Work still progresses on the new custom menus. I think I’ve got the code down for the display of the new menus but it will take a little time to test it. Still up for the potential release date at the end of November.

Here are the present outstanding issues.

1. Get the new Menus Working.
2. Map generation bug
3. Change the game canvas to use the readkeystate
b) if the joystick doesn’t work with these keystates, then search for manufacture setters per game using System.getProperty("microedition.platform");
4. Add the new NDice graphics for the ‘girlie’ version.

So Far the confirmed working phones are;-

Nokia

6600, 3230, 6260, 6300. (Most of the Series 60 v2 phones)

Sony Erriscon

quite a few, will post the numbers later.

Motorola.

E1000, Raz3 vg.

Slow Down

It’s painfully slow due to personal events. I.e. An ill family and too much work. But a few new routines have been planned and coded. Looks like I’ll be pushing it for the end of November.

However, I will be releasing two versions. One version has Slice as the main character and other one has Ndice. Apart from the characters, there won’t be any difference in game play but I do have to get this custom menu up and running because it will cut down the size of the game so much.

I’ve also finished the concept design of the new single player game and I’m now planning how to code it up. It will probably take a month of hard slog so fingers crossed that I’ve got the planning right.

Well I’ve looked into the form and virtual list example and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not going to work. I’m going to alter the game canvas to start allow the user to select options. This will be started tonight and hopefully finished by Monday.

I’ve got to now plan out the menus.

1. Single Player
a)Easy
b)Medium
c)Ow! My Head!
2. Multiplayer
a)Hot Seat
i) Easy
ii) Medium
iii) Ow! My Head!
b) Bluetooth
c) GPRS
3. Player Settings
a) Edit Player Name.
b) View Player Details.
c) Synchronize Player Details.
4. Game Settings
a) Theme
b) Sound Settings
c) Language
5. Web Site
6. Help
7. Exit

Now should I include a little Help option for each page?

Obfuscated

We have an Obfuscated version of the code. It’s saved 25% of space and sped the code up but this in itself has caused a problem. The 6600 and the 3230 handsets which I use for testing are now working at 100 %. A 3230 challenging the 6600 works fine, however, reverse that and the game complains that the connection is lost. I’m just a tad confused. Something I’ll have to have a quick look at.

Nevertheless, there have been 400 downloads of the new beta in the last month, so that is a good sign. I’ve had a little feedback, mostly for users who’ve had trouble with the website. I haven’t had anything back about performance between different manufacturers. I’m thinking of being cheeky and phoning up a company I had an interview with and seeing if I could borrow some handsets to test this game with.

Work in proceeding on the final item before the proper release. That’s the custom list box. I plan to put all the menus, apart from the Bluetooth ones, into this new List. It can take the colours from the themes specified by the user.

Released !

Well, there’s been a new release. It uses no Nokia classes so it should, in theory, run on any MIDP 2.0 phone which supports JSR-82 (bluetooth functionality). There are two problems at the moment.

1. The size of the app is 206 K. This is because I can’t seem to get either obfuscator working properly yet.

2. There seems to be a problem with the OTA. The Jad and Jar I have put on the xhtml site doesn’t seem to work too well.