Wagic on Android (DROID) ?

To discuss about porting wagic to other platform. Note that we have several request for porting wagic to other platform, but no coders at the moment to do the job.
esko1
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:41 pm

Wagic on Android (DROID) ?

Post by esko1 »

hey guys

im playing wth since the release of 8.1 and really love this game. It just keeps getting better!

now im singed on the forum to ask u if there will be an android os port oft wagic. it would be so great. i dont know much about programming but would that be to hard to port it? i mean, android os based on a linux kernel and is opensource.

sry about my english. i cant put something in words in english like i could do it in german. so dont stone me to death :P

[EDIT ABRA: Topic merged, I also kind of merged the title too]
wololo
Site Admin
Posts: 3728
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Japan

Re: wth on android os

Post by wololo »

It's like the iPhone: a port is probably doable but I don't own such a phone so I can't work on it. I'll be glad to hel though if someone want to work on this. :)
esko1
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:41 pm

Re: wth on android os

Post by esko1 »

where do u live? i would send u my old g1 but it works only with android 1.6. it would be nicier u port it on 2.0 or 2.1. also there is an hardware emulator in the android sdk ;) so u dont need a phone like this^^

im looking for someone on a german android-froum called android-hilfe.de now. i hope there is somebody who could do this. but thanks for ur answer.
Saint
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2010 4:57 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: wth on android os

Post by Saint »

I own a Dutch G1, so i'm on 1.6, if you tell me were the IPhone source is i could have a look at it, but no promises i'm working on other things aswell :P
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
wololo
Site Admin
Posts: 3728
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Location: Japan

Re: wth on android os

Post by wololo »

There is no iphone source. I was probably not clear. I meant android is the same as the iphone from my point of view: I don't own the device so I can't create anything for it (oh, and although I'm not against an iPhone port, I really hate Apple's products, so I'm ready to help as much as I can, but people shouldn't count on me to buy an iphone or a mac :P)
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esko1: I live in Japan, but I'll think about the android emulator, that's not a bad idea.
Saint
Posts: 434
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2010 4:57 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: wth on android os

Post by Saint »

wololo wrote:There is no iphone source. I was probably not clear. I meant android is the same as the iphone from my point of view: I don't own the device so I can't create anything for it (oh, and although I'm not against an iPhone port, I really hate Apple's products, so I'm ready to help as much as I can, but people shouldn't count on me to buy an iphone or a mac :P)
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esko1: I live in Japan, but I'll think about the android emulator, that's not a bad idea.
Lol well i'm with you on the whole apple hating idea :P not a fan (seriously who designs a OS were you have to throw your dvd-player in the recycle bin to open the layer.... lol that's just insane, i don't know if you still need to do that but i just went "bye bye" the first time i saw that lol, plus the software and hardware are expensive, they have everything except for the Ivibrator now a days i think xD and next to that "project Honeypot" still shows that apple isen't as bulletproof as they want you to believe. A well Defended windows XP can be a safer enviroment then a Apple (especially if you use a sandbox) and as for security it doesen't even come close to linux since, like microsoft, the only one able to fix a bug is Apple itself) but anyway that was totally off topic :P
I'd help with the g-phone thing if you want mine is rooted and on 1.6 so if you need to test it or something just give me a shout.
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
Jean
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:12 am

Re: wth on android os

Post by Jean »

I'm sorry to ruin it, but :
For the time being, there is no intended port of Wagic on mobile phone platforms, but android is the most likely candidate if that ever happens. Let me elaborate on that.

- Wagic supports only one screen resolution, which is the PSP resolution. Enhancing it to support several resolutions would be a significant effort, and though the code might be adjusted to take that into account the design issues are quite overwhelming for the current team to be able to tackle them correctly. Supporting Android means supporting several resolutions, and even if we explicitly targeted only one device, which would suck, we'd still have to deal with the issue of the screen size and geometry being different from the PSP.
- The input system would need quite big changes. We input keys. Dealing with a touchscreen is very, very different. There again, it means we'd have to change a great many things in design.
- Machine power. Though the PSP is quite old now, it still has specialized 3d hardware and all. Android supports OpenGL and more or less requires acceleration : it might not be the case of all other platforms. I am not sure the iPhone packs the power we need (the iPhone is and has always been a platform that is years behind, in terms of hardware) ; we would have to do things very differently, to have a code that would perform decently on iPhone (and then suck on PSP).

So for all these reasons, wagic on a smartphone would actually be a very different game in just about all aspects of it. Different controls, different designs, different ways of achieving performance. It would kinda need nothing short of a complete rewrite - and then the rewritten application would not be an acceptable PSP game. There is no such thing as a "port" : it is a different game. Some elements of the engine could be reused, that is all.


