Dungeon Master Forum

Hi Guys,

I started a post under CSB4win about getting DM to run on an android smartphone, but I don't think a port would be easy...

I see from a post earlier that TheGleep was looking at porting DMJ to java enabled smart phones - don't know how this went. But wondered if any of you knew enough about android to have a look? I know android use a lot of Java 'modules' which sit on a linux kernel?? but I've no idea if its a slimmed down version of java or what?!!? Here's some blurb from wikipedia that might tell you guys if it would be easy / possible / an interesting challenge / hard as CSB (delete as applicable) to get DMJ working on android??

"The Android open-source software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java-based, object-oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore[20] media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system consists of 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, 2.1 million lines of Java, and 1.75 million lines of C++.[21]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%2 ... _system%29

Cheers,

I have been looking into getting a smartphone, and so thought about this too. But currently if you want to play DM it seems that you need a windows phone - TOMi mentioned that CSBWin works well with no lag, even with large dungeons like Conflux. Not sure about RTC.

That would almost be enough to convince me to go for windows. Like most people I have limited time for playing computer games nowadays, but if I could fit it in during a commute that would make it much easier.

As for your actual question I have no idea how much work is needed for a conversion. You would imagine since it is Java it would be reasonably straight forward, but maybe I am being very naive.

hm... is this the case for the "new" windows Phone 7 - as I don't see how you would get this running without downloading from the marketplace?

Actually you are probably right, it won't work on the new windows system. So we will have to wait for Java. Or until someone makes DSB, RTC or CSBWin compatible with a mobile OS!

It'll be impossible to get it running on any "marketplace" based OS, like iOS or Windows Phone 7 if that's also locked down. I only have an iPad so I don't know about what MS does for its Windows phones, but I do know a (legit) iPad version of DSB would be impossible because of the FTL-copyrighted stuff that's still in the game. It'd never pass Apple's approval process.

I don't believe android is tied down as much as iTunes or anything from microsoft. I've got an HTC Desire HD, with android 2.2. I can install apps / games directly to the phone from my pc, using HTC's own software. The software is packaged in an apk file which I presume is created via the android SDK??

I've had DM working from an Amiga rom via UAE4droid, but the mouse support sucks so it's not really playable...


Does anyone know enough about java, to interpret what level of java support android has? It sounds to me like most of the apps and games are java based, but I've no idea if it has all of the code / libraries and stuff required for DMJ?

I believe the android SDK is free and includes an android VM or emulator for testing, so if anyone fancies experimenting and being my new best friend...

The "hard" part would be changing the interface to be useable.

a few months ago, i've started to design (for myself) a possible interface for DM on handhelds, just copy-pasting original icons and make them fit well.
but the main problem is how to pick/give/throw objects with a touch screen..

My ideas for a touch interface:
Single finger tap-and-drag to pick up items from the dungeon, or to drop/throw items from inventory. You could briefly tap anywhere with a 2nd finger (while still holding 1st finger on the screen, dragging the item) to toggle a character's inventory (probably current party leader). With a 2nd finger tap on (or hovering an item over) a portrait opening that inventory.

You could have a draggable dock (little buttons that allow you to drag the hidden dock onto/off the screen) to show/hide various GUI elements (portraits, spell casting, movement buttons, etc.) so you could, for example, drag the spell-casting GUI in from the top-right, quickly tap your runes (speed would come with use & experience) casting your spell, then dismiss that GUI, drag the movement GUI from the bottom-right and run away... Dragging an item onto the portrait GUI button would also toggle the portraits (allowing for easily dragging items to a character's inven).

I've thought about this "touch interface" idea, because I have an iPhone, and I'm hoping that down the track I'll develop a version of my DM clone for it (I'd love to sit in waiting room playing DM, it'd pass time, that's for sure! )

EDIT: Sorry about having the same avatar

Here's what i've tried to do for a 480x320 screen (i don't think DM needs a higher res):



As you can see, i had to crop the viewport upwards (16px) and on the right (48 px... may be too much).
Typing on stats bars opens/closes runes dialog, long typing could open champion inventory for example.
I've put arrows on the left as most of people use QWEASD keys i.e. left hand when playing FPS.
Of course, dialog for fighting actions would look like the runes one : centered, 4x icons, 50% opaque background with champion's color.
Clicking an object in hand makes it selected : black background, cyan border and prints object name at the bottom (magic box here). The touch-and-drag way is too slow imho, especially if you want to throw objects in viewport.

Thoughts ?

It looks pretty sound. But, I still think that there should be togglable GUI sections. For the picture above, I'd say leave the portraits where they are... but, the other elements like a bit strange... The movement controls should be able to be toggled (it'd get in the way of in-game messages) and I think that the weapon "swing" controls should be togglable too. I'd say that the touch the item, then touch place you want it, is a good idea... but I'd say that there should be an option to touch-drag instead (as for "too slow" is only when you first start using out, you'd get used to it and get faster).

I think movement arrows should be always visible and I placed GUI elements that way to keep the original icons size and be able to pick dungeons objects of current tile (leave enough room for bottom zone).
Upper zone of viewport (ceiling) perhaps could be croppped a bit more..

Alternatively, you could keep the phone in portrait orientation?

You could keep the character portraits at the top, view port fitted to the display width underneath. Messages below that which would leave a large area at the bottom for movement keys, actions and spells. I'd be inclined to display movement and actions side by side, and have a way to swap between that and spells. That way you could make the graphics large enough to be useable with a finger on most phones...

