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This is my first game and first android application i released.
I started developing with android on april 2010, one month after i finish university. The last part of my was writing my Diploma thesis, and this is the source of the idea for this game.
The original game were invented by David Gale and Elwyn Berlekamp in the context of coding theory. If you are more interested in this topic and all the algorithmic background i use in this game, you can download my diploma thesis here. Ok, i think this is enough background. Let's talk about the game:
I start decribing the idea behind the game and then the game itself
Assume we have a garden with 10x10 fields, where we can plant flowers. The challange is, that you have to water flowers and finding the most flowers that can bloom. Additonlay, the problem is that you can only water either a whole row or a whole column, and that if a bloomed flower gets a more shot of water, then it will die. Finally, if a flower dies you can start watering the row resp. column again, but it could happen that other flowers will die.
The game:
The game consists of three single screens, which you see on the left. The top screen is the start screen, where the game starts in. There you can choose between two types of games. On the one hand the simple game, where the goal is to find all 100 blooming flowers. On the other hand, the random game. Here it is not possible to find all 100 blooming flowers, because some are already bloomed when the game starts. This is the most challanging game.
The second screen is for choosing a difficult and palying a game. If you start the game for the first time, you have to create new levels for each difficult. The difference between each difficult is that it takes more water before a flower can blooms. I use a randomized algotihm for creating the levels and check for each created level if you have ever played it. There it could happen that you get a message about created too much games. I do not think that this should happen as you can create round about a million (2^20) games for the easy difficult and very very much more for the very hard game (5^20). Finally, i must confess that it takes me sometimes very long to solve a random game on very hard, and from time to time i also give up, an try another day.
The last screen shows the game. You see the field and the different states for each flower. On the left and right side of the screen are the watering cans that water the rows and on the bottom are the watering can which water the columns. Additonally, there are three signs.
The left is used if you water a wrong column or row, then you can undo your choice. The middle sign says you how much flowers are bloomed and what the maximum of bloomed flowers is. In the simple game you can always achive 100 flowers. In the random game it is not even clear to me what the maximum is, therefore i use an approximation algorithm which works in the background an tries to find more and more bloomed flowers. Due the nature of approximation algorithms it is possible that you can find more flowers than the algortihm. I never found more than the algorithm during testing and developing phase. So beat the algorithm.
Furthermore, if you touch the middle sign it will be shown what the solution of the algorithm is. I decided to give you this option, because it is frustating is you only miss one flowers and you have no chance to see how a possible solution looks like. The last sign, well, it is the spend time solving a game.
Well, i think this should be enough about his game. Good luck and apologize my not so perfect english.
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