Last spring semester, I developed a SNS application called PICKME! for indecisiveness with my teammates as a project in the class of KAIST CS408 Computer Science Project. This project aimed to help people who want to resolve their indecisive issues by asking to massive users who experienced similar issues or just asking their opinions via votes or comments.
“How can we resolve their issues effectively?”
Our goal was the developing a mobile service application for end users and recommender system to recommend personalized contents so that users can easily find their similar or interested issues and resolve their indecisive issues which they might be interested.
Key Features
1) Post a card that user want to share to resolve his/her issue
2) Participate vote to share his/her opinions
3) Communicate via comments to share his/her thought
4) Explorer and get recommended contents from recommender system
We used Unity for a client application for Android and iOS platforms, and Firebase and Django for database and server networking. We also extracted and analyzed 15,000+ tweets to test our recommender system based on collaborative filtering with LDA topics. To measure our project, we did a survey to KAIST members with the mobile application as a beta testing.
References
[1] Paul Covington, Jay Adams, Emre Sargin, “Deep Neural Networks for YouTube Recommendations”, in 2016
[2] CARLOS A. GOMEZ-URIBE and NEIL HUNT, Netflix, Inc., “The Netflix Recommender System: Algorithms, Business Value, and Innovation”
[3] Michael Hahsler, “recommenderlab: A Framework for Developing and Testing Recommendation Algorithms”
[4] P.Selvaperumal, Dr.A.Suruliandi, “SHORT MESSAGE CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM FOR TWEET CLASSIFICATION”, in 2014 International Conference on Recent Trends in Information Technology
A few years ago, I established my own company, MindPol. We developed several games for mobile platform with our own game engine technology. I ran my company for about 3 years and 6 months. Today, I’m going to tell you some memorable moments of MindPol.
MindPol and Galatea Engine 2007-2010
The company MindPol was started with technology on game engine at first. The Galatea Engine, a name of our engine, supported rendering 3D models with software skinned animations, massive particle systems with editor, various texture formats with tool, useful user interface classes, and also rendering fonts for Hangul character system. Furthermore, Galatea Engine was designed to support portable platforms including PC at first. It supported experimentally Nintendo DS platform too with specialized features such as Fixed-Point data type or rendering 3D models in cartoon style.
We also developed a game called The Flower And The Wind (꽃과 바람) to introduce our technique. It was a arcade game with adorable action characters in 3D graphics. We demonstrated our engine skills effectively with it even if we couldn’t publish the game to the end.
Now we have a couple of great game engines, however it was way different back then. There were tons of game engines, and lots of solutions had their own specilized features with own philosophy. Since we focused on mobile platforms like Windows Mobile or Android early, we could have a chance to make our own business.
We also participated in G-TEK 2009, Global Technology Exhibition in Korea, and demonstrated our engine with mobile 3D graphics running smoothly on Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 device. It was quite impressive at that time because Xperia X1 was a device accelerated 3D graphics officially with very first GPU chip by Qualcomm. We’ve got attentions from XDA forum and companies who want to cooperate and share our experiences on mobile platforms.
Galatea Engine Demos on Xperia X1 for G-TEK 2009
Galatea Engine Samples on Samsung Omnia 2 (i8000)
Now, let’s talk about games after we developed a game engine.
2009-2010 10 Games for Betting (Windows Mobile, iPhone)
10 Games for Betting was a collection of tiny betting games. It was very fun and light to enjoy. Lots of people downloaded and enjoyed it from various market. We estimate there were more than 200,000 downloads altogether. Actually, it achieved quite good because there weren’t plenty of games on Windows Mobile at that time. This game was awarded a bronze prize too in Samsung Application Store Developer Challenge 2009.
10 Games for Betting on Windows Mobile Xperia X1
2009-2010 Run Kattie (Windows Mobile, iPhone)
Run Kattie was a casual 3D game that a cat is a hero jumping between buildings and avoiding obstacles on the roof. People loved the cat character because she was so cute and adorable. There were 3 amazing maps with theme songs, and various items to play fun.
