Kristof Lenart’s Mobile Games & Emerging Technology Experience

During the last semester we have had an amazing opportunity to work with mobile applications and games in one of the program’s new courses; Emerging Tech. We were introduced into this fast paced environment of constantly shifting and evolving bleeding edge technologies. We worked with the Corona Software Development Kit (SDK), which was built for mobile app creation. It significantly reduced the development time and learning curve for building applications and games.

The final project I choose to do was a game for Ipod/Iphone/Ipad called Space Rocketeer, which was principally based off of the space invaders game. The idea was to create a simple physics based space shooter with the goal of shooting down the oncoming meteors to gain points, while at the same time not allowing any of them to pass (losing points) or to hit your spaceship (losing the game), and all this with a spaceship that can only be controlled with the built-in accelerometer.

It was a fun, yet also a frustrating and tedious experience. When you consider that no matter how perfectly well your code is written, if you have only one small spelling mistake, the program won’t execute, it can be more then a bit frustrating. I found myself many times vexed with problems in code, only to later realize a silly error or typo I had made. The process of development itself was, however, not all troublesome, many times I was able to come up with new solutions or fixes, by comparing my code to tutorials which I had found. And if that still failed, I had a plethora of other online resources as well as class help. It was a learning experience, one where you ceaselessly discovered more and more of what you can do, and your imagination is your only limit.

I had a great time coming up with the details of the game concept, along with its physics boundaries, control dynamics, game difficulty balance, scoring system, and graphic and art design. I learned a lot with this project, right from the brainstorming and planning phase right through to the end development & fine tuning of the game, to the incredible frustrations and joy of mobile development.

Tags: corona sdk, emreging technologies, experience, gaming, mobile, mobile games