The Secret Pie

Here's a review of another #screenshotsaturday! If you don't know what it is, read the first post in the series.

So you want to be a game developer? You're lucky, because that's the post you've been looking for. If you follow the steps below, you will become a true game developer!

Two most important steps are:

1. Actually start writing a game.

2. Finish this game.

Ok, that was too easy. Let me elaborate it a bit.

1. Actually start writing a game.
What kind of game do you want do write? Think about it.

Don't write that game.

Let me put this straight: your first game will always suck. Always. Just like your first drawing sucked, your first bike ride was a fail etc. That's why you don't want to spare your great game idea for that first, lousy shot. Secondly, you can't estimate how big your project is, because you haven't actually written any. And if your project is too big, you won't be able to finish it and won't ever get to point 2.
One more hint: if you want to write an RPG as your first game, you're screwed. It's ten times too big for you. And if you want to write a MMORPG - you're very screwed and you're 14 years old.

Pick something relatively known and (possibly) easy for start. Write a Pong clone, a Pacman clone, a Tetris clone... You'll be surprised how much fun it is and you'll be surprised how much work it is. Really. And by picking a known game you have a very clear goal to achieve - that's very important.

After you finished your Pong, think: what always annoyed you about Pong? Is it too slow? Too boring? Maybe it would be better with some funky bonuses? Write it! Let your creative juices flow and fix (or spice up) the original idea! That's a great exercise in game design.
Guess what - I wanted to write a simple Arkanoid clone as my first Android game.

• Everything by Jonathan Blow. You know him, right? You should. He's the author of Braid (just don't tell me you don't know what Braid is...) and (in my opinion) he knows a LOT about game design. His blogs are: number one, number two.
• Chris DeLeon wrote a helpful post for you. The whole blog is helpful too (albeit a little bit wordy), so you can subscribe to it right away.
• Wolfire guys. Some thoughts on game design, a little bit of programming and indie marketing.
• If you're into horror games, this blog is very valuable. Lots of interesting thoughts about horror game design. From the guys of Amnesia and Penumbra.
• There's also a blog by Chris Pruett. It's focused mainly on the programming side of game development; highly recommended for programmers.
• Edge Magazine (I mean the printed one). It's good.
• There are two famous blogs about indie games, very inspirational: IndieGames and TIGSource.

Ever heard about that new Twitter thing? Every saturday game developers post a screenshot of what they're working on at the moment and tag it as #screenshotsaturday. Actually, I haven't posted anything this saturday, but I came up with an idea to "review" some of these screenies. My choice is totally subjective! If you agree or don't agree with any of my statements, or just want to extend info about your screen featured here, write a comment!

Ok, let's go!

That's a game by @adamatomic and @chevyray (if I remember correctly). I really like the pixel art here - fairly low resolution, but very well used.


Some weird art here, I wonder what's this game about. Looks like a cross between a board and video game. (by @S0phieH)


I like that art and colors. It's from the game "...But That Was [Yesterday]" by @onemrbean, you can play it here. I strongly recommend giving it a go, it's just about 10 minutes of play. The game's story may be a bit ordinary, but I love the way it's been told, using the language of video games. Unfortunately it's not a common thing, most games are just trying to use the movie language.


Ok, call me an old, nostalgic man, but you have to admit that these 10-pixels elf and kobold are just cute. (+ I like roguelikes) (by @OddballDave)


That reminds me of System Shock 2, which is one of the best games ever created. (by @radiatoryang)


Yeah, yeah, another lovely pixel art. (by @hamumu)


Very interesting art style, something between Grim Fandango and Another World. I'm curious about that game. (by @cardboardcompy)


Makes me want to kick that red guy in the face RIGHT NOW! And who doesn't want to be a ninja? (by @seregrail7)


Looks like an insane battle (it.s for 2 players). Sadly, it's for iPad only... (by @huikea)


It's a screenshot from "Victorian room-based submarine roguelike" and it's one of the reasons I posted it here. (by @JasonP_)


That's it! Would you like me to review another #screenshotsaturday? Well, I did it: here's the next one!

I'm working on a game for Android platform for a few months and it's shaping up pretty nicely. More details soon, so stay tuned!
That's the (probably) final icon for this game:



No, the game is NOT a clone of Bejeweled or any other match-three-items-in-a-column casual game. It will be an arcade game.

This is especially useful for saving (and loading) your game's state. It uses SD card by default, but it degrades gracefully to internal memory when the SD card is unavailable. "Why should I save game state to SD card?", you might ask. Well, large part of Android users are using custom ROMs on their devices. They upgrade it often and they often have to wipe the internal memory. Nobody wants to lose progress in any game, so storing it SD card seems better to me. Besides, if you switch phones, it's easy to copy or backup your savegames. Digression aside, let's dive into the code!

