The Map transfer continues.

Transferring the map is turning out to be a real headache. The actual building up of the map ready for export is very easy. It’s just building up the XML string until I have a huge string. (Well not that huge, it just feels like it.). It’s the parsing of the xml string by the challenger that’s the problem.

I’m using XML because that was one of the design goals I’d set. I was going to use a small J2ME xml parser but that will add even more to the overhead, so each of the objects being transferred have their own little parsing routine to extract the information it needs.

Once the map is populated a second pass will be required. This is to make sure that each part of the map is configured properly. Once that’s done, then the challenger will send back an OK command.

There are going to have to be a couple of states to this transfer.

1. The transfer ran OK and we’re ready to play.
2. The transfer failed and the challenger is requesting a retransmit.
3. The transfer failed and the challenger no longer wants to play.
4. The transfer has timed out.

Only with a state of 1 will the game be allowed to proceed.

Slow Going

Some progress has been made but it’s opened up one hell of a can of worms. I’ve been so focused on how to capture state and input from one player and pass it to the other that I forgot one major item. I’ve got to transfer the map itself from the server to the client.

Not only have I got to pass the map, I’ve also got to describe the relationship between each of the nodes of the map. This has caused me a big problem. It now looks like it will be well into the New Year before this game is even ready for testing.

Maybe that’s a good thing because the uptake of MIDP 2.0 compatible phones doesn’t seem too good just yet. This might change after the christmas rush which might be too my advantage.

In addition to this, I’ve got to alter the graphics to use one big png instead of the 14 or so smaller files, put the sounds in and integrate the graphics sent to me by the artist.
There’s so much to do.

Progress, At Last !

Well, it’s only taken a month I finally have a Forum Screen of sorts. There are still small bugs to get rid of and I’ve got to make sure that the client mode clanger is really an issue with emulator and not the whole J2ME/ Bluetooth thing. So far I’ve managed to test two, three and four clients being searched for and also clients which have Bluetooth enabled but not running the service.

In addition, the UI need a little bit of tweaking but as of now I can start to look at implementing the Challenge/Challenged Screens and the export of the map to another system. The system is which has been challenged, always generates the map so the process goes;-

Receive challenge -> Accept Challenge -> Generate Map -> Export Map to challenger.
The challenged always runs the game so he has the master clock, or game beat. Presently All I have a couple of examples of text based chat programs. It looks like I’ll have to find a couple of examples of code of a more game related program, like a drawing app or something which handles real time response.