Disc Golf and Lignting Bolts

I just recently released a new app called Disc Golf Cataloger. It's extremely similar to my previously released Nail Polish Cataloger, except that it is an app that I will actually use. Developing it also led to some cool new features in both the disc golf and the nail polish app. I added in some stuff people were asking for, like the ability to add notes to entries or sort by things like brand instead of just name. I also added some auto-backup things to make sure you don't lose your catalog. So, that's available now on Google Play:

Now, on to details about Level 6 of my scrolling shooter. This one is a lightning themed level. I'm not 100% sure what the minions will be visually, but they are currently angry storm clouds in my programmer art version. It's very intense... Anyway, the first minion class is called the "Zigzag", because when they shoot their bullets, the bullets zigzag back and forth down the screen. They are actually pretty hard to dodge if there are more than just a few. The second minion class is boringly named the "Pauser" because when they fire a bullet, it pauses for a short duration at its origin point before quickly shooting down the screen. When there are multiple pausers flying around you end up getting this big section of lightning bullets that are just waiting at the top of the screen, and then they all swarm down on you. It's actually pretty cool, I'm just disappointed that I didn't use a better minion class name, but that isn't really important. Here are some pictures of my awful storm cloud minions with my terrible recolored test background that should illustrate just how little I cared about making the graphics for this level:

 So, that is level 6. I'm actually currently working on the last level since I finally came up with some minion ideas for it. Levels 7, 8, and 9 are already done so I will post about those in the future.

Updating AndEngine

Recently I decided update my version of AndEngine to GLES2 (before I was using GLES1) and as a result a lot of my code broke. GLES2 has actually been out for some time, but when I first started with AndEngine, I grabbed the first version for whatever reason and it worked so well I never really needed to upgrade. Fixing the errors is just a matter of changing some syntax mostly, but it promises to be a pretty tedious task. I've also run into a couple issues so far with some timer stuff. Because of this, I haven't actually been able to fully test play the game I'm in the process of converting. I'm a little worried that things might not work as well, which would be awful since they were working great before the AndEngine update. Fortunately I made backup copies of all my current AndEngine projects, so worst case scenario is I go back to GLES1 for my current projects, but use GLES2 for any future ones.

Additionally, I've been revisiting the Nail Polish Cataloger. I am attempting have it create a lower res copy of any image you select to attach to an entry. Then the original image can be deleted and the version being used by the cataloger is in an NPC image folder on external storage. The copy will be lower resolution (the app never actually shows the image at a high res) so that your external storage won't get filled with a bunch of large image files that are potentially still on your phone. I'm running into issues with this as well. I can save the copy just fine and have it linked to an entry, but so far the image is always a really small (much smaller than I want) sized image. I'm hoping to have this issue solved soon and working properly in the app's next update.

Database App Released and Puzzle Game

We've released the database app. It's called the Nail Polish Cataloger and as you might expect, it catalogs a person's personal nail polish collection. Tia suggested the idea a while back, and I wanted to play around with SQLite, so I started working on it. You can put in the colors, brand, collection, finish, size, etc. in and then look at them later or edit them or search for specific qualities like blue glossy polishes that cost more than $1. You can assign a picture to each entry in the catalog from your device's gallery. You can get it here:

On another note, I've added a cool (I think it is at least) power-up to the puzzle game I've been working on. The one that was my first attempt at AndEngine stuff. It was already good but I decided it needed a little bit more, and I'm really happy with the idea I added in. Here's how it works: as you destroy tiles on the board, an animated meter to the side fills up. When it is full, it starts glowing red which means the power-up is ready to be used. If you click it while its glowing red, the glow becomes green to show the power-up is "armed". When the power-up is "armed", your next move will destroy a bunch of tiles, but the meter will drain and you'll have to start filling it again to get the power-up back. I'm really happy with the way the power-up works, and especially how it looks. When the meter drains the bar slides back down to the bottom of the meter, and it looks really cool in my opinion. Overall, its a cool addition that I'm pretty excited about.

