Happy Lil Accidents

An engaging virtual game that allows users to play against each other and express their creativity in a minimal mobile app.

Comment

Inspiration

Happy Lil Accidents is an iOS and Android app designed to engage the users in the same way Among Us has taken the youth by storm. Since the pandemic started, users have been relying on mobile and web apps for human interaction, after so much time spent at home social distancing.

Back in the 80's and 90's, Bob Ross' love for painting created artistic movements and inspired others to paint. While Bob Ross' gentle voice relaxed others, we wanted a competitive approach to keep users entertained with friends during this time.

What it does

Happy Lil Accidents is an iOS and Android app which allows users to explore their creative and competitive side. In Happy Lil Accidents, the host creates a "Room" for up to 9 people and a unique key is generated, which the host can share for others to join the game. A Bob Ross painting is generated for the users to take turns to paint. One user does not have the painting visible and is the imposter. It is up to all the other user's to determine who is painting incorrectly and who is just not artistically inclined.

How we built it

Front-end: Flutter (Google’s UI toolkit) with lots of custom buttons and windows Back-end: Google Cloud + Firebase Cross Platform (both iOS and Android): Flutter

Challenges we ran into

It was our first time working with Flutter and cross-platform mobile development, both front-end (using .dart) and back-end (using firebase). There were different default versions of Flutter, Firebase, and Firebase Authentication between Windows and Mac OS operation systems, which meant that our code base differed in the beginning. We had to communicate and confirm on just one version in order to make our final back-end seamless. It was our first time using Flutter .dart and UI/UX design, so designing Happy Lil Accidents was a good learning experience for us.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Since it was our first time with UI/UX design, we are proud of how nice our application's UI looks and how easy it is to use.

What we learned

We came across several challenges but we managed to help and inspire each other to work the problems out. One large learning curve was creating clean and inviting UI as well as creating the drawable canvas. As mentioned, we are new to Flutter and have learned about structuring, creating re-usable widgets, adding assets, and doing it all at the same time.

What's next for Happy Lil Accidents

Our first goal for the next release is to add a task bar for tab buttons such as: add/remove other users and in-game chat options. Integrating a navigation controller can make the app more user accessible and easier to use. The second goal is to integrate a Facebook API and other social media APIs in order for users to login through their other social media outlets and easily share their room links and fun moments with their friends. Our third goal is to add a timer to add an extra bit of competitiveness so users can feel more engaged at all times during in-game play.

Where does Happy Lil Accidents fit in the world?

Happy Lil Accidents is made to connect everyone no matter the distance, age, background or platform. Anyone can play whether it is University Students or grandparents trying to connect with their grandchildren. Amidst the darkness in the world, we hope to bring forth the light that Bob Ross had brought us in our childhoods. Sometimes, it is the Lil things and the Lil accidents that we remember most.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates