Mobile Development

For the mobile development section of the module I was tasked with the objective of creating a mobile application using AppFurnace. My initial app idea was to create a single button game where the player controls a unicorn and avoids incoming rockets. However given the time it would take to complete this I decided on a simpler idea and instead worked on a bubblewrap game that I named "BubblewrApp".

I then decided to look at other bubblewrap apps for more ideas on how to layout my own. I figured most of the apps that are currently on the market are very simply designed so I would try and keep mine the same with fewer buttons. I also decided to give the player the option to change the colour by implementing several screens to choose from. To create the game I needed to find images of unpopped and popped bubblewrap.

Once I had the background and navigation finished I needed to make the bubblewrap actually pop. Using buttons created using AppFurnace's interface and covering them with a bubble image. Then i used the "button when clicked" feature to show the popped button image. I then downloaded a popping sound effect and added this to play whenever one of the buttons is pressed.

First off I decided to make a small app to get used to using AppFurnace. In this first draft I played around with the location detect feature and aimed to create several pages with links between them. The idea was to have the app change to the next screen when the device is within a certain area and then point to the next area. At the end I had it show a GIF and a sign saying congratulations with the option to start over.

The video to the right shows my app in use. I have tried to cover all the aspects of it and give a brief overview of it. One thing I noticed taking the video was that the size is slightly off. This is because when designing the app I had set the size to be viewed on an iPhone 3 and hadn't taken into consideration the size settings for other mobiles. This would be something I need to change if I was to improve and make the app again.

Given the chance to improve my app I would add more levels and a popping counter to tell how many times a button has been pressed. After I got feedback from a colleague I decided I would also add a way for the buttons to stay popped as this would give the game more of an objective than continuously popping. As mentioned before I would also code the app to change size depending on the device it was being used on. Another way i would improve it going forward would be to spend more time editing the images of the buttons so they look more authentic .