Throughout my educational career, I have occasionally struggled to maintain focus in class and on my schoolwork. My mind has a habit of drifting and/or becoming easily distracted. Over the summer of 2024, when I took the online class CSCE 221, or Data Structures and Algorithms, I struggled with concentrating even more than usual. For better or worse, this sparked an idea for a new project: a video game about paying attention!

The Waiting Game uses PyGame (Python) and OpenCV to take in facial recognition data to control your character on screen. The main character, Zimblort, is trying to walk across a tightrope, and if the player looks away from the screen, gets on their phone, dozes off, etc., then Zimblort will lose balance and fall off.

This project was particularly tough to manage with my intensive online class, but I learned so much about Python and facial recognition technology. I also learned about packaging and distributing Python code files into a playable .exe file.

The game can be viewed and downloaded at slahn.itch.io/the-waiting-game. The code for the game can be viewed at github.com/slahns/Waiting-Game.