end of the game, a box which held an engagement ring appeared on screen, and unbeknownst to her, he too pulled out an actual ring and proposed to her in front of all their loved ones. She of course said yes!
We sat down with Anders and got a few more details about his awesomely geek proposal.
I worked on it with my friends over 10 weeks. Some weeks I worked on it every night after work for an hour or two. Some long weekdays were entirely devoted to working on it. But a couple weeks I hardly touched it and had to work harder the following week. All in all I stayed on the schedule I had originally planned.
Hah, we have barely begun to think about it. We’ve taken five years already and we’re not really in a hurry. We do know that we need to wait for her to finish her Masters program in Boston (I am in San Francisco) and that we have a preference for a small, non-traditional wedding of some sort.
[inline]
[script language='VBScript']
function DetectUnityWebPlayerActiveX
on error resume next
dim tControl, res, ua, re, matches, major
res = 0
set tControl = CreateObject(“UnityWebPlayer.UnityWebPlayer.1″)
if IsObject(tControl) then
if tControl.GetPluginVersion() = “2.5.0f5″ then
‘ 2.5.0f5 on Vista and later has an auto-update issue
‘ on Internet Explorer. Detect Vista (6.0 or later)
‘ and in that case treat it as not installed
ua = Navigator.UserAgent
set re = new RegExp
re.Pattern = “Windows NT (\d+)\.”
set matches = re.Execute(ua)
if matches.Count = 1 then
major = CInt(matches(0).SubMatches(0))
if major < 6 then
res = 1
end if
end if
else
res = 1
end if
end if
DetectUnityWebPlayerActiveX = res
end function
[/script]
[script language="javascript1.1" type="text/javascript"]
function GetUnity () {
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && navigator.appVersion.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") != -1)
return document.getElementById("UnityObject");
else if (navigator.appVersion.toLowerCase().indexOf("safari") != -1)
return document.getElementById("UnityObject");
else
return document.getElementById("UnityEmbed");
}
function DetectUnityWebPlayer () {
var tInstalled = false;
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && navigator.appVersion.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") != -1) {
tInstalled = DetectUnityWebPlayerActiveX();
}
else {
if (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes["application/vnd.unity"]) {
if (navigator.mimeTypes["application/vnd.unity"].enabledPlugin && navigator.plugins && navigator.plugins["Unity Player"]) {
tInstalled = true;
}
}
}
return tInstalled;
}
function GetInstallerPath () {
var tDownloadURL = "";
var hasXpi = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf( "firefox" ) != -1;
// Use standalone installer
if (1)
{
if (navigator.platform == "MacIntel")
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/webplayer-i386.dmg";
else if (navigator.platform == "MacPPC")
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/webplayer-ppc.dmg";
else if (navigator.platform.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") != -1)
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/UnityWebPlayer.exe";
return tDownloadURL;
}
// Use XPI installer
else
{
if (navigator.platform == "MacIntel")
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/UnityWebPlayerOSX.xpi";
else if (navigator.platform == "MacPPC")
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/UnityWebPlayerOSX.xpi";
else if (navigator.platform.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") != -1)
tDownloadURL = "http://webplayer.unity3d.com/download_webplayer-2.x/UnityWebPlayerWin32.xpi";
return tDownloadURL;
}
}
function AutomaticReload () {
navigator.plugins.refresh();
if (DetectUnityWebPlayer())
window.location.reload();
setTimeout('AutomaticReload()', 500)
}
[/script]
[script language="javascript1.1" type="text/javaScript"]
var hasUnity = DetectUnityWebPlayer();
var brokenUnity = false;
if (hasUnity) {
document.write('
// if Unity does not define to GetPluginVersion on Safari on 10.6, we presume the plugin
// failed to load because it is not compatible with 64-bit Safari.
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf(“Safari”) != -1
&& navigator.appVersion.indexOf(“Mac OS X 10_6″) != -1
&& document.getElementById(“UnityEmbed”).GetPluginVersion == undefined)
brokenUnity = true;
}
if (!hasUnity || brokenUnity) {
var installerPath = GetInstallerPath();
if (installerPath != “”) {
// Place a link to the right installer depending on the platform we are on. The iframe is very important! Our goals are:
// 1. Don’t have to popup new page
// 2. This page still remains active, so our automatic reload script will refresh the page when the plugin is installed
document.write(‘
if (brokenUnity)
document.write(‘
\n’);else
document.write(‘
\n’);document.write(‘
\n’);
// By default disable ActiveX cab installation, because we can’t make a nice Install Now button
// if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf(“MSIE”) != -1 && navigator.appVersion.toLowerCase().indexOf(“win”) != -1)
if (0)
{
document.write(‘
Title
‘);
document.write(‘
Contents
‘);
document.write(“
“);
var innerUnityPrompt = document.getElementById(“InnerUnityPrompt”);
var innerHtmlDoc =
‘‘;
innerUnityPrompt.innerHTML = innerHtmlDoc;
}
document.write(‘\n’);
}
else {
document.write(‘
if (brokenUnity)
document.write(‘
\n’);else
document.write(‘
\n’);document.write(‘
\n’);
}
// hide broken player
if (brokenUnity)
document.getElementById(“UnityEmbed”).height = 0;
// Reload when detected unity plugin – but only if no previous plugin is installed
// – in that case a browser restart is needed.
if (!brokenUnity)
AutomaticReload();
}
[/script]
[/inline]
More From Proposal
Game Developer Builds Video Game To Propose
When graphic designer and 2D/3D artist, Anders Howard, 24, wanted to propose to his girlfriend Steffany, 25, he wanted to do it in the most interesting way he could imagine. The couple had been dating for 5 years and originally met in their High School drama club but didn’t start dating until a few years later. As a video game…
Clever Marriage Proposal Idea
These days, there’s so much pressure on guys to come up with something fantastic and spectacular when it comes time to deliver a marriage proposal. What some people may have forgotten about is the pure beauty that comes from something simple and special, no matter how unique or ground breaking it is. These marriage proposal pictures were just that, clever…
Facebook Employee Proposes to Google Girlfriend
How does the Senior Platform Manager at Facebook Dave Morin (@DaveMorin) propose to his Google girlfriend Brittany Bohnet (@Brit) ? Simple, by spelling out “B. Will you marry me?” in coconuts on a a sandy beach in the Maldives and flying over it in a private charter plane while she gets to pilot it. She obviously said yes, what girl…
....