HungerMoji - Notification Game

In 2016 Google announced the first Android Experiments I/O Challenge. The overall challenge was for developers to create something that utilizes the Android platform in an unique and innovative way. The top 3 submission would win an all expenses paid trip to the 2016 Google I/O conference in Mountain View. I was super fortunate to be one of the lucky 3!

When I first read the announcement there were only 3 weeks until the submission deadline so I started brainstorming right away. Android had recently made some changes to the Notification API so I started searching for ideas there. I thought it would be cool to gamify the notification drawer somehow. One of the original ideas I had was a "Who wants to be a Millionaire" type trivia game, but I ultimately ended up at Hungermoji.

Hungermoji is a unique game that takes place in your notification drawer. You feed your emoji via food notifications, and swipe away bomb notifications to protect your emoji. But it's a lot easier to show it in a quick video!

The notification drawer definitely wasn't designed to allow for games so it was a very interesting technical challenge, and likely why it caught Google's attention. If you're interested in the code it's available here: https://github.com/mikeroelens/HungerMoji

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