Wanted: J2ME programmer to port Alien Flux

Business and Project Management Discussions Jobs and Resumes
#1

(crossposted from puppygames.net)

I’ve been kicking around a couple of ideas and one of the interesting ones is to port Alien Flux to a J2ME footprint.

I say “port” but the reality is of course that it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of fitting on a phone.

However, the basic game could be pretty easily written for J2ME without the fancy 3D. We’ve got all the art already of course - we just need to shrink it down and cut the framerate. There’s a few other concessions too like cutting out most of the sounds and indeed most of the game - I think that the Alien Flux Demo would fit nicely into a phone. Controls would have to be changed a bit - probably to a standard up/down/left/right shoot-where-you’re-pointing sort of thing.

So: we’re thinking - can we offer the J2ME port to anyone? No timewasters! This will be a proper contract with NDAs and legal obligations to deliver on time, because there’s money involved.

We anticipate the port taking no longer than 3 months. We will be offering an extraordinarily high royalty rate rather than up-front money. Just think: you could sell hundreds of thousands.

Serious enquiries to mail please.

Cas :slight_smile:

#2

cough
I thought this might have been an ideal opportunity here but we’ve only had 2 replies… c’mon, roll up, roll up, etc. all the hard work’s done for you.

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

Hi Cas,

Ive tried mailing to both cprince@shavenpuppy.com and .net
and get the following response… could this explain the 2
responses???
Larry,

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject:      Alien Puppy port to J2me
Sent:      6/27/2003 2:03 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

cprince@shavenpuppy.com on 6/27/2003 2:03 PM
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.
< mta04.mx.cix.co.uk #5.1.1>

#4

ShavenPuppy is the OLD name… try PuppyGames.net

#5

Cas still has the shavenpuppy address in his profile.

#6

Yeah, might want to change that! ;D

Seriously though, I don’t suppose you’ll get all that many responses. How many experienced J2ME developers are there out there? Let alone who have time to do some freelance work on the side, for royalties, without their company complaining…?

#7

Whoops, yes, my CV’s well out of date.

The basic idea is this: you decide you’re going to make a living out of programming J2ME. And then you will. It’s as simple as that!

Cas :slight_smile:

#8

Not just the CV Cas, also the e-mail link that is shown next to your post here on Javagaming.org. See, the little letter next to the house. :slight_smile:

#9

Cas, I did reply.
Did you get my email in regards to this?
-Zane

#10

[quote]The basic idea is this: you decide you’re going to make a living out of programming J2ME. And then you will. It’s as simple as that!
[/quote]
I’m not sure if I agree with that, Cas. It’s a bit risky with J2ME.

Speaking as a MIDP games developer, I can assure you that you would need access to the common platforms (Nokia series 30,40,60; Motorola T720; Sharp GX-10) at the absolute least. They are all slightly different; the code has to be designed and tested on each. Now that’s a lot of phones to buy (on top of the usual freelance overheads, rent, etc). In order for anybody to justify the risk, you would have to give out your sales figures. Are you in a position to do that just yet?

Plus, most of the current MIDP phones will only accept one keypress at a time. Any attempt to turn and fire will result in both keypresses being ignored. This would be very frustrating for a game like Alien Flux.

#11

Damn, I was sure I changed my profile! Ok, I’ll fix that now.

Zane - yes, got your mail! I’m still awaiting a few more responses otherwise and thinking about what to do. Given that mention about compatibility I’m wondering whether the J2ME version might not just be a total support liability given that it’s likely to sell 10x as many copies on 10x as many different phones as the PC version.

I must say I’m a bit worried by the compatibility problems in J2ME still after all this time. If you’re writing a Java phone game you really do need to be certain that it’s going to run without tweaking. What do you do when a new phone comes out? Keep on fiddling with the game? I don’t think so.

I’m not worried about the keypresses much - the game controls have to be pretty much different from the PC for it to work. Right now it’s a question of: do we use rotate and thrust, or up/down/left/right?

