Chu Chu Rocket clone - Shoko Rocket

danishcake · Oct 31, 2010

Released version 1.9 to the market, adding much better layout for low resolution devices and autorotate to fit (can be disabled)

Before:

After:

Tzara · Oct 31, 2010

1.9 update problem on my htc hero. Arrow keys tiny, squashed in corner and unresponsive so now I can't play game. Old interface worked well. Also selection screen arrows seem more difficult to control. I may try to revert to older version. Fun game so hope to get it working again

danishcake · Nov 2, 2010

Tzara said:
1.9 update problem on my htc hero. Arrow keys tiny, squashed in corner and unresponsive so now I can't play game. Old interface worked well. Also selection screen arrows seem more difficult to control. I may try to revert to older version. Fun game so hope to get it working again

1.9 was primarily designed to improve 320x240 layout, but it did rearrange the buttons on all versions, and in particular will have made the buttons relatively small on HVGA devices. As the arrow buttons were now so small I decided to make them not work - the only purpose is to indicate how many arrows you have left. The only way to place arrows is to use a swipe gesture.

Question is: Did a lot of people use the buttons? Are swipe gestures possible on all devices?

I'll probably ramp up the scale on MDPI devices, tiny buttons in the menu cannot be any fun.

Tzara · Nov 2, 2010

Thanks, yes swipe works but I haven't mastered deleting the arrows and can take a few swipes.

samoht · Nov 2, 2010

I played this all the way through on my T-Mobile Pulse, (FLB mod version of 2.1) and it worked perfectly (pre-1.9).
I did use the buttons to place the arrows, swipes feel a little bit counter-intuitive and clumsy to me. However it is possible to place them with swipes.
Thanks for porting this great game!

disastar · Nov 2, 2010

Let me know if you decide to accept donations.

danishcake · Nov 23, 2010

Donations aren't really on the agenda right now - nobody wants to get sued by Sega! If you're keen I've got a paid for Live Wallpaper on the market.

I've been beavering away, and this version includes a shedload of changes. A few new levels, unlockable skins, bug fixes, GUI rearrangements etc. ShokoRocket now exceeds 1MB, so I've added move to SD. Due to this incorporating a lot of changes I would like a few people to give it the once over before I release it.

For some reason my emulator won't start in LDPI anymore (MDPI on 320x240=hideous!), so if stuff doesn't fit onto the screen please let me know! I suspect the unlocks screen may need a tweak to make it fit on 320x240 displays, but I can't test it.

Beta version

Thanks guys!

edit: A wild QR code appears

danishcake · Nov 27, 2010

Pushed 1.10 to the market with fairly minimal changes.

To show a bit of content, here's one of the new spritesheets - the ghost mouse:

Now to crack on with the multiplayer branch. I'll lay the groundwork with local vs AI stuff and a lockstep simulation I think

danishcake · Dec 4, 2010

I've been stuck in Saudi Arabia again with nothing to do, so I've made decent progress - the syncing is roughly speaking ready (albeit only local at the moment). Loading levels & simulation is all done.

Next steps:

Figure out some sort of AI algorithm. I have pretty much no idea where to start here. Ho hum.
Provide more complex menu structure for setting up games
Produce 10 or so multiplayer levels
Implement the networked version (should hopefully be relatively easy with the groundwork laid. Famous last words!)

Far off stuff:

Adapt editor to spit out valid multiplayer levels rather than hand cranking the XML
Matchmaking
Integrate with Scoreloop or something?
Music - the guys at somethingawful suggested Incompetech which seems to have some nice stuff

danishcake · Dec 6, 2010

Sort of got a basic AI working. It'll need reworking to take account of cats at some point. The curious can download current state of work here. It's enough to play a game against, but has an exploitable flaw that allows you to beat it without moving arrows. Also I hit the GC far too hard at the moment. Getting there.

jasminedd · Dec 7, 2010

Thanks very much!! We are so lucky,cause chu chu rocket costs $3.99 on Apple App!

Simple Echo · Dec 7, 2010

You deserve a medal, danishcake. Best app I've had on any phone.

danishcake · Dec 17, 2010

Right, 1.11 is released. Combines a lot of changes - merged in the multiplayer work, albeit in a test manner, added loads of new levels, UI of menus improved so you can switch levels by swiping and play by tapping the center. A shedload of levels were contributed by players, so thanks guys!

This said, one guy has emailed me since that it crashes on level change. I may be using too much memory for bitmaps, so I'll try to reduce that. If this happens to you please drop me an email, particularly if reproducible. Please mention what phone you're using and version on Android running on it.

