Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Another developer update

And here is yet another little blog update, detailing what has kept me busy over the past few days.

First up I would like to say that I further refined the look of the Manual, most of it now looks like the Settings menu of your phone (But with color icons instead). Rather than designing my own elaborate manual interface, I have chosen to go with the more standard Android look, this was done for two reasons; 
firstly because my understanding of the Android SDK still isn't as good as I would like it to be and secondly, this is a familiar look for android users which means that most people who are used to using android should have no trouble flipping through the manual. 
Although, if time permits, I will look into designing a custom manual interface.

Secondly, I added six background colors to the application so that users can tweak the application to their liking. I am thinking of adding more colors in the future, however at the moment I will stick to these basic six colors and see what people think of them. The colors have been well received by most beta testers, which I am glad for.

Thirdly, I added the notifications I said I was looking into last week. The notification system doesn't run full time, so people shouldn't be worried about their battery life (it is an optional feature, so you can turn it off if your phone appears to drain faster or run slower). At the moment the user is notified through an Android notification when their pet is either Hungry, Sick, Wants to go Potty or is Sleepy. ( The option is set to false by default so you do need to enable it in the Options menu ).

I have also been working on a new mini-game for the application, a dice game which will combine both skill and luck. However, because the application doesn't have a currency or item system, it is kind of hard to think of earnings for when the player wins, or losses for when the player loses.

Another thing which I have started working on is a growth-chart / evolution tree for the application, showing what pets you have had in the past and what their stats were when they evolved, so that it is easier for people to get the same pet again, if they so desire.

This is it for today's blog post, and finally, I would like to once again thank everybody who has been willing to test the application on their devices and report back their findings. These people will be mentioned in a credits section of the application when it gets released.

On that note, I still haven't thought of a release date, however I expect it to be somewhere in the middle of September.

Screenshot (manual design still subject to change)
Selecting a background color
A notification 

The in-game menu

A new look for the manual
Another look at the manual
All the colors

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A blog update; A manual, notifications and colors!

First off, I want to thank every person who has applied for beta testing and sent me feedback on the application. The feedback was really helpful and it all has been taken to heart and will, in some way or another, be processed into the application.

It has been little over a week since I started this blog so I thought that it might be a good idea to post another blog post ( and add a few more pet images to the Pets page ). Since I also have a twitter account, I figure that it might be best to use the blog only for larger updates, but alas, I digress.

One of the things a lot of testers asked for was a manual to go with the application and I am pleased to say that at the moment the manual is my top priority. My original reason for not adding a manual was that because when I was a kid, my tamagotchis either didn't come with a manual or came with a manual in a language I couldn't read, so part of the tamagotchi experience for me was having to find everything out myself. But, as I found out, this wasn't really the case for a lot of people who played with tamagotchis. Although I still think that exploring a game / application is half the fun of it all, there will be a manual to go with the application soon!

Aside from adding a manual I have also been looking into adding real-time notifications to the application. At the moment, even though you aren't using the application, your pet will become hungry without notifying you about it, which can be quite a pain in the ass as a lot of people probably don't have the time to check up on their pet every so often or they will simply forget .

Furthermore, because the application is called 'myClassicPet' I thought that it would be neat for people to be able to tweak the layout of the application to their own liking, and thus at the moment I am looking into changing the background color of the application or even adding a background image to the application to make the application and the pet feel more like your own.

On a special note, the user Nexer even created a fan-facebook page which can be found here.

On a final note; 
The beta is still open, so people can still apply by sending me an email. I am still trying to find out how the application scales down on smaller devices and how it scales up on larger devices. ( However, this doesn't mean that people with mdpi devices aren't welcome to apply ).




Screenshot (manual design still subject to change)
The manual 
The manual 


The manual 
The manual 


The manual 

Trying out a different background Color

Trying out another background color

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Introducing myClassicPet, An Android Application

Firstly I would like to welcome everyone who reads this to my Blog on my Android Application called myClassicPet.


Finally the application has gone into Beta testing and I must say that I'm quite excited to hear people's opinions on the application and see how it runs on different phone models. At the moment the application is still quite low key but this will change in due time. 


At the moment, the application is still very basic in it's functions, but this will all change over time and I ask the people testing the application to have a little patience with it, and I stress a little because updates will be released in fast succession. 


So much for introductions, what is the myClassicPet application?
As a kid I loved the little Digimon Tamagotchi keychains and with the advent of smartphones and all of their functions, I thought it might be a good idea to create an application much like these old digimon tamagotchi keychains. 


At the moment, the application holds 16 different kinds of pets, most of which I won't show here yet, the application holds 8 different little mini games which help increase the stats of your pet, black and white pixel graphics, much like the old keychains and some other small functions I won't post about just yet.


People who would like to test the application can send me an email and I will send them a download link to the Beta package.


Basic information
  • Has 16 animals in total
  • Tamagotchi style pixel graphics
  • 8 Different minigames
  • Around 750Kb in size
  • Runs no background services
  • Runs in landscape mode only
  • This being a Beta, animals will die after reaching the age of 10
  • Has no Widget support as of yet
Permissions
  1. Storage
    Save backup save files to the SD card.
  2. Network Communication
    create Bluetooth connections.
  3. Phone Calls
    Read the SDK version of the phone.
  4. System Tools
    Turn Off and On Bluetooth on your phone.
  5. Account information
    User Accounts are used to link save files to.
Screenshot
The pet sleeping

The pet taking a poop
The pet running on a tredmill