Day 30 – Learning Android Development

The Game

The app has been published! you can find it HERE or you can just search “Steel’s Run” in the Playstore (Developer: Sierens Apps).  Would be nice to receive some feedback!
The free desktop version can be found HERE (left arrow to jump, right one to shoot).

Today

Before publishing the app, I designed the icon. Here’s how it looks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it looks good enough, especially the background. The character could get better graphics but that would’ve taken hours and hours so i just enlarged the existing sprites. I could have also added the typical glow in the center of the icon but opted out from doing it.

Then I went on to create a feature graphic, which is just a rearrangement of the title. You can see it on the playstore.

After that I published my first real app! The challenge is done!

The Journey

It feels good to have achieved my goal. Looking back at my first post, I set out to develop and publish an app in 30 days, all the month of September. No more, no less, and I stuck to it. It doesn’t matter if my app doesn’t even get 50 downloads. What really matters to me is that I set an intrinsic goal and I achieved it. I started something and finished it. I created something instead of consuming. I feel really satisfied with all this.

Then there’s also everything I learned along the way. I developed a good base for programming in java, having had no experience with it before. I got introduced to XML and learned how to deal with it, and how it is a very powerful language for representing content. I got some experience with Eclipse, together with the Android SDK and the ADT. The combination of Eclipse and the ADT provide an amazing development environment experience. I can’t live without them anymore. Not to mention the awesome libgdx library for making games, which lets me easily create a desktop and android version of the game.

I will focus on getting my master’s degree now but that doesn’t mean I wont start new projects in the near future. I look forward to expanding Steel’s Run, adding new levels, new features,etc. Creating something has always felt amazing and I wont stop doing it.

Day 29 – Learning Android Development

The game is done. Get the desktop version HERE. The only keys to press are the left arrow key(touch left in android) and the right arrow key(touch right in android). I have done everything I wanted with it before I release it tomorrow. I still need to do the app icon design but I’ll do that tomorrow.

I did the title and credits, it’s the best I could do in 1 hour. OpenDyslexic is very pretty!

I also worked on transitioning from title to game. The first time you open the game, you get the title. If you die or win, you go back to the title, but only in the android version. I don’t know why in the desktop version the title gets skipped when you die or win and it jumps back right to the start of the game. It works fine when you open the game for the first time though. I’m happy all works well in Android.

I also added sound. Whenever there’s a collision there’s sound. I used Bfxr for it.

I’m happy with how the game is so far. It is very challenging, and yes, it can be finished. I have tested all sections of it and have been able to do them. I look forward to adding more levels when I have more time.

To remind you, the desktop version is free and the one I linked here at the beginning of the post will be the last one fro quite a while. The Android version will be paid, I’m thinking somewhere around 0.70 to 0.85 cents and will be available, hopefully, tomorrow or Monday.

Day 28 – Learning Android Development

Today I had a productive afternoon. I set up a screen capture software that captures my screen. I set it up to take a picture every 10 seconds. Later I made a video out of it so you can see my productive 3.5 hours in just 1 minute!

As you can see on the video, I was able to make the whole boss encounter under that time  plus a few screens for when you lose or win. A commenter on the last post mentioned I could use OpenDyslexic as a font instead of my crappy one so i did! It’s a free to use font made -but not only- for  dyslexic people. The maker is Abelardo Gonzalez. He says:

you can sell anything that uses this font. But I’m not going to give permission for you to sell this font, by itself, alone. But you can sell a book with this font,programs with this font, etc. And if you do use this font commercially, let me know, and I’ll promote it here, and to others that can use it.:)

So there’s no problem with me using the font 🙂 I’ll contact him to let him know my game uses his font. Here’s the numbers in OpenDyslexic, they are the ones I use for the position of Steel:

I also used the same font for making the win and lose screen you see on the video. Here’s the lose screen:

I really like it! I’m looking into the sound right now. It wont be anything serious just simple jump/collision sounds. I also need a title screen.

Day 26 & 27 – Learning Android Development

HERE’S the latest version of the game

I haven’t done much over these two days. As I said on my last post, I just started my master so I’m busy with that, but from tomorrow until Sunday I’ll be free to work on and finish Steel’s Run. The last push!

Nevertheless, I’ve been able to implement some things to the game on the little free time I got these 2 days. For one, I finished the level design. So the obstacles are all set. The level is now 400 units long. It’s hard, it’s very hard, for those who like a challenge this will be a good game to play on your android while you’re waiting on the bus, or at the wait room of your dentist’s office, etc..

I also added a progress status on the top right corner, this gives you an idea of how far in you are in the level, and what’s left to go. Mind the crappy font design, at least it’s mine :p.

What I still want to add before first release: sound! some basic event sounds like when Steel runs against a chopped tree. A boss to complete the level, which will come after you do 100% of the obstacle course, and more things.

Day 23 – Learning Android Development

HERE is the latest version as of today of Steel’s Run. Remember, left arrow to jump and right arrow to shoot. I changed the level’s layout of obstacles (robot insects and chopped trees), making it less monotone and less harder than yesterday. The level is not yet complete, I’d say its around 33% complete, so if you manage to get where there’s no obstacles you have won, but remember that you only did 33% of what’s to come :). also the game still has no ending so stop when there’s no obstacles anymore.

Here’s the layout of the level so far. green dots are grass, red dots are insect robots and brown dots are chopped trees.

I changed the insect’s speed back to the same as the grass’. It makes it easier to design the level. They still patrol up and down. I also changed the trees’ color to a more pale tone, that way you no longer get distracted by them

What I would like to add is a percentage on the top right corner which indicates how far you got. Say you died half way, it will said 50% complete. That way you can brag to your friends!

What do you think of my game? or my progress overall? Please leave me a comment! I would like nothing more than to hear your constructive criticism or feedback.

Off-topic

For some reason, I got a lot of traffic to my blog today. After some investigation I saw that around 20 people (of which I presume most are tweet-bots) tweeted my blog post of yesterday. No idea why, maybe they just snatched it randomly out of Hacker News as some of them had a variant of HN in their twitter names. Still, lots of traffic compared to the other days! see for yourself.

 

Day 22 – Learning Android Development

Click here for the latest version of the game. Remember, left-arrow key to jump and right-arrow key to blast. Beware, it’s extremely hard right now because I was testing how far Steel can jump (3 chopped trees is the max) and the insects have gotten harder to kill. If you make it to where there is no ground beneath you anymore, consider it a win. I have yet to implement a finish.

I know this is an android dev blog post. I am testing it on the android as well so don’t worry.   Android is my primary target, but for implementing things I first test them all on the desktop version because it compiles way faster. I have only released the desktop version out on this blog because I plan on putting a price on the android version. Probably somewhere around €0.60, but I’ll release the final version on the PC as well and for free if you don’t feel like paying for the mobile version.

First thing I added today, or rather removed, is the range the sunblast can go. Now the sunblast can only go 7 units ahead of Steel before dissappearing ( if sunblast.position().x – steel.position().x >= 7). This was implemented to prevent you from firing like crazy in the beginning so that the blasts reach and kill the insects way before you actually get to them.

I also added some improvements to the world (read: made it harder). Everything’s faster now, blocks move at a speed of 6 units per second instead of 4, and insects at a speed of 4. That means insects will be going backwards a bit while patrolling up and down so it’s harder to evade them.

I also implemented a second background, I’m not really sure about it. It does give the game some more depth, but at the same time I feel the colors are a bit distracting. I probably will make it more grayish to avoid that.

Day 21 – Learning Android Development

Today was rather productive, or at least that’s how I feel. I came up with the obstacles for the game. The first obstacle is a chopped tree, which must be jumped over.

 

 

The second obstacle is a robot insect which flies up and down.

 

 

With that I got the obstacles designed so far for the first level of the game. Let me get into some of the story. The game will be called “Steel’s Run”. Steel is trying to rid the world from robots who have recently started showing up, and the only way he can do that is by using the same technology which created those robots (his helm). With the helm, he gains some powers, the first one that I created is called sunblast. A blast of concentrated electromagnetic energy.

 

 

The first level is out in the open. That’s were Steel’s adventure begins, with the insect-robots and chopped trees, further levels will be getting close to the place the robots are coming from, and will be getting harder.

I’m planning on polishing the first level and the graphics up a bit more as well as the gameplay, and that will be my release for my 30 day android development goal. After that I will continue with the second level whenever I have time, because I’m starting my master this monday.

Right now Steel can shoot as much as he wants, but I’m planning on putting a kind of stamina bar which limits the amount of sunblasts you can shoot, while waiting for the helmet to harness energy to create more. Also the level is very repetitive right now because I haven’t done any level design, only for testing mechanics.

I did collission detection for sunblasts and trees, sunblasts and robot-insects, trees and Steel and finally Steel and the robot-insects. Robot insects die out of one sunblast.

Here’s a playable pc-version of the game so far. Use the left-arrow key to jump and the right-arrow key to fire. It has no end so when you stop seeing grass under Steel, close the program 🙂 (you need the Java Runtime Environment for the game to work).

