Polar Attack

A fun activity game that helps to improve response & reflex time.

Project Details

Polar Attack, a LibGDX-based Game. A tiny snowman stuck in a rain of sharp icicles. The user has to help it dodge the sharp icicles so that it can survive longer.

The ideation behind the app is very simple:

• Save the snowman from sharp icicles.
• Collect the coin to boost the score.
• Control the snowman with your hands.
• Select the difficulty level as per your ease.
• All you need to do is tilt the screen from left to right or vice versa as you see the icicles falling down.
• Don’t worry if the snowman collides with icicles. You can always start over and chase the high score.

Product Approach

We started building the product from scratch using the MVP approach as an innovation project.

This fun-to-play game is built using the LibGDX library (It is a free and open-source game-development application framework written in the Java programming language), our Innovation team planned to keep the game engaging for a wide range of age groups. Our developers aim to make it smooth and user-friendly.

Our approach toward the flow of the game was as below-

• The landing page is where players can change settings and difficulty levels.
• Cold - The frequency of icicles is low at this level. [Easy]
• Colder - The frequency of icicles is a bit more than that of the previous level. [Moderate]
• Coldest - The frequency of icicles is maximum at this level. [Difficult]

• Keeping the background relatable and exotic, setting the vibe of the game of a colder region.
• FREE and EASY to play, challenging the players’ minds and reflex systems. It keeps the thrill alive.
• Calm background music to relax and help players concentrate.
• To keep the enthusiasm alive, the scoreboard was added where the last 10 highest scores can be seen.
• Also, to drop golden coins along with icicles which requires a tap from players to collect which increases their score.
• Sound effects on events such as game over and coin taps push dopamine levels.

Technical Approach

We started developing Polar Attack by,

• Implementing the app in JAVA (Android) and,
• Based on LibGDX Game Engine which supports game development in JAVA language.

Our main challenge was to finalize the framework for game development as the market offers various options. We researched and tried POCs for different frameworks.

We moved forward with LibGDX as it is one of the best frameworks available in JAVA.

Another technical challenge was to calculate the overlapping position of the player and sharp icicles which was then overcome by our developers.

Development Approach

The development approach for the project was to get the first view and graphics prepared by our team.

• Upon approval from the Innovation team, with the graphics and the development roadmap in mind, we moved on to the further development of the game.
• Initially, we created a stick man as a game character which was later changed to the Snowman and added some animations to its movement.
• Later on, we added icicles, coins, and logic to detect user interaction along with animation.
• Further, we improvised the aesthetics of the game, the texture of the buttons, the character’s appearance, the shape of icicles, and sound effects.

Current State

We successfully released the game in the PlayStore and our development team is invested to improve and scale it to the next version.