Games are among the most exciting mobile device apps, both to play and to create. The recent smash hit Angry Birds was downloaded 50 million times in its first year and is played more than a million hours every day, according to Rovio, its developer. (There is even talk of making it into a feature film!) Although we can’t guarantee that kind of success, we can help you create your own games with App Inventor, including this one involving a ladybug eating aphids while avoiding a frog.
What You’ll Build
In this “first-person chewer” game, the user will be represented by a ladybug, whose movement will be controlled by the device’s tilt. This brings the user into the game in a different way from MoleMash (Chapter 3), in which the user was outside the device, reaching in.
The Ladybug Chase app is shown in Figure 5-1. The user can:
Figure 5-1. The Ladybug Chase game in the Designer
Control a ladybug by tilting the device.
View an energy-level bar on the screen, which decreases over time, leading to the ladybug’s starvation.
Make the ladybug chase and eat aphids to gain energy and prevent starvation.
Help the ladybug avoid a frog that wants to eat it.
What You’ll Learn
You should work through the MoleMash app in Chapter 3 before delving into ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
