Puzzle Buster

Homepage of the game
Page to enter details for the game
Waiting lobby for multiplayer game
Multiplayer game
Single player game

Inspiration

We were inspired by the game's demo video, which influenced our decision to take on the challenge. With the help of shadows, we also gave the tiles a 3D appearance as shown in video. And the main thing is Flutter itself. We have two years of experience in flutter development, but in order to take it to the next level and compete with those who are already doing it, we decided to take on this challenge.

What it does

Have mentioned a quote below which clearly explains our game:- It's time to put your brain to work and burst the most creative slide puzzle you can think of. You take on the role of John, who aims to solve the puzzle in ascending order starting from 1 and in the fewest number of moves and time in order to top the leaderboard. And why not challenge and defeat a friend in multiplayer mode? Remember, you're a burster, not a newbie, and you were born to rule the board. Now simply just go and play your way out of the riddle by bursting yourself out.

How we built it

We were able to create this game with the assistance of Flutter, Firebase, and Rive. Though there were some challenges, but with the help of teamwork and coordination, we were able to overcome them in a timely manner. We used the Flutter framework to create a cross-platform app with the same codebase. The availability of packages and plugins made it possible for us to complete such a project within the time constraints. The entire UI and backend are written in Dart and are linked to Firebase (Firestore) for data storage. To make the game more interactive and creative, we created our own characters using rive animations.

Challenges we ran into

Since, this was our first game experience with flutter it was way too exciting. There were some difficulties, such as retaining the state of the multiplayer or singleplayer game when the user reloads or refreshes the page. After some investigation, we discovered a method to store the data as cookies and retrieve data from them when the page was loaded. Another challenge was making it the most responsive webpage, which we accomplished by resizing the window for every pixel and then determining the best breakpoint to support our design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

There have been several accomplishments, but the most notable are the addition of guest sessions with anonymous sign in to avoid a lengthy authentication process, the addition of multiplayer support to increase competitiveness, and the addition of chat support to keep users engaged while competing. Another was the use of cookies for flutter web to retain state and control platform-specific code for apps and web-apps. The final one deals with Game version, prompting the user to update the game if the room owner's game version is higher than the one attempting to join the room and much more.

What we learned

With our project, we learned about the power and application of rive. We could even use the controllers to control the animations. Another feature was the firebase anonymous sign in, which allowed us to create guest sessions and apply security rules to ensure the game ran smoothly. We learned how to create a timed multiplayer game.

What's next for Puzzle Buster

1) More Rive Characters:- We will also use rive to add more animation to our characters. As a result, the characters will not be stable, and they will move their hands or change their facial expressions while playing the game. 2) Show Hints:- Our project currently does not support the show hint option to the user in single player mode, but we would like to add get hint support in the future with the help of workers in flutter web. 3) Google Play Games:- We currently use only anonymous sign in, but we will add support for syncing your game data with Google Play Games. 4) Voice Chat:- We'd also like to include voice chat support in the multiplayer game. 5) Advance multiplayers:- We will add support to play multiplayer game with randoms and even against the AI.