3.0.0 beta (ZGE on Android)

Post by **Kjell** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:48 pm

Hej Ville,

Thanks

Tested & working ~

K

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:50 pm

Eater v0.6 comes with the following improvements:

1. Instructions page - press the "?" button at the title page.
2. Possibility to select the initial level - drag the "L" slider at left side of title page.
3. Improved sounds, including samples. They hopefully do not cause crashes on Android devices now (it was sufficient to add filters).
4. Improved playability and advancement of levels.

I'm kindly asking you for testing on various Android devices. Thanks! (I have one tester at home, see the picture, but she in not able to properly test levels above 5

)

Ville - I have a feeling this could be the initial version placed at Google Play. If you think so, could you please prepare the .apk file for me? Thanks. I attached also the application icons.

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:55 pm

Ville - when we can expect building of full Android applications by ZGE; apk, not just zzdc? I do not want to disturb you each time I want to update something at the market.

Post by **VilleK** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:07 am

Here are the files:

http://www.zgameeditor.org/files/Eater-debug.apk
http://www.zgameeditor.org/files/Eater- ... signed.apk

Hey, what a cute little tester! I bet she is brutally honest if there is something about the game she doesn't like

The game keeps getting better. I did have a crash right after hearing the "laughter" sample that plays during game over with no high score. Anyone else getting that? Besides that problem it is a very fun and addictive little game.

I haven't yet researched what it would take to directly generate APK-files from ZGE. Anyone knows of any other tool that does this that I can look at? I hear GM Studio can make Android games, has anyone tested it? Is it fully automated, is the Android SDK required etc?

Post by **Kjell** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:55 am

@Ville

Haven't seen any solutions that don't require the Android SDK to be installed. But generally speaking ( Game Maker, Unity, GameStart etc. ) it's fully automated yes.

Information on how it's done in Game Maker can be found here.

K

Post by **VilleK** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:10 pm

Thanks Kjell, it seems GM uses Android SDK for debugging but this thread suggests that it cannot generate APK-file yet.

Post by **Kjell** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:54 pm

Hej Ville,

VilleK wrote:It seems GM uses Android SDK for debugging but this thread suggests that it cannot generate APK-file yet.

That was a limitation of the Beta version .. to prevent people from publishing apps without having paid for a Game Maker Studio + Android module license.

K

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:36 pm

Another idea: because Music and MusicControl have problems on Android, e.g., interference of overlapping sounds, is not it possible to include the Bass library to ZGE application? See http://www.un4seen.com/forum/?topic=132 ... 1#msg92061 for details. One of possible questions would be: where to place the music files? What about to rework the Music component to work on BASS library and to load XM, IT, S3M, MOD, MPx,... files directly to the ZGE project file, similarly as it is for the current Music component and MIDI. What about licensing for paid Android applications, is not it a problem?

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:32 pm

VilleK wrote:Hey, what a cute little tester! I bet she is brutally honest if there is something about the game she doesn't like

She likes everything in my games, especially after 11:00PM when playing whatever stupidity is a better alternative than sleeping

VilleK wrote:I did have a crash right after hearing the "laughter" sample that plays during game over with no high score. Anyone else getting that?

I'm really unhappy with that, I would never release a crashing final version of an application at Google Play. I got the same crash after 5 minutes of playing Eater v0.6. Ahhhh....

Anyway, I decided to remove 3rd party raw files and to generate my own from wav. The final raws are longer, but seem to be more reliable. I tested the latest Eater v0.7 with improved sounds for many minutes on my Android device and no crash has occurred (yet).

Ville, once again, could you please generate apk files for me? I'm sorry. Or could you provide us with some description of how to build apk files by ourselves?

Post by **VilleK** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:06 pm

No problems, glad to help. Both Eater apk-files updated, same URLs as before.

It works here now. Can't understand why the samples could make it crash earlier though, need to debug that at some point.

And APK generation will be something high on my list too. It will probably require a similar settings dialog like that in GM that Kjell linked to.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:18 pm

yes, a little settings dialog such like that would be great,. set it up once and away we go.

seeing that almost got me to bust out my old copy of GameMaker,. as GM was great fun to work with, however it lacks resolution independence,. where ZGameEditor excels

y offs et · Post by **y offs et** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:24 pm

Great game, Rado1!
on the phone
The sounds are clear now.
I wondered what the slider on the left side did until I set it at 15 and started the game. I would have figured it earlier, if the first time I saw it, it was set at the level I had just game ended at.
When you talk about crashing - didn't happen on this version, I guess the game exiting to the phone home screen, at game over, would be considered a crash. Yes, that happened with a version in the past, but not now.

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:51 am

Remark on APK generation: in addition to the parameters appearing in the GM preference dialog, there should also be some more application-specific settings, e.g., package name, version, application icons, etc.

Post by **VilleK** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:57 am

Latest version: http://www.zgameeditor.org/files/ZGEAndroid-debug.apk

News:

ZExternalLibrary implemented for Android. It currently only works with functions that have a maximum of four parameters. I hope to remove this limit later.

See attached example for code that calls OpenGL directly. It works both on Windows and on Android because it sets the ModuleName property in OnLoaded depeding on the ANDROID setting.

In theory you should be able to specify a full path to a library on the sd-card if you want to test calling BASS or something, but I haven't tested this (project specific libraries should be added to the apk so that will also be a requirement of the apk generator).

Rado1 · Post by **Rado1** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:47 pm

Ville, this is really great! Unfortunately BASS_MusicLoad function has 7 parameters

I tried it anyway, but ZGE application terminates/crashes at starting time.