Mayor's Enigma

Best Student Project - A fictional mobile cartography game.

  • Completed: 2024
  • Context: M.Sc. Student Project, TUD, Germany
  • Supervisor: Dr.-Ing. habil. Eva Hauthal
  • Tools: Android (Java), Android Studio, Midjourney AI, Figma
  • Keywords: Mobile Game, Location Based Service, Mobile Cartography
  • Try it: View on Google Play Store

The Problem

This was a requirement to use our own creativity for a mobile app project within the course Mobile Cartography at TU Dresden in the summer semester 2023/2024.

The Solution

Together with my project partners Jan Łyczakowski, Ander Palacios Fraile, Ching-Ting Chia, we built a fictional game that allows the player to visit locations in Dresden to solve basic puzzles to unlock new locations. When all puzzles are solved, the user is presented with a final question to complete the game or try again.

The AI-Generated Characters

A view of the characters we generated using Midjourney AI.

How we built it

We initially created drafts and wireframes of the structure of the app. Subsequently, Midjourney AI was used to generate the User Interfaces including the characters, and Figma was used to design the UI mock-ups. We then created a base theme in Android Studio and shared the development tasks amongst ourselves to develop the XML layouts with interactivity. In the end, the four sub projects were merged, tested, and deployed to the Google Play Store.

Challenges we ran into

The android code base has made a lot of changes which required a lot of learning to understand the new developments. In addition, the mobile GPS accuracy is not good enough which requires a good number of satellites to have an improved accuracy. We also run into the problem of merging sub projects as some of the team members were quite new to using Git for collaboration.

What we're proud of

We are typically proud of the overall looks of the application, integration with Google Maps, implementation of cartographic principles, and finally being selected to present it at the Dresden Digital Welten Conference in March 2024.

What we learned

We learned the application of multiple modern mobile cartographic principles including Design Patterns, Gestalt Principles, Design Pscychology, and Location Based Services in solving a problem.

What's next

Due to time constraint, we decided to keep it simple thereby limiting the number of locations to visit. This could be extended in future design and the entire app can be replicated for other cities allowing the player to navigate and learn more about the city.