Catch Crabs is my first JS app, and my first mobile app. As a teacher of computer science and coding, my curriculum utilizes JS, so it made sense for me to use JS as my language of choice in this project. The purpose was two-fold: I wanted to improve my JS and architecture skills, and I wanted to have something to add to a portfolio, should I ever decide to leave teaching. Getting started as an independent mobile developer was an auxiliary motivation; I thought I might develop some of the many ideas I've had over the years for mobile apps and see if they gain any traction. Even though there are other, arguably better choices of tools for cross-platform development, I had never developed a web app of any kind, so Cordova seemed like a good choice for my current place as a learner.
I teach introductory coding courses using curriculum written by code.org. One of the assignments is to create a mini-game where users simply click an apple that moves around the screen whenever it's clicked. I think the inspiration for this may have been the app Cookie Clicker. I thought, hey, I should make a production app that is similar to this, but with a little movement.
So much! Here's a nonexhaustive list:
- Creating SVG art using InkScape and hand editing
- Animating SVG in CSS
- Basic MVC architecture
- Working in the Cordova platform
- Project management (though I'm the only worker)
- Source control (Git)
- Supporting multiple browsers
- HTML
- SVG
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Apache Cordova
- Git