The past week (2 Fridays ago and this last Friday) I was looking into text input forms for Squishy Bugs. Initially I thought I’d try using an Android view/layout (I still don’t know if there’s a difference) to get the necessary text field rendering and reading the keyboard. The Eclipse Android layout manager is pretty cool and I had a nice form mocked up in no time, but this left me with a minor issue.
Squishy Bugs is meant to be cross platform. In addition to working on an Android phone or tablet, it also runs as a desktop application. That’s actually how I do my development, running the game as an app on my computer playing it using a mouse. Building the registration form using an Android view does nothing for the desktop version. Back to square one.
It was actually quite easy to find a cross platform solution since there was such a good example built into libgdx itself. You can see the results in the image below.
The location of the form is subject to change, and I’ve still got to figure out if there’s a password field so that the password isn’t displayed in plain text. But it’s a step in the right direction. Next up I suppose would be writing data to the phone to store Squishy Bugs settings, and then sending the login information to the WaggSoft api so your high scores can finally be saved!
Last weekend I managed to squeak out an update to Squishy Bugs. The old url to the Squishy Bugs page on the Android market is no longer valid. I removed that package, which *poof* caused it to disappear from the market.
You can find the new Squishy Bugs market page here. I don’t expect to ever have to change market urls again. And if I do, you can always get the proper url at WaggSoft.com.
With this update I reduced the number of rows of tiles since some players complained that toward the end of the level it seemed to take too long for the bullet to reach the top-most tiles. This allowed me to display the player’s score at the top of the page. Which brings me to the other update.
The scoring system has been revised. Previously you were awarded 1 point for every tile that was falling the moment you squished a tile. 3 tiles falling? Squish a tile for 3 points. Squish another tile for 2 points (since there would only be 2 tiles left falling). And so on. Squishy bugs were worth a 2 point multiplier. No longer! Each tile awards a ridiculous number of points following the same number-of-tiles-falling rule. However, now you lose points for not catching tiles. Each tile that drops off the bottom of the screen will cause you to lose the same number of points as you would have had you managed to squish the tile. This prevents players from exploiting the multiplicative nature of the scoring system.
Also, the groundwork for adding new power ups has been completed. It should be relatively straight forward to add new power ups in the future. So in addition to the bouncy ball power up that’s already present, there will be a “drop similar icons” power up and a “drop similar colors” power up. They will work similar to the way dropping groups works right now, which is that groups of the same color and icon fall together if one of them is hit.
Some update in the future will see the addition of accounts which will tie into a WaggSoft community page. This will allow for global high scores (another feature to add) and potentially allow for the addition of special events.
So I totally forgot to mention that Squishy Bugs is now available on the Android market. It’s free. It’s ad supported but not in an intrusive way. You actually only see the advertisement when you are *not* playing the game. Like when you are viewing the main menu or settings page. That kind of stuff.
It’s an early release. I’m calling it version 0.0.1. It’s going to change a lot by the time it’s done. There are at least 3 powerups I can think of that need to be added to the game. The sound effects will be tweaked. I want to have global high scores, and I’ve already written most of the server code for that.
So if you have an Android device, please check it out. It installs to the SD card by default and it only takes up 1.9MB of data.
Also, if you have any issues to report or want to discuss the game or ask questions then you can do so at the forums. Or reach me over Twitter.
Squishy Bugs is scheduled for release soon, barring any surprises/complications. I haven’t gone through the process of submitting to the Android market, yet, so I’m expecting something as simple as uploading and pressing a button marked “Publish”. I hope there’s no signing any packages or hoops to jump through, and if there are that the instructions are simple. I’ve already created and paid for my Android market account. I’m already set up to receive funds through the market. All systems should be “Go”.
I’m just polishing up the last little bits I can in the time permitted. Just last night I started working on the tutorial. I would like to believe the game is simple enough to figure out without instructions, but it can’t hurt to be prepared.
I hope to have the tutorial finished tonight or tomorrow. Then I can go back to fixing the last couple (low priority) known issues. And then adding sound effects. And hiding the advertisement when not on the menu. And then tweaking the scoring system. And then… there’s a whole list of things left to do. Oh yeah, I kind of still need to add squishy bugs to the game. You know, the things that give the game its name? Yeah, they’re still not in here. And finish building the web site…
I’m still on schedule for a December 24 release. Progress will be posted here, as usual.
