Looking for feedback on an Android App

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JohnnyNapalm

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 13, 2007
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Me and my friend have been working on a Cube Runner clone for a bit, just put a rough version on the market for feedback. :D

Please let me know of any issues you have, and thoughts on how we can make it better.

Download C.U.B.E.S. here or use the code below.

2n1yqmh.jpg
 
Cool! Found on market and installed - will try it out and feedback later.
 
pretty cool :) Very hard for me....hahah. I only managed an 839

Ran smooth on my N1 w/ Froyo.
 
I love this game... runs well even on CM6 RC1 (N1 ofc)

The responsiveness really impressed me imho.

Hope to see more features soon!
 
Works awesome on my moto milestone (cnd versiom of the droid) at stock speeds, nice and smooth
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Great game! Finally got around to trying it for a few minutes, and it was a lot of fun! Ran nice and smooth on Incredible. Top score so far is just 868, but I bet I can do a lot better with some practice. How many levels are in the game so far? I just got a couple seconds into the second stage with the multi-colored winding track.

It took me a couple minutes to figure out how the controls worked - really needs a brief instruction screen that just says "Use screen-tilt to control the game - calibrates automatically, so hold your phone level now" or something like that - a brief graphic to show calibration would also be cool. Also, does the forward/back tilt control the speed (like Tux Rider)? I wasn't really able to tell. The speed really seemed perfect in the short time I played.

My other main comment would be that the game really needs some kind of awesome crash animation for when you hit an obstacle - explosion of tiny particles, and/or car flips and bounces out of control based on the angle it hit. But you probably already knew that - doesn't sound easy to code, so good luck w/ crash ani. :)
 
Cool game! After a few tries, I got 3239 and crashed in the 5(?) level. The level with random blocks strewn about in mostly fall colors. The difficulty ramped up considerably and it was very challenging.
 
There is currently no speed control, due to the difficulty ramping up in later stages, as Raekwon found out!

I made a calibration graphic yesterday, we are trying to roll a GUI update into the next patch too, so that's holding us back there. I'm about halfway done with the new GUI elements.

Crash animation is pretty high on the to-do list. I'd like realtime score display first though =)

I'm glad you guys are liking it, I'll continue to update on our progress as we go along.
 
The plan is to update the courses and calibration this weekend. If we're lucky, calibration will flat out go away. If not, you'll see a dialog.
 
Along the calibration lines, I've noticed an issue with the sensitivity of the tilt controls. Seems like the first few times I play the game after starting it up, the sensitivity is really low, and it's really hard to control the game. Then after I play for a while, it gets more sensitive, and it's easier to move around. I also noticed that if I tilt the phone a little and play once with the calibration slanted to one side or the other, that fixes the sensitivity, and it works after that.

This might just be an issue with needing to "wake up" the tilt sensor in the phone. If that's the case, it might help to use a more involved calibration procedure where you have the user tilt the phone back and forth before centering it - at least the first game they play after starting the app. But if you are intentionally ramping up the tilt sensitivity, I’d say that’s a bad idea – need to keep it fairly high and consistent – the low sensitivity starting out is pretty much un-playable.

Also, are there any plans later on to implement an online scoreboard? Posting scores on here made me think that might be a good idea. Would require maintaining a server though, which would be a pain.
 
No, we're not fiddling with multiple sensitivities...that would be mean! We're having a programming session tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get rid of the need for calibration.

We've discussed online leaderboards as well, and arrived at the same conclusion about needed a server-side solution. If I had to guess, that would end up in the retail paid version.
 
Ok, calibration has gone away...we found out that the code was calling the gyro, not the accelerometer, so it's MUCH more precise now. Please fire your thoughts my way. There is also a new level with procedurally generated waves. Look for the update on the market.
 
Tried it this morning after the update ran - steering sensitivity seemed much better! I almost set a new record while half-asleep at 7:30 this morning. :) The car movement does seem a little jerky now though, like it was at a lower frame-rate than the rest of the game, or there were a lot of twitch-type anomalies in the sensor. Not sure what was up with that, but at least it's nowhere near as big a deal as the old "variable" sensitivity I was experiencing.

Is there any way to boost the poling rate or smooth out the car movement on-screen a little?
 
What we're experiencing is a lack of a filter on the camera. That was smoothing out the movement of the car, but also introducing some lag in the controls. We're working on it =)

We really like how tight the steering is now, and want to make sure we don't cripple it again.
 
We've been slow to update, but finally got realtime scoring and a "game over" screen in place.

Custom levels are up next.
 
Works great on a stock Droid running 2.1. Nice game, no visible glitches or problems on my end.
 
JohnnyNapalm said:
Thanks! You know that 2.2 is out for us, now, right?

http://www.droid-life.com/2010/08/03/manual-android-2-2-update-for-motorola-droid/
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. I've had the phone for less than a day at this point. Was going to do that later, or wait for it to come OTA.

