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Bubble Bazinga - does it work on a G1?

BananoTron

Member
Dec 1, 2008
50
0
hey folks,

i'm searching for someone who wants to test my first android game on a real device. by using just the emulator i can't tell if i'm doing everything in the correct way.
this is also my first post in this forum. please let me know if this is the right place to ask for testers or if this is discouraged at all.

the .apk file can be loaded with this url:
http://www.rastaduck.org/cgi-bin/apkloader.cgi?path=ProjectCyan_signed.apk
or go to
http://www.rastaduck.org/tmp/android/
and click the download link.
(NB: "ProjectCyan" is the internal project code name - just in case you wonder)

game controls: use the touchpad to aim the cannon and fire the next bubble with a short tap on the touch pad.

the game is not doing anything fancy with the device sensors, it's just a simple ball game which should work with the touchpad.

i'm especially interested
+ if the loading of the highscore works in the main menu
+ if the gameplay is ok (or does it suck with the touchpad)
+ lifecycle in general (does it load, does it exit nicely, what happens when you switch between applications)
+ is keyboard input working (player name field)
+ is the game running smoothly

photos of the game running on the device would be highly appreciated! but i'm glad about any comments.

thx in advance!
 
After a few shots depening on level of bubble added ... app will error out and do a force close ... never saw high scores ,,, does the game come with some high scores pre-loaded .. I dont see my score put since the app frce-closes i doubt a score is stored ... touching screen works fairly well ... keep up the good work

BTW i could not get any sound ...
 
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Alright, I've found a few things. First off you aren't handling the change of device orientation. By default when you flip open the screen to type, Android will destroy your activity, and then restart it in the new orientation. You'll have to override the onConfigurationChanged method (don't forget to put the events you want this function to be notified of in your manifest) and handle it manually so that it doesn't restart the game every time.

I've also noticed that when in landscape mode, the game doesn't work at all. Just in portrait.

Also after shooting probably around 10 balls or so the game force closed on me. And one time I noticed that I clicked in one direction, but the ball fired in the same direction as the previous shot. However in this case the canon itself did turn in the direction of where I was trying to shoot so I'm not sure if you have a race condition in your code at all.
 
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After a few shots depening on level of bubble added ... app will error out and do a force close ... never saw high scores ,,, does the game come with some high scores pre-loaded .. I dont see my score put since the app frce-closes i doubt a score is stored ... touching screen works fairly well ... keep up the good work

BTW i could not get any sound ...

thanks for testing, everyone!

what do you mean with "depending on level of bubble added"? first i need to find out why the game crashes all the time. can you associate it with a certain event? this would help with troubleshooting.

the highscores are loaded and saved in the main menu screen.
and yes, there is no sound yet.
 
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thanks for testing, everyone!

what do you mean with "depending on level of bubble added"? first i need to find out why the game crashes all the time. can you associate it with a certain event? this would help with troubleshooting.

the highscores are loaded and saved in the main menu screen.
and yes, there is no sound yet.

By levels i meant the bubbles advance or build up if you dont destroy them ... but at which point the app errors out seems random .. example I just aim the cannon at the side and fire ... the app randomly errors out and does a force close ... I have never seen any scores ...
 
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By levels i meant the bubbles advance or build up if you dont destroy them ... but at which point the app errors out seems random .. example I just aim the cannon at the side and fire ... the app randomly errors out and does a force close ... I have never seen any scores ...

Yeah, I think that there's some buggy code around where a new line of bubbles is formed. Mine crashed right after the bubbles advanced the first time.
 
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i tried fixing the portrait/landscape issue and with a bit of luck i fixed the random crash issue.

if you guys could give it another try, that would be awesome:

http://www.rastaduck.org/cgi-bin/apkloader.cgi?path=ProjectCyan_signed.apk
or go to
http://www.rastaduck.org/tmp/android/

i have one question regarding the portrait/landscape issue:
(when the keyboard is out and you hold the device in landscape mode) is the device switching from landscape to portrait automatically when you rotate the device or does this only happen when you slide in the keyboard again?

thx for testing!
 
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i tried fixing the portrait/landscape issue and with a bit of luck i fixed the random crash issue.

if you guys could give it another try, that would be awesome:

http://www.rastaduck.org/cgi-bin/apkloader.cgi?path=ProjectCyan_signed.apk
or go to
http://www.rastaduck.org/tmp/android/

i have one question regarding the portrait/landscape issue:
(when the keyboard is out and you hold the device in landscape mode) is the device switching from landscape to portrait automatically when you rotate the device or does this only happen when you slide in the keyboard again?

thx for testing!

Rotate does not work except by using hardware keyboard open/close.

The random failure is still there when firing and as the levels build up due to misses/knocking out bubbles...

Still have not seen any scoring ... current or high scores ....
Regards, Jim .... keep at it ...and we will continue to test it out ..
 
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Rotate does not work except by using hardware keyboard open/close.

The random failure is still there when firing and as the levels build up due to misses/knocking out bubbles...

Still have not seen any scoring ... current or high scores ....
Regards, Jim .... keep at it ...and we will continue to test it out ..

strange that you don't see the initial scores because it seems others see them. one tester said he finished a short game without having a fatal error and his score was saved and all scores were displayed. let's follow up on that when the fatal error is fixed.
 
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This time, it took much longer to get the fatal error, but I still got it. Do you not have a device to test this on?

unfortunately not. otherwise i wouldn't bug you guys with this game. it's strange that i don't get any errors in the emulator. isn't the emulator running exactly the same operating system as the one that runs on the device?

is there a way to see the java console or some other logfile on the device? i assume not. i think i will add a code snippet which displays the exception stacktrace on screen if one occurs and then waits for some seconds before exiting. i will get back when this is ready.
 
