Development of the Snake game with App Inventor

Representation of App Inventor

App Inventor is a visual, blocks-based programming environment for creating Android apps. It was developed by Google and is now maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With App Inventor, users can create apps without having to write any code, by dragging and dropping blocks that represent different actions and events.

App Inventor allows users to create a wide range of apps, from simple games and quizzes to more complex apps that connect to the internet and use the sensors on the device. It can be used to create apps that control external devices such as the Micro:bit via Bluetooth.

To use App Inventor, you will need to create an account on the MIT App Inventor website, and then use a web browser to access the development environment. App Inventor also provides an emulator that allows you to test your app on a computer without having to install it on a physical device.

You can also connect your smartphone to the computer and test your app on it, also you can use the Bluetooth component to connect to the Micro:bit and send or receive data.

It’s a very user-friendly platform, and it’s great for beginners and educators who want to teach programming or app development.

Development of the Snake game with App Inventor

A Snake game is a classic and popular game in which the player controls a snake that moves around the screen and eats food, causing the snake to grow longer. The goal of the game is to make the snake as long as possible without running into the walls or its own tail.

It is possible to create a Snake game using App Inventor. App Inventor is a visual, blocks-based programming environment that allows you to create Android apps without writing any code. Here’s a general outline of the steps you would need to take to create a Snake game with App Inventor:

1. Create a new project in App Inventor and design the user interface for the game. This can include a Canvas component to display the game board, and buttons or other components to control the snake’s movement.
2. Use the blocks editor to create the logic for the game. You can use blocks such as “when button is clicked” to control the snake’s movement, and “if-then” statements to detect when the snake collides with the walls or its own tail.
3. Create a food item that appears randomly on the screen, and make the snake grow when it eats the food.
4. Use variables to keep track of the snake’s position, length, and direction of movement.
5. Add a scoring system that keeps track of the player’s score and implements a game over condition.
6. Test and refine the game by running it on an emulator or a physical device.

App Inventor has different components that you can use to create your game such as the Timer, the Canvas, the ImageSprite and the List, also you can use the if-else and loops blocks to control the game logic.

Purpose of this game:

In this game we will create a game called ‘Snake’ with App Inventor.

The player uses the direction keys (up, down, left and right) of the game to direct a ball to eat the strawberry.

We propose to create the design of the application, with the following visual:

Programming of the game Snake

To program the application, App Inventor proposes to use The Space Blocks which allows to create a program in the form of a block diagram. Very simple to use but requires some programming logic.

Here is the program of the game Snake realized in the space Blocks of the Inventor App: