Complete ?

The first version is complete. There are two issues left outstanding; -

1. Testing: As I’ve given away the 6600 in exchange for new artwork, I’ve now got no way to retest the multiplayer side of the Game. I’ll have to ask some people to help out.
2. Jar Size. Even with the latest version of Proguard working, the jar size is still 31K too big to run on the majority of Motorola Phones. As I would like it to be as small as possible, mostly because of the bandwidth issues on the website, I’m going to have to look at a way to compress the graphics even more.

I’ve started work on a press release but I can’t believe I’ve got writer’s block. Ironic that I’ve worked on this for so long and can’t think of a way to promote it.

Progress Report

I’ve got a few outstanding issues left before I can put this game out for release.

1. Get the Score to be displayed properly after you win or lose on the single player game.
2. Winner / Looser text to be displayed on the Multiplayer Congrats Screen.
3. If both players have used up they’re moves, then the level ends because there’s nothing either player can affect the outcome.
4. There is still and issue with the map generation. There are occasions that you get a double join or split which doesn’t work.
5. RMS Saving of player details is still not 100% reliable.
6. Display of player details to be moved into the game menus section to save on jar size.
7. Utilise the EvalKey procedure in the ICG so that the game is more handset compatible.
8. Feedback from the artist about the game icons.
9. Include a separate build to utilise the NDice Graphics.

Once these issues have been completed and the game has been tested on a Nokia, Sony-Erickson and a Motorola then it’s ready for release. I am aiming for a release on Monday the 30th January, but I want a version to send over to the artist by the end of this week.

Well, the Menus are almost complete. I’ve managed to shave almost 15K off the size of the jar. This is good but nowhere near the 100K limit of the Motorola Phones. I might have to remove the sound options from the game and rebuild it specifically for certain types of Motorola.

I can also save a bit on amalgamation of some of the Graphics but it’s the sound that’s the real issue. I’ll have to do some head scratching before I can come up with a solution.

Busted

The Game Demo appears to be busted. You run it for the first time, it works fine. However, the Splash Screen hangs on subsequent runs. I think there’s some of the newer code mixed up into the Beta, which will have to be taken out. Now the question is do I close the beta, so there’s no Download or do I fix the Beta, which will be replaced in a couple of weeks?

The progress on converting the Menus is flying along. I’ve going to have to alter the PNGs to make the backgrounds transparent and look into the colours on the menus when the user selects their theme.
I’ve still got a checklist to work through but hopefully, it will be ready for testing next week. The only problem I do have is with the size. The Classes that I’m taking out so far aren’t knocking out the size down that much. Still, there is a new version of Pro-guard to try. Might not hit that 100 K limit for the Motorola’s. Blast !

GetJar Response

We’ll I got the results back from the GetJar beta. 31 Downloads – 28 unsatisfied reports and three satisfied ones. I was gobsmacked to be honest. Then I found remembered that there was some timekill code in the version that was put up and by the time the scheduled beta happened. The time kill code kicked in and the program refused to run.

Oh well, I’ll send out a copy of the new version to all these beta testers as a thank you (as well as a free copy of the commercial version when I’ve finished it).

Up until Christmas I was working silly hours for my *proper* job and then Christmas itself I never really got a break to do some more work on the game so no real progress has been made over the last month.

I got my first custom menu displayed on the phone but I’ve still got to sort out the colour and the selection of some of the options. Still it’s quite a boost to see it working after all the time I’ve had it playing at the back of my mind.