Daisy Chase gameplay
Moseycode registration
Scanning a Moseycode to get new levels
It’s been an extremely busy few weeks and I’m now looking forward to having a little more time to focus on Android development again. One thing I did achieve this week was to put live a very early version of a game I’ve been developing called Daisy Chase. It’s a “simple” game in which you have to capture flowers by linking them together. I say “simple” instead of just simple because I’m again humbled by how I can misjudge what users will really can understand simply. Nevertheless, I’m quite pleased, the game appears to work (no bug reports yet) and some users report really enjoying it. I would have liked to have entered it into the ADC2, but I had no time (and the competition in the game categories looks especially strong).
I’m really excited about two elements of this new Android application. The first is that it will be the first application that makes use of the Moseycode publishing API to allow users to publish, own and share their own levels. One of the screenshots above gives a preview of the user registration page (not yet incorporated into the application).
The second thing is that, as a big fan of the Intent system used in Android, I’m looking forward to the integration that game will have with Daisy Garden. For example, By achieving particular goals on a level, you will win one of the flowers that appears in the level and this will be added to your garden. In the full version of the game, levels will be collected into gardens and completing all of the levels in a garden will add that garden to the collection of gardens you can grow flowers in.
It’s all part a minor (but time consuming!) experiment in how games, and not just regular applications, can be broken down into separate units that have individual value. It’s a remarkably involved task to do effectively.
The alpha version of Daisy Chase is available from the Android Market.
I just finished uploading a new version of Daisy Garden which – I hope – support high and low density devices. Along with some minor other changes I couldn’t resist adding another garden design to the application.
The garden designs are actually produced on the phone with an application that allows me to build layered tile maps with masks and shadows. Android was an ideal platform for building this tool because:
It allows me to share any code I want to, between the editor and the application because they are running on the same platform.
It allows me to doodle new designs any place I have free time.
I get to see the design (mostly) as other phone users will see it as I design it.
I may get the opportunity to release it in the future, to allow anyone to make their own garden designs.
