Created *ENTIRELY* on an Asus Transformer tablet. Yo dawg, I heard you like Androids, so I made a game on my Android so you can put it on your Android.
Butchery of memes aside...
--Description--
Your friends are stuck on a burning platform. Tilt your device around to keep them from falling off. Pick up items to stop the burning temporarily, rebuild the platform, or have one of your friends make a daring escape.
Didn't expect to see an android app here. :) Drawing walls seemed extremely short lived to the point that they couldn't be useful, interesting use of tilting to maintain multiple objects though.
How did you make this on your transformer - I'm intrigued. Does it run some cut-down version of eclipse? Or did you just write code on the transformer, then copy it to a PC to compile the app? Either way, this is amazing and I want to know more!
aaronsnowswell: My IDE was an app called AIDE, available on Google Play. Not only is it a Java editor with autocomplete, code highlighting, refactoring, and the like but it also comes with an Android SDK compiler so no I did not have to transfer anything to a PC to compile it.
AIDE has dropbox built in, which I used to get prototype apks off the tablet long enough to pass them around to friends and upload them to my website for previews. It also has Git integration but I have not tried it.
My one wrinkle was that in order to put the apk on Google Play I needed a unique keystore, and that I had to generate on my laptop. Once I had that though, I tossed it onto the Transformer and used that to sign the apk and Google Play was happy.
If you would like a Linux terminal experience on your Android device you might also like Terminal IDE. It too comes with a Java compiler, as well as a c compiler and Vim.
Pretty neat! I love the strategies one begins coming up with after a few rounds. The line drawing mechanic is a nice idea, although sometimes my lines either do nothing, or have the opposite effect on the moving thingies. Impressive work getting this done from scratch on an Android tablet!
*I'm posting this on all non-browser games I bring up in an attempt to encourage folks to make browser games next time around. Do not take it personally.*
When hundreds of people make non-browser games, that means that, to play all of the entries, I would need to download hundreds of games to my computer. I typically use OS X, so Windows-only entries are particularly inconvenient.
To be honest, I don't see how it relates to the theme... but I have incredible respect for the constraints you put on yourself for this. The game's stable, looks okay, controls well. Would be nice if the walls stayed for a while? After a minute I was just flailing wildly..
What was it like going android only? Would you do it again?
gritfish - The ways in which it relates to the theme
1. The game world is incredibly small. 2. It shrinks by the second. 3. The view area also is small given the nature of the platform. It literally fits in your hand
piman : I suspect it's two things in particular. Particle effects and line nodes. I think I'll cut those both down.
To everyone, I agree that the lines feel like they disappear to quickly. I hope to address this in a post compo build, which will unfortunately have to wait until after the competition is over.
Hey Dr. Soda! Thanks for the game, I really liked the music, and the gameplay/pacing is perfect for a mobile platform.
I though that using the walls was a bit hard - It required a lot of precision to make your friends bounce off the walls correctly. Also, I would change the difficulty curve a bit, make the game start a bit easier.
I find it very difficult to control my friends and I am unable to keep them away from the edges. Also, the walls are near to useless, at least I couldn't make any use of them.
Very fun! I have to say I really enjoyed this and i'm probably gonna leave it on my phone :P The one thing I think you can tweak is the difficulty, its a little too hard :P
Hazematman, thank you for the kind words. Those of you who do leave the app on your phone will of course be able to easily get ahold of post-compo revisions when those happen.
Unlike a web game, or a game deployed as an exe, it's not as simple to have a "compo/post-compo" build pair available for download when you're distributing like this. So, once the rating period has ended I'll make available this compo version in archival format and the Google Play link will be the "living" post-compo after the fact.
Longer lived (or wider, so they'd be easier to hit the friends with) edges would make it a lot deeper (in trying to group them, or get them in one direction), allowing for less frantic gameplay and a bit of tactic. Otherwise, quite enjoyable.
Definitely too hard for me but really fun while I actually manage to survive! I think maybe if walls just lasted a while longer but you could only have so many at once it'd feel more balanced and less futile. Giant nerd points for doing this all on your transformer!
Alright so I managed to get my hands on an android phone for the promised review, and here it is!
First, let me start by saying that I think it's pretty awesome that you managed to get a game finished on android in just 48 hours! It plays really well! So kudos on that.
As for the game itself, I find the concept pretty nice actually. Having to control two avenues at once in order to keep the boxes from falling. The problem is that it feels a bit too unforgiving.
It's already rather difficult as it is, but the ground progressively gets smaller which makes it very hard. I'm not sure if there's currently a way to win or if it's just survive as long as you can. But either way I think if you tone down the difficulty a bit it could be pretty nice!
A suggestion is to maybe have the lines you draw with your finger last for a few seconds longer. Also I can see how you can build upon this by adding different kinds of boxes, different kinds of powerups. It could totally be a neat little arcade game!
Great game. Loved the ultra retro look&feel of the game. The concept is also quite innovative (at least for this round of LD). Sometimes I felt like tilting my phone to move the particles in some direction so perhaps you may add a little bit of "gravity" that works by tilting your phone, but it's not THAT strong as to allow you to save your "friends" by only tilting. It's a hard game but I enjoyed it. Btw, works like a charm on a Galaxy S (GT-I9000B)
I'm very impressed that you were able to code something like this entirely on a tablet for the competition. I'd say that's a pretty nice "meta" way of reinforcing the theme. :D
Comments52
AIDE has dropbox built in, which I used to get prototype apks off the tablet long enough to pass them around to friends and upload them to my website for previews. It also has Git integration but I have not tried it.
My one wrinkle was that in order to put the apk on Google Play I needed a unique keystore, and that I had to generate on my laptop. Once I had that though, I tossed it onto the Transformer and used that to sign the apk and Google Play was happy.
If you would like a Linux terminal experience on your Android device you might also like Terminal IDE. It too comes with a Java compiler, as well as a c compiler and Vim.
When hundreds of people make non-browser games, that means that, to play all of the entries, I would need to download hundreds of games to my computer. I typically use OS X, so Windows-only entries are particularly inconvenient.
Please consider making a browser game next time.
What was it like going android only? Would you do it again?
1. The game world is incredibly small.
2. It shrinks by the second.
3. The view area also is small given the nature of the platform. It literally fits in your hand
To everyone, I agree that the lines feel like they disappear to quickly. I hope to address this in a post compo build, which will unfortunately have to wait until after the competition is over.
I though that using the walls was a bit hard - It required a lot of precision to make your friends bounce off the walls correctly. Also, I would change the difficulty curve a bit, make the game start a bit easier.
Cheers!
The one thing I think you can tweak is the difficulty, its a little too hard :P
Unlike a web game, or a game deployed as an exe, it's not as simple to have a "compo/post-compo" build pair available for download when you're distributing like this. So, once the rating period has ended I'll make available this compo version in archival format and the Google Play link will be the "living" post-compo after the fact.
First, let me start by saying that I think it's pretty awesome that you managed to get a game finished on android in just 48 hours! It plays really well! So kudos on that.
As for the game itself, I find the concept pretty nice actually. Having to control two avenues at once in order to keep the boxes from falling. The problem is that it feels a bit too unforgiving.
It's already rather difficult as it is, but the ground progressively gets smaller which makes it very hard. I'm not sure if there's currently a way to win or if it's just survive as long as you can. But either way I think if you tone down the difficulty a bit it could be pretty nice!
A suggestion is to maybe have the lines you draw with your finger last for a few seconds longer. Also I can see how you can build upon this by adding different kinds of boxes, different kinds of powerups. It could totally be a neat little arcade game!
Btw, works like a charm on a Galaxy S (GT-I9000B)