I just got access to Google’s App Inventor for Android. After doing a couple of tutorials I began wondering if App Inventor could be used to create a simple adventure game. So I decided to give it a try.

App Inventor is quite restricted, but it still has all the tools required to make the game. The blocks editor is very straight forward to use but unfortunately it becomes cluttered when editing larger programs.  Some method for organising and grouping blocks would be nice. Another shortcoming was that references to components cannot be passed as parameters to procedures. The problem is easy to get around but causes duplicate blocks.

After a couple of hours of tweaking, I managed to come out with a simple “game” with three actions, two screens, and an inventory system. The current version does not have much to do but works well as a proof of concept. I look forward to extending it to a full old school adventure.

[EDIT 4.5.2012]

Since I’m not actively pursuing this project and this post gets an occasional hit, I decided to make the project source available for download:

• Dowload APK
• Download App Inventor project

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