Inspiration
We give credit to this reddit post for our motive behind building this app, which is to encourage financial savings through the use of a virtual pet. The concept of our application (using a mythical creature and feeding/customisation tasks) is completely original though! https://www.reddit.com/r/Lightbulb/comments/43ljd4/a_virtual_pet_that_requires_the_same_level_of/
What it does
Dragon Dollars incentivises users to practice good money saving habits through taking care of their virtual pet dragon! The game requires users to connect 2 bank accounts, one default bank account used for daily expenses and another savings account. Whenever an in-game purchase (for food/customisation) is made, funds will be transferred from the user's bank account to their savings account.
IN-GAME PURCHASES:
- Dragon Food - available in different pricing tiers to cater to different saving goals
- Dragon Shop - skins, scales, wings, accessories and skill upgrades are available for one-time purchase
GAME RULES:
- Pet dragons will have to be fed regularly in weekly, fortnightly or monthly periods to be kept alive and healthy.
- When a dragon runs out of food, if the dragon is not fed within the next 5 days, its health bar will deplete and it will die.
- Dragons will age and grow bigger over time, which also unlocks premium customisation options.
- More customisations will be also be unlocked in the Dragon Shop as users reach higher savings milestones.
- All spendings made within the application will be immediately deposited to the user's savings account.
How we built it
We used Xcode and Swift to build the UI and plan to use DBS API to connect bank accounts in the backend. We also drew our own animations, logo and graphics to beautify the app!
Challenges we ran into
It would be rather troublesome for us to implement the DBS API as we would have to connect our bank accounts. As first time Hackathon participants, we also faced troubles debugging our codes in time, so some features like the shop is still not available :(
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our dragon animations, progress bar and timer count down worked! Yay.
What we learned
Learned to code in Swift for the first time and how to do slightly more advanced UI logic like transferring data between view controllers for our "days left"counter according to user's purchase.
What's next for Dragon Dollars
We hope to complete the shop and menu interface and add an analytics section to show the user's average monthly savings, as well as to help them track, manage and budget for future savings. We would also like to develop the backend bank account connections using the DBS API, as well as to improve the game graphics.
We aim to continue working on this application in the long run even after the Hackathon ends, and hope to release it in the app store some time in the future... when we have the budget for it :') Time to start saving!
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