Topic: AGS engine Android port

[Joseph DiPerla]

So there idea of official Android releases of our products isn't going to possible?

I'm guessing I'd have to hire someone to create the APK for me then.

No, it is possible. It is very possible. But its a lot of work and it may even take some time. Basic4ppc and Age.seccia.com have it in their apps and they seem to have done it quite nicely. And I can easily create an APK from scratch for games under 42mb. The problem is if the game gets larger. The .OBB files is an issue. But, as it stands right now, you can easily convert the Android launcher port to keep a game under 42mb within it and play it easily. Again, that is assuming you know how to compile for Android in the first place. If JJS could figure a way to factor in OBB files and create a launcher that launches only one game and if one of our windows developers can integrate a  packaging system in the editor, then the whole thing would be possible and would require fewer updates in the future. Then again, it would just be nice if Google allows one file type to be over the limit. That would solve the issue completely.

[DazJ]

So there idea of official Android releases of our products isn't going to possible?

I'm guessing I'd have to hire someone to create the APK for me then.

No, it is possible. It is very possible. But its a lot of work and it may even take some time. Basic4ppc and Age.seccia.com have it in their apps and they seem to have done it quite nicely. And I can easily create an APK from scratch for games under 42mb. The problem is if the game gets larger. The .OBB files is an issue. But, as it stands right now, you can easily convert the Android launcher port to keep a game under 42mb within it and play it easily. Again, that is assuming you know how to compile for Android in the first place. If JJS could figure a way to factor in OBB files and create a launcher that launches only one game and if one of our windows developers can integrate a  packaging system in the editor, then the whole thing would be possible and would require fewer updates in the future. Then again, it would just be nice if Google allows one file type to be over the limit. That would solve the issue completely.

Cheers for the information, Joseph.

It would be a great help if we had a simple guide on how to compile our projects as an APK just so we could experiment. Do you know where I could find one?

[Jothie]

I'm loving this app on both my tablet and ouya.  Thank you so much for making it. 

Edited: ignore the original request that was edited out as it seems to be a problem with Ouya and usb, not with the app.

[Manul]

Just wanted to drop in to say thanks to JJS for this awesome port. I have just installed it on both my Nexus 4 and my Nexus 7 and while I haven't actually played a game on them yet, first impressions are really good.

One small anecdote aside: When I first tried it out on my phone, I found it almost unusable since I couldn't see what was under my finger and thus under the mouse pointer. I thought about possible improvements to the interface and was just about to register here to suggest something - and then I discovered relative mode which was almost exactly what I had come up with.

There's one possible change/addition to it which I'd like to offer for discussion. How about handling single taps in two different ways:

• If it's in the general vicinity of the cursor, i.e. in a relatively small circle (maybe make that configurable) around it, treat them as left clicks.
• Otherwise move the cursor to where the screen was tapped.

I think this might just work and make gameplay even more convenient. What are your thoughts?

[DazJ]

Did you manage to fix the OGV video stuttering issue? They're only 640x480 videos and stutter on all devices I've tried it on. Is it to do with the fact that the video contains audio?

[Crimson Wizard]

Did you manage to fix the OGV video stuttering issue? They're only 640x480 videos and stutter on all devices I've tried it on. Is it to do with the fact that the video contains audio?

Does it stutter when the game is run on PC? I am interested to know if this is a general behavior, or happens only with Android port.

[DazJ]

It runs fine on the PC, even runs fine with the OGVs at 1080p. But any size OGV on Android stutters and crawls its way through. This happens on multiple devices.

[JJS]

In the options menu, did you try with different settings for "Drop frames if necessary"? If this is not checked, every frame will be displayed regardless of speed. If checked, frames will be skipped according to the video speed if the processor is too slow to display them all. I had added that option because slow devices might skip all frames of a video because they lag behind from the beginning.

There is also no hardware acceleration for the video decoding, so a large video will not play smoothly.

[DazJ]

Yes I've tried all the settings and it makes no difference.

[Manul]

There's one possible change/addition to it which I'd like to offer for discussion. How about handling single taps in two different ways:

• If it's in the general vicinity of the cursor, i.e. in a relatively small circle (maybe make that configurable) around it, treat them as left clicks.
• Otherwise move the cursor to where the screen was tapped.

