Android UI patterns

Quite a few times since I switched job and started working with Android and iPhone development I've ended up in discussions about how to handle different kinds of UI interaction on Android. "This is how it's done on iPhone, but what is the standard way of doing it on Android?"

It is often not immediately clear how things should be done either. Android developers have been allowed to design their UIs almost any way they want to, often resulting in less than optimal UIs.

Luckily there are a few sites that tries to remedy this and suggest good ways of solving different UI interaction patterns. One of the most commonly referred to seem to be Android Patterns. Google recently launched a new Design section on their developer site and it's looking promising as well.

Dweller passed 10k active Android installs!

Today when I uploaded version 1.10.6 of Dweller to the Android Market I noticed in the statistics a significant increase in the number of installed games. The number of active installs went from around 8k to 10k. The total number of Android installs is 35000 so it's almost one third of the users who decide to keep the game installed!

Steambirds for Android

If you enjoyed the Flash version of Steambirds you will be thrilled to hear that the developers have teamed up with Halfbrick (the people behind Fruit Ninja) to release a sequel to Steambirds for Android devices! The game is scheduled for release in October and it's said to be free.

Offical trailer

Dweller on tablets?

I haven't yet hopped on the tablet train so I don't really know how well Dweller plays on a tablet. Is it at all playable or is the graphics too small? A friend of mine is working at HTC and I plan to start working him to hand me a HTC Flyer as soon as they're released. Until I get my hands on a tablet I would very much appreciate hearing from anyone who has tried Dweller on a tablet.

Xperia Play in Stockholm

When passing by Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm on my way to work I came across a pretty cool installement/commercial/guerilla marketing campaign for Sony Ericsson's new Xperia Play Android phone:

I'm not really convinced that the phone will become a hit, but I do like the commercials for the phone and Sony Ericsson's ambition of putting gaming into focus.

PS In the bizarre case that you've missed any of the Sony Ericsson commercials for the Xperia they can all be watched on their official YouTube channel.

Sweden is finally on the Google Android market radar!

Google has finally announced support for paid Android apps for Swedish developers and users! This is a huge thing for Swedish Android users and developers and I'm sure this addition along with the other newly opened markets will be a boost to the whole market!

What will this mean for Dweller you may ask? At the moment nothing will change. Dweller will remain free of charge. I may at some point try out the market and see if I can attract some attention, but I would prefer to keep Dweller free. My only wish would be that more users who find the game fun would consider donating via Paypal, either in-game or via the link here on the blog.

Dweller 1.5.0 - sleeping monsters and tile scaling

The latest version introduced automatic scaling of map graphics on high resolution handsets. I thought this was a good feature to add since I had received some feedback that it was hard to play on high resolution handsets. Apparently a lot of people did not agree with this... I've received a bunch of e-mails about it so I decided I had to bring back the scaling option to the menu. I have moved all settings to a separate sub-menu, and you will now be able to access tile scaling (Android only), popup toggling, keybindings and language settings in there.

In this version some monsters may be generated asleep. This means that you have a chance to sneak past them or simply move up close and whack them on the head! I will add a lot more features around the new sleep status. Spells that will make monsters fall asleep, backstabbing of sleeping monsters and so on

Rangers should also rejoice as I've upped the chance of finding a better bow and also added an Elven Bow and a Crossbow to the ranged arsenal.

NEW FEATURES

• Added Elven Bow. Low weight, high damage.
• Added Crossbow. High weight, very high damage.
• Monsters can be generated asleep
• Added a settings menu and moved key bindings and language settings there
• Android - Reintroduced the option to change tile size
• Language settings shown the first time Dweller is launched

BUG FIXES

• Selected language is now properly saved between games
• It is no longer possible to kill yourself if a spellcast backfires

Dweller 1.4.2 - more bugs!

I guess last release didn't really solve all the issues... I did a bit of coding today, and with the use of some autoplay/bot magic I nailed another recently introduced bug caused by monster falling through trap doors. I also made a stab at resizing the UI on highres Android handsets. I've only tried this on an emulator as I don't have a WVGA handset myself. Please let me know how well it works out for you.

CHANGES

• Android - Graphics is scaled at higher resolutions

BUG FIXES

• Trapdoors caused unwanted behaviour when a monster fell through it (nullpointers)
• Spelling errors and formatting

Download and installation instructions from the usual place: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller

Dweller 1.4.0 Annual Roguelike Release Party version

Wow, with the least possible margin I managed to get a new Dweller version out on the Android market and on the homepage. The localization effort I've been posting about elsewhere in this newsgroup took way longer than expected and it's not finished yet. The current version has support for English and slightly wacky Swedish. I need to work a bit more on the formatting and syntax but I'll get there eventually.

Besides the localization support a couple of new features are in as well:

NEW FEATURES

• Trap doors that will make you fall to the level below 
• Added action buttons on the map UI for touchscreen devices to simplify targeting and menu access 
• Removed the statusbar at the bottom of the map UI and added proper unit frames for the player and the current target 

CHANGES

• The merchant's inventory should get pruned and updated in a better way 
• Fog of war ghosts of monsters have been removed. They were more of a nuisance than a help. 

BUG FIXES

• Potions can no longer become enchanted by the world generator when generated from a predefined spawn point 
• Saved games are no longer deleted when loaded at startup. The save game is kept until the game is ended to reduce the risk of losing a game to an application crash 
• Saving redefined keys did no longer work 

Download from:

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller

Help! Auyuda! Aiuto! Ajuda! Hilfe! Aider! помощь! 帮助!

As a part of my effort to have a new release ready for the ARRP I'm currently adding localization support to Dweller. I'm aware that this is a "nice to have" feature, and by no means a requirement. I still do this now for two reasons:

1. Dweller runs on Android handsets and that exposes the game to players from all around the world. Players who would normally not play a roguelike and who are more likely to do so if they can play it in their own language. 
2. The effort required to make the game localizable increases for every feature I add, for every item, monster, spell and so on. The longer I wait the harder it will be. Once in place it will add a slight overhead each time I add more text/content, but that is acceptable. 

My main concern now is how to actually get the game translated to more languages than English and Swedish. I have received offers to help out with localization that I will pick up on, but still, I need to make sure I cover all the big languages. So, if you are able to translate English into Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin), Portoguese, Russian, German, French, Italian or any other language and you are willing to help bring Dweller to your native language please drop me a line!

Dweller 1.3.0 - this time with Cupcake support for real!

Well, what can I say. I failed in adding Android 1.5 Cupcake support even though I claimed doing so in the last release. It all boiled down to the incorrect minimum SDK version specified in the manifest file used when generating the application for the Andoird Market. This is now done and while I was at it I also tried to focus a bit on the Android crash bugs I get reported via the built in Android crash report system (a very helpful feature indeed!).

One of the major gripes some Android players have with Dweller is that when the app crashes an ongoing game is lost. I do realise that this is not good and I have tried to tweak how Dweller behaves during the entire application life cycle. Most of the issues I've seen reported are related to how Dweller handles when the application is paused, most often when an incoming call arrives. I hope that with the changes in this version the game will be more stable and lost games will be much fewer. Please report your experience of the stability of the game here or via e-mail. Your feedback is invaluable to me!

Get the latest version via the Android Market or via the instructions here.

NEW FEATURES

• Added an option to Use All (for instance use 3 Mushrooms of healing in one go, without having to go in to the menu between each use)
• Added Potion of Mutation
• Pushable stones
• Some rooms within the dungeon have predefined spawn points for items and monsters when the map is generated

CHANGES

• Game is now saved when moving between levels. This will prevent complete loss of your character if the game crashes

BUG FIXES

• Floating damage text was not shown correctly for ranged attacks
• J2ME and J2SE - Floating damage text was clipped
• Almost insta-death by draning bug solved (Vampire bats were lethal)
• Android - Crash bug on app exit
• Android - Cupcake was not supported afterall due to an incorrect minimum SDK version

Dweller 1.2.1

I found an issue with screen clipping on the latest release when drawing floating combat text on Android handsets. This was a minor issue, but annoying enough that I decided to make a patch release to fix it. I also added a couple of small features as well, but this should still be considered a patch release.

Download instructions here.

NEW FEATURES

• Added a Buy all/Sell all command
• A message is shown when you do not have enough money to buy an item
• Added a low hitpoint warning message

CHANGES

• Adjusted font height to work better in both landscape and portrait mode

BUG FIXES

• Android - Floating damage text was clipped

Dweller 1.2 released - now with support for cupcakes

It is time for another Dweller release again. This release adds backwards compatibility for Android handsets (Cupcake through to Froyo). The release also contains some highly anticipated bugfixes for the J2ME version, some new features, a couple of changes and a bunch of minor bugfixes.

Download Dweller here.

NEW FEATURES

• Version check at startup to avoid loading invalid saved data
• Floating text animations above monsters and player when taking damage and upon xp gain
• Added some stat gain potions
• Amount of gold shown in the bottom status bar when interacting with the merchant

CHANGES

• Added some extra info to the saved scores (char level and max depth)
• Chests, stairs and traps will no longer be created in water
• Updated the splash screen logo
• Improved scrolling in menues, especially when using a touch screen