Day 19 & 20 – Learning Android Development

Yesterday and today were spent working on my new game. I’ve mostly been working on the design. The character’s name is Steel. He’s basically a head with attached arms and legs, no torso, and he’s wearing a big red steel helmet. In total Steel’s running animation has 5 textures. It looks way better than 3, and I suppose 9 would be way smoother but I want to move on.

Steel before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also worked on the background of the game. I made some mountains just using different tones of gray with the brush tool in photoshop. They serve as a background layer that moves very slow compared to the floor below Steel, this gives an effect of depth.

the mountains

In-game

What I still want to  implement graphically is maybe a better grass tile, and also a block tile which will serve as the obstacle Steel has to jump over, and an enemy type. Maybe a second background layer that goes between the mountains and the grass, some hills with a speed between the grass’ and the mountains’?

Technically, I added jumping. This time it’s not a constant y-vector speed but rather a recursion, slowly decreasing the speed as Steel goes up and when he reaches a top point he goes down, starting out at the same speed as the last loop going up. This gives a good gravity effect, but of course using the real equation for projectiles would be better, but hey, It’s my world, I define my own physics. :p

Day 18 – Learning Android Development

First of all, I got an android developer’s account (thanks dad). I published “Star Assault jp remake” for free if anyone wants to get it through the Play Store.

The new game

I started developing a new game. This will be the one for my 30 days goal. It’s going to be a runner type like Line Runner.

Today I did the setup for the project and all the structure to start implementing things. The base for the controller, renderer and actors classes is working. One big difference is that now, the player doesn’t move. He stays at the same place with a running animation, and it’s the world that moves. The tiles which represent the environment have speed vectors, not the player.

Here’s the prototype i got working for today, the graphics are placeholders, so not the real ones yet. I still need to come up with a good concept.

The screen is now 480×800, a lot of smartphones now have that resolution instead of 320×480. The tiles could be 80×84 because I set the units as 6×9 (480/6 and 800/9), but I’m going for half the resolution, so at 40×44 each tile.

Day 16 & 17 – Learning Android Development

Day 16

I spent the whole day finishing star-assault. The idea was to implement what was missing from the tutorial. On day 15 I had implemented turning and collision detection between bob and blocks. In total, what follows was what I added to the game:

Gravity: Bob now falls down at a constant speed if there’s no blocks beneath him and stops when there are.

Jumping: now bob can jump whenever space is pressed or the lower-center part of the android device is touched. He jumps at a constant speed, and can keep hovering in the air, so it’s basically flying but whatever.

Pigs: The enemy, they have simple AI where they just stand in place and turn and shoot left if bobs left of them and shoot right if bob’s right of them. They have 10 points of health, one bullet takes down 1 point of health. If the health reaches 0 they die.

Humanoid Pig

Dead Pig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bullets: bullets comes out automatically from bob and the pigs, I didn’t opt for touch to shoot because the player already has to touch the screen for walking and jumping.

bullet

Collision: Between bob and pigs, between bullets and bob, between bullets and pigs, between bullets and blocks.

Level: I added another level, as in another window like the original but with rearranged blocks, with a pig in it. I could have done more “levels” but I wanted to finish this game.

Health: Three little hearts represent bob’s health, one bullet hit is one heart.

Win and Lose: When you kill the second pig and walk to his spot, a win screen appears. when you lose your health, a lose screen appears.

Here’s a short video of the whole game:

I ran across a few problems during the development. One was that on my android device, I could only pass the game once, and when I closed and opened the app, the win screen would still be there, even though I was at the starting spot again. After searching I realized it was the static variables that persisted even though the app was destroyed, so i changed them into public instead.

I call the main activity on the onStart() method for android and not on the onCreate() because I want the game to restart every time you go away from the activity.

Day 17

I designed an icon for the app, a quick google taught me some of the basics but I didn’t spend much time on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I wanted to see if I could publish it (for free of course) on the Google playstore, just to see the process.Turns out I need to create a developer profile, and then pay 25$ via google checkout, which you need a credit card for, and I don’t have one. I’ve been avoiding a credit card for years but I guess I’ll have to get one in order to reach my 30 day goal of publishing an app.

I don’t consider this to be my first app, as the base of the code is not mine even though it’s open source. I want my first app to be all mine, I know I’m going to use some of the code from the tutorial as I will be using libgdx as well, but it will be for building an entirely different game.

The Game:

Desktop version, Android version, Source code (only includes the classes).

credits go to Tamas Jano for the tutorial, and I’ll take credits for what I added 🙂