HTML5 and android - How to deal with it?

Hello everyone,

What's up?
Today I want to talk about using HTML5 to create android application.

To be honest, I love this solution. You code in HTML5 and javascript your application. Then you just make your 'app' more awesome thanks to css. What's next? Just use phonegap (https://build.phonegap.com/) to build your app and that's it.

Wait. What? It's too simple!
Nope. You just create your website and make an application.

How to start?
Create index.html and there put your html code. Add some javascript code to the website. That will make your website alive but ugly, so next add css. Now you have awesome app which is nothing more then website.
Then just log in to phonegap and put there your files.
That's all.

Next I will create simple tutorial on how to create android application in few simple steps.

Bye.

PS: Leave a comment what you think.
PPS: Thanks :)

Making platfromer game with Haxe and Flixel (compo game)

Hi,

I decide to take part in compo. It's local 3 months compo, no topic, no restrictions, just a game. I think the platfromer game will be good.

Where I started? At first I deep into Haxe and Flixel. I passed tutorials and made some simple games, just mechanics so now I think I'm ready to write something bigger.

At first I created simple story. This is basic. You have to know what you want to do.

Next I wrote about a game, what I want in game, etc.
 - 2D platformer game
 - 4 languages (Polish, English, German, Spanish)
 - cutscenes - to narrate story
 - menu, many levels
 - maybe dubbing
It's general tasks, nothing more. Now I see that I need something to manage languages and dubbing, something to show cutscens, managing many game states e.g. select language, menu, game etc.

Flixel provide nice managing game states, so this stuff is done. You just extend your class by FlxState.
In my opinion cutscens will be sprites and texts so every cutscene will be another game state.
Managing languages will be static class with variables e.g. TXT_BTN_PLAY and function selectLanguage(language) where just set variable to needed text.

Flixel is amazing and has everything what game developer need. You can load tilemaps from many programs like tiled, ogmo etc., has included pathfinding on these tilemaps. Flixel has basic things like buttons, physics etc. too.

So what I did for now?
I have done:
 - class for managing language
 - selecting language
 - menu with selected language

It's not much but I started today.
I will post here about progress.

See you soon. Bye :)

Best and simplest tutorial about pathfinding

Hi,

Everybody want to have nice pathfinding in game. We need it to many games: strategies, rpgs, platformers etc. so we should understand how it works. I learn pathfinding from here:

I think it's best ever tutorial about graphs and pathfinding. Thanks to Jorge Rodriguez I understood graphs and mainly pathfinding.

Here all videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW3Zl3wyJwWO7p6xpTzs-QR58DRg2Ln0V

Hope it helps you :)

See you soon.

Programming simple multiplayer game - easy way

Hi,
Again me and I want to share simple idea of making multiplayer game. It's hard to find simple tutorial about multiplayer so I created one.

The first thing: it's simple, you don't make huge MMO game, only simple game to local plays.
The second thing: there is many ways to do that better, so don't think it's good - it's simple and easy to do.
The third thing: it's nice for beginners, so when you understand how works multiplayer games, you should do it 'proper way'.

So let's start:
 - in examples I use C++ and SFML 2.x


We need server and client. So I created two classes Client and Server.
Client is for communicating with server and passing data to game.
Server process every command from client and send updated world.
All data is store in World class. There is players, enities, items etc.
Server store all world and send copy for client.

At first we need to connect:
 - it's simple, just look tutorial on SFML site: http://www.sfml-dev.org/tutorials/2.3/network-socket.php
When you have established connection you can start:

Server side:
 - we need add unique id for player
 - we need add player to world
 - send informations about created player to client

So when client connect to server, server should do:

std::string player_id = "player_id__" + std::to_string(reinterpret_cast<uint32_t>(client)); 

In this way (up) we create player id. It's just get client address in memory (of server) and add it to text "player_id__". Pretty simple and enough safe for local game.

world->addPlayer(Player(player_id, sf::Vector2f(100, 100), sf::Vector2f(66, 92), 100));

Here we add player with: created earlier id, start position, size of player and health points.

Next we send informations about player to client: e.g.:

sf::Packet start_packet;
start_packet << "connect" << *world->getPlayer(player_id); 
client->send(start_packet);

Client side:
 - get our player id from received packet and store in client (it's to inform server which player we are)

So when you receive packet just extract first variable and check is it "connect" and then client_player_id = player.id;

Very easy and rest is very similar.

Client send e.g. "update world" and when server receive this, send all world to client.
When client receive "update world" just replace world in game.
Client send "move player up" and player_id, so server on "move player up" get player from world and move up.

It's simple, to make sure you understand just look this parts of code. It's from my simple project:

Client side:

void Client::runCommand(const std::string& command, const std::string& id)
{
  if(command == "player move")
    {
      sf::Packet packet;
      packet << "player move" << id << player_id;
      socket.send(packet);
    }
  if(command == "destroy item")
    {
      sf::Packet packet;
      packet << "destroy item" << id;
      socket.send(packet);
    }
} 

It's part of Client class and I use it in game to make actions, e.g. when player click up arrow I do client.runCommand("player move", "up"); and this is send to server, which do move. Simple and work :)

And server side:

sf::Packet packet;
if(client.receive(packet) == sf::Socket::Done)
{
    std::string event;

    if(packet >> event)
    {
        if(event == "player move")
        {
            std::string player_id;
            std::string direction;
            if(packet >> direction >> player_id)
            {
                if(direction == "up")
                    world->getPlayer(player_id)->position.y -= 5;
                if(direction == "down")
                    world->getPlayer(player_id)->position.y += 5;
                if(direction == "left")
                    world->getPlayer(player_id)->position.x -= 5;
                if(direction == "right")
                    world->getPlayer(player_id)->position.x += 5;
            }
        }
        if(event == "update world")
        {
            sf::Packet send_packet;
            send_packet << "update world" << *world;
            client.send(send_packet);
        }
        if(event == "destroy item")
        {
            std::string item_id;

            if(packet >> item_id)
            {
                world->removeItem(item_id);
            }
        }
    }
}

So it's simple, maybe not clean but it's only to show idea.
I hope it's help on the beginning. I know it's hard to find easy tutorials about making multiplayer games so I hope it's good for beginners.

When you understand the basics which you get from this tutorial, you can start doing it like professionals. Just find out more from forums, other blogs etc.

Here is more code and working project that I do in free time, of course you can help me :)
https://github.com/Patys/pmr

Hope it help. If you have any question, just leave comment. Good luck and see you.