What do you think?

MotisGames

Still working on it a lot. Just on the play store because its playable and im sick of adding my friends to the list of testers.
Based on a template from Two.E (Thanks)
Any input would be appreciated. This is my first game and I am as far from a coder as you can get, so take it easy, but be honest :P

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=swingspikes.motis.io&hl=en

Thanks Peeps!

famekrafts

On my Vivo phone, the graphics are getting stretched.

I played the game even after 10 tries, have no idea what the game is about and how to play it. You need to give a mini tutorial or instructions button.

Someone who has never seen the template from Two.E cannot guess how to play the game.

MotisGames

Thanks for the feedback @famekrafts !

I am actually working on a tutorial button right now (thats what everyone has asked for)
Once you get the controls figured out, it is simple. But I do understand its a bit confusing at the start.

And I am having the same stretching issue on my s10+. I thought maybe it was just because of the ridiculously long screen, but i guess not lol

Thanks so much for taking the time to check it out and comment. I will get working on those issues right away

MotisGames

@famekrafts check back soon, added a help/tutorial button, changed some assets and made other minor changes. Should be updated on google play soon. Would love to hear what you think about the new help page, if you think it explains how to play well enough.

I am still working on figuring out how to prevent the stretching... as i said, I am very new to this.

MotisGames

The update is now live if anyone wants to check it out. Would be good to hear if the instructions are clear enough for someone who hasn't played this type of game before.

Thanks!

bob loblaw

@MotisGames said:
Thanks for the feedback @famekrafts !

I am actually working on a tutorial button right now (thats what everyone has asked for)
Once you get the controls figured out, it is simple. But I do understand its a bit confusing at the start.

And I am having the same stretching issue on my s10+. I thought maybe it was just because of the ridiculously long screen, but i guess not lol

Thanks so much for taking the time to check it out and comment. I will get working on those issues right away

if you are using stretch, and targeting universal builds, you will need to make camera size adjustments based on the screen size the game is being played on. without the camera size adjustment, the longer screens will make the stretch look terrible.

MotisGames

@bob loblaw Thanks for the info! I am using stretch and hoping it looks nice on all devices. But I dont quite understand the whole camera size adjustment thing (not for lack of going through tutorials) played around with it on a test apk and couldn't quite figure it out. Still trying to figure it out. Dont want to apply it to this game until I know exactly what I'm doing so I dont break other things.
I know to some of you might think I sound stupid but I have 0 experience with any of this lol

bob loblaw

@MotisGames said:
@bob loblaw Thanks for the info! I am using stretch and hoping it looks nice on all devices. But I dont quite understand the whole camera size adjustment thing (not for lack of going through tutorials) played around with it on a test apk and couldn't quite figure it out. Still trying to figure it out. Dont want to apply it to this game until I know exactly what I'm doing so I dont break other things.
I know to some of you might think I sound stupid but I have 0 experience with any of this lol

motis, have a look through my threads for a very simple stretch landscape demo, and hopefully that will help you get your head around it. that demo was one way to do it (detects the screen x/y size, then adjusts the width to have the aspect ratio, while maintaining the iPad build of 768 pixels height).

there's a few ways you can go, but at the start of it, you need to have logic to detect your screen size or aspect ratio, and using an unlocked actor on each scene, adjust the camera size to suit. you will also need to ensure that your scene size is as wide as your largest target device screen size eg. if you build on ipad (768x1024), and want your game to properly stretch to google pixel 3 (2:1 aspect ratio), your width scene width will need to be at least double the iPad height (1576 pixels, which is what you would adjust your camera size to). I hope that makes sense.

famekrafts

@bob loblaw said:

@MotisGames said:
@bob loblaw Thanks for the info! I am using stretch and hoping it looks nice on all devices. But I dont quite understand the whole camera size adjustment thing (not for lack of going through tutorials) played around with it on a test apk and couldn't quite figure it out. Still trying to figure it out. Dont want to apply it to this game until I know exactly what I'm doing so I dont break other things.
I know to some of you might think I sound stupid but I have 0 experience with any of this lol

motis, have a look through my threads for a very simple stretch landscape demo, and hopefully that will help you get your head around it. that demo was one way to do it (detects the screen x/y size, then adjusts the width to have the aspect ratio, while maintaining the iPad build of 768 pixels height).

there's a few ways you can go, but at the start of it, you need to have logic to detect your screen size or aspect ratio, and using an unlocked actor on each scene, adjust the camera size to suit. you will also need to ensure that your scene size is as wide as your largest target device screen size eg. if you build on ipad (768x1024), and want your game to properly stretch to google pixel 3 (2:1 aspect ratio), your width scene width will need to be at least double the iPad height (1576 pixels, which is what you would adjust your camera size to). I hope that makes sense.

Went over my head.

Bob can you make a simple demo for what you are trying to explain here? That will be beneficial to everyone who is trying to understand the camera and aspect ratio for different platforms.

MotisGames

@bob loblaw that was making sense to me at the start, logic to detect device screen size. But the rest of it went over my head too. With a game like this, would it be possible to use overscan? I tried that with a test apk and the only issue I can think of is that the spikes near the edge of the screen might get cut out.. but I'm sure there is some way? I havent had a chance to look into it much today or yesterday, been busy at work. But the stretching issue is the next thing I'll be trying to fix because it looks pretty bad.

bob loblaw

i dummied up a simple landscape demo a while back that i put in this thread:

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/609290#Comment_609290

have a play around with it and see how you go. add some random image that covers the whole background scene area to give you an idea of what displays on different sizes. the stretch should work on all ios sizes, and the majority of androids, keeping the proportions of your images to their original scale. if you have any questions, i’ll do my best to explain/answer. if you add a zoom in/out feature to it, you would then need to take into account other things (eg, constraining the position, height and width hud actor instances to ensure they stay in the right place and retain their display size).

hope that helps.

bob loblaw

@MotisGames said:
@bob loblaw that was making sense to me at the start, logic to detect device screen size. But the rest of it went over my head too. With a game like this, would it be possible to use overscan? I tried that with a test apk and the only issue I can think of is that the spikes near the edge of the screen might get cut out.. but I'm sure there is some way? I havent had a chance to look into it much today or yesterday, been busy at work. But the stretching issue is the next thing I'll be trying to fix because it looks pretty bad.

overscan works ok but as you’ve found out, it crops your screen, so you’d still need to readjust the position of your hud actors.

i used overscan on my first published project. worked ok, but on some of the scenes the camera won’t pan far enough to see everything you need to see. using stretch with adjusted camera dimensions fixes that (as i found on my soon to be published second project and the few others that are in the works).

famekrafts

@bob loblaw said:
i dummied up a simple landscape demo a while back that i put in this thread:

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/609290#Comment_609290

have a play around with it and see how you go. add some random image that covers the whole background scene area to give you an idea of what displays on different sizes. the stretch should work on all ios sizes, and the majority of androids, keeping the proportions of your images to their original scale. if you have any questions, i’ll do my best to explain/answer. if you add a zoom in/out feature to it, you would then need to take into account other things (eg, constraining the position, height and width hud actor instances to ensure they stay in the right place and retain their display size).

hope that helps.

Thanks, will check it out.

MotisGames

@bob loblaw said:
i dummied up a simple landscape demo a while back that i put in this thread:

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/609290#Comment_609290

have a play around with it and see how you go. add some random image that covers the whole background scene area to give you an idea of what displays on different sizes. the stretch should work on all ios sizes, and the majority of androids, keeping the proportions of your images to their original scale. if you have any questions, i’ll do my best to explain/answer. if you add a zoom in/out feature to it, you would then need to take into account other things (eg, constraining the position, height and width hud actor instances to ensure they stay in the right place and retain their display size).

hope that helps.

I did check it out, and it does make more sense now. I've watched that same video before, but when I first started and it made no sense to me at all. But now that I've played around with GS a bit it does kind of make sense. Taking the day off today so I'll have some time to screw around with it and find what works best with this game.

Thanks again guys for helping. Much appreciated.

Two.E

All the best with the development! It is coming along nicely.

Best,
Two.E