The Database App Continued

The database app is nearing completion. The user can now set a picture from their device's gallery for each entry and then it will show up on the entry's details page. A small version will also be displayed on the "Add" page as a preview. As far as I can tell, my search is working as well. You can fill out all the information to filter for from drop down lists and the display page is filled with all your entries that meet the criteria. I still need to do a bit more testing on the search functionality. There are a lot of things to search for, and although it seems to be working, there could be some weird combination that screws up the search. I'm fairly certain that my code doesn't allow for that sort of thing so it should be all working smoothly. I added an option to delete the entirety of the main table, but the user has to go through three different confirmation dialogs to do that. The app needs a bit more "field testing" but otherwise it is looking like its almost ready to go, barring any new bugs that haven't yet been found. Hopefully the app will be ready for release sometime soon.

I also plan to release a "Demo" Version that is free and works the same, but limits the user to a maximum of only 10 entries. This would mainly be so that the user can first test the app out and see if it works on their device, is something they would want to use, etc. Making a demo version will be a pretty short process so it should work out all right.

The Database App

I've made a lot of progress on the database app. Up to 7 tables now, which I think is all I need. I've also got a bunch of the pages set up on it. You can fill out a form to add an entry to the database, export the database as a comma delimited file, and import the same type of file back into the database. When you are viewing the list of entries, you can click one and it takes you to a details page where all of the entry's info is listed out along with an "Edit" and "Delete" button. The delete button obviously deletes the entry from the database. The edit button opens up the "add entry" form, but with the entry's info all filled out and when you change and save it, the edited entry takes the place of the old one.

The only major things I have left to do are like a filter/search page where you can pick out some info from the database to filter the list of entries by, and then I'd really like to add the ability to set a picture for each entry that would be shown on the entry's info page. It's going pretty well and I'm hoping to get it all set up in the next few days.

More Summer Games 3: The Revenge (and Databases)

So, lately we've mostly been taking a break from working on games. We'll get started again in a little while, but Tia cut her hand and can't really work on anything for a while and I'm currently working on a database, non-game, app for Android. We do have two more events for Androidian Summer Games full version planned though. The first one is a Track Cycling Sprint, which is pretty simple, but fun enough. The second event is easily my favorite of the two, and probably my favorite of all the events in general. The new event of which I speak, is of course the Discus Throw. It's pretty much done besides some graphics and I really like it. So, those will be out in a new update, hopefully soon depending on how Tia's hand heals and how quickly she starts feeling up for the task of the necessary graphics.

Now, the other project I'm working on currently isn't a game at all, but rather a personal database application. I won't go in to too much detail, but it has been pretty fun and even more daunting to work with SQLite for this app. I haven't really done any database stuff for around 3 years, so it has been intimidating to jump back into all this. Luckily, a lot of it is coming back to me. I've been reading a few chapters of some SQLite books and looking at a lot of examples and I've made some really good progress. I think it is pretty good progress at least. I have two tables so far, and the first one references the second one twice, and some spinners (aka dropdown boxes) on the UI I made fill with the data from the second table. Then you pick something from the list and along with some text you type into a text box, it all gets saved to the database and then it is displayed on a separate page that is available. I still have a lot to do with the app, but I'm pretty excited with the amount of work that I've accomplished so far. Plus, having some database experience under my belt is always good.

So, the database app is my main project right now. I'll try to get this one going and then hopefully I will dive back into the multiple game ideas we are looking in to.

Crabs and Databases

I haven't done much development lately. I've been sick for close to two weeks now and haven't really felt up to the task. Right before I got sick, however, I came up with a game idea based on one of my favorite activities: crabbing on the pacific coast. I was having some trouble with how some aspects of the game were going to work out, but after Tia and I discussed it for a while we came up with some changes that work really well. I haven't done much work on the game since then, but it is in a playable form right now and I think it's pretty fun, so I'm excited to keep working on it later.

I'm slowly getting over my sickness now and I've decided to finally start looking in to using SQLite in conjunction with Android. There are a couple apps I'd like to work on that would really benefit from the use of a database and SQLite seems like the best way to go. I haven't worked with databases in close to two or three years, so I've been reading up on some SQLite tutorials as well as some general database design articles. It's been a good refresher and I'm looking forward to working on some database applications.