Cas :slight_smile:

#12

[quote]What do you do when a new phone comes out? Keep on fiddling with the game?
[/quote]
Yep, unfortunately you still have to create a different build for each platform (and each language when going global). Notice how every wireless games website will ask you to select your phone model first, before listing the games that are available for it. This is mostly due to the difference in screen size causing the artwork to be different, but also because a small amount of code is device specific - they all have their own little quirks. Then there is the proprietary API’s for fullscreen, sounds, vibrations, etc. With a good object oriented design you can limit the amount of tweaking, but you will have to test it on every phone.

That’s what has always amused me about the whole Java Game Profile thing - cross-platform games development in Java has nearly always involved tweaking for each platform. The linux version of Alien-Flux seems to have been the only exception that I know of to date.

#13

This is indie, so you don’t have to support every phone to start with. You can target your platform 1 by 1 if need be. And, since it IS indie, theoretically, Cas could have a separate developer do each port. Ideal no, but on a shoe string budget with all non - paid development, its all volunteer anyway. So Bob with the Nokia 123 phone could do the Nokia 123 port. Joe with the A500 could do the A500 port. etc… Just a thought, I’m not trying to force the idea… but it would be one way to spread the porting issue around. :slight_smile:

#14

Zane, I think you want to keep aoo the sources in one source tree at the end? Do you think it’s a good idea to do all these ports with different people?`I’d like to keep the folks to the required minimum. The only exception from my point of view is a Opensource project, where you try to organize the project in a way, that the folks work on different features instead of different ports if possible.

Ciao,
Andreas

#15

Well, sure, it would be nice to do it with a few folks, but as the comments above state, who has the money to buy and support codelines for every cell phone.

As for source control, there is no reason why you can’t still use a single CVS (or other revision control software) server and make the project private instead of open.

Agreed, less developers would be ideal, but, IHMO, there is a big difference asking for volunteers to support one cell phone each, and MANY cell phones each since there are SO many different hardware platforms not to mention the fact that each country’s hardware has ITS own specs. Even in commercial game development its not always the case that a single company will do all the ports to all the platforms…

Agreed that a port might simply mean implementing concrete low level classes based on interfaces specified in the first port if it is done properly. The following ports should indeed be easier. The hard part will be the first port and getting the OO design correct so that subsequent ports are less difficult.

Again though, I think the biggest obstacle was already stated… You just can’t expect one person to port to ALL the different cell phone platforms which is why I suggested picking one or two popular platforms to begin with.

That’s just me though…

#16

Yes as MIDP2 is not really wide spread, J2ME game programming is quite a huge task to deploy on every cellphones.

So what to do?

  • only focuses on one phone (like Nokia 70% of the Market)

  • use standard MIDP1.0, but problems are always here. For example PNG transparency on WTK1.04 doesn’t work well. On SonyEricsson emulator it works but on the real device T610 not on certain PNG (lower than 256 colors) . Heap size problems are also a classic.

  • Or use a SDK that wrap all this nasties problems and so one code for all devices with optimizations for Nokia Siemens, Moto and soon Sharp GX1. I work on that : MEE http://mee.dev.java.net/

Mik

#17

Id recommend going for MIDP2.0,

the graphics related advantages are a real bonus and I think the market potential for MIDP2.0 is relatively substiantial within the near future.

Larry

#18

I heard promises before…and: 3 months for a J2ME game and all art is provided?? u gotta be kidding,
well Im starting out with J2ME (again)…but I could port it for you in much less than 3 months to Mophun ( www.mophun.com )

Edit: sorry I just saw this was posted last year…anyhow did this game ever get ported to J2ME?

#19

Nah, in the end I just couldn’t figure out a way to make the controls work on a phone. Those P800s with the stylus maybe had a bit of potential but a the end of the day you don’t really want to be playing a hardcore shooter on a 2" screen…

Cas :slight_smile:

#20

Princec if you have not foudn out already…

You will create a code base in standard j2me…everything except sounds and vibration

You will use s preprocessor with a template engine to change the device specific code per devce build…I use VPP its at sf.net…it uses the velocity template engine