Change Isn't Always Welcome.

Some people don't seem to like the border enemies, thinking about calling them fence runners. With a 1 star raing, paul says "Oh well, it was fun until the latest update." Well the last update made it work on 1.6 QVGA devices(Tattoo), added highlights to the border to give it a little depth, and added border enemies. The border enemies are the only real change - they are obviously the culprit.

I had implemented border enemies, but hadn't finalized their use in the game. But after finding out that the game didn't work on 1.6 QVGA devices, I wanted to push a fix as quickly as I could. So I made the fix, and just put 1 border enemy on level 2, and 2 on all later levels. Border enemies require a lot more attention to the game. You can no longer assume safety on the border and look away mid game. Having "casual" gameplay on a handheld device can be a great strength though. A game doesn't have to be "intense" or require 100% attention to be a solid game. And it wasn't my intention to take that away.

I rushed a change and broke a strong feature of gameplay in my game. And not only is that a good feature, taking it away(publishing beta versions) also alienates existing users. I hope Paul, hans on to Claustrum Lite long enough to get the next update, which will happen today, within 24 hours of his comment.

My solution to the problem is to add 2 game types, "Casual" and "Intense." Currently the only difference is the presence of border enemies. This allows gameplay to continue as users have grown accustomed to, or to choose a mode that requires more attention and skill.

Claustrum Lite Didn't work on 1.6 QVGA?

And getting bad reviews because of it too. Today Claustrum Lite recieved a 1 star rating with a comment, "Doesn't work on tattoo" I have gotten a similar comment about the Droid which I knew wasn't true since I develop on a Droid, but I wanted to check this one out. The HTC Tattoo runs Android 1.6 on a QVGA phone. I build an emulator to match the Tattoo, and "New Game" crashed my app.

It turned out that I wasn't even using the code that was causing the crash. So it was an easy solution to remove that code that made a bitmap that wasn't even being drawn any more. Another thing that fixed the problem was to include the bitmap in the "drawable-ldpi-v4" resource directory. I had been relying on this file to exist in the "drawable" resource directory, and for most cases that seems to work. For me it was breaking in 1.6 if I called Bitmap.extractAlpha() in my Application's onCreate on a bitmap that I just tried to load from resource that was in the "drawable" directory. The bitmap loads, at least eventually, because removing the extractAlpha() call solves the problem, but putting the bitmap in the "drawable-ldpi-v4" resource directory also runs successfully.

I also tested a 1.6 HVGA but did not have the same problem. It took me a while to configure a 2.0.1 QVGA emulator, but when I did, the "bad" code worked there too. So it looks like it was isolated to 1.6 QVGA devices. I know 1.6 is still about half of the android market, but don't know how many of those are QVGA.

Perhaps the problem is calling extractAlpha() on an auto-scalled resource, or maybe decoding the resource doesn't complete before I was calling extractAlpha() on the following line, if the resource isn't in the most direct resource directory.

I thought I was covering all bases testing with 1.5 and 2.0.1, but that isn't true. I wasn't testing all resolutions/densities. But even if I was I still would have missed the problem because it appears to only exist in one desnity on one OS version. Time to up the testing procedure, but at least I got all of my emulators built now.

I hope this cuts back on some negative reviews. I haven't really fixed the header info(score, level, lives, etc.) yet, but not crashing is more important than looking perfect for tonight. I am going to publish the fix tonight, along with everything else I have been working on, most excitingly, border enemies!

Claustrum Reviewed by MeAndMyDroid

Alster, over at MeAndMyDroid(a great blog if you are interested in checking out Android game reviews), reviewed Claustrum Lite the other day. I just stumbled across it by searching Google for my game. It is great to see that someone took notice of my game. The review is fairly positive, and notes many of the shortcommings that it currently has, and that I am working to improve. Mainly that each level can easily be won by setting a trap and being patient enough for the ball to eventually bounce into it.

The initial way I am going to handle this problem is by adding border enemies. They are 80% implemented and may even make a debuit in v0.5.0 But now I also have a few other ideas that stem around changing the ball to a more organic enemy. Giving him a bit of smarts(and perhaps weapons and friends) rather than just having him bounce around the area. This may also allow me to put a bit of a story around the game.

From the beginning, I have been planning on have a free version and a cheap paid version. I don't like ads, and I don't want the free version to be a "demo." I want the Lite version to be fully playable and enjoyable, and just for the paid version to have a little bit extra. Smart enemies and a story my be just the solution - Abduction does a great job of this. The free version is a great game on its own, and World Attack adds a story, themes, characters, challenges, and levels. If I can't figure out how to do this well, the whole game will be free, but I think if it can be done well, it is beneficial for everyone.

Claustrum Game Images

Here are a few images of the game in its current state. I just added the Title to the Main Menu, man I wish I put that in before todays update, maybe time for a v0.4.1 release, because I really don't like not having the title.

Claustrum v0.4.0 Released

Another update to Claustrum Lite is on the Market. A big part of the change revolved around the ability to auto-save games and an option to resume or start a new game from the main menu. In my opinion, being able to save and restore games, is a requirement for a decent game on a smartphone platform.

Being able to restore games required one specific fix to the border polygon that I have been planning on making anyway. The player no longer stops at points on the border that used to be corners but aren't any longer. The reason that this had to be fixed with the ability to restore games is that the intermediate lines in the captured area aren't shown after a restore. So you can't even predict when the player is going to stop on a straight line after a restore. Now he never will, except when closing the boundary.

I also added dialogs when the game is paused and between levels. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out all the different ways I could use dialogs and alertDialogs, and making custom buttons. I am happy with the result, but need to resize the dialogs a little for smaller resolution screens. I developed them for the Droid(480x854) and they work on smaller resolutions, but I think it will look better if I scale the dialogs and buttons down a little so that they look about the same as they do on high resolution screens.

Claustrum Version Updates

I've made a few updates so it is time to start tracking the changes. I will add to this post for changes within future releases.

v0.1 - initial release with basic gameplay.

v0.1.1 - quick update to support Android 1.5

v0.2.0

• Added a few graphics to replace basic circles.
• Scaled sizes and speeds based on screen resolution - I develop mostly on a Droid and the objects were much bigger and faster on smaller resolutions, I fixed that.
• Increased touchscreen sensitivity on smaller screens.

v0.3.0

• More graphics enhancements
  • Player no longer cut in half when on edge of game arena.
  • Better drawing of the Header.
• Adjustable touchscreen sensitivity.
• Propper game menu system(still no game save or resume).
• Removed an old "cheat" where you could grab the red ball and "throw" it around the screen. I used this for testing collisions. I hope this is the cause of some of the errors.

v0.4.0

• Better UI between levels and at end game.
• Save and restore game.
• Polygon behavior update(player no longer stops on straight portions of the polygon, that used to be corners)

v0.4.1

• New Title Image and cleaner menus.
• No restoring a game(to last menu button press) after dying.
• Pause on restore game, resume from phone call, resume from sleep.
• Better dialog handling.

v0.5.0

• Added a little depth to drawing the arena
• Border enemies. When, how fast, and how many per level isn't decided yet, but they work. Currently 0 on level 1, 1 on level 2, and 2 on all other levels.
• Fixed to run on 1.6 QVGA devices(Tattoo).

v0.6.0

• New scoring function that rewards larger captures.
• Option for "Casual" or "Intense" game. Currently only difference is that border enemies appear in the intense game. The Casual game gives total safety while the player is on the border.

v0.6.1

• Double-tap to use speed bonus(boost). Optional, turn it on in the settings. Only activates while out in the area, still can click on the header to ready for next entry though.
• Player instantly looses invincibility after a death once they leave the border.
• Prevent unrecoverable suicides. If the rachman is 1 unit away from his tail, you cannot turn him towards it. This prevents the dreaded U-Turn suicide where you were likely to over-turn back into the rachman's tail.

Ready For Next Version

• Better respawning of border enemies to make more than 2 possible.
• Eliminated the need for new collision management system.

Needed improvements

• Continued graphics enhancements.
  • Fix header on QVGA devices.
• Fix some in-game jitters from java garbage collection.
• More advanced interior enemies.
• Level setup. Enemy type, count, and speed/skill for each level.
• Fix a few polygon bugs with the outer border
• Save high scores / Finalize scoring system

Claustrum Lite Hits the Market

It is still in beta, and only v0.1 at that. But it is fully functioning and quite fun already. It is a Qix-like game where your objective is to capture areas of the game arena shutting in the enemy. I have a rough plan of the features and improvements for the next few releases, but expect those to change as feedback comes in. Bug fixes and playability will be a priority. The graphics are dummed down a little for faster compatability across different devices, but those fixing those are near the top of the list.

Planned enhancements before I would consider it v1.0(I am going to mark these out as I complete them)

• Better touch sensitivity for different devices
• More intelligent area enemies.
• Improved graphics
• Better collision manager so more enemies can be added
• Border Enemies that can kill your player on the 'safety' of the edge
• Finalize scoring system.
• Menu system, the current one is a total hack job to get the app to market

All feedback is welcome. Please comment and let me know what you think. I plan to be very responsive to user requests and bug reports.