Messages

Not sure, but nothing is for free so I would expect something back to them in return such as Royalty rates, etc...

I'd like to see the code on the Speed Tester if possible

How? When? Where?
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Anything you can think of, where people gather, where people are most likely to see your game. If it costs money to make money, I'm doing it. Don't count me as being brash, I realize you've probably have done somethings to promote. All I'm trying to do is generate motivation. When I see people saying, I can't... I want to say to them, Yes you can. There are no can'ts, there is only YES YOU CAN!!

What about Code that you provide on your site, is that freely modifiable?

I'd still push for WP7. Since it's a relatively new platform it's going to take some time. With Nokia going WP7, that's going to help expand the market place.
One thing I need to ask, how much do you guys market your games? Do you just throw it out there and hope it sells? Word of mouth does wonders, you may consider promoting your game around town, maybe hit bar/pub and give out promo codes.
If you don't tell people about your product they may not know to go get it. Family members may be of use as well but don't count too much on it.
Promote, promote promote.

Thought I would share this handy object counter. Essentially it's an Eggtimer that you set and check to see if a specified time period in seconds has been reached. Thanks to MrTAToad for the concept from his AppTimer especially the Pause Function from it that solved a math issue I was having.

You start by creating the object with a given time in seconds using the InitializeTimer function. Then once per update loop you call the UpdateTimer on the object. Then after that you call the CheckTimer when you want to see if the Timer is up. If it is, it will reset itself for the next round. If you want to reset the timer before it hits the time it has been set to without changing that value, call the ResetTimer function. If you want to to change the timer to a new value call
ChangeTimer and pass the seconds you want to change the timer to which also resets the timer at the same time.

By the way if you have a better way of doing this or any suggestions/errors you find, please let me know, I'm open to all possibilities.

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

TYPE GameObjectTimer

initialTime = 0
deltaTime = 0
countTime = 0
pausedTime = 0
elapsedTime = 0
paused = FALSE

// Initialize the amount of time you want to pass before the trigger
FUNCTION InitializeTimer: countTo
self.initialTime = GETTIMERALL()
self.countTime = countTo
self.paused = FALSE
ENDFUNCTION

// Call once per update loop
FUNCTION UpdateTimer:
IF self.paused = FALSE
self.deltaTime = GETTIMERALL()-self.initialTime
ENDIF
ENDFUNCTION

// Call after the UpdateTimer. This needs to be called or the timer will never reset
FUNCTION CheckTimer:
IF self.paused = FALSE
IF INTEGER(self.deltaTime/1000) >= self.countTime
self.ResetTimer()
RETURN TRUE
ENDIF
ENDIF
ENDFUNCTION

// If you want to reset the timer but keep the orignal value for your check, use this
FUNCTION ResetTimer:

self.initialTime = GETTIMERALL()

ENDFUNCTION

// If you want to change the value that gets checked on, it also calls ResetTimer()
FUNCTION ChangeTimer: startTime

self.countTime = startTime
self.ResetTimer()
ENDFUNCTION

//Call this function when you pause the game passing in TRUE to pause and FALSE to unpause it
FUNCTION PauseTimer: isPaused
IF isPaused
self.pausedTime = GETTIMERALL()
self.paused = TRUE
ELSE
self.elapsedTime = GETTIMERALL()-self.pausedTime
self.initialTime = self.initialTime+self.elapsedTime
self.paused = FALSE
ENDIF

ENDFUNCTION

ENDTYPE


Sample Program

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

LOCAL testTime AS GameObjectTimer
LOCAL pauseTheTime = FALSE
LOCAL PkeyPressed = FALSE
LOCAL UkeyPressed = FALSE

testTime.InitializeTimer(10)

WHILE NOT KEY(01)

IF KEY(25) AND PkeyPressed = FALSE
testTime.PauseTimer(TRUE)
PkeyPressed = TRUE
ENDIF

IF NOT KEY(25)
PkeyPressed = FALSE
ENDIF

IF KEY(22) AND UkeyPressed = FALSE
testTime.PauseTimer(FALSE)
UkeyPressed = TRUE
ENDIF

IF NOT KEY(22)
UkeyPressed = FALSE
ENDIF

testTime.UpdateTimer()
PRINT testTime.deltaTime,10,10
PRINT testTime.initialTime,10,20
PRINT testTime.pausedTime,10,30
testTime.CheckTimer()
SHOWSCREEN
WEND

END

Cool. That really answers my question. I think for the next game I may try to focus a little more on the piece that you suggested however for this one, the game is not that complicated that this would cause any problems. I'll have to see how it runs on other devices but this should be no problem.
Thanks!

I'll probably do that then. So do you set it to LIMITFPS -1 and then update the game based on the APP Timer routine?
Thanks.

So after building the Main portions for my game, I'm running into slight issues where the game is jerky. The main game play starts up fine but after a bit it jerks a little bit and then goes back to being fine. I've implement MrTAToad's AppTimer which I call once per game loop and pass it to whatever needs it to update their movement. If I set the game to LIMITFPS -1, the game doesn't do this, however if I leave it at the default of 60, the game jerks a bit.
Is it also possible that I may have too many function calls?
I don't need specific answers but just some general guidance on what I should probably avoid or try doing different.

I'll weigh my comments on this one. The thing that attracts me to Monkey is Windows Phone 7 since that is what I want to hit to. Beyond that, I don't really like the language syntax. While it provides for inheritance and generics, the syntax is very awkward. Declaring Variables to be more precise.
My big beef with it is for $120 you get an IDE that is basic, Key-Word highlighting, no real project management, no collapsible function blocks. You have to pay another $100 just for that.
I think for competition, if Kitty were to get a builder for Windows Phone 7 and maybe HTML 5 GLBasic would be an Iron Tank that would flatten monkey with it's awesome IDE and tools. I'd honestly pay extra just to get that in GLBasic(Hint Hint).

spacefractal - You're using Sprite Sheets correct?

This is why I plan on buying a Tablet at Amazon, Best Buy or where ever.
Too many liabilities on Ebay. I guess I could also upgrade my phone as well......

Wow this is nasty. Lodsys is the one who is behind it. http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html. Looks like they had to setup a website just to handle it. Funny that they are only going to answer questions through the website. Apple, Google and Microsoft will need to get involved with this. This is going to cause a lot of harm to small developers who do not need this. Especially us.

How about GETSPRITE with a combination of calculations of what the size of each tile should be?

Good examples guys. This gave me an idea for setting up a pause screen and several other things.
Say if you were doing a comic you could draw ahead one page and have that partially displayed off to the side, then when you swipe your finger to move right, the sprite could move left along with your finger.
with your finger and the next page could be drawn on a new Sprite.