Alrighty haunters and ghouls, the Halloween Countdown Widget is complete and available for free from the Android App Store. As you can see in the screenshot that I’ve taken a completely different approach from where I was going the first time. Battery tests show that updating every second did put a noticeable strain on the battery. I decided that if I was dump the seconds off the display that the really only important thing at that point is the number of days.

So I completely revisited the design and put together something that I feel is far better than what I had before. Something that’s not simply a knock of all the other countdowns out there (although I couldn’t find any Halloween related countdowns out there for Android). There’s a candle in the display that melts away a little each month the closer it gets to Halloween then starts over on November 1.  If I can find a way to animate the candle flame without impacting performance or battery life I will add it in a future version.

Also of note is the skull being interactive meaning that if you tap it you’ll get one of four random Halloween sound effects. This is where I met my biggest challenge being new to Android development. It took hours of research to find a working sample of how to implement a button on a widget, especially one that doesn’t open a separate app.

Overall I’m extremely pleased with the final outcome. My daughter loves touching the skull to make it play sounds (wait till she sees my next project muhahaha, I might never get my phone back).

The Halloween Countdown Widget is up on the Google Android App store and can be picked up freely there, just search for “Necropolis Labs” and you’ll find it. Or just hit the QR Code below using a barcode reader from your Android phone.

Enjoy and keep your eyes peeled for more Android goodies from Necropolis Labs.

My first ever Android app – A Halloween Countdown Widget is up and running on my phone. I haven’t put the APK up on the Android market yet. Running some battery tests to see if the widget updating every second puts a drain on the battery.

I’m not certain about the pumpkin on the left or the blood font at the top. Open to criticism and suggestions.

Wow, this is a pretty cool little fella. No one can argue that the Japanese have the market cornered on cool robotics. Now if I could only see the mechanical interworkings underneath I could pick up on some useful animatronic tricks. Hey maybe us Haunters can pool some duckies together and buy one for the soul purpose of reverse-engineering with Halloween in mind.

OMFG! Medusa! Kraken! Pegasus! DROOOOOOOLZZZZ… This movie is gonna roxxerz our boxxerz! By Zeus please not let those be the only money shots. Only thing missing from this trailer was Bubo the owl (are they even doing him? If not then I wonder how Perseus gets the Eye from the witches?) Did I say DAMN!?!!!

SPOILER WARNING: If you do not want to see what any of these creatures are gonna look like do NOT watch the trailer.

While researching for a new gaming project (yeah, like I don’t have enough on my plate) I ran across a nice little gem called Adventure Creation Kit. While being a far cry from Enterbrain’s RPG Maker series in terms of building RPGs it’s not really the point of this game creation utility. It’s not really geared to build jRPGs like RPG Maker but instead it’s intentionally designed to build games in the tradition of the classic Ultima series, more specifically Ultima 4 and 5.

Granted it’s been around for a couple years or more and I may have even stumbled across it before. But something this time struck a chord with me. Perhaps its been that desire of late to see more games from this era. I do so miss the simplicity of RPGs of the time and IMHO were more fun to play. I remember playing the Ultima series days on end with little to no sleep and barely leaving the room for food and drink. All the while being on a 3-way call with two other friends questing at the same time and sharing finds and clues. This was LONG LONG before the day where MMORPGs like WoW and Everquest were consuming the lives of its players.

I’ll be downloading this when I get home this evening and tinkering with it over the weekend as time permits. I may start building Ultima Obscura or Skara Brae with it. Heck, if I like it enough I may actually build Elendaria with it – afterall Elendaria WAS originally inspired by Ultima 5 during its original conception and would be nice to come full circle.

As some of my friends and family already know, I’m hoping to get my hands on an Android phone soon (if all goes well by the end of the year, if not then for my normally scheduled upgrade in 2010). In particular I’ve been eyeballing the HTC Droid ERIS (aka HTC Hero) which, while not sporting a physical keyboard or flash for its 5mp camera, is just a much better all around phone than the Motorola Droid (yes I realize the Droid is running Android 2.0 while the ERIS is still on 1.5 – but what they won’t mention at Verizon is that Android 2.0 will be available for ERIS come January 2010).

Anyways I’m looking at getting some hands on Java and Android development going and putting some new tech skills under my belt. Mobile Apps are the new hotness right now but I still refuse to get on the iPhone bandwagon. I much prefer the openess of Android.

So with that in mind I’ve been looking for some fun starter apps to build and ran across this page while searching for mobile horror games (always good to check potential competition). Yes the page is all iPhone stuff but it was enough inspiration to get the gears turning. Now I’m hoping to turn out some fun apps for the haunt community. I have a buddy of mine who does iPhone App development so who knows maybe even some ports in the future as well.

13 Devilish Halloween iPhone Apps, Wallpapers & Ringtones