Android game development experience
Good day, habroskoobschestvo!
I want to add to the piggy bank of stories about the first experience of developing for Android my contribution. However, in one topic I will tell you about two “samples of the pen” at once, because they had a different form of monetization.
At once I will say - I work in one Volgograd software company as a programmer. I had no experience in game development. However, by hiring a new employee, who had such experience, it was decided to try himself in this segment. Thus, in November 2010, we began work on the first game. We decided to use Android as a platform (and costs less (compared to iOS, and the platform was more attractive at that time (compared to Window Phone or Windows Mobile)). A paid sale through the Android Market was chosen as the monetization model.
The game was named AwesomeSaw and in game physics it was based on the famous game Osmos. Two developers worked on the game. The music for us was made by one of my friends.
A few months later, namely January 12, 2011 we released the first version of the game AwesomeSaw.
Within a few months, we released small updates to it that corrected errors, added new levels, and of course the game shone in the updates. As a result, since the start of sales, 13 copies of the game have been sold.
')
After the release of AwesomeSaw, we immediately thought about the idea for a new game. Looking at what games are caught in the tops of the stores, we opted for a maze game. However, I wanted to make something new in our game, because there are already enough of such games. The solution was found quite quickly - we take a maze game, add more game objects (traps, doors, buttons, etc.), add a little uncertainty (hide the map) - and it turns out to be quite a good mix, which we called DarkMaze! For the second version, we decided to try another monetization model - free distribution through AndroidMarket, however, the game shows ads (chose AdMob as the advertising provider).
After the development of the first game, the question arose that it might not be a good idea to write everything yourself. Therefore, we decided to first look for what can be used from existing libraries. Most certainly interested in the physical and graphic engines.
As a physicist, several box2d ports for Android were tested. However, the performance was not very pleased - even on small game scenes the calculation markedly slowed down the game. In addition, it was not some of the objects that we needed. Therefore, it was decided to implement its own physics engine.
As for the graphics, the engine was taken from the first game and finalized in accordance with the requirements. There was an idea to speed up the transfer of part of processing to the native part of the application. However, subsequent tests and studies have shown that this will not give a big performance boost, but will add significant work.
The development of the game was completed in mid-August 2011. It is worth noting that the development of the game itself took approximately 50% of the total development time. The rest of the time was spent on developing the level editor (they had a complex structure, and it was already impossible to do with a text editor, as in the case of AwesomeSaw), as well as implementing a set of levels.
In early September, the release of the game DarkMaze. For the first day 524 copies of the game were downloaded. Let's see what will happen next!
Future plans include the release of updates for DarkMaze (as the levels are manufactured), and of course the development of new games with other monetization models.
And finally, I want to express some of my thoughts, observations.
A few links:
AwesomeSaw page in Adnroid Market
DarkMaze page in the Android Market
Developer site
AwesomeSaw Game Review
DarkMaze Game Review
UPD 09.09.2011
by Friday evening the number of downloads was 2133
We received feedback from users, who identified a problem with launching HTC Incredible S on the phone, here are some minor difficulties - the game was tested (during development) on a large number of different phones (including non-tablets), so they did not expect such problems ...
I want to add to the piggy bank of stories about the first experience of developing for Android my contribution. However, in one topic I will tell you about two “samples of the pen” at once, because they had a different form of monetization.
At once I will say - I work in one Volgograd software company as a programmer. I had no experience in game development. However, by hiring a new employee, who had such experience, it was decided to try himself in this segment. Thus, in November 2010, we began work on the first game. We decided to use Android as a platform (and costs less (compared to iOS, and the platform was more attractive at that time (compared to Window Phone or Windows Mobile)). A paid sale through the Android Market was chosen as the monetization model.
The game was named AwesomeSaw and in game physics it was based on the famous game Osmos. Two developers worked on the game. The music for us was made by one of my friends.
A few months later, namely January 12, 2011 we released the first version of the game AwesomeSaw.
Within a few months, we released small updates to it that corrected errors, added new levels, and of course the game shone in the updates. As a result, since the start of sales, 13 copies of the game have been sold.
')
After the release of AwesomeSaw, we immediately thought about the idea for a new game. Looking at what games are caught in the tops of the stores, we opted for a maze game. However, I wanted to make something new in our game, because there are already enough of such games. The solution was found quite quickly - we take a maze game, add more game objects (traps, doors, buttons, etc.), add a little uncertainty (hide the map) - and it turns out to be quite a good mix, which we called DarkMaze! For the second version, we decided to try another monetization model - free distribution through AndroidMarket, however, the game shows ads (chose AdMob as the advertising provider).
After the development of the first game, the question arose that it might not be a good idea to write everything yourself. Therefore, we decided to first look for what can be used from existing libraries. Most certainly interested in the physical and graphic engines.
As a physicist, several box2d ports for Android were tested. However, the performance was not very pleased - even on small game scenes the calculation markedly slowed down the game. In addition, it was not some of the objects that we needed. Therefore, it was decided to implement its own physics engine.
As for the graphics, the engine was taken from the first game and finalized in accordance with the requirements. There was an idea to speed up the transfer of part of processing to the native part of the application. However, subsequent tests and studies have shown that this will not give a big performance boost, but will add significant work.
The development of the game was completed in mid-August 2011. It is worth noting that the development of the game itself took approximately 50% of the total development time. The rest of the time was spent on developing the level editor (they had a complex structure, and it was already impossible to do with a text editor, as in the case of AwesomeSaw), as well as implementing a set of levels.
In early September, the release of the game DarkMaze. For the first day 524 copies of the game were downloaded. Let's see what will happen next!
Future plans include the release of updates for DarkMaze (as the levels are manufactured), and of course the development of new games with other monetization models.
And finally, I want to express some of my thoughts, observations.
- game development is fun and useful - having a lot of experience writing applications for desktops, it gave reason to stretch the brains)
- When developing games, there is a very strong question about design, game art and voice acting - since we don’t have such employees in our company, this greatly complicates and delays the development
- I would like to see more tools for the publisher in the Android Market - for example, the ability to distribute promotional codes, etc.
A few links:
AwesomeSaw page in Adnroid Market
DarkMaze page in the Android Market
Developer site
AwesomeSaw Game Review
DarkMaze Game Review
UPD 09.09.2011
by Friday evening the number of downloads was 2133
We received feedback from users, who identified a problem with launching HTC Incredible S on the phone, here are some minor difficulties - the game was tested (during development) on a large number of different phones (including non-tablets), so they did not expect such problems ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/128030/
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