I think this might just work and make gameplay even more convenient. What are your thoughts?

I hope it's okay to bring this up again: I have just played through Rebirth, The Reaper and Ben Jordan 1 on my Nexus 7 and must say I think this would actually be very convenient at least on larger screens/tablets. Moving the cursor across the whole screen is a bit tedious.

I had a look at the Android source to see whether I could try it out myself but couldn't figure out where the distinction between the different mouse modes is made in the actual code. Any hints in that direction would be greatly appreciated.

Another thing: Would it be possible to include some more keys in the keys menu? Ben Jordan e.g. uses Ctrl-T to toggle subtitles and I couldn't figure out a way to do that on my Nexus.

[.M.M.]

With a great help from JJS, I've made Android game using the AGS engine Android port. For more info, look here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=49077.0

[Joseph DiPerla]

I purchased the game to give you some support. Will check it out later.

[.M.M.]

I purchased the game to give you some support. Will check it out later.

Thanks, I hope you'll like it! Also, I'd be very happy for any feedback - everything, even if this type of game is something people enjoy playing on Android devices: I have an idea for my next RPG and I haven't decided yet whether make it for Android or not.

[sektor666]

i'm having trouble running The Blackwell Legacy and Blackwell Convergence on the AGS android port. the games show on the list, but when i try to run them, i get the 'unable to find main data file' error. i had the same problem with blackwell unbound, but it started working after i renamed the .exe to ac2game.dat. i can't do it with the other two, because they already have ac2game.dat in their directories, apart from the game executable. i'm guessing maybe they were compiled using an unsupported version of the AGS editor. so is there any workaround or any way to recompile them using a newer editor version?

[Joseph DiPerla]

Try deleting the executable file. Actually, make a backup, then delete it and try running it again. The engine may be confusing which to run first maybe?

[sektor666]

Try deleting the executable file. Actually, make a backup, then delete it and try running it again. The engine may be confusing which to run first maybe?

no joy. deleting the executable makes the game disappear from the games list.

[Crimson Wizard]

i had the same problem with blackwell unbound, but it started working after i renamed the .exe to ac2game.dat. i can't do it with the other two, because they already have ac2game.dat in their directories, apart from the game executable.

This means one of the files is excessive. You need either EXE, or ac2game.dat. If the launcher expects exe, then delete ac2game.dat instead. Anyway, there's no sense in having both of them there.
This does not explain why engine cannot find the game file... unless their format is corrupted, or similar. Frankly, I have no idea right away.

BTW, which version of AGS Android port are you using (or which date of build)?

i'm guessing maybe they were compiled using an unsupported version of the AGS editor. so is there any workaround or any way to recompile them using a newer editor version?

These games are old, and there were not any other editor versions aside from official ones back then, so I doubt that is a reason.

[sektor666]

okay, so deleting one file makes the game disappear from the list, and deleting the other just makes the same error come up again on launch. i'm using the latest revision of the ags engine (2013-08-25), and the game runs correctly on my pc, so i'm not sure what could be corrupted...

[monkey0506]

What are the respective file sizes of the EXE and DAT files? They shouldn't both be valid unless the games are for some reason storing their own external data in "ac2game.dat". I'm doing a fresh install of both games from Steam, but there's no ac2game.dat file for either in the game's repositories. Obviously that wouldn't indicate if the games are for some reason creating the file. Where did you obtain the games? Perhaps a fresh install (while saving any "agssave.*" files) would resolve the issue?

I'll take a look at running them once I have them downloaded (which will be quite a while).


@JJS: I've heard of multiple reports of Theora videos running slowly across several devices. I know literally nothing about how this works, but is there any way to better determine the reason for this slowdown? I did quite a bit of searching, but I came up basically empty handed. I did read that a conversion from YUV to RGB colorspace is a big bottleneck for Theora, but I wouldn't know where to look to try and do anything about that.

[sektor666]

i can't quite remember when i got each of the games, since they have been sitting on my drive for a while now. iirc i bought legacy directly from wadjet, and then i got the rest from a humble bundle. i'd have to seach through my mail. i think those versions might be different from the steam version.
anyway, the .dat is significantly larger than the .exe (18 mb vs 2 mb), but deleting the .exe doesn't remedy the error. i also tried renaming it to .ags, but it didn't help either.