Thursday, April 21, 2011

Carleton Students Win a Prize For Innovative and Challenging Mobile Game

I recently competed on a team with three other students from the School of Computer Science (Jamie Madill, Andrew Erdeg, and Jacob Agar) in the Great Canadian Appathon.  It was a 48-hour mobile game development competition.  Our team didn't place in the top three, but we did get a prize for the most technically challenging game! (I will admit that wasn't thanks to me - Jamie happened to be working on fluid simulation for his thesis and implemented it for the game.)

From the Carleton newsroom article:
The goal of the single player puzzle game is to fill coloured drains with matching fluids that takes full advantage of the interfaces offered by modern mobile devices. The player can dig trenches in the sand to channel the fluid by drawing shapes on the touch screen in the same way they would trace out shapes in the sand. In order to move the fluid, the player simply tilts the phone, causing it to spill down the channels. The challenge lies in not wasting fluid by channelling it down mismatched drains.
The most unfortunate part of the competition? There were hardly any female programmers! (I guess that's why the National Post featured me in one of their articles covering the event.) This was a great experience, so why not give it a shot at your next opportunity?

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