HexHunter

Inspiration

The theme for the hackathon was "vision". Based on this, we decided that we wanted to build something centered around a camera, so a mobile app was a natural choice. To make the project more fun, we wanted to try and add a game element, which is where the idea for HexHunter was born.

What it does

The game has two modes: regular and custom. In the regular mode, the app assigns a random hex code corresponding to a color, and the player must point his camera at something of that color and "capture" it to win the game. In the custom mode, the player is able to input a hex code and then can challenge a friend to find the color they specified.

How we built it

We used Android Studio to develop the mobile app, as well as Eclipse for some of the logic backend. We also used some third party libraries and various algorithms to convert image types and break down the color data in order to manipulate and compare it.

Challenges we ran into

The most difficult challenge was probably finding an efficient and effective way to convert the image that Android cameras create into an RGB format, since the native format is not very intuitive and difficult to manipulate. While it may not seem like a very difficult task, it took about 5 hours out of the 15 hours total spent on the project to find something compatible with our framework. Other challenges included handling pure colors (i.e. only a single color type of Red, Green, or Blue), and calibrating the game to find a balance between leniency and accuracy in color matches.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of the fact that we had to make few sacrifices coming from our original design goals for the app, as well as the aesthetic and simplicity of design that we were able to achieve. The app also performs much better than we might have expected when it is deployed to an actual mobile device, and is generally very responsive and easy to use.

What we learned

First and foremost, we learned the ins and outs of Android Studio, and how to develop a mobile app. For some of us, this was also the first time using GitHub and collaborating on a coding project. Furthermore, we learned about manipulating image data and using low-level operations to perform operations on color data.

What's next for HexHunter

Although we achieved nearly all of our goals, we would like to add more game modes in order to make it more fun and challenging. Given enough time, we would eventually like it to have local and even possible online multiplayer capabilities. In terms of the current state of the app, finding the perfect balance between color accuracy and leniency still could be improved on given more time to playtest and calibrate the app.