playing AGS games on the Android

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

I just got this email:

I was successful in playing Les Miserables on my droid by linking to my home comp. It was really cool and made for awesome sauce while waiting in the docs office

I asked him for more details of how he did it - has anyone else succeeded in playing AGS games on the droid? Any tips?

[Dataflashsabot]

Remote desktop perhaps? I've considered setting such a thing up on my phone for a while, but bleeeeeeeeeeeeee effort

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

EDIT: I never realized that RD could work over any distance, with a standard net connection. Or that RD works for all applications, including games. Surely the bandwidth requirements are prohibitive?

[SSH]

With VNC you run a server on your PC (
http://wwww.uvnc.com/

Then you run the viewer on your phone or PC (android, iphone, etc. all exist)
http://code.google.com/p/android-vnc-viewer/

And the screen/keystrokes/mouse movements are transmitted back and forth over the internet. You need may need to check your IP address each time you use it unless you've paid your ISP for a static one.

AFAIK Remote Desktop only is for Windows-Windows

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

Thanks. I still have trouble getting my head round the concept. I can see how transmitting keystrokes is easy enough, but graphics? A scrolling screen for example, would be basically a full screen video, right? Over the Net? Presumably with very lossy real time compression?

[SSH]

So, apparently MS Remote Desktop has Linux, Android and iPhone clients too but you'll have to pay for them (on android and iphone at least) unlike VNC

There are algorithms to reduce bandwidth: only updating relevant bits of screen, etc. but yes a full screen change would probably be bandwidth hungry. But you do know that the iplayer and youtube do HD video over the net now, right? Of course, you wouldn't want to do it over dialup but then only people living in really remote parts are stuck on dialup

Its probably not great for most games although adventures are probably better than most genres. It can be a bit jerky and laggy sometimes, too.

[Khris]

Over a LAN connection, it's almost like sitting in front of the other PC, but over the internet, it can be quite laggy. I can't imagine playing games that way, unless it's minesweeper or similar.
It's usually possible to adjust compression and color settings to improve the performance though.

There is a remote desktop app for the android available, so it is possible in theory. Maybe the guy's WLAN reaches to his doc's office?

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

you do know that the iplayer and youtube do HD video over the net now, right?

Not if you live at the very end of a long rural telephone line they don't But I imagine that real time compression is not as efficient. Still, the wonders of modern technology, eh? What will the kids think of next. Thanks for the info though.

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

I got another reply from my friend: He's not a techie (which is why I was excited that he got this working). He uses a G1 phone and 'Phonemypc' And it just worked!

From the sounds of it auto-scrolling screens are a problem, as the screen has to be refreshed too much, and small hotspots are hard to access easily. So I'm thinking of adding an optional "mobile mode" to my games that address these things. E.g. allow navigation in jumps, and magnetic hotspots or none at all. My games are based on books, and the look and feel is of a book, so I'm very keen to have them played on mobile devices if possible.