15 replies to this topic

[muff]

Hi all

As some of you are aware, I'm planning a tutorial series on games programming in C++ for the Smartphone - and I was wondering what you wanted to know.

I've obviously got a list of things here that I think are important, but they may vary wildly from what others want to learn.

feel free to add your suggestions


These are obvious ones to get you started :-

- how to setup a window
- how to handle incoming calls
- how to load images
- how to put images on the screen
- how to play music + sounds
- how to handle keypad input
- how to store highscores + settings
- how to draw and scroll a multi-layer map
- how to do collisions

there are obviously lots more, but I want to hear what people feel they want to know

Edited by muff, 16 February 2005 - 11:31 AM.

[mashkhan]

muff, on Feb 13 2005, 16:26, said:

Hi all

As some of you are aware, I'm planning a tutorial series on games programming for the Smartphone - and I was wondering what you wanted to know.

I've obviously got a list of things here that I think are important, but they may vary wildly from what others want to learn.

feel free to add your suggestions
These are obvious ones to get you started :-

- how to setup a window
- how to handle incoming calls
- how to load images
- how to put images on the screen
- how to play music + sounds
- how to handle keypad input
- how to store highscores + settings
- how to draw and scroll a multi-layer map
- how to do collisions

there are obviously lots more, but I want to hear what people feel they want to know

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds like a great idea. I would personally like to see as a start for the first tutorial something really basic like a really simple Pong type thing. This would show us displaying + moving sprites as well as collision detection.  Nothing to elaborate to begin with, just the basic building blocks.

Edited by mashkhan, 14 February 2005 - 03:21 PM.

[max1956bikes]

sounds great idea i would love to make agame. hope its going to be easy to follow.i struggle to put games on phone unless its an easy download that does itself.

[stealthd2]

what language are u using to develop these games? i want to start coding some simple app that are desperately needed. I wish someone would port the latest MAME version with bluetooth support to play multiplayer. My knowledge is advanced VB, and basic C++, anything else i would have to learn.

[beersoft]

something that i find useful is going over sample projects and seeing how it all fits togther, as my c++ skills are "basic"  and im not to hot on all this class and windows programming stuff something liket that would be usefull

something like a project that takes you through the steps of
how to load an image and sound files
how to build a image map
how to display the image map and actor sprites
how to move the background and actors
how to animate the actor sprites
how to get input from the user
(we can add our own deleting the codebase whilst drunk, blowing up hardware to slow development and featurecreap guides later )

you can see where i am going with this, hand holding through the basic development process for those who know how to code but spend far too much time in the pub to work out all this windows pishposh

later

Owen

[muff]

Beer : going by some of the words you use it sounds like you've done some work with Macromedia products? thanks for the suggestions btw


Come on people....

no other questions? or is it that people just dont know what they need to learn?

[Jamma14]

Lol well yeah, I guess there is that...my C++ skills are also very basic at best and I just think something that explains everything well and teaches us the simple things first gradually getting more complex - just starting from scratch how to make a basic game I guess. (Lol soz that post isn't very helpful)  

[ad69]

yer i think some collison detection, environment, to load sound and images and keyboard input. :cheesy:

[nIghtorius]

The most important thing for me was (when used to programming for a x86 WinXP system) is the lack of working directories on CE platforms.

I have written a "default" function for this:

LPWSTR	GetParentDir () {
	LPWSTR	AppPath = (LPWSTR)malloc (256);
	GetModuleFileName (NULL, AppPath, 256);
	int  pos = 0;
	int  ptr;

	do {
  if (AppPath[pos] == '\\') ptr = pos;
  pos++;  
	} while (AppPath[pos] != 0);

	AppPath [ptr+1] = 0;	// terminate string.;)

	return AppPath;
}

what does it do:

* first it allocates some space for a LPWSTR (unicode).. 2 bytes per character.. filename max length 128 characters here.
* Get the module filename of NULL (meaning itself).. for example \Storage Card\Games\My First Game\game.exe
* find the last "\" \Storage Card\Games\My First Game\game.exe
* place a #00 character (EOS) @ the position where the g of game.exe starts. effectively truncating the string @ the last "\"
* return pointer to the LPWSTR structure.

what do you have to do:
everytime you use the function and are done with his value invoke a:

delete ;

So you can your make applications/games run anywhere on the storage instead of having a "fixed" location.. (which sucks)

[Jamma14]

Any update on this muff?

[muff]

I'm actually waiting to see how the new phones shake out as they may well affect stuff

[sanamkan]

One thing that I would love to see in more smartphone games, are games that use the camera, like Fishopolis. If you could include a tutorial on how to use the camera in games, I'm sure that there will be an increase in those kinds. Also, could you please include topics for anybody who doesn't know anything at all about C++? Thanks.

[vleselijke man]

All I can say is that I'm really looking forward to your tutorials as I'm planning to make a game for my c550 some day

[Hitman0769]

I would like to see a well commented example.  Something like a Galaga game would be great!  And if possible have a C++ Source which is coded to work in the Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone platform.  This would be really awesome and I could learn everything I need to get started from something like this.  Even if it was very basic but pointed out the coding mechanisms behind such an engine it would be very helpful.

[kuriel5205]

muff, on Feb 13 2005, 16:22, said:

Hi all

As some of you are aware, I'm planning a tutorial series on games programming in C++ for the Smartphone - and I was wondering what you wanted to know.

I've obviously got a list of things here that I think are important, but they may vary wildly from what others want to learn.

feel free to add your suggestions


These are obvious ones to get you started :-

- how to setup a window
- how to handle incoming calls
- how to load images
- how to put images on the screen
- how to play music + sounds
- how to handle keypad input
- how to store highscores + settings
- how to draw and scroll a multi-layer map
- how to do collisions

there are obviously lots more, but I want to hear what people feel they want to know

well... just do an smartphone emulator of gba... no se ingles... jeje...

[ScreamingFalcon]

How About We work together to make an easy to use programming environment along the lines of something like the Adventure Game Studio? There are a lot of great games on it and not all of them are adventure games.