SpaceWars Android Game

SpaceWars Update: Working on port to OpenGL!!

tjerkw — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:31:35 +0000

Okay i really needed to update this blog. So here it is.

Short summary: i was busy with other things the last few weeks, i decided to port the game to opengl for performance

Firstly: i did not have a lot of time for my game, i am almost done with my master thesis and it still needs some work, also i did several job interviews the last weeks in order to find a good job. And another thing i was busy with: i needed to migrate my server, that was a few days of work.

Anyway about the GAME! The game is getting better however i am not satisfied with the performance. The performance is oaky when there is not a lot happening on the screen. However things become laggy when there are multiple ships and explosions. Therefore i decided to port the whole game to OpengL! This will make the game a lot faster! This choice requires a lot of work on the painting code of the game. However i think i will manager. The users will not see any new things in the game, they will only see that the game is a lot faster.

After that i am going to add more levels and more cool stuff (maybe 3d elements?). Anyway i will keep you updated!

Game Update: Better Controls

tjerkw — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:16:51 +0000

A new update is available on the market. If you’re on an android phone: goto the market to check the game. Otherwise check the game in the market here. It has the following improvements:

Better controls with accelerometer
Joystick visualizes accelerometer effect
Joystick can be used by dragging it on the screen (overrides accelerometer)
Smaller game size: decreased the size of some sprites and did some other optimizations (4.7MB after unpacking, so decreased by almost 2MB)

The game is still to easy but the priorities now are the controls. I think they work nicely now and its time to make the levels more interesting. Coming closer to the final game!

By the way: some users report that the boss cause the game to lag. I do not have this problem on my HTC Magic. Maybe this problem is HTC Dream (G1) specific? Can somebody acknowledge this?

SpaceWars Beta released on Android Market!

tjerkw — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:37:43 +0000

Yes: finally the time has come: a Beta Version!

I tested the game a lot on my device and decided it was a good time to release the first beta version on the android market (link to market for android users).

I released the game in the middle of the night at 02:30 . It was downloaded more than 500 times already!

This version is free and mainly released to gather user feedback which can be used to make the game even better! I already got some useful feedback.

I really appreciate the feedback: Thanks everybody!

Greetings from Tjerk!

Video of SpaceWars on my HTC Magic

tjerkw — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:05:04 +0000

A lot has happened the last 2 weeks. The most important thing: i got my HTC Magic!!

Here is a demo of my game. There is a bug with sensor+sound but i have fixed it this evening by applying damping on the sensor values. More info in the video:

I hope to add an alpha version to the android market this week!

Keep checking for updates!

Boss Logic, Level Logic & more

tjerkw — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:58:50 +0000

Did some work on the game this weekend. Here is a list:

Code logic for boss-enemies
Implemented one new boss enemy (See screenshots)
Implemented game logic for levels (boss health barr, exit when level is completed)
Added a level-progressbar to the right which shows how far you are in a level
Added new graphics for messages during gameplay (see screenshots)
Now game loading is done in seperate thread, and one sees a load-progressbar before the game is loaded
And more (which i cant remember

The initial work for multiple levels and multiple dificulties is done. So thats next on my list.

Here a screenshots with some new features:

I am coming closer to finishing the game! However it will take some time.

Shall i put a beta version for free on the android market?

Video of the game on the G1 (HTC Dream)

tjerkw — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:59:20 +0000

Here a video of the game running on the G1. Thanks to Luís Abreu for posting it! The video also shows a bug (when first pressed the play button)… so it needs some work.

New Artwork: Intro, Menu, Bullets + New Weapon

tjerkw — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:54:06 +0000

Yesterday I did a lot of development for the android game. The new features + screenshots are listed below:

Game renamed from AirAttack to SpaceWars: main reason is that the ship flies in space
Created an intro/splashscreen animation when you start the game
Created new artwork for the menu
Created animations for the menu (the buttons fade in & and animation when pressed)
Created sprites for the bullets: bullets are now shiny, and they have different colors!
Created a new weapon: A laser weapon, everything that hits the laser is killed. Really looks neat!

Some screenshots:

New artwork for the game menu

New background and new bullets

The laser weapon in action!

And a youtube video of the game running on an emulator (on a slow pc, thats why you see the hickups). In the end of the video you will see the laser weapon in action!

The video is made with my digital camera in potrait-view.. So thats why it is rotated 90 degrees.. so rotate your head when viewing the video

BTW: I am searching for someone to run the app on a real phone a make a video of the game: too see the accelerometer controls working Anybody interested? Contact me: tjerkw@gmail.com, and i will sent you the APK (for android 1.5)

The First Enemy Boss Ship!

tjerkw — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Today I created the 3d model for the first boss enemy ship. All ships are premodelled in 3d with the open source tool called Blender. Then I render some images which can be used to create sprites for the game.

To show you how the boss looks I created an 3d camera-fly-over animation, check it out:

Also an image that was rendered from above (thats how they well be used in the game):

Image of the new (and first) enemy boss

Now that the sprites are ready I have to create the game-logic and code to make the new boss really a part of the game!

Apart from that I have also created new explosion sprites this week, because i was not happy with the previous explosions sprites. Again Blender was used to create the images (blender has a powerful of particle engine, ideal for explosions).

I created two types of explosions: circle-wave explosions (with a hole in the middle) and solid explosions (without the hole). Some images of the explosions can be seen below:

The AirAttack Android Game in development!

tjerkw — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:32:05 +0000

Hello Everybody!

A few months ago I started developing a game for the Android Platform. The game, named AirAttack, is a classical 2d scrolling shooter game (ala Raptor).

Screenshots of the game. Shows the menu an the gameplay.

To give everybody insights into the development process (and to get people excited) I thought about starting a weblog. So… Here it is!

Whenever I develop something new in the game I will post a message here with screenshots and occasionally some video material. So if you’re into Android, have an Android phone, or just like to follow a mobile game developer then this is the place to be!

In this first blog-post i will explain the current status of the game. Well lets start off with a video of the current game:

The game currently has the following features:

Multiple ways to contol the ship:
- Trackball: moving and shooting
- Accelerometer: moving (by tilting the device)
- DPad: moving
- Touchscreen: for switching weapons and firing the megabomb
Multiple weapons for the ship
- Simple gun
- Spray gun (variable #bullets and spread angle)
- Missile gun
- Boomerang weapon
There is a megabomb which destroys everthing
Multiple enemies
Multiple fly paths for the enemies (i alsa develop a PathCreator app to create fly paths for enemies)
Initial support for collecting credits (currently only coins, but other powerups will be added)

I am planning to built the following features:

Support for levels, and creation of levels
Support for different dificulty levels
More enemies
- Multiple megabosses
- Ground turrets
- Mines (and a ship that places the mines)
Adding of a laser weapon

So this is my first post. I think my next post will be about the development environment that i use. However i will try to not go into the technical details too much. So i will try to never post code-listings and keep a focus on the game and the gameplay.

So are you excited? Do you have comments? Let me hear it!

You can also follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/tjerkw (if you’re into that)