One thing I did notice: Once you hit the game over screen, I understand what "Your Score" is, but should "Best Score" be updated to the new best score right away, or call it "Previous High Score" instead? Just a thought, depends on how the general userbase takes it, I guess.
 
Version_3 said:
One thing I did notice: Once you hit the game over screen, I understand what "Your Score" is, but should "Best Score" be updated to the new best score right away, or call it "Previous High Score" instead? Just a thought, depends on how the general userbase takes it, I guess.
Click to expand...

I noticed that too. Thinking we should replace "best score" with "previous high score".
 
Great game. Works awesome on my incredible. I'd like to see a leaderboard. Me and my GF compete to get the high score...
 
Preview of the final main screen mock up . Had to make adjustments for extra screens and menus we're adding.

11jm7x2.png


Level editing is so close...basically, we are at the point of making it so that you can point your phone to a .cubes file, and it will handle that file, and copy it to the appropriate folder on your SD card, which the game will then pick up the next time you open it.

All of the new GUI has been created, and we've got some music we need to drop in.

I would say a full release will come no later than the end of October, but hopefully sooner!
 
Nice. runs good on a cyanogen nightly from a few days ago on my Evo.

Could stand to add more challenge though. :)
 
This is an open call! If you want to help design a level for our retail version of Cubes, now's the time to let me know. We have implemented custom level designs via XML, and would love for our fellow players to submit their designs. You don't need to know how to code to do it, it's just a matter of having a text editor like Notepad on your machine, and placing "X"s in the design you want the cubes to be.

We are just about a month away from the final product. I can provide instructions on how the XML works and get you started if you're interested. Get your name in the credits and help propel Android gaming to the next level!
 
Ok, we patched the market version to allow custom levels. First thing you will need to do, of course, is get the current version (1.5.2 or later). When you launch this new version for the first time, it will automatically create a new folder on your SD card called "Cubes", and check for this folder on subsequent runs. This is where your custom levels will live.

The custom levels can be created in whatever text editor you prefer, but you will need to name them with a .cubes extension, not .txt or .xml. This is so that, if and when we create a file intent handler, Cubes won't be an option to open .txt or .xml files. Even with them name "whatever.cubes", you can still open and edit them in something like notepad.

Go ahead and download this level pack to get you started. It consists of 3 levels, Luck, ScottTest, and Switchboard. Now, you don't need to be an XML guru to see what's going on in these.

Let's look at Luck first.

"Course name" is what your level will be called inside the Cubes app. "author" is a label just under the course name that will show who created the level. Feel free to use whatever you want to be called, but please put something in this field. It's a nice way to pass attribution around in the community.

The first important thing after this is the very next tag, <SequentialLevelSet>. This is telling cubes to expect a group of <SequentialCubeSectorSet> patterns. You can see that the level colors are defined next, in Hex values of course, as well as the speed of the level. bgColor is background (the ground and sky), fogColor is the fog that the cubes appear out of, and CubeColors are the actual cubes. For Luck, you can see that there are actually two ranges of colors. That means that the game will constantly randomly pick Hex values out of those two ranges. Keep in mind that it's important not to let your cubes be randomly generated the same color as your background. That will lead to "invisible" cubes and piss people off. =)

Now that colors and speed are set, we move to our first <SequentialCubeSectorSet>. The most important piece of this is the * at the bottom of that section. This is the starting position of the ship in relation to the cube field that you are building. You can see we've put it in the very middle. It's very important that you include this is your first section.

The rest of the file consists of <CubeSector> pieces. We can assign certain properties to these pieces by using things like loop and iterate. Those mean exactly what they sound like. So, if we iterate a random cube sector 4 times, that means it will randomly pick a section from that group 4 times and move on.

If you move down the file a bit, you will see how we can then ratchet up the speed, change the color for the next bit, and so on. You just have to be careful to close all of your tags completely.

I know Luck is a pretty complicated example, but it's a good primer for all of the things we allow you to play with. If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed, look at ScottTest. It's the easiest of the 3 to play with and see how the sections work.

I hope this is enough to get you guys started. Let me know if you have any questions!
 
Congrats. Good stuff. Though I can only put ur with 4 or 5 levers before I get frustrated. No fault of the game of course.

Question ... is it possible to have ur down movement in future releases of the game? That'd be interesting but would need new renderer to deal with floors I guess.. maybe incorporate jump ramps and forget the floors. hmmm
 
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MrkXCeL said:
Congrats. Good stuff. Though I can only put ur with 4 or 5 levers before I get frustrated. No fault of the game of course.

Question ... is it possible to have ur down movement in future releases of the game? That'd be interesting but would need new renderer to deal with floors I guess.. maybe incorporate jump ramps and forget the floors. hmmm
Click to expand...

Whoa, jump ramps or coins or something to collect? That would be awesome!!
 
3702 first try, pretty smooth on Droid X 2.2

Edit: 6802 second try, whiteout level was pretty cool =)

Anyone have higher than 6802?
 
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