Hype for beta version of the app

Hello Everyone! We are closing in to the due date for the beta version of the app. The last hurdle of the app is the shop features and design. One of our member, Evan finished creating the images for the power-ups features and a brand new image design for the shop. Here's what it looks like:

If you read our blog from a week ago, we have placed temporary pictures for the power-ups. Now the shop is finally finalized and descriptions (unique and funny) are added next to the power-up icons so that the player would know what they are buying. When the player clicks on the power-up icon, a confirmation pops up asking if he or she really want to buy the power-up feature. Here's what the newly designed shop looks like:

And the confirmation pop-up:

As you may noticed, we also changed the background color to pale green. We have implemented all the power-up functions so when the player purchases the stun tiger power up, the tiger will stops moving. Likewise for all the other power-ups. Probably after cleaning up the codes a bit and a few more touches on the app tonight and tomorrow, we are going to be ready to present our beta version of the Tiger Trap game.

The presentation of the beta version of our app will be on February 14 Tuesday from 3 to 5pm in Olin 202. Everybody is welcome to attend our presentation.

We implemented Shop function!

For week 9, we made a lot of progress. 

Last week, we created the player inventory class and shop class, and this week we actually made them work in games.

After each level of game or during pause, players can choose to spend currency to buy power up items to make the game easier. For example, if they do not have much time left and really want to win the game, they can purchase the power to stun the tiger. Also if they just want to become rich, they can buy the double currency power. 

I believe the game is more fun and playable after those power up implemented. Moreover, everyone is contributing very hard on the game. I feel lucky to have you guys as teammates :D

Here is how the shop look like: later Evan will change the shop icon so it will look better. Change some icons and make some adjustments to the interface.

Good job everyone!

Little things, branding, and hunkering down...

Welcome to week nine everyone!

On Friday, we had our individual project demos, so we didn't make as much progress on Tiger Trap as we could have. But we still managed to do a lot of little things and start the last major features that we have yet to do. We've added an inventory for managing coins and power-ups, made the level go up as you progress, added a splash screen (and a loading screen, so we'll need to compromise on this), and started the power-ups.

On my end, as the resident arty person, I've tried to incorporate some branding that's directly related to the film. For example, here is a logo that will probably go on the start screen next to the tiger (note that the tiger will be arranged on the right, hence the off-center "trap"):

And here is a pixel version of Verstag's adorable intimidating bunny logo:

With nothing else to do now in CSC 490 but work on this game, we're anticipating a lot more progress in the final couple of weeks! Look forward to a more substantial update this weekend.

Time to get busy!

Hello everyone! It is officially week 8. Here's what we've done since our demo:

• Refactored the code into logical chunks (for example, now all of the stuff related to creating and moving the trap is in a Trap class; the AI for the tiger is in a Tiger class; all of the images and sounds are in their own respective image/sound banks; etc.)
• Began adding currency/coins that will be used to purchase power-ups in-game. (There are some design choices still to be made for this--for example, should coins carry over between play-throughs? Stay tuned to find out...)
• Began adding new graphics assets (such as the cute li'l evil guy seen above)
• Added sounds for important events, with more on the way

We only have three weeks left in the term, excluding finals week. We still have a lot to do in this time: music, more graphics/sound assets, power-ups, the formulas for ramping up level difficulty and giving currency...

So, this will be a busy three weeks! But, of course, the team has work for other classes that is likely ramping up as finals approach, as well as our individual project for CSC 490 due this Friday. So, wish us all luck--and we'll see you next week!

Game Demo Ready!!!!

Game Demo Ready!!!!

We have been developing all year to meet this goal of showing a demo to our client! Today is an exciting day for us to show all the hard work we have been putting into the program to show our client! At first it took a lot of planning and talking to figure out exactly how we were going to tackle this opportunity, but once we were all in agreement, we ran with the idea and the application has been coming together perfectly. We have all the basic components of the game ready to be played and tested! We only hope that our client will love the design as much as we do, so that we can add some fun features to it to make it a fully developed application! 

Tune in later this week to find out what the client thinks and where we are going from here!!!!!!

We Made It Move!

This week our group achieved a big progress. We set up the general layout for the Tiger Trap Game and also made the trap and tiger move! 

This is how our game screen work so far. The tiger changes directions every two seconds. If it hits a wall, it will change direction immediately. The trap only moves when we click or tap on the arrows.

We added the badlogic image on the tiger's feet and the top of the trap. So only when the left badlogic image overlaps with left trap image, right badlogic image overlaps with right trap image, and the trap button is clicked/tapped. For now this game is a bit difficult to play. However, we will work on it later to make it more playable, such as make those rectangles (badlogic image) larger at the beginning level and reduce the size of the rectangles as level goes higher.

Here are some other functions we might add to the Tiger Trap game in the future. 

• We will have the Tiger Trap Currency, which is different from the game score. So players can use those currency to buy items help them for the new level. The currency looks like the bunny logo in the movie
• We will have a loading screen animation
• We will add the pause function to the game
• We might have the bad guy in the movie pops up randomly, if the user trapped him, they will earn a decent amount of currency.
• And some pop-up screen. 

Have a nice Christmas break! ^o^

Design Plan Approved!

Hello everyone! Since last time, we've mostly done prep work. We acquired the movie, we brushed up on game design and pixel art, and we started learning libgdx. Libgdx is an open-source library that allows for easy cross-platform distribution of games. While it's new to us, and our capstone course is about developing Android apps, we want this game to be accessible by as many people as possible.

The big news is that this week, Zach and I met with Estlin Feigley in the Fresh Films office on the Augustana campus. We pitched a general design plan that the entire team came up with through brainstorming. He approved the plan, so we can now begin developing the app and tweak things as we go.

"Tiger Trap" as it appears in Traveling Without Moving

The objective of the game is to make it through as many levels as you can. When you fail, you can quickly start back at level one. Each level has a time limit in which you must capture the tiger, which is moving around the screen on its own, with a trap that you control via arrows on the touch screen. When you have the trap under the tiger, you must hit "trap" before the tiger moves away. Doing so moves you on to the next level, which is more difficult (perhaps due to the tiger moving faster or jumping more, or due to a shorter time limit). Each tiger is worth a certain number of points, which can be used to buy power-ups (perhaps a tranquilizer that slows down the tiger, or an upgrade for your trap that allows it to capture the tiger automatically for a period of time). If you play well enough (say, capturing the tiger very quickly), a mini-game will come up where you can capture as many tigers as you can to boost your points. 

We'd also like to implement an optional tutorial level or demo with a bunny rabbit instead of a tiger. Seem random and silly? Not really. It's a call forward to something more sinister... but that's a topic for another time. You'll just have to stay tuned.