Anyone into Android programming?

[bennyboy]

That would be cool, have you published your game on the play store? I saw a version of roll-a-ball on there that didn't sound nearly as cool. Oh, is yours tilt controlled and can you send me the .apk?

Did you know that unity has its own ad support program? Just a couple lines of code and signing up your game and viola, revenue!

No, I haven't done it; I'm working up an Adventure game that I plan on publishing for Android.

No, it's not tilt-controlled but that would be trivial.  I just don't think it would be responsive enough to make exciting gameplay.

I haven't looked into revenue.  I'd for sure make a free version first, and if I got more than a thousand or so downloads, I'd improve it and then add ad support or a paid version.  So far, I've only got like 5 dinky little levels, but my students are pretty excited about it so I might throw together a few more tiles and a couple dozen levels and see if anything cool comes out of it.

[Rhizomorph13]

Well, the one I made only has the one, with the twelve spinning cubes in that stock grey of any prims created in Unity. It is tilt controlled and very responsive. The major problem was the calibration at the beginning so the user can hold it at any starting tilt and comfortably control the ball. Also using tilt control to affect physics controls can yield some interesting results i.e. hovering ball and slamming/jumping ball. The calibrate code works about half the time upon run. Same thing for Space Shooter. If you like I could post up the code I used when I get back to my home computer.

[bennyboy]

Well, the one I made only has the one, with the twelve spinning cubes in that stock grey of any prims created in Unity. It is tilt controlled and very responsive. The major problem was the calibration at the beginning so the user can hold it at any starting tilt and comfortably control the ball. Also using tilt control to affect physics controls can yield some interesting results i.e. hovering ball and slamming/jumping ball. The calibrate code works about half the time upon run. Same thing for Space Shooter. If you like I could post up the code I used when I get back to my home computer.

I'm okay on the code, but if you want to throw up the .APK for it, it'd be fun to see how it works. If it really is responsive, then I might switch or add a user option for the controls-- right now, the touch mechanism is working pretty well, but at the start I did wonder about using tilt.

I couldn't find decent free Android screencap software to show my game, so I'll just make a vid of the PC version, and maybe throw up the .APK too. The only problem is that the PC version shows a lot more of the level than the phone version, so there's a little less surprise in a sense.

[Rhizomorph13]

Roll-A-Ball and Space Shooter apks: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4pko5b8qosx1h...65REa?dl=0

[bennyboy]

Roll-A-Ball and Space Shooter apks: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4pko5b8qosx1h...65REa?dl=0

Wow, I'm surprised how responsive the tilt controls are. With some kind of pre-game calibration, that would probably be very usable. It looks to me that it just starts with whatever phone position you have when the program starts running, right? But yeah, it has a lot of potential.

Here's my version. How the controls work: the blue dot is your "center." When you move your finger in any direction, it applies a force in that direction, with greater distance from the point to your finger resulting in greater added force. NOTE: this is not a "swipe" mechanism. Think of it more like a virtual analog joystick. My students found it a little hard to "get" the mechanism, but once you get it, you can really get very good control over the ball's motion. See what you think:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl0kzd4lb19gts...2.apk?dl=0

[emjay]

Hi guys. Sorry I haven't been much involved in this thread - I've been playing a mafia game and it took up all my time. Anyway now I've seen the conversation you two have been having about Unity3d and looks very interesting and I would like to give it a try. The way you were talking about it gave me a brain wave that I might have had a game on my phone that was made with it, and sure enough when I started that game the first thing it said was 'powered by unity' or something like that. It's called 'Cubistry' and is essentially kind of like Mahjong with a cube. So just a few quick questions for you. 1) Does it work with Linux? Or Wine? I don't use Windows at all but may consider buying a Windows laptop again if it was really worth it, 2) you mentioned 'shaders' which I know a little about from working through a book on 3d graphics in android - getting as far as having a table tennis table with a couple of bats - is it the same idea in unity?, and 3) is it only for making 3d games? Because the sorts of games I would want to make would be simple, 2d games like board games etc. Thanks for your help

[bennyboy]

Hi, emjay.

1)  I don't know much about using Unity in Linux, and I didn't see a Linux version.  Unity is not very demanding on CPU/GPU, so if you have Windows running on Wine, I'm pretty sure it will work well.
2)  Shaders are scripts which describe how a graphics card should process 3D graphical information: color, gloss, reflections etc.  Custom shaders are an advanced subject, but almost completely unneeded to do things in Unity, with the exception of animating color-- and THAT shader is trivially easy to write. . . you could even just copy mine.  For the most part, Unity will do all the graphical stuff-- you basically just have to import the images you want to use for tiles etc.
3)  When you start a new project in Unity, it asks whether you are making a 3D or 2D project, and sets the basic scene up for you.  Unity is a boss at doing tile games, card games, and things like that.  Unity also has a complete 2D physics system: collision, hinges, springs, collision detection, etc. etc. built in.

Here's a little overview of 2D design:

[Rhizomorph13]

You can also design in 3d and make the game 2d so that rotations are handled in 3d but presented as 2d. What that means is that you don't have to have a bunch of sprites, you can just have a 3d object that actually rotates. The 3d engine will handle all the light sourcing and even sound proximity to your character. Unity is free too, so you can monkey around with it for none dollars.

[Rhizomorph13]

Roll-A-Ball and Space Shooter apks: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4pko5b8qosx1h...65REa?dl=0

Wow, I'm surprised how responsive the tilt controls are.  With some kind of pre-game calibration, that would probably be very usable.  It looks to me that it just starts with whatever phone position you have when the program starts running, right?  But yeah, it has a lot of potential.

Here's my version.  How the controls work: the blue dot is your "center."  When you move your finger in any direction, it applies a force in that direction, with greater distance from the point to your finger resulting in greater added force.  NOTE: this is not a "swipe" mechanism.  Think of it more like a virtual analog joystick.  My students found it a little hard to "get" the mechanism, but once you get it, you can really get very good control over the ball's motion.  See what you think:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl0kzd4lb19gts...2.apk?dl=0

The pre-game calibration simply reads the starting angle of the phone and sets tilt x and y to zero. You have to hold the phone still before starting the game. I would like to have a little touch button to calibrate on the fly, it would be easy to set up, I just haven't done it yet. I'll check out your control scheme as soon as I get some time.

[bennyboy]

Here's a video if anyone else wants to see it.  The framerate sucks cuz, you know. . . screen capture.