Status update

To not fall behind with the blogging, I've created this post just to give a status update on my current project even if no major development has been made.

To be able to easier create material for the game, I've made an export script for Blender that exports models to a custom file format that I'm now able to load into the project.

The two threads that the game consists of have gotten some structure and a way to communicate with each other. The threads have a reference to a container that they are able to send handlers to which updates the contents of the container in a thread safe manner.

I've ported an entity system that I've used in another project for the game thread. I will probably continue with the renderer though, before i start to populate the entity system so that it supports som basic rendering and can render the things I put in the entity system.

I expect I will be using these kinds of status posts more frequently now in the beginning since I feel I really can't make any more decisions until i get a better understanding of the ground I'm trying to build this game on.

Project ideas - First draft

Alright! The idea for my next project will be a Zelda - Phantom Hourglass-inspired game that will run on Android. The game will be a typical adventure - rpg viewed from above and controlled with the thouchscreen. The plan was first to limit the environment to inside caverns and dungeons but I don't see any reason as to not include places with an open type of landscape. As I still want to include dark areas with fog of war, the openGL ES 2.0 will be fun working with since I get to play with shaders. 

Because of ES 2.0 I don't think i will go any lower than to support Froyo-based handhelds. I also think i will exclude the low density and the small screen size configuration. This will still support the majority of all handhelds (85% - thanks to Google for these, these and these numbers). 

As I want to learn more about Android I've decided that I will not discard Android-specific solutions over a more general solution which is easier to port to other platforms.

 Some implementation-specific decisions:

• Fragments will be used for the different views/activities, e.g. the main menu, the level select menu, the "game" view, etc.  
• The rendering will be executed in a separate thread (from the "game" thread)
• An entity system will be used in the "game" thread 

Not much game design has been done so that needs some work and as far as implementation goes, I will probably start with the structure of the different "game" threads and how they will communicate and then start with the entity system. I will postpone the solution of how to structure the fragments for the different activities/view or start with it on the side - separate from the "game" activity/view.

The app will be divided into two different versions, one with ads and one without so I will probably have to check out ad options like AdMob and AdSense and how they will be implemented.

Prettify added

Just testing google's prettify to format source code.

@Deprecated
public class Foo {

    // comment
    private String bar;
    private float primitive;

    public Foo(String bar) {
        this.bar = "foo" + bar;
    }
}

 <TableLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    … />

Kudos to this post on how to add prettify to Blogger. The colors I use is in the source code of this page. The idea was to make it look like eclipse standard color theme.

Blog up

This blog has been created in an attempt to log my progress in projects I am currently doing or will be doing in the future. The main reason for tracking my work is so that i get a greater understanding of what I am doing by writing a kind of a wrap up of the work I've done so far.

I'm starting this blog now since I've just reached a conclusion on a project on aspect-oriented programming and are looking for a new project on the side of my studies at the university.

I'm currently looking at the Fragment feature in the Android API which made the TabActivity deprecated since Honeycomb (3.0). I would like to be able to use my toolkit for managing fog of war in OpenGL since I haven't really been able to use it that much. Creating some small games for my Desire is fun so I'm probably going in that direction.