FIXES

• J2ME - Exiting the app in any other way than from the game menu did not save any ongoing game
• J2ME - Some of the default keybindings for navigation conflicted with keybindings for inventory and main menu on some handsets (SE C702 among others)
• Worg graphics was still incorrect - doh!
• The game over screen was shown multiple times which caused weird behaviour and multiple score entries
• When enchanting a wielded weapon it gets unwielded but not wielded again. This was unintentional and has been solved.
• When enchanting an item you have more than one of the whole stack got enchanted. Only stacks of ammo can get enchanted now
• It is no longer possible to enchant a quiver of normal arrows as those are of unlimited supply
• On really rare occasions the game crashed when entering a new level
• Infrequent crash bug when dying

Dweller 1.1.3 released

Time for another update. This time it's a mix of bug fixes, graphical tweaks and some changes to the save/load code in the Android version. Changes:

NEW FEATURES

- Monster descriptions are shown upon first encounter

CHANGES

- Underlying floor tile rendered for traps, doors and chests

- Android - save/load code reworked. Should work on 2.2 devices now

- When selling an equipped item you have more than one of you no longer un-equip the item first

BUG FIXES
- Solved a recently introduced bug with the map generator that could cause disconnected levels

Download and installtion instructions at http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller#Download_and_Installation_instructions

Dweller 1.0 released

I released a new version of Dweller today. The new version comes packed with goodies, most notably a well deserved graphical overhaul, courtesy of Oryx. The graphics also comes with simple idle animations. In the next version I have plans for things like attack and spell animations.

In this version I have also decided to remove the ASCII version of the display completely and make the game more accessible to new players outside of the roguelike scene.

Another brand new feature is the merchant on the surface from whom you can buy and sell items. This should increase survivability quite a bit and make the game easier.

Download from:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller#Download_and_Installation_instructions

Change log:

NEW Brand new graphics
NEW Simple idle animations
NEW Merchant on the surface to buy and sell from
NEW Scroll of Recall to move between surface and deepest dungeon level visited

CHANGE ASCII mode removed

FIX Null pointer on rare occasion when switching level
FIX Null pointer when viewing an empty inventory/ability category
FIX Runetime exception when restarting the game after it has been halted (Android)

New graphics for Dweller

hSince the initial release of the Android version of Dweller I have come to realize that the current graphics for Dweller simply wont work on higher resolutions. The 8x8 tiles will not look good when scaled to above twice their size and I need at least 24x24 pixel tiles for high resolution devices.

I decided to make a post on a few pixel artist sites like Pixel Joint and Pixelation. I was surprised by the number of replies I got and the quality of the sample artwork many of the pixel artists sent me. I finally made a decision to work with a really talented US based pixel artist who goes by the handle Oryx. I first saw Oryx work at TIG Source a while back and was struck by the retro style and the crispness and overall coolness of the graphics he makes. I'm happy to be working with him and hope to have a new version with Oryx' graphics ready in a week or two.

Here's a few screendumps from a dev. version of Dweller showing the new graphics:

The guy next to the warrior with the sword is a merchant. In a coming version of Dweller you will be able to buy and sell things to the merchant to get upgrades and means of improving your survivability in the dungeon.

Dweller for Android released!

I'm happy to announce my first release of Dweller for Google Android! The version is a bit of a beta version, but is perfectly playable. I want to improve the UI and graphics much more before I can say that I have a proper version for Android.

Dweller for Android can be downloaded for free from the Android marketplace (do a search for Dweller and you should be able to find it), via this direct URL: market://search?q=pname:org.roguelikedevelopment.dweller.android or using the QR-code on this page.

New versions for J2ME and J2SE have also been released, but not much has changed since the last release. Changes and additions:

NEW All text now has a small drop shadow

CHANGE Locked the navigation keys completely from being redefined as it risks screwing things up if redefined the wrong way

CHANGE Added left/right commands as valid ways of navigating back and forth in menues (this used to work in old versions and is now back on player request)

Download from: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller

Dweller on Android coming soon

I got my HTC Legend a couple of days ago, and I immediately started coding on the adaptation of Dweller for Android handsets. The process is a fairly simple two step process:

1) Create a main app and implement an interface for providing the core game code with a means to load files, get default keys etc.

2) Create a view/gui class and implement an interface for providing the generic UI code with a way to draw tiles, text and primitives

The above is already done and Dweller is running on my Legend, BUT the much bigger resolution paired with the less-accurate-than-mouse touch screen (or do I have huge hands?) makes it hard to interact with the game in a good enough way. The graphics I use is simply too small, even at 16x16 it is hard to tap on the exact item/Monster/dungeon feature on the map you want to interact with. I am currently working on a context sensitive action bar that will show available game actions such as a Pick Up icon when standing on an item, an Open/Close icon when standing next to a door (problem is how to solve the case where you're standing next to more than one door), a Menu and an Inventory icon to open the main menu and inventory respectively and so on. I am also looking into changing the graphics and possibly ripping graphics from somewhere until I find someone who can help me do some larger graphics of my own. Any takers? :-)