Tuesday, June 1, 2010

"Impossible is nothing" play-off

Few hours before I want to send our game to Ovi challenge I read on the site that organizers gave us additional week for app polishing. I don't think it was necessary - my game was complete on Monday, about 7-8am. I will use my extra time to change it from WRT widget to Symbian app.
About an hour after the announcement I found something called Rhodes, but using of Ruby and that all 'Network synchronization' stuff effectively deterred me.
What I found next was PhoneGap. Quoting creators:

PhoneGap is an open source development framework for building cross-platform mobile apps. Build apps in HTML and JavaScript and still take advantage of core features in iPhone/iTouch, iPad, Google Android, Palm, Symbian and Blackberry SDKs


It was everything I need. It seems that it also supports Symbian. My first try was 'Get Started with Symbian (Qt)' part from the tutorial. I installed another tons of useless stuff (really - it was another 20GB to make it 'works').
I did my best but nothing seems to work properly or even close to. I googled thousands of different forums, blogs, tutorials and manuals with no result. I even try to search for my answers on Stack, where i found nothing. So I asked new question in there and few hours later I got the answer (from one of the phoneGap developers), from which i concluded that it simply doesn't work. Fine. So I had to write something on my own.

One of the methods that come to my mind was to render HTML/JS in simple browser-like application. It is possible for example using WebKit.
Tired of installing millions of plug-ins, libs, etc. I download Nokia SDK All in one Beta and start new 'Mobile QT Application' project in Qt Creator.
I will explain later what to do if we want render our applications with WebKit, now I'm happy that it works fine. I made minor changes in the game, like control system (now there are no buttons, you simply tap the screen - character goes in direction of your tap. I will also try with accelerometer). Tomorrow I will test it on device and if everything will go well I will submit it to the challenge.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

"Impossible is nothing" 9 : 2

I decide not to show everything in here - it has to be a little mysterious and something must motivate you to play when the game will be finished:). What I want to say & show today, two days before the deadline, is very simple table based map editor I write in about 200LOC with simple DOM manipulation using 24 sewers tiles placed in one png file. It is easy and not so annoying to use, just watch the video below. Second part shows early location exiting/entering (it is already changed), Zombies AI, and better than yesterday connected map tiles.
I don't know if tomorrow I will have time to write something because of last corrections. Results will be announced on 3rd June, I have good feelings because it is my birthday, so keep your fingers crossed.

Friday, May 28, 2010

"Impossible is nothing" 8 : 3

IAs I promised before, here is the simple few seconds long video with basic gameplay on uncut scenery tiles. I want to focus now on mechanics, not visual details (I will improve it tomorrow or during the day after).


There is no interaction with Zombies and no Survivors for now, that is my job for the next days.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

"Impossible is nothing", first week off, 4 more days.

Today I improved frame rate detection using Scott Porter's Gamelib javascript library, modified by Brent Silby. Now it keeps constant number of frames on each device, I don't have to calibrate engine when I want test it on Nokia's, and i gained beautiful loading screen for introductory splash graphics. I will write something more about the library later.
I also fix few bugs, change sprites for that prepared by Kuba and start to think about particular missions. Unfortunately because of deadline getting closer every second, we decide to make only 2-3 different 'levels' with 5-6 missions each. It seems to be enough for 10-days-created game:). Last but not least for today - meet our survivors: