Space Taxi / Cargo transport game

I’ve participated in a company’s gamejam weekend and made a flash game during the last 2 days. (see http://zetsgames.com/2nd-innogames-48h-game-jam/) Right now it’s pretty much a prototype - but I am thinking about making an android version that uses the gyro sensors to steer the transporter. I also have some story idea and I would try out to make a game where the first 5 levels are free and another bunch of levels are paid.

What do you think?

I like the game, and it would go well as an Android app. I’d probably prefer to play it with touch controls, but that’s because I always find gyro controls more difficult to operate. Perhaps you could offer both methods in the settings?

This game could actually make a great tutorial series. If you’re using libgdx or AndEngine I’m sure many people would be interested in seeing how to implement a basic version of this game.

Hm, making some tutorial on that would be interesting for getting some attention. Though I probably wouldn’t use libraries - just the plain Android development kit is fine for me. I don’t know if that would be a drawback ;)[hr]
Ah and about gyro controls: Most gyro controls suck in my opinion because of lacking feedback. I would be trying to compensate that and do useable controls if possible - and if it’s not possible, I’d fall back to simple touch controls.

I tried the game and it was so amazing.

First off I really like the game. Simple mechanics and charming graphics: a great combination for a mobile game in my opinion. I’ll definitely be getting this when you port it to Android.

On the touch vs gyro subject, obviously the best option is to be able to support both (this is a good read that’s somewhat relevant to that argument: http://replicaisland.blogspot.com/2011/07/want-to-change-game-industry-support.html). I really hate gyro controls, even with a feedback mechanism. That’s not to say they don’t have their place, but I’ve always said that it has to be a balance between intent and result. If the intent from the user is to vaguely move in one direction then that’s grand, let’s get some gyro controls in there. If the intent is to add a single standardised impules in one direction then I’d want to use a button to do that. I think the cargo controls lend themselves to accuracy so I’d definitely want to play with buttons. I may be totally proved wrong once you implement it of course, but it’s worth hedging your bets to support both (and then also make it easy enough to add further support for physical controllers).

As for the suggestion of libgdx / AndEngine, I’d seriously consider giving libgdx a look if I were you. It’s still quite low level so won’t be tying your hands, but it’ll save you all sorts of time on things you just don’t need to replicate yourself. For example, can you really be bothered to write your own texture atlas loader compared to using the one provided by libgdx and something like TexturePacker? You know it makes sense :wink:

I’ve never used Atlas or Packer … but the biggest PLUS for libgdx is the ability to test your game on DESKTOP … that feature is gold

for your game it’s also handy that libgdx brings native box2d support

I think for this thing, I’ll have a look at libgdx… it’s quite nice that it has native box2d support.

You’re right. Can’t believe I went for my laziness about writing my own texture loaders rather than the desktop support! That is indeed gold. One thing I found incredibly useful with that was testing on different screen dimensions. A quick change to the window size of my desktop launcher and I could see how my layouts were working. I prefer to rearrange everything to use all the screen with relative calcs rather than stretching / letterboxing so as not to waste screen space.

p.s. Hope you don’t hit any barriers. I’m actually quite excited about seeing this on my droid :slight_smile: