Cocos2d retina support

Cocos2d is probably the most used and least documented framework out there. I’m used to docs being out-dated (doc is the most important and least maintained part of a framework) but Cocos2d gets to be my biggest loser on this scale. All that criticism aside, once you finally figure out how things are supposed to work it’s actually really nice.

If you’re familiar with the xCode you’re probably familiar with Apple using the @2x suffix on the end of their files when they need something larger than the original iPhone display resolution.  To date this is what Apple’s doing:

default.png – iPhone 3GS and older resolution
default.png@2x -Retina 3.5 inch
default-568h@2x.png – Retina 4 inch (iPhone 5 nonsense… seriously Apple?)

Cocos2d takes a similar approach:

default.png – iPhone 3GS
default-ipad.png – iPad 1 and 2 resolution
default-ipadhd.png – Retina resolutions (I don’t think they’ve got a Retina 4 inch file type as of yet.. but then again, how could I possibly know?)

This short story is you should only specify default.png as the file you’re trying to load as a Sprite. Cocos2d will automatically look to see if you have that file with the -ipad or -ipadhd extension, and load that if appropriate. (That’s all determined if you’ve got retina display enabled. Here’s some pseudo code for that:


if( ! [director_ enableRetinaDisplay:YES] )
CCLOG(@"Retina Display Not Supported");


Hope that helps!

Night Runner – Free Unity Android Game

I’ve been working on several games that require heavy use of the accelerometer functions in Android devices and while I was refining my methods I came up with a simple casual game idea. After about 6 hours of work I had “Night Runner” – a fast paced accelerometer casual game!  Since my dev time on this was really really low I decided to launch it for free (no ads or anything) in the Market Place, just so people could have something fun and simple to play.

More info here

 

Zombie Room AR Updates!

It’s been a pretty interesting ride so far now that Zombie Room AR has launched on the Android Market.

Let’s start with the Pros:

• I’ve been listed by Unity as “The most awesome Augmented Reality Game” and showcased in their May 2011 Newsletter – which is way more than I ever imagined.
• The game is also being showcased by Qualcomm themselves, which is also far more than I ever expectd.
• I’m now installed in over 20 countries by thousands of users! Once again – totally unexpected!

Since life isn’t always a bowl of cherries, let’s talk about the Cons:

• Android Market users are trigger happy with the 1 Star rating. In their defense, the game didn’t work for them – so the bashed it… but if they had only read the description they would have seen why…
• Game doesn’t work on Android 3.x yet… but the market let’s them download and install it… which then doesn’t work… when leads to a 1 star rating. (This is Qualcomm’s SDK that doesn’t work – Unity works great… which is why the Market lets the download occur)
• No ability to troubleshoot Qualcomm issues.  I’ll explain further below.

The Nexus S has been a pain in my neck since launch. The main issue is that my game loves to crash on the Nexus S due to issues on Qualcomm’s side of the house. From what I can tell, after the game loads it calls home to Qualcomm to get a ‘device profile’ template from their servers. Once it has this template it loads all the magic, which is where the Nexus S chokes and crashes.  There’s absolutely nothing I can do about it on my side of things, so I’m helpless and continue to get 1 star ratings from Nexus S users… and let’s remember, a 1 star rating cancels out a 5 star rating… so these things add up and really start to suck.

Check out my “How to play Zombie Room AR” video

Zombie Room AR Launched!

Now that Qualcomm has made their SDK GA I am now able to launch my first Augmented Reality game Zombie Room AR!  Here’s where you can get the demo or the full version:

Demo Version:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.noyoushutupgames.zombieroomardemo

Full Version:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.noyoushutupgames.zombieroomar

Here’s some screen caps from the game:

Chain React now available!

My second Unity Game is now up and running on Facebook. It’s a little puzzle reaction game, similar to a few other out there. I thought I’d see if I could write one in Unity – and here it is. http://apps.facebook.com/chainreactgame/

Title:

Cap 1

Cap 2

Blast Lab now available!

Blast Lab marks the first game completed in Unity. Currently I’ve only released it on facebook (which you can play here), but I will be sending it off to multiple game sites that accept Unity developed games.

I’ve got ideas for v2.0, but I’ll worry about those when I get there.  My hope is that this game will draw enough interest that I can port it over to the iPhone or Android.  Only time will tell!

http://apps.facebook.com/blast-lab/