Playing Run Kattie for iOS (Apple iPhone)
Playing Run Kattie on HTC HD2 (Windows Mobile)
After we released Run Kattie, we thought now it’s time for heading towards new platform, iPhone market. With a little work on our engine code, we could simply make our products run on iPhone platform.
2010 Sweety Ball – Fairy Tale Edition (iOS, iPhone)
Sweety Ball – Fairy Tale Edition was a kind of snow ball toy. It was an entertainment app designed for everyone. There were 3 themes with songs, and also was a feature for creating customized theme with a user message and picture. People loved this tiny interactive snow ball app.
Sweety Ball – Fairy Tale Edition for iOS Playing
2010 Sys-Cake – Shut Da Mouth (iOS, iPhone)
The Sys-Cake was a very special project of our work. It was so experimental, and we wanted to make something unique with electronic music. We contacted a few musicians, and we could have a chance to collaborate with Shut Da Mouth, one of great DJ duos with DJ Beejay. It was so great opportunity to us actually. We enjoyed working on this project, and we could release Sys-Cake – Shut Da Mouth proudly. It was a collaborated DJ app with awesome club music. You could make and play your own club music with this tiny DJ app on Shut Da Mouth style. It was really fun there! Wherever you go with it, you could make it club style!
Sys-Cake – Shut Da Mouth for iOS Introduction
Sys-Cake – Shut Da Mouth for iOS Ghost Playing
2010 House Rulez – Magic Television (iOS, iPhone)
After Sys-Cake project, we wanted to continue developing music app more. We this time decided to develop music album app with musicians. House Rulez was one of impressive musicians in groove and house music. Their music style was so special and unique. We fortunately could have a chance to meet them to discuss our next project. It was so great since we had a great idea for music application on mobile platform. We finally published House Rulez – Magic Television which had entire songs of their 3th album, lyrics, and also a special hidden song. It was very special because extra song was only provided with our app. We also provided lots of animations in the style of album jacket.
House Rulez – Magic Television (3th Album) for iOS
Remember the mind for precious our life..
Over a long term of years, MindPol developed various games and apps on mobile platforms. We can’t say that our business was successful, however it was priceless time. I was young, and guts and passion were the only things I had. No matter how much I spent my time, it’s a valuable experience which I don’t want to exchange forever. We had lots of partners at that time including big firms such as Microsoft or Samsung. I hope MindPol contributes a little bit to mobile industry. Thank you for reading my old memories.
Here’s the list of all products and platforms of MindPol.
2010 Techno Bone Galaxy Tab (Android, Galaxy Tab)
2010 House Rulez – Magic Television (iOS, iPhone)
2010 Sys-Cake – Shut Da Mouth (iOS, iPhone)
2010 Sweety Ball – Fairy Tale Edition (iOS, iPhone)
Hey guys! Just few weeks ago, the brand new action rhythm game, Crash Girls released! This is the boxing game with cute girls. Let’s challenge for boxing competition with exciting music & rhythm! Yay~!
“Welcome! You are invited to our world boxing championship competition. Compete with global challengers for the world championship title. Fame and wealth only for the champion are awaited. Wish you good luck!” – Mysterious Host
This game is focused on gamers who want to play casual 2d rhythm game with female characters in Japanese style. Yes, here we have cute and lovely boxing girls for you. You can choose one of the boxing girls as your partner to enjoy the game tournaments.
The game also needs playing skill to get high scores and combos. When you punch and guard at perfect time to exciting music and rhythm, you will be a winner of premier leagues. Don’t give up till you take the victory at the champion league.
Let’s talk about the programming part. After we have developed Boom Boom Power, I started to develop Crash Girls for next step. I decided to use Unity for following project, so it became my first official project developed with Unity. Unity is the powerful and effective 3d game engine of Unity Technologies. For more details, visit www.unity3d.com.
In my team, we mainly used to develop games with cocos2d-x. But we needed to develop our following game with Unity for future project. We wanted to support various devices and platforms easily and also make development process good to teamwork. Unity had already everything we want, so we decided to change our development environment to Unity even if the first project needed only 2d features.
Now, the game is begun. We invite you to global ranking of Crash Girls. Invite your facebook friends and fight for the highest world ranker!
Seungwook Chi 