Throwing IntelliJ into the mix

Decided to try out new technology for next project.  Upgraded to Java 7 and this time will use IntelliJ.  Everything was incredibly simple to set up, big thank you to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5271182/how-do-i-set-up-intellij-idea-for-android-applications

In other front, also taking a class in https://www.coursera.org/ on Scala. I doubt I'm going to use Scala in my next project, just don't have enough grasp on it yet. OK back to work.

I'm still here

The blog hasn't been updated for a while.
There is a very good reason, I have started Mild Spring LLC and published 3 android games.  Details and the official page for the company is here: http://mildspring.com/

The three games are fairy adventure, whac-a-mole and pairs-game.

For Fairy Adventure, my wife has developed images, for other two games I was able to find free images at http://www.lostgarden.com/2007/05/dancs-miraculously-flexible-game.html and I'd like to give them a big "Thank You!"  All sounds for 3 games came from http://www.freesound.org and a big "Thank You!" to them as well.

Developing for android is a challenge, but also a great opportunity. It is an opportunity to release games to wide audience, with a low entry fee (just $25 at google play).

Over the past year, I was primarily focused on these games in my free time.

Working in the background.

The game is progressing.  A lot of images are in place, so is a lot of logic.  Greatest problem lately had been what happens when user exits application - it has been hanging, until earlier today.
I wish I could share more, but keeping it under wraps for now.  The main target for the game is casual gamers, and if there's a more specific target-group it would be girls my oldest daughter's age.
Now that previously-mentioned problem is fixed, I can dive into the game-play, there still needs to be a goal - currently it's playable, but there's no goal.  And there are features to be added - most importantly sound.

Making sense

Today's effort was two fold:

1. Moved functions which should execute only onee per thread into their own class; function such as the ones to get current time (we don't want different objects on screen to think the time is different, even by millisecond) - it can only lead to confusion
2. Added 'bullets'.  As the main object moves, by clicking anywhere else on screen fires off a bullet.

No picture today, but making an effort to have it checked in, as now the project is getting more complex.

Getting it moving.

Added ability to move object around on android, it required a lot more effort than I expected, but works pretty well now.  Next stop is to add menus, and make everything configurable - start with the size of the box.  Following step is to think through the actual game, and the following step is to implement it.

Android app on Pandigital

Something that works in emulator, may not work on the real machine.

It took a while to get it to work on my Pandigital.  One challenge was to recompile the program with a lower version of SDK.  The other challenge - not solved, is to stop it from freezing up.

The issue of freezing up is a bit irrelevant, I never meant to run the process on the real machine.

But the major task of developing something, and have it work on a physical device is a good accomplishment.

Collision Detection on Android

Finished, hopefully, a test program for my colision  - very simple one - detection.

Here's a screen shot:

The screen shot has yellow spots for unmarked spaces. The grey rectangle is a shape.  And the green/red rectangle is another shape. The red square is where green rectangle intersects with grey rectangle.