Friday, February 26, 2010

Generala updated to v1.4

 - Bug fix: Incorrect Bonus Yahtzee points
 - New feature: Undo a point selection

This revision started with a bug report -- I wasn't adhering to the proper rules of Bonus Yahtzee.  I double-checked to confirm that was true.  This didn't take too long to fix, and while I was doing it I noticed a second comment crop up about the lack of undo.  I'd known of that for a while and decided to take a look while I was tinkering.

Implementation wasn't as bad as I was worried about, though it does touch a number of scattered pieces of logic.  The PlayerData object tracks your previous move, clearing that value between turns.  The button handler checks if that's set to something valid and will remove the previous move and execute the new one as needed.  There's some odd corner cases due to the way I handle Bonus Yahtzee, but that got worked out after some testing and iteration.

Now that it's done, you can click on as many valid score selections as you want before hitting next turn, and it'll reassign your points appropriately -- including updating the title bar.  If you click a score, then click the same one a second time, it'll take the score away entirely and you can proceed to reroll.

So, a bug fix and a new feature.  Enjoy!

Current Project: Synergy

Moving up the complexity ladder a tad, I'm shooting for a Tetris-style falling blocks puzzle game.  In actuality it's a bit more like Puyo Puyo than Tetris, but the falling pieces don't quite work the same, and the progression's going to work differently.

Anyway, to make this work as a foundation-builder for future products, Synergy is an OpenGL app instead of using Canvas (which is used for 2D graphics).  So far this has worked out pretty well, and I've even been able to mix and match Android UI layout with the in-game assets without too much trouble.  The game plays and looks pretty good at this point, though there's still some temp art to replace, and the title screen/settings/etc menus aren't done yet.

The biggest hurdles so far have mostly been getting a reasonable art path in place.  As of a couple days ago I have a converter from OBJ to my custom (static) model format, so I can create models in blender, export them, then import them into Synergy.  Texture coordinates, normals, etc all seem fine.  Not bad!

The current needs-doing task is making proper models for the game pieces.  I've got some roughed in now but haven't exported the models yet.  Those should get in this weekend, then I'll hopefully move on to actual game progression (getting faster/more difficult as you get more matches).

Getting going

I've been developing Android apps for about a month now on and off, and figured it was about time to start organizing this a little better. The goal here is to discuss projects, issues that I run into during development, and what's available.

The secondary goal is to stick with this over the long term and not let it languish, which seems to happen often in this segment.