All that said, does anyone know how feasible it'll be to get DMJ running on Android?

I don't remember the guts of DMJ well enough, but it seems like the big hurdle is finding someone with working Java/Eclipse knowledge and enough free time to do it.

there is a lot of redundant interface items present in the DM interface if you think about the multitouch interfaces and the way we use them these days.

The hands that contain items could be tap-drag for removing items from hands.. tap-hold on the name to go into the backpack, and single tap on any hand to bring up the action menu over their hands. This means no need for the attack buttons. The move buttons don't need to be that large just big enough for your finger so no larger than the hand buttons.. and let's make the spell buttons the same size. tap the name of the character you want to be the active person which inlcudes throwing as well as spell casting. put a little highlight thing near their name or outline it somehow. dragging their name will change their order.. the left two are forward, and the right two are the back.

the little triangle to the top left would be a game menu. Fountains tap to drink with the current active character. drag items to the hand or drag and hold over the name for a moment to open their backpack and then place it there. I've sacrificed barely anything of the dungeon view here

for that matter, think about two finger actions and you could probably eliminate the move buttons too.. two finger stroke down to move back, two finger diag to turn left right.. etc

All we need now is a Java-guru with nothing else to do!!!


Getting a little carried away, you could make the game more interactive and use the GPS to track movements around the dungeon (might be a road safety issue) and the accelerometer to monitor slashes / other movements for weapon attacks or spells???

There's a DMesq game called 'Deadly Dungeons' available on the market (free), which is ok - but its not DM...

I like the idea of two finger dragging for movement, it's a quick solution. You could also have an up-left two finger stroke mean turn left, and an up-right stroke mean turn right.

I also like the idea of using the accelerometer for attacking... a sudden jerk movement meaning "attack" (you could just have a way a assigning WHICH attack is the one that's used), instead of actually attacking when a playing clicks/taps an "attack" menu-item, it just sets which attack is used. So, using Cow's above interface, you tap a weapon (bringing up the attack menu for that weapon... let's say it's an axe) then you tap "melee"... this assigns the accelerometer to "melee" with this character whenever you jerk the phone. You could even have "side-specific" movement detection... so a jerk left means attack with the left-side character (yellow in Cow's above example), and a jerk right means attack with the right-side character (green).

not sure if I would use it for attack in DM since there are so many options for that.. but possibly a quick tilt left or right of the phone would be good for face left, face right. then the two finger movement for forward back left right..

hey guys,

i think playing dm on android would be simply fantastic! devices with big touchscreens are made for playing games like dm, sadly few people realize that.

the two posted gui concepts looks also very intuitive and perfect. optical cows ui looks better imo, but linflas one takes better care to the dimensions of the smartphones. i think its improtant, that the movement arrows are big enough.

are there any news on the project and is there even a real project with guys working on it?

cheers
j.

guitarjohnny wrote:but linflas one takes better care to the dimensions of the smartphones. i think its improtant, that the movement arrows are big enough.

i did try both interfaces on my (3.2'' screen) smartphone by using them as home background. Cows' arrows are fine for my index (which means that i must put it on a table to play) but they are too small for a thumb.

yes, that was exactly my guess.
i think the gui should be optimized for holding the device with two hands.

Hi there,

I worked on DMJ a few years ago to refactor the code. Porting DMJ to Android is totally doable but it's quite a lot of work. Thing is you would have to recode the GUI entirely because it's not the same API. You also would have to recode access to resources (pics, sounds, etc). The main problem is that DMJ's code is a mess and that would be a painful rewrite because the code is not properly modularized. That's a shame because the multi-platform feature of Java would allow DMJ to run on anything if the code was clean.

my galaxy S has a rather large screen, I forget that a lot of the other android phones are not the same size. I guess the best option is to use swype style interface for movement swype up to go forward, left to go left counter clockwise circle to turn left.. etc

Hi,
I am a Java developer, and I might be interested in helping with this. I just bought myself an android and this might be a great first project.

My first concern is copyright. Does anyone have further speculation on that issue? Technically, DMJ is illegal, is it not?

Btw, some of you Conflux players might remember me as Inanity (I lost the password for that account).

Paul

Wismerhill wrote:Hi there,
The main problem is that DMJ's code is a mess and that would be a painful rewrite because the code is not properly modularized. That's a shame because the multi-platform feature of Java would allow DMJ to run on anything if the code was clean.

If I were to work on this, I would definitely want to clean up the code first, in that case... and possibly re-write from scratch, if it's really bad.

Dmjava was designed to work, not designed to evolve. If you want to develop DM for Android, you can safely trash 99% of the dmjava codebase, keep 1% around for inspiration. So yeah, pretty much re-write from scratch I'm afraid.

lazyoldman_01 wrote: There's a DMesq game called 'Deadly Dungeons' available on the market (free), which is ok - but its not DM...

Yes, I have played it. It shows that the touch screen can work fine for this kind of game - even though you would need a lot of extra functionality for DM (advanced spell system, inventory management, 4-person party, etc.). It also shows that there is a big market for this type of game: Deadly Dungeons is quite simple compared to the concepts I have seen on this forum but it seems to be doing well on the Android Market.

might be just me (I'm not going to make that clone), but I imagine pretty well speaking or drawing the runes on the screen for casting spells...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZIN-_8JJbA
then there was this thing for iphone, which i think is a closer example..