IS480 Team wiki: 2012T1 dot-3ga/overview
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Project Overview
Project Description
The inspiration behind this project came from the classic game of Taboo. By observing commuters on the train/bus, it is evident that Singaporeans use smartphones almost daily for entertainment purposes, especially on the go. Due to the recent increase in use of Android based phones in Singapore, we have decided to proceed with developing an Android based game application. Using the concept of taboo as the basic skeleton and adding our own personal twist to the game, we feel this game can be a success.
Our application titled, Listen UP, will be a game where users will be given a specific word which he/she has to voice record the clues and hints within an allocated time frame for the opposing party to guess. Users are discouraged from saying a list of ‘taboo-ed’ words. Although there will be no way of preventing this form of cheating, we believe that the excitement of playing the game right with friends will be enough to deter users from cheating.
Points called UPs! will be given to both the user guessing and giving the hints when the guess is successful. Users can trade in UPs! for incentives such as extra recording time.
Motivation
We aim to deliver a fun-filled, interactive and user-friendly mobile game application for the Android platform users. The android platform has the largest market share of smart mobile users worldwide (46.3%). Our group acknowledged the fact that besides using smartphones for general purposes such as calling and text messaging, majority of them spend a significant amount of time on multimedia activities on the go such as listening to music, surfing the net, playing mobile games, watching videos and many more. Riding on this trend, we are creating our own mobile application to reach out to this huge android market.
We hope that our application will hit the list of top games in the Android Play Store by attracting a large pool of users from around the world. Ultimately, we want to bring satisfaction to our users in making their day a little more exciting and fun.
Stakeholders
Sponsor: This is a self-proposed project by our group.
Clients: We have no client and have complete ownership of the project. We have a basic skeletal frame for our functions and any future requirements/functions of the project will be based on the Enhanced User Experience (EUE)
Customers: Android smartphone users who have access to the Android Play Store and have downloaded our application.
Deliverables
We will develop a game application Listen UP on the Android operating system which will be made available on the Android Play Store. The application will interact with a server which stores the user and game information. In addition, the server would facilitate and allow the exchange of data through the synchronization with the user’s smartphone when they log into the game through their devices.
Project Milestone
System Architecture
System Architecture
System Architecture
System Architecture
Risks
Our team foresees risks in several different factors. All of which are listed below:
Lessons Learnt'
Skills Learnt
Teamwork
Learning how to acknowledge each other’s strengths and weaknesses and then tackling the weaknesses together as a team
Efficient Time Management
Working within a specific time frame so as to not eat into future iterations; Starting early during the summer to give our app more buffer time and room for further improvements
People Management
Not being afraid to voice out any conflicts/issues; Resolving it immediately and reach a common understanding with all members that everyone is contributing, so I should as well
Coding on the Android Platform
Despite having no prior experience with the android platform or on mobile application development, we are now more familiar and comfortable with it. We managed to use our existing knowledge and skills in SIS to tailor to the new concepts presented to us.
Learning Outcomes/Goals
Unique Idea
We wanted to do something that is uncommon to most IS480 projects to stand out.
Value Add
Making sure that our project will not be shelved aside after IS480, such that people will still continue playing our app even after our finals. That players will be able to enjoy the game continuously.
Rating of application
We want to achieve at least a four out of five star rating for our application on the play store as well as an overall positive response from the public.
Resource and References
Being new to developing android applications, our team will seek tutorials and resources from http://developer.android.com/ and forums such as http://stackoverflow.com/ when we face difficulties. We will also utilize search engines for specific help topics.
Tools needed:
Android SDK
JDK 6
Eclipse with Android Development Tool
Code Igniter - Open source web application framework ( Using MVC model )
Web Server