Welcome to Dubit's very own Whack-a-mole game. It's a very simple little game designed to let you show off your coding skills. We would like to add a number of simple extensions to this game as numbered below.
You are strongly encouraged to add any comments about your implementation of a feature to the related section, explaining your reasoning and any difficulties you encountered. Have the best go you can at at least tasks 1-4, and send us the repository when you are done. Feel free to play around, refactor stuff as you see fit, and embellish the project with cool stuff.
The project was created with Flash Builder, but can be compiled using mxmlc without issue. You'll need the Flex 4.1 or higher SDK.
Thanks, and good luck!
- Add a game over/scores screen
This should appear after the game is over and the moles have stopped appearing. It should contain text telling the player the game is over and a label displaying the player's score.
It should also include a button labelled 'Play again' that will start a new game for the player
*Your comments: Used the same system you have already set up for View switching. Score was already set to be sent with the Game Over Event. I've just added the unlocked achievements. So they are now also being displayed on Game Over. Used the same principle for UI layout as in the rest of the views. Renamed IntroductionViewEvent to GameViewsEvent since both Introduction and End Game views are using it the same way.
- Add difficulty levels
Modify the Introduction screen to allow the user to choose one of three difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard. Make the main game easier or more difficult based on the user's choice. The difficulty level should modify both the rate at which the moles appear and the time they spend on screen before disappearing.
*Your comments: Added Easy, Skilled, Veteran levels, and to each a parameter to be used in calculating mole frequency and time spent in the hole by simple division. Veteran level becomes almost impossible so I changed the initial GAME_TIMER_DELAY a bit. Also added difficulty selection to the End Game View
- Add new types of mole
Currently there is only one type of mole that uses the standard_mole.png asset. Create two more types of mole with the following properties:
Fire Mole
- Points awarded for killing: 100
- Time showing on screen (ms): 1800
- Asset to use: fire_mole.png
- Number of clicks required to kill: 2
Zombie Mole
- Points awarded for killing: 400
- Time showing on screen (ms): 1200
- Asset to use: zombie_mole.png
- Number of clicks required to kill: 3
When spawning a new mole, have a 60% chance of creating a standard mole, a 25% chance of creating a fire mole, and a 15% chance of creating a zombie mole.
*Your comments: Every new type of mole value object extends the Standard mole Value Object and then sets the parameters for every mole individualy. Moved Image location information to be embeded in these Value objects and then added to view when a specific mole should be shown. Used the simplest logic for calculating chances for showing a specific mole. I could have put those chances in individual Mole Value Objects, and if there were more mole types probably should.
- Build in achievements/awards
This task requires creating a feature from scratch, and as such it gives you the most freedom to decide how to accomplish it.
Acheivements have become a standard feature of games over the past few years. They are awarded to the player when they meet a certain set of criteria. For example, the user might be awarded an achievement for breaking a score threshold for the first time. Add the following acheivements into the game, and have them appear in the section titled 'Achievements' to the right of the main game area:
Achievement name: Apprentice - Criteria required: Kill over 15 moles during a single game
Achievement name: Master - Criteria required: Kill more than 40 zombie moles in a single game
Achievement name: Mole massacre - Criteria required: Kill over 55 moles during a game
Achievement name: Fireman - Criteria required: Kill more than 10 fire moles in a single game
Achievement name: Apocolyptica - Criteria required: Kill more than 5 zombie moles in a game
Achievement name: Soft touch - Criteria required: Miss more than 30 moles during a game
*Your comments: Set every Achievement as a Value Object similarly to the mole system. Logic for achievemnt unlocking and condition satisfaction is in Achievements class. When the unachieved achievement is unlocked AchievementEvent.ACHIEVEMENT_UNLOCKED is dispatched with the Achievement Value Object. This value object is then stored inside an ArrayCollection which is then used as a data provider for Achievemnts data grid. Created an Item Renderer for Achievements with Title and Description labels. And the unlocked achievements are also shown on the End Game View.
A couple of things I would do additionally: Crating a model class that would be easily accessible from any part of the game that will conain the global values like Score, Achievements, Current Level, so it doesn't need to be dispatched with events. I personaly prefer Signals more compared to Events since they are faster. In the long run this game could be extended with more mole types and achievements. For this a Compile Time Configuration of a sort could be useful. It will conaint reference to all the Mole Value Objects, Achievements Value Objects and additional parameters. An exemple of this configuration:
public class AchievementsVO
{
public static var achievementsXML:XML = new XML(
<config>
<Achievements>
<Achievement id = "apocalyptica" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.ApocalypticaVO" />
<Achievement id = "apprentice" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.ApprenticeVO" />
<Achievement id = "fireman" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.FiremanVO" />
<Achievement id = "master" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.MasterVO" />
<Achievement id = "massacre" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.MoleMassacreVO" />
<Achievement id = "softtouch" className = "uk.co.dubit.whackamole.models.achievements.SoftTouchVO" />
</Achievements>
</config>
);
public function AchievementsVO() {}
}
This would make instancing new achievements more dynamic. This can also be in form of a JSON.
Thanks for your interest, and once again - good luck!