International App
Development Conference & AppJam

It’s been a long-haul.  There’s been a lot of laughter, there have been tears.  There was one moment where it looked like industrial action might take place…  However, we’re nearly there.  The projects are in place, the team names (mostly) decided and the presentations to the AppConference audience are looming…

Let’s take a quick look at the runners and riders:

GIVE BLOOD (iGiveaDamn) – the app designed to promote blood donation is looking sharp.  All of the various aspects of the app are now in place, the front end is looking very nice indeed.  Collating and displaying all of the information is the last thing left to integrate.

GRAVE DANGER (Buoyant Games) – A tower defence game in which the player must defend their haunted castle against merciless hordes of humans (mounted on hobby horses).  Build graves, create zombies, stop the human scum!  Most assets in place, basic gameplay working, all looking rather nice.

GREMLIN GOLD (Team Krooks) – An updated, new generation version of whack-a-mole.  As tiny gremlins pop their heads out of the safety deposit boxes, you smash their tiny, evil faces in.  Pick up gems for bonuses!  No animation or gameplay in there yet, but team Krooks remain optimistic they’ll have the game running for zero hour…

APPTRACKER (Threetastic) – A ‘day tracker’ app, which records your location across a whole day and allows users to create trips and ‘favourite’ expeditions.  Integration with google maps, trip creation etc. are all now in place.  The team have plans for using the data collected at a later date.  Looking very smooth and professional.

TAGAR (Team Napier) – An augmented reality app, which allows users to place tags and graffiti within real world locations, using the device camera.  The resulting images can be shared through Facebook and social communities, creating a whole new way of branding a space.  The whole app seems to be more-or-less in place, from the Facebook single-sign-in through to the tag overlays.  Intriguing new idea from the team.

THE ADVENTURES OF PIBLIC FLASE (Summer Crew) – A side-scrolling fighting game in which the user can use various abilities to knock lumps out of the baddies and generally kick butt. Expect different abilities and strange alliances.  The background, character and animations are all in place and the Summer Crew expect to be putting on a strong show in the presentations.

MYTOUR (digiTANG) – A mobile tour app, which allows a user to create, store and share their own tours of whatever locations they choose.  Everything, according to the team, is ‘nominal’ with all systems now in place, the back and front ends speaking to each other and the various elements all integrated.  Expect an interesting presentation from this team.

FLICK ‘EM OUT (Team Pataka) – ‘Sumo wrestling with pens’.  Almost entirely complete, Flick ‘em Out challenges two players to take it in turns to flick their pen against their opponents and try to knock it off the table.  The first player to five knockouts is the winner.  A strong and colourful game, with all of the elements in place (it’s fun too!)

VECTOR CLAY (Vector Play) – A simple, friendly character creator.  Users can build their own avatars from a selection of heads, torsos and legs, before charing them with friends and contacts.  The User Interface is in place, the character elements are all created and choosing the elements couldn’t be simpler.  A smart, fun app, outside the normal areas for apps.

NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR (‘Team 11′) – A fully-fledged network admin app, which allows sysadmins to control, start/stop/reset and monitor networks using only their smartphone.  It’s an usual app, but one which might be the dark horse of the whole AppJam…

THRASH PHYSICS (Thrash Core) – A virtual physics-based toybox, which allows users to play with various objects, or change the attributes of objects to create their own little mini games, such as basketball (above), balancing games, breaking games, etc.  An intriguing entry this one.  Watch out for it…

PUREE ESCAPE (Volunteers) – A touch-screen game in which the player must guide the naturally bouncy little character to the exit at the end of the level, by drawing lines underneath the character for him to bounce upon.  Realistic physics mean that the character can be directed in any direction and cleverly, the smaller the line, the bigger the bounce.  Fun!