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i just added a code snippet which displays the exception or error if any occurs. i hope we can find out more abut the problem this way. the font is very small so it might be hard to read it. the download url is the same as above.

i dont see any code snipet output when app errors out ...just same force close ....maybe you can save output of stack after each shot to a text file on the sd card that we can email you or display and post here.... does dev debug need to be turned on?
 
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i dont see any code snipet output when app errors out ...just same force close ....maybe you can save output of stack after each shot to a text file on the sd card that we can email you or display and post here....
hmm, that means that it's not even an exception that is thrown because you definetely should see the stacktrace and the game should wait for 15 seconds before the exit. this sounds like a fatal error or something.

does dev debug need to be turned on?
if i only knew what that is... is this some setting that gives you more info about what's going on? if yes, please try it. maybe we'll get more info this way.
 
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hmm, that means that it's not even an exception that is thrown because you definetely should see the stacktrace and the game should wait for 15 seconds before the exit. this sounds like a fatal error or something.


if i only knew what that is... is this some setting that gives you more info about what's going on? if yes, please try it. maybe we'll get more info this way.

I tried the debug setting under the application|Development|usb Debug ...
but that must be for something else .... At any rate it didnt make a difference and the Force close was still displayed and nothing else ... that I was able to see ..
 
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i just added a code snippet which displays the exception or error if any occurs. i hope we can find out more abut the problem this way. the font is very small so it might be hard to read it. the download url is the same as above.

Not trying to undermine your coding skills, but are you using try / catch blocks to catch exceptions? Not having seen your code I am clutching at a hypothetical straw here in an attempt to possibly aid assistance
 
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Not trying to undermine your coding skills, but are you using try / catch blocks to catch exceptions? Not having seen your code I am clutching at a hypothetical straw here in an attempt to possibly aid assistance

sure, i used try/catch. and i tested it with a dummy exception which is thrown in the game code.
btw, when the app crashes, does it display anything or does it just exit? if i only had a starting point to search for bugs in my code. although i still don't understand why there should be any difference between running in an emulator vs. on the device. is there by any chance code that shouldn't be used for android apps? like using java.util.TimerTask or something? do i have to take care of garbage collection issues like not creating too many new objects?
 
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sure, i used try/catch. and i tested it with a dummy exception which is thrown in the game code.
btw, when the app crashes, does it display anything or does it just exit? if i only had a starting point to search for bugs in my code. although i still don't understand why there should be any difference between running in an emulator vs. on the device. is there by any chance code that shouldn't be used for android apps? like using java.util.TimerTask or something? do i have to take care of garbage collection issues like not creating too many new objects?

the Error displays as a box : with an ! in a triangle follow by Sorry!
The application Project Cyan (process org.rastaduck.games.projectcyan) has stopped unexpectly. Please try again ..

Then open action button "Force close"
 
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the Error displays as a box : with an ! in a triangle follow by Sorry!
The application Project Cyan (process org.rastaduck.games.projectcyan) has stopped unexpectly. Please try again ..

Then open action button "Force close"

i just did another test on the emulator and this time the application crashed as well. it was the first time (since the game was finished) that i saw a problem like this on the emulator. it was related to a StackOverflowError in a piece of code which does a recursion. i will try to improve this but to make sure that this is the source of the problem i just uploaded a version with fewer balls. this way the recursion shouldn't be as deep as before. i also added a System.gc(); statement, not sure if this helps at all. but if the game runs fine now i definitely know where the problem is. may i ask for another test? you guys help me a lot!
 
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i just did another test on the emulator and this time the application crashed as well. it was the first time (since the game was finished) that i saw a problem like this on the emulator. it was related to a StackOverflowError in a piece of code which does a recursion. i will try to improve this but to make sure that this is the source of the problem i just uploaded a version with fewer balls. this way the recursion shouldn't be as deep as before. i also added a System.gc(); statement, not sure if this helps at all. but if the game runs fine now i definitely know where the problem is. may i ask for another test? you guys help me a lot!

This change seem to help somewhat ... I never got the force close ... one game I got over 27000 point and something poped up in the display Like "Bazinga" not sure it was very quick ... then disappeared and i continued play .... i neveer got to the end of any game ... as each time the app just frozeup ... and I had to use the Home key to exit ...

Only the start of the game has reduced levels (2) the following seem to and 3 or 4 new levels ....
 
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This change seem to help somewhat ... I never got the force close ... one game I got over 27000 point and something poped up in the display Like "Bazinga" not sure it was very quick ... then disappeared and i continued play .... i neveer got to the end of any game ... as each time the app just frozeup ... and I had to use the Home key to exit ...

Only the start of the game has reduced levels (2) the following seem to and 3 or 4 new levels ....

that is pretty much what i expected. i forgot to mention that i also added a catch (Throwable t) to the code of the TimerTask subclass which does the recursion that i mentioned above. that means i catch the StackOverflowError and that's why the app doesn't exit but just freezes. and you could play longer because the game starts with less balls but while playing more and more balls are added and that leads to the error again. i will now try to rewrite that specific code and try to avoid the recursion. but that will be difficult...
 
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the bugfix was easier than expected. i just uploaded a new version. would you please test one more time?
http://www.rastaduck.org/tmp/android/

Sucess !!!! have completed three games in a row to completion no errors.... Occassionally the cannon will fire from last pointing rather than the new position you select ,,,, And Still no scores ....

Good work on trouble shooting the bugs
 
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