That being said, let's examine what would happen if we wanted to have wagic run on a smartphone. I'm speaking of a real port there, not a new application. It means three very precise things.
1. NO touch screen support. Plus, if you don't have 10 keys you're scr..ed because that's how many you need to control the game. Suck it up.
2. NO considerations about screen size - if your screen is too small you can't play that's it.
3. NO regard for performance - either your device has a design that works with wagic (or enough machine power to make up for it), or it's too slow that's it.
I'm not sure it's worth porting the game for such a result. But regardless.

At the moment, there are three dominant smartphone platforms : android, windows mobile and iPhone.
* Windows mobile
Windows mobile code is rather close to windows. Porting wagic to those devices would be a significant effort, but it is certainly doable. Windows mobile smartphones come in a variety of hardware ; some have no acceleration and no support for openGL either so you can't even run the game on them - it's not just about performance, it won't start without a HUGE programming investment.
* iPhone
iPhone is out of the question.
Interface reasons : iPhone has no buttons, only a touch screen.
Technical reasons : Apple totally failed to make the iPhone platform developer-friendly. Developing for iPhone sucks, really. Apple interfaces are nice to the eye for many people, but they are an abyssal time sink if you try to use them for any real work ; Apple is trying their best so that you cannot develop for iPhone on other than their own platforms. C++ support is there, but it's more or less discouraged, and we are not going to rewrite wagic in objective-c. Porting wagic on iPhone would be a nightmare, it would take an extremely long time, and it would be extremely difficult, because the development environment is not decent for interoperability with other platforms.
Ideologic reasons : the biggest issue about iPhone is user rights. Developing on iPhone is like being in jail. Apple is trampling on developers and users intellectual rights, and for me at least, that is enough of an issue to throw the whole platform out of the window. Try to read, really read, the user license agreements that come with iPhone.
* Android
Android is basically the opposite of iPhone. It is a fun platform to develop, it is open to any developer, it welcomes users and is set on trying to let the user choose how they want to use their software and hardware, instead of forcing "consistent" but bad interfaces.
Android supports OpenGL out of the box from 1.6 - don't think about earlier android plaftorms. Also, the NDK supports ARMv5, so for mobile phones that use a different architecture, we cannot do it. But with the NDK, porting to Android is probably not very hard, and would likely be pleasurable. This does not remove the above restrictions to a port though, no touch screen, no support of smaller-screen devices.


So, to sum it up :
- iPhone is a no-no essentially because Apple does not want portable and free applications on their platform.
- No plans are currently done to support other smartphones.
- If ever done, Android is the most likely candidate.
- If ever done, do not expect touchscreen support or a design that fits your screen.
XZ3R0
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon May 17, 2010 8:51 pm

Android (DROID)

Post by XZ3R0 »

The Android OS for cell phones is now the most used os for phones.
I do not own a psp nor do i really want one. But i do have a DROID. And most people have a cell phone and if Android is the most used then there is a large percentage of Android phones out there.

I think it would be really cool if Wagic could get ported to android, some how. As you probably wouldn't need to "hack" your phone like you do with a psp to run it. It would open up to a much larger user base.

Just my two cents.
wololo
Site Admin
Posts: 3728
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Japan

Re: Android (DROID)

Post by wololo »

Agreed, although I'm a bit concerned about screen size/resolution and user input.
Of course, if someone wants to send me an Android phone I'll definitely have a look.
Otherwise if someone wants to port Wagic to Android, I'll be definitely willing to help, and I'm sure J would like the idea too.

I recall to see a discussion on the maemo forums for porting Wagic, I don't know if anybody succeeded on that.

Again, I don't own the device, but I'm more than willing to help in porting the App if someone wants to do the job
Daddy32
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2009 8:20 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Android (DROID)

Post by Daddy32 »

I'm about to buy an Android device myself. Of course, it would be cool to have wagic on it :) Resolution shouldn't be a problem (~800x480 is becoming the standard), however most android devices come without a keyboard (thanks to apple for that) - so programming keyboard-dependent port wouldn't make much sense. Which means, first thing wagic would have to have, so we could even start talking about android(+touch) support are the pointer (mouse) controls*.
Also, as far as I know, Android does not support C++ apps - porting would require writing a lot of additional code in Java and lot of changes in the original code as well.
All in all: Lots of work. Great benefits of having this game on fresh, healthy platform.

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* - Or we could go the easy way with using virtual psp-like keyboard.
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