Play it on a Flip Phone

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  cover

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  entry

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  flipphone

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  progress made

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  wrong

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  win screen

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  upload screen

Inspiration

Back in the day, I remember playing with my flip phone that played a note with each key presses. I'd be frustrated trying to figure out how to play certain songs, not realizing that the phone didn't have enough keys to play the song I wanted.

I made this app to relive the nostalgia of flip phones in today's smartphone filled world.

What it does

This is a musical quiz game on reddit! The quiz maker has played a certain song on their flip phone, and you have to figure out how to play it on your own phone.

Try to play it in the fewest button inputs as possible to place high on the leaderboard!

After, make your own quiz in the freeplay mode for others to try!

If you're not interested in the quiz, you can go straight to freeplay mode and play with the flip phone to your heart's content.

How we built it

• I made this game using phaser + typescript for the game.
• Drew the assets with clip studio
• Created/edited the sfx with audacity

I decided to use phaser because I was already familiar with the engine compared to the other two options for web. I could have used a game engine, but I was concerned with the html port and the optimization of it running on mobile.

Challenges we ran into

Originally, this was going to be a completely different game. The first concept was a password memorization game where you'd see a password combination entered and try to memorize/copy it. You'd do this until the password got too long to memorize.

But when I made the prototype and played it, I wasn't satisfied with the fun of it, and had trouble making the theme work in the short confines of a reddit post.

So, I decided to completely throw the concept except for the keypad I made. While struggling with the game, the idea for Play it on a flip phone came to me, and I thought it'd be the perfect way to recycle the keyboard function.

Other notable problem I had was with the art. I'm usually not too detail oriented with my art, but I realized for this game to look and feel satisfying, I was going to have to make things look properly measured. So, I went against my usual instincts and took the asset making process slow.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm especially proud with the art on this one. I still think it can be better, but I feel like I did the best I could.

Though I'm frustrated that this is the best I could do, I want to figure out what I'm not able to see that's missing from my assets.

What we learned

• I learned that clip studio has an outline feature that's really convenient for pixel art
• each consecutive note on a scale (semitones) has a frequency ratio of 1.05946:1 from each other
• How to make games using devvit web

What's next for Play it on a Flip Phone

The game itself is complete. So, I'd need player feedback first before making more changes. The next immediate steps for it would be to decorate the public subreddit with banners

Built With

• devvit
• phaser.js
• reddit