Life is so busy at the moment I can't spend the time I need to on this. Hopefully I'll make a dent over Christmas by ignoring my family & friends.

danishcake · Jan 17, 2011

Uploaded 1.12 to Market. This adds a bunch of new levels, more or less finished Vs AI, and tweaks the input - I found I wasn't calculating the quadrant correctly. Let me know what you think.

I was approached by someone from ubi-nuri.com with an offer of a $200 payment in return for localising for the Korean market - they've got a regulatory requirement to display this logo:

for a few seconds when any game loads (if it's rated suitable for all, other ratings get different logos). Quite a nice little bonus

, and they do the translation for me.

UDP netcode is started. UDP netcode is already a shambles. I should get plenty of time to work on it over the next two weeks, so it may be working sooner rather than later!

danishcake · Jan 25, 2011

A few people seem to be having issues with force closing when loading a level - seems to be related to heap size (or possibly heap fragmentation?), but it's happening to people with big heaps too. Very odd. Anyway, if you're having this issue please give this version a go. As a bonus it loads a lot faster!

gotson · Feb 19, 2011

Great stuff ! I love the game, reminds me of awesome afternoons spent on the DreamCast

danishcake · Mar 3, 2011

gotson said:
Great stuff ! I love the game, reminds me of awesome afternoons spent on the DreamCast

flipn0tic · Mar 3, 2011

Really good progress you have going on here.

danishcake · Mar 25, 2011

Bashing through this as a todo list
Also added 14 new levels, a wonderful French guy sent me a translation, and... music from SD card

To get the music working place
Menu.ogg
Multiplayer.ogg
Puzzle.ogg
in
/sdcard/ShokoRocket/Music/

In the interests of not being sued I'm not going to bundle this, but those who are interested and own the original Chu Chu Rocket can obtain the music from

Chu Chu Rocket Soundtrack

I just opened it with Audacity and exported to ogg

01 - title screen.mp3 -> Menu.ogg
02 - multiplayer theme.mp3 -> Multiplayer.ogg
10 - single player theme.mp3 -> Puzzle.ogg

I'll probably add mp3 support to remove the need for transcoding before I release.

Todo list

gotson said:
Great stuff ! I love the game, reminds me of awesome afternoons spent on the DreamCast

danishcake · Mar 30, 2011

I've put out 1.14 now.

Nearly 200 levels
Music support (MP3 or OGG)
French translation - thanks Loic!
Multiplayer arrows now replace the oldest arrow like Chu Chu Rocket
More sound effects in multiplayer
AI gains ability to direct Cats to enemy rockets
Automatically advances to first unbeaten level
Made back button more predictable on AI/Online pages.

I had to pump out a quick revision as I had an unescaped ampersand in one of the level names that made it unplayable. XML eh?

Android market seems to have gained some more powerful features - it now has some quite interesting stats

Android 2.2 60.6% (2,233)
Android 2.1 34.6% (1,275)
Android 2.3.3 3.2% (118)
Android 2.3 0.9% (33)
Android 3.0 0.1% (2) <---Some lucky buggers are playing this on a Xoom.

Device breakdown

Galaxy S, HTC Desire and Xperia X10 are all reasonably high spec, but the wildfire is why it's a good idea to support 240x320 well

Download history

I'll post an after image so you can see the install spike (if there is one)

Now to lay my hands on Japanese and German translations...

disastar · Mar 30, 2011

Awesome! The update is great.

Have you considered pimping your game on reddit/r/android?

danishcake · Mar 30, 2011

disastar said:
Awesome! The update is great.

Have you considered pimping your game on reddit/r/android?

You can see where I did that on Jan 24th in the graph above

Mind you I will probably do so again when I finally get around to releasing multiplayer, or some other significant feature. It's just hard, nasty code that I don't much enjoy writing. I'm getting quite sick of doing it, but that's life I guess. Push through the pain and all that.

gotson · May 2, 2011

Hey danishcake, good job on the last release !
Didn't had time to check it recently, i just tried the new music and it rocks

The multiplayer "remove oldest arrow when adding one" is really good as well, i like it a lot.

I am flattered you created your todo list from my remarks

For the level selection screen, i think something like what Angry Birds has would be easier to navigate through.
Indeed there is not much interest IMO to see the level before playing it in Puzzle mode. It would be quicker to have a selection screen with all levels at hand, and see which one are complete or not.

I also figured out what the UNLOCKS were

Keep up the good job !

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