• Preview image of Calculating Weapon Damage Using Ideal Ranges

    Calculating Weapon Damage Using Ideal Ranges

    Whilst building a turn based strategy shooter, weapons needed to have “ideal ranges”. For example, a melee weapon should only work from 1 tile away, a shotgun should prefer short ranges, a sniper rifle should prefer long ranges, etc. The non-melee weapons should still work outside of their ideal range, but with reduced damage.

  • Preview image of Playing Random Sounds on Android

    Playing Random Sounds on Android

    During various events in Pixel Blacksmith, a sound effect needs to play. There is more than one possible sound effect per event, so one needs to be randomly picked each time.

  • Preview image of Selecting A Weighted Random Item From A List in Android

    Selecting A Weighted Random Item From A List in Android

    In Pixel Blacksmith, visitors arrive in the shop and have demands that need fulfilling. The visitors are mostly random, but each visitor is weighted to appear more or less frequently, to allow for rarer visitors. These weighted probabilities also need to be modifiable, to add seasonal visitors etc.

  • Preview image of Converting Display Pixels (dp) To Real Pixels

    Converting Display Pixels (dp) To Real Pixels

    Occasionally whilst developing a UI in Android, padding will have to be set programmatically, this usually happens when padding varies according to the number of items on screen. These values must be set in pixels, but the size of a pixel will vary massively, according to the density of the screen (for example, 2 1920px by 1080px and 192px by 108px screens may be the same physical size, but the former will have 10 times more pixels in any given centimetre). As such, display pixels (essentially a unit that aims to avoid this issue) must be used, however these values need converting into real pixels.

  • Preview image of Tinting Item Colour According To Status in Android

    Tinting Item Colour According To Status in Android

    Pixel Blacksmith is an Android game where players craft and sell items to visitors, in order to make a profit to buy upgrades / more resources. These items can be enchanted with gems, and the item’s image needs to be tinted the gem’s colour to reflect this.

  • Preview image of Asynchronous ORM Database Install in Android

    Asynchronous ORM Database Install in Android

    Many apps need to ship with a local database, and many apps also use a ORM to handle their database actions (I personally use and recommend Sugar). Tying together these two approaches requires some sort of compromise, often manually copying a SQLite database around the device’s filesystem.

  • Preview image of Positioning Isometric Tiles & Displaying Levels At Optimum Zoom in Android

    Positioning Isometric Tiles & Displaying Levels At Optimum Zoom in Android

    City Flow is an Android game where players must rotate puzzle tiles until all flows (rivers, paths, etc) match up. Players can play existing levels, or create their own in a level editor. They can zoom in, out, and pan, so as to navigate larger puzzles easily. Whilst playing a level players are on a time limit, so ensuring all of the puzzle is on screen to begin with is very important to ensure the player doesn’t become frustrated having to initially get the puzzle in a good position.

  • Preview image of Asynchronous Map Generator for Android

    Asynchronous Map Generator for Android

    City Flow is an Android game that tasks players with solving puzzles by rotating tiles to make all “flows” match up with no loose ends. Each tile has a flow (e.g. road, path, grass, river) on each side, as well as a height (high, normal, low). There are a few hundred built-in levels, but players can also create, share, and import their own levels for extended playability.