Assignment 5: Word Game Part 2: Addictive Word Game

This is an individual assignment.

Note: This assignment will be VERY time consuming for those completely new to Android, and especially for those also brushing up on Java. Please start early!

The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn more of the basics of creating Android apps and to move you towards an interesting project. To make that simpler, you are starting with the Ultimate Tic Tac Toe (UTTT) example from your textbook and turning it into a different, fully-functional, addictive word game that we will call Scroggle (Scrambled Boggle). Scroggle will be an unusual twist on the famous games of word scrambles, Boggle and Scrabble.

The UTTT game is similar to your new game in some respects.

• It displays a grid of grids on the screen
• It is possible to select items from the grid of grids
• Based on how the grid is touched certain key events happen in the game
• It pops up various types of common screens/dialogues
• It saves the state of a game
• It uses a timer

All the basic components that you need to create a Scroggle game are in your prior Dictionary assignment or used in the UTTT game, such as use of views and fragments and basic GUI components. Your goal is to study the UTTT code (reading the chapters in the text related to it) and figure out how to modify the UTTT game into a functioning single-player Scroggle game. The game can have a simple look and feel, but it needs to work robustly and demonstrate you have thought not only about coding design, but also UI design.

In this assignment, you will both design the details of the Scroggle game and program the single-player version. In later assignments, you will make the game multi-player. Word games can be simple to master yet, for many people, totally addictive. Small variations in game design can make the games more or less fun to play. Scrabble, Boggle, Letris, and Bananagrams are all hugely popular. Now it is your turn to design and program a new, creative variation. In addition to programming the game, you will need to develop a unique design spin on the interaction and game play. You are not duplicating the any particular word game app, but instead creating your own unique and interesting (and hopefully addictive) variation.

To get started, study and play Boggle, Letris, Dabble and some other similar word games. A search for Boggle and Word Games on the Android Play Store will turn up many great ones. In particular, look for the Boggle and Scrabble variants because you can see how small twists on a similar game concept can lead to different game play experiences. See ICED (Lite), BoggleDroid Lite, Dropwords, WordTwist Lite, etc. Please do not skip this, because you will see how small changes in the game design (and in the GUI design) can impact overall experience. Boggle is the game most similar to Scroggle, so you should definitely play that with some friends for an hour or so. Make notes about what you and your friends like or don't like about game design and interaction.

Now, you need to consider Scroggle and it's unique game play. Scroggle is not a game that exists today, at least to our knowledge (if you find a variation of this game on an app store, please let us know). Scroggle is Boggle, but with an UTTT special twist.

Here are the basics: read about game play.

You will need to come up with the details of how the game works, including scoring, which should be based on some combination of number of words found, length, and/or complexity of words. We suggest you consider Scrabble scoring, or something similar, but allowing for special bonuses in certain situations (e.g., if the 9-letter word for a grid is discovered in phase 1). Scrabble scoring would place these point values on letters 1 point: E, A, I, O, N, R, T, L, S, U; 2 points: D, G; 3 points: B, C, M, P; 4 points: F, H, V, W, Y; 5 points: K; 8 points: J, X; 10 points: Q, Z.

You will need to test your own game play with yourself and friends to get the scoring balance right. Timing will also matter a great deal.

Players should be penalized for making invalid words.

You may have ideas for ways that you can make the game more fun and distinctive, and you are encourage to include them.

