I've managed to do some work on my engine yesterday. Hope I can gain some momentum this month, because I really need that.
I've managed to do some work on my engine yesterday. Hope I can gain some momentum this month, because I really need that.
Coders rule nr 1: Face ur bugz.. dont cage them with code, kill'em with ur cursor.
Currently I'm reworking my oX engine. It's the product of 4 years of (lazy) development, and some segments were overcomplex (unnecessary complications) so I'm removing what's not needed and making a better foundation, which will take some time. Also, it now works on Android (there are still things left to do), and with a friend (artist/graphics designer) we will try to make a commercial game, and if successful make an iPhone port (once we can afford the appropriate equipment).
Existence is pain
de_jean
How did you make your engine run on Android? Are you using Lazarus?
Cezar Wagenheimer from Green Sauce Games
Programmer of Druids - Battle of Magic, Abra Academy, Abra Academy - Returning Cast, Rabbit Jump, Dreams of a Geisha and Heroes from the Past: Joan of Arc
Wagenheimer's Game Development Blog
The engine and game is compiled as a shared library. I had to modify parts of the engine to work with GLES. A small bit is written in Java, to load the shared library, setup OpenGL (this cannot be done natively) and pass events (such as key and touch) to the engine. Since the goal is to run on a wide range of Android devices, I cannot build completely native applications, since this would require Android 2.3.3, hence the Java part. However, the Java part is a relatively small set of classes.
I've also had some difficulty building a crosscompiler, since there were a few fpc bugs (these were resolved in trunk, except one, but there's a simple fix).
I do use Lazarus, but only as an IDE.
Existence is pain
Working on a pokie/slot machine software, intended for fun and because I feel like making it (desktop game of this
sort isn't really suited for commercial use).
I attached an image (it re-sized to be pretty small though), graphics are simple and made in Photoshop, 4 of them taken straight from Google searches and modified (I have the same problem as Will, no graphical talent what so ever).
Normal game works, reels spin, sounds of reel hit backs, scatter (detonator) sound, feature uses a virtual map for free spin/sub and wild selection and works (actual graphical part of the feature not done, just the functioning).
So far aside from the virtual mapping and other stuff it is very basic, only use UnDelphiX 1.0.9 and DXImageList.Items[N].Draw().
If all goes well eventually, I am considering a port to iOS4 (probably not Android as I do not have an Android device) using Flash (bit 50-50 on that one) or AirPlay SDK.
Nice stuff Chesso, all I can say is graphics truly are a royal pain... But to be honest, I have found mine improving greatly lately due to software changes and input methods changing (yay)... I really suck like hell with a mouse and photoshop. But give me a touch screen and InkScape or Alchemy and life is soo easy. Don't know about the iPad though since I doubt it runs inkscape or krita (two of my favorite after PDN).
About porting, I would port to android first since it is linux and thus you don't need a mac or many changes (depending on how OS dependant code is) then once that works towards iOS last. Just some food for thought.
I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.
Cool! iOS seems to be the cool platform to move to these days. Such an attractive and new platform to play with. But I wouldn't go the Flash route for Apple stuff... iOS doesn't support Flash after all so it wouldn't run.
You can do .NET using Delphi Prism though, you'd have to also learn MonoTouch as well, but it does work and there are lots of Delphi-big-wig level conferences about how to do it. The other option is SDL which you only have to pay for a single license for it. I'm not sure on the price yet, but you can check out the www.libsdl.org site to look it up yourself. It takes a little cash to get onto the iOS platform and App Store, but considering the advantage of all the exposure and ease of distribution, it's way worth it.
I hear ya. I prefer native myself too. The new Java runtime engines are a bit better then the old Sun Microsystems one, but I'd much rather do native any day. I'm hoping the Delphi XE 2 for Mac will at least pump out native apps and not some sort of managed run-time system. That would be disappointing. At least there are more options though right? Better than option A & B and nothing else like a few years ago.
No, not really. One of the reasons I've started using FPC for Android is to create truly native programs (compiled for ARM), and not Java run-time. Better performance and lower memory use. Also, I don't think I'll be able to afford any software for a long time (life is not going well).
Existence is pain
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