Cry Wolf - Android Game Dev, part 1

Today, I'm working on my mobile game project for my ANDGDEV or Android Game Development elective. Initial ideas for the game included a zombie squasher game, idle games, etc. Something simple that uses collision and such. We decided on a sorting game similar to a bo-bomb game in Super Mario 64 on Nintendo DS.

Dragging mechanics are pretty simple, and it's not too complicated where people would get bored easily. We chose sheep because it's cutesy and attractive. The gameplay is simple and easy to pick up. One of the focuses for this project for me is getting the "sweet spot" between difficulty and enjoyment.

art by Nicole Frias

As of now, we have click and drag for the enemies as well as a bunch of other functions working as intended. Enemy animations are working as well as sound effects. In the above picture, I spawned all of the enemies in a single place and dragged them around the screen. It also helped me check my collisions, especially if sprites were overlapping each other. Currently, all sprites are working as intended.

Wolves and Sheep!

Added a coin flip in the spawner function to determine whether the enemy is a wolf or a sheep. I then assigned a public boolean value in enemy to designate it's "sheepness". The floating bullet was modified to play a sound if touched by sheep only, currently works perfectly. Messing around with classes is interesting. Inheritance is definitely fun.

I also keep forgetting about double equal signs. "==" for if statements. haha.

Some idea of what's gonna happen.

Drew the mockup above and sent it to Nicole, our talented 2D artist. I don't want the game to be hard to play for left-handed players, so I tried to keep it as symmetrical as possible. I also want to use a landscape orientation to really emphasize the colorful art-style.

Adjusting UI, checking collisions

Again. Double. Equals Signs. Added actuate actions for the enemy sprites. Move towards a point at the bottom of the screen as soon as it's spawned. Also added background assets and placeholder art. Wondering where I can put a health bar of heart meter. Still debating the pros and cons of a health system. I'm leaning towards an endless game, where your goal is a higher score.

Cry Wolf v0.01

As of now, these are the working parts:

1. Enemy Spawns

 - randomized boolean for sheep

 - assigns correct animation for wolf/sheep

2. Pen Spawns

 - places sheepPen and wolfWoods in proper areas

 - put pens into an array to check for collision

3. Collision

 - dropping an enemy is -1 (still debating this mechanic)

 - dragging an enemy to the wrong pen is -1 (primary gameplay)

 - dragging an enemy to the right pen is +1

4. Sound

 - bgm is working

 - enemy drop is working

 - buttons are working

Going to work on lose condition tomorrow. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Am very relieved that all the relevant elements work. Currently very confident that the game will turn out looking great.