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Developing Containerized Applications on GCP for Beginners

Updated: May 24, 2024

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After a much-needed break, I'm finally back with a sequel for the 'GCP: Trapped in the Clouds' series!


Theme: Containerization

The game focuses on containerized applications or more specifically, developing containerized applications - something I struggled a lot with when I first started learning about the cloud. Here's a great article by Google Cloud on this very topic: https://cloud.google.com/discover/what-are-containerized-applications


I included items that confused me the most when I first started learning about containers, such as container image v.s. container. I also made sure to make analogies that would help paint a better picture for the players/learners, like how the action of baking resembles a container, which is the running instance of an image.

Behind the Scenes

Originally, the plan was to create a series of short, informative games. The first game, 'GCP: Trapped in the Clouds - APIs' exemplified this approach. However, upon reflection, I realized there was significant room for improvement.


This time around, I prioritized quality over speed. As a result, the gameplay became considerably more intricate and complex. Due to the highly detailed puzzles, I couldn't find any publicly available assets that met my needs. So, to bring this sequel to life, I had to dust off my old tablet and reignite my drawing skills. Additionally, I experimented with Google's MusicFX from its AI Test Kitchen to curate the perfect playlist for the game - something which was really exciting for me: The fact that this was the only public AI model that could bring my vision to life with the mere disaster of a concoction of words "whimsical, countryside, chill, laid-back, almost Spongebob mischievous vibes, in the style of Tsuki Odyssey". Another friendly helper of mine was DeepAI's Image Generator which I used to create the thumbnail.


The gameplay itself is significantly more challenging than its predecessor. It truly embodies the escape room experience, unlike the APIs game which offered more guided puzzles. In the sequel, players are presented with a scene and can explore, but only specific actions will trigger outcomes that help solve other puzzles. While some lucky players might guess their way through, success ultimately relies on strategic exploration and problem-solving.


GCP: Trapped in the Clouds - Containerization


Hints


The Lab

  1. We are trying to complete the D.I.Y. kit template, which contains everything the employees need to assemble the D.I.Y. kits, such as ingredients and instructions.

  2. The ingredients look familiar, where have we seen them before?

  3. Where it says strawberry cake - is that an unfinished Polaroid picture?

  4. Think of the instructions as a Dockerfile, and be sure to be precise with your spacings, etc.


Admin Room

  1. The poster is rather colorful, where else have we seen those colors? And if we separate the words by color, what happens?

  2. The cards on the table correspond to the cards on the smartboard.

  3. The hint for the sequence of the cards can be found on the computer.


The Portal

  1. Something's off on the logs - what would we get if we pieced all the anomalies together per log? (Hint: take a good look at the portal and the item in the middle)

  2. Surely, we have to read the logs in sequence, right?


The Portal (Again)

  1. The task is to enter the command in lowercase, whereas the command is written somewhere and can be decoded by a command decoder.

  2. On the clipboard, the unique letters are 'WASD'.

  3. The task is to enter the source - the destination for the D.I.Y. kit is Dino-Mite Baking Classes.

  4. To enter the source, we have to align the maps according to something blue.


Busy Bees HQ

  1. The honey generator has to be working so that we can provide "fuel" to the bees.

  2. What do the cards on the map have in common? Can they be represented by something else?

  3. The cards on the map are disoriented, where could we upright the cards?

  4. Timing is key - the bees must be given fuel in sequence, we don't want an unexpected crash to occur.


Answers

The Lab

  1. Take a picture of the strawberry cake

  2. Choose the correct ingredients based on their silhouette on the template (refer to image1)

  3. Type in the following for the instructions by referring to Grandma's note for its contents and the older version of the instructions for its formatting

    1. python:latest

    2. /usr/app/src

    3. . .

    4. pip install requirements.txt

    5. ["python", "main.py"]

image1

Admin Room

The Portal

The Portal (Again)

Busy Bees HQ


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