Calorie Clash

Inspiration

I like to track my food and I am sometimes surprised of how easily people under- or overestimate the amount of calories in different foods. Therefore, I had the idea to create a game around the idea of estimating the nutritional values of different foods.

What it does

Calorie clash presents you each round with two foods and asks you which one has more calories. The foods include everything from drinks to fruits, vegetables, meats, diary, meats and sweets. It also tracks your high score, i.e. your longest streak of correct answers. You have the ability to skip a question as well as to go back to previous questions. The layout, especially the images of the different foods, are adjusted depending on the device that the user uses to interact with Calorie Clash.

How I built it

The skills runs as a Java 8 Lambda function on AWS. It also uses images stored in S3.

Challenges I ran into

Initially, I developed the skill for the German store and then decided to participate in this challenge. Adding localization support was challenging.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Building my first skill with the APL. Especially since I come from a very backend focused (see Java) background.

What I learned

I learned about the APL, developing a skill for display devices and especially for different form factors/layout of such devices. Additionally, this is my first multi-language skill.

What's next for Calorie Clash

I definitely want to expand the available foods. On top of that, I plan to give more information about the foods, e.g. "You're right, X has twice the amount of calories than Y". Some more ideas are

• Comparing not only calories but nutritional information like fat, salt etc
• Using more standard servings instead of 100 grams/milliliters, like a glass of Coke
• Introducing "meals" like "PB&J vs a grilled cheese"

Built With

• amazon-web-services
• java
• lambda