Your game must have the following:

• A "New Game" button that creates a new Scroggle "board."
• The game play as described above, with the two-phase Scroggle game. The second phase can use one or both of the phase 2 game play options.
• Click sounds or vibration when letters are selected
• A strategy for quickly selecting letters
• A strategy for indicating when the letters are a final word
• A strategy for quickly adjusting letters/words on the board that have not been formed into words yet
• Detection if words entered are the master word dictionary and some way of highlighting when words are found
• A special sound when a valid word is identified and points are earned
• Adjust the board when a word is identified
• Show words found
• A counter showing the time remaining before the switch to phase 2, or the end of the game
• Proper seeding of the original board with 9-letter words
• Some type of warning should be apparent when switching from phase 1 to phase 2, and when the game is about to end
• A "Pause" button on the main game screen that stops the clock and pauses the game but blanks the screen
• A "Resume Game" button that appears only if a game in progress was paused
• A "Quit" button that shuts down the game
• A score, with points awarded as described above.
• Any instructions or rules built into the game so that someone who has never played before would be able to pick up your app and start
• Different background music than UTTT
• Ability to turn off the background music
• An "Acknowledgments" button that pops up a screen that acknowledges the following: (1) links to/sources all images/icons/sounds/content used in the game if you did not design them on your own, (2) links to/sources of all significant amounts of code used to develop the game that you did not write (which should be very little) or any non-Android libraries used, and (3) a list of any people who helped you in any significant way and exactly how as you developed the software.
• Your game should not require the network to operate/play
• And most importantly, ROBUST BEHAVIOR. Your game should not crash or behave erratically on Android 4.1. Please do systematic testing to ensure this!

You should use the same word list from Assignment 3.

For extra credit, your game could have one or more of following additional features:

• A "Hint" button on the main game screen that can be used at times to make the game more fun/challenging
• Play sound effects that dramatically enhance the game play
• Allow variations on the board sizes
• Implement other clever ideas you come up with that enhance the game play

You are building this game for educational purposes only, not for actual release, so feel free to grab graphics from any source and use them in your game if you want. You must also clearly specify on your Acknowledgments screen where you obtained all content and help. As in Assignment 3, we expect that you will be very detailed in your acknowledgments so that we can find the source of all images, sound, content, and code snippets you used, and who provided you with tips/ideas/help.

(Important: For an actual game that was being released you would need to design the graphics yourself or get permission to use all graphics you incorporate, therefore, if you do want to use this app outside of class someday, you might want to design your own graphics or find graphics that you know do not have copyright restrictions. If you design your own graphics/sounds/content, you can list this in the acknowledgments.).

Your game should be added to your existing app on the Play Store (alpha testers). Add a new button on your app's initial screen, "Word Game" that will start your game. Your main app on the Play Store will then have these 6 buttons: About (with your info), Generate Error (generates error), Tic Tac Toe (runs UTTT from Assignment 1), Dictionary (runs Assignment 3), Word Game (runs this assignment), and Quit (exits). Do not add a new icon and launcher for this game ... your single NUMAD17S-[FirstName][LastName] will launch the menu of buttons, and Word Game will launch this app. Your prior assignments should still function as they did when you turned them in (or fixed them, thereafter).

As you complete this assignment and have “aha!” moments where you figure out tricky things that might hold other people up, you should help out your classmates on Piazza.

This is an individual assignment. You should not be working with a partner, and you should not be sharing code. You may ask high-level questions about how to accomplish goals on Piazza, but you should not be copying ANY code from classmates or the Internet.

Hand-in:

Your app should be available on the Play Store (alpha version, not open release) by the assignment deadline, and your Git repository should be up to date with your code (and easily buildable from scratch should we need to download it and compile your project). Your Git repository should show that you did incremental commits as you went along. We do NOT want to see a single commit right before the due date. We want to see commits incrementally as you work on this assignment, usually multiple in a single work session. Your Bitbucket feature tracker should have evidence that you are using it to plan your work and track bug fixing as you go.

Evaluation/feedback:

You will be graded based on how well you follow the instructions above using the app that is downloaded from the Play Store at the time we grade it. What this means is that if you find a bug in your app after the due date, you should fix it and update the app, because you may get lucky and do this before your assignment is graded! Your application will be tested on an actual Android phone, not the emulator.

Although it is subject to some tweaking, this table will give you a sense of how you will be assigned points. Crashes will be reported to your Google Play development console, when possible, and some comments will be entered directly in Bitbucket.