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public static boolean saveFile(String fileName, Context context) {
    try {
        File sdDir = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();
        String path = sdDir.getAbsolutePath() + "/YOUR_DIR_NAME/";
        File sgDir = new File(path);
        if (!sgDir.exists()) {
            sgDir.mkdirs();
            sgDir.createNewFile();
        }
        FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(path + fileName);
        BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(fw);
        String toSave = "I want to be saved in a file!";
        out.write(toSave);
        out.close();
        return true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex) {
        try {
            FileOutputStream os = context.openFileOutput(fileName, 0);
               String toSave = "I want to be saved in a file!";
            os.write(toSave.getBytes());
            os.flush();
            os.close();
            return true;
        }
        catch (Exception ex2) {}
    }
    return false;
}

• getExternalStorageDirectory() - returns the root SD card directory (it's a method of android.os.Environment). Use this, instead of hardcoding the /sdcard (or any other) path!
• context.openFileOutput(fileName, 0) - opens a file associated with this Context's application package (in device's internal memory). More info in the docs.

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public static String loadFile(String fileName, Context context) {
    try {
        File sdDir = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();
        FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(sdDir.getAbsolutePath() + "/YOUR_DIR_NAME/" + name);
        byte[] byteArray = new byte[is.available()];
        is.read(byteArray, 0, byteArray.length);
        String content = new String(byteArray);
        is.close();
        return content;
    }
    catch (Exception ex) {
        try {
            FileInputStream is = context.openFileInput(fileName);
            byte[] byteArray = new byte[is.available()];
            is.read(byteArray, 0, byteArray.length);
            String content = new String(byteArray);
            is.close();
            return content;
        }
        catch (Exception ex2) {}
    }
    return null;
}

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public static boolean fileExists(String fileName, Context context) {
    File sdDir = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();
    File sg = new File(sdDir.getAbsolutePath() + "/YOUR_DIR_NAME/");
    if (sg.exists())
        return true;
    else
        try {
            FileInputStream is = context.openFileInput(fileName);
            if (is != null)
                return true;
        }
        catch (Exception ex) {
            return false;
        }
    return false;
}

Ever wondered how to properly create a custom button, which looks different when selected (or clicked) and can be resized? Fortunately it's quite easy in Android. Let's start by creating a bitmap for our button. I'm using Gimp for such things. That's what I got:



(I told you it would be fancy!)
As you can see, I created 4 variants. Accordingly: regular button, pressed button, selected (focused) button and the disabled button. I can create a 4-state button now with such XML:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<selector
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_enabled="false" 
     android:drawable="@drawable/button_menu_disabled" />
    <item android:state_enabled="true" 
     android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@drawable/button_menu_pressed" />
    <item android:state_enabled="true"
     android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@drawable/button_menu_selected" />
    <item android:state_enabled="true"
     android:drawable="@drawable/button_menu_normal" />
</selector>

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<Button android:id="@+id/new_game" 
    android:text="New game" 
    android:gravity="center" 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_marginLeft="15px" 
    android:layout_marginRight="15px" 
    android:layout_marginTop="10px"
    android:background="@drawable/button_menu" 
/>

• it has a 1-pixel border with some black pixels
• it has to be saved with name like my_image.9.png

• Parts 1, 3, 7 and 9 aren't resized at all
• Parts 2 and 8 are resized horizontally
• Parts 4 and 6 are resized vertically
• Part 5 is resized horizontally and vertically

• create your button image
• create some variants for clicked, selected and disabled states
• make 9-patches of it
• create my_fancy_button.xml file in res/drawable directory
• set it as your button background in the layout xml file

Cliff Harris (known as Cliffski, author of Gratuitous Space Battles) wrote a really nice blog post about motivation in game programming.

Did I say something about lack of promos on Android Market? Well, here you go: Glu just started a sale, the following games are available for just 0.99$ each until July 6th.

- Build-A-Lot
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Diner Dash 2
- Family Guy Uncensored
- Stranded: Mysteries of Time
- Super KO Boxing 2
- Tony Hawk VERT
- World Series of Poker - Hold 'Em Legend



Have fun!

There are a lot of opportunities to buy some decent indie games for a low price recently. You certainly heard about the Humble Indie Bundle, now there's a Steam sale. I'm pretty vulnerable to all of these. This time, I bought Zeno Clash.



Zeno Clash's price dropped to $3.75. One day after I bought it. Today Osmos is on sale for $2.50, but I didn't bought it and I consider it as a big success of my willpower.
These sales are great, even if they are so tempting. I wish they would do actions like this on Android Market (especially selling games in bundles).