Androllz (Working Title)

[marzec]

Hi,

my name is Mario, i'm a hobbyist game developer. I know it's always a problem to register on a forum and immediatly "spam" but i'm in search of testers and figured here would be a good place to find some people that want to try out some new things. So please take my apologies if my first post is in any way offensive.

I'm in the process of writting a game heavily inspired by marble madness and super monkey ball. Here's some screenshots to give you an idea (not final, coder art mind you).

I think i have the basics done, the editor is in place and rendering, physics and control code seem to work very well. However, being the developer i'm of course very used to the control scheme so i'd like to get people try it out and tell me what they think.

Currently there's a couple of levels you can switch by tapping the screen. To control the ball tilt your phone. Upon level start the accelerometer will be calibrated so the position you hold your phone during the first 0.5 seconds of a level is the neutral position. There's no goals within levels yet so just play around with it and try out the controls.

What i'd like to know:

+ Is the experience smooth on your phone? (apart from some stuttering during startup)
+ Do you think the controls are good enough?

You can find the .apk at this address. Due to the use of the NDK you must have Android 1.5 or higher in order for it to work.

Thanks for any comments and have a nice one.

 

[spottyelephant]

Do you need root to install/run, or can i just browse to that address on my phone and download??

 

[-Jester-]

Hello,

Just had a quick go on my HTC Magic (Cupcake).

Overall first impressions are very promising.

The control method is a little sensitive, especially with accelerate and brake.

I wonder if the game may work better in portrait mode, instead of landscape.

Also, if you have played Armadillo Roll, there is a nice feature on there which indicates the amount of tilt

…and just one more thing, have you thought of adding a setting so that you can choose which angle you wish to view the playing field, from aerial to ‘ballcam’!

Keep up the good work, however.

To Answer the previous post, just download to your PC, copy to your SD card, change Application setting to allow unknown sources and use something like Astro to install/uninstall.

 

[marzec]

hi, thanks for the feedback. i'm constantly tweaking the controlls and am trying to fix your observation concerning acceleration and braking. i never thought of doing portrait mode to improve the controls, i'll definetely give that a try. i guess it will also depend on the level design. displaying the tilt control is on my todo list. armadillo roll is of course far superior in terms of graphics, i think however that the controls and physics lack a bit. again tthanks for the great feedback and have a nice one.

 

[Matenrou]

Just tried it on my galaxy, the screen is black. And when I press on the touchscreen it just brings me back to the homescreen.

So... I'm not sure how to rate the smoothnes

 

[G8D]

Just tried it on my galaxy, the screen is black. And when I press on the touchscreen it just brings me back to the homescreen.

So... I'm not sure how to rate the smoothnes

Samsung need to release and update to fix the 3D rendering on the Galaxy.

This game could be great fun, but needs alot of work.

Controls are a little funny but you already know this.
You fall endlessly, this needs to change I know you can tap and get a new level, but what if I want the one I'm on already
If you steer this game in the direction of the likes of MarbleBlast you could be onto a winner. Jumps, power ups, etc etc.
Graphics must be improved, but I would say you should work on functionality and gameplay first.

 

[marzec]

concerning the galaxy problems: as another poster already stated, the galaxy is known for it's flacky opengl drivers. I'm currently not able to reproduce the problem you experienced but will try to get my hands on a galaxy asap.

Concerning the controlls: i'm constantly working on them. It's pretty hard to get that working correctly with the physics engine and i have to rely on others to judge it as i'm already so good at navigating i can't tell wheter they get worse or better after a slight modification.

The graphics are just filler at the moment, programmer's art if you want. The final version will of course be a bit nicer on the eyes.

At the moment it is just a tech demo so the falling part is sort of intentional. The next demo will have a clear goal in each level and might also feature a preliminary menu system so it's easier to chose.

I didn't know MarbleBlast until now. I will definetly try to get some inspiration from it .

I'm really grateful for your feedback as i'm a lone developer who has only access to a single device. Any suggestions, feedback and bug reports are more than welcome.

Thanks and have a nice one!