Finishing the FutureLearn Course

Finally spending a few hours to make me feel like I have finished.

So I have made the changes suggested in week 4 (loops and arrays) to add the sad balls. They didn't seem to appear in the right place but all was cured when I pasted in the week 5 code

Weeks 5 (algorithms) and 6 (functions) were interesting. At this point, there were only suggestions for open ended additions to the game so all I did was look at changing (reducing)  the score when the red ball hits a sad face. Seemed everything was in place so that there was one function call to do that

There is plenty to look back at here as the workspace has the whole structure for setting up the space and adding images / text plus code for moving

If I have time -

• suggest using the tilt of the machine to increase/decrease the speed of the red ball. It can take a long time to reach sad faces if it hit the walls at steep angles
• How about moving sad faces so different chances to get the red ball through
• And random direction for ball at start
• Red ball could  get faster as time progresses. 
• Not hard to see  how different levels could be implemented too

In all, quite satisfying. Still think I prefer C# as it is a bit more forgiving with converting between types; makes me lazy

Thank you for having me

Games course Week 2 postponed

Did I mention that the laptop I was using for this died at the start of the start of the week? So, got the software reinstalled a while ago and then, nothing.

Finally found a bit of time to do week 2 - making simple changes to the game

Seems the variables are already nicely set up in the class so small changes to mBallX mBallSpeedX translate into the actual changes on the screen.

worked on phone and tosh laptop, not Hudl.back later

FutureLearn Games Programming

Ok, so I'm doing the FutureLearn course on programming - making your first game in android. #FLmobigame

Why? Thought it'd be an excuse to have another chance to learn java. I've done this once or twice though made much more progress with the very similar C#. Cos C# runs faster gives clearer error messages and I can get the full visual studio for free from dreamspark.

So, the steps were:

1. Saw the first presentation last year, thought I'd avoid the beta test
2. Registered last December
3. Got brownie points from the boss for registering as it's cpd, then discovered my colleagues doing different courses
4. Got details of a competition for the students so encouraged them to register along with Dave Atkobeau and Allyn Truro. If they stay interested there's a comp in Reading sometime

So, steps tonight

1. Had a go at the android programming and at least got something running on my phone last year. Seems the key is to install Samsung Kies
2. Installed the Android dev kit - using a version of JDK on the machine
3. Got the emulator working for the week 1 game. Yawn Yawn whilst it kicked into life
4. Made my first apk file which installed, ran and did next to nothing as expected; transferred via drop box but saving my work to Google drive so that should sync pretty fast
5. Still working on the debugging on a device but I think I can crack it for my phone as I believe the laptop has the correct samsung usb drivers - I am sure I got it working last time. The phone just asked if I wanted to allow usb and bingo, runs on the phone. Instralls as an app so in business
6. trying for hudl with generic usb driver - see http://helpdesk.rsupport.com/entries/21710102-Installing-the-Generic-Google-Android-USB-Driver NO JOY https://www.facebook.com/tesco/posts/588612207864581 suggests the google driver should work with hudl
7. Could try editing the driver http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9709263/google-android-usb-driver-and-adb
8. or this https://www.topnotchtablets.com/installADBdriver has download; this asked me to replace the driver so it may screw the samsung connection ho hum we shall see. In fact it chose to uninstall itself and I can debug on the SIII, install and run on both. That's enough for tonight
9. UPDATE: tried it again with the hudl plugged in and it will run on there in debug mode too. hooray

Long term thoughts

This course looks like it will work by getting us to update the code that describes the game behavior in the TheGame.java class. We will need to add images for other parts of the game. Will we learn to start a game from scratch or will the other files, like the manifest, be left as a mystery to us??