Orientation Issue with Unity and Moto 360

Another issue i found with the Moto 360 and unity was the orientation this is what the game looks like in Unity

But on the device it looked like this

When i checked my player settings in Unity the orientation was on Portrait. so after some trial and error i found that Landscape left gave me the correct orientation. :)

Just a quick tip the screen size for Moto 360 is 320 x 290 so add these dimensions to the Unity game view.

Running Unity Game on your Android Wear device.

If you followed my previous blogpost you should have a android studio project ready for deployment, and like me if you have already got a device that you would like deploy on then read on.

Step 1: Pair your Android Wear device with your Android Phone

Follow this link to achieve this 

https://support.google.com/androidwear/answer/6056630?hl=en-GB 

Step 2: Enable Bluetooth Debugging

https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creating.html and scroll down to Set Up an Android Wear Device if like me you have got a Moto 360 which does not have a usb connection click on this link https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/bt-debugging.html 

Once you have all of that and have your device connected. Go to Android Studio and click on Run and when you get the prompt to select device choose the watch, then be patient as it does take some time for the apk to be uploaded and installed onto the device once it has uploaded and installed you can go on the watch press it once to open the menu and find your game :).

Unity3d to Android Wear!

Ok so finally i have been successful in porting a Unity3d project to a Moto 360!

Step 1: Export the Unity project as a Google Android Project make sure you set your bundle id
e.g. co.uk.mycompany.test 

for the Minimum API Level select Android 4.4 'Kit Kat' (API Level 19)

Step 2: Create a new blank project on Android Studio. (Android Studio -> File -> New -> New Project). Make sure when you fill out the form above the package name is the same as the one you entered in Unity (co.uk.mycompany.test) once that is all set click on Next.

Step 3a: Select the same Minimum API Level and make sure you tick the Wear box! and select the minimum API Level  (Android 4.4 'Kit Kat') then click next

Step 3b: Leave it as it is and press next.

Step 3c: Leave it as it is and press Finish and let the project set itself up.

Step 3d: Then change the view set up to Project.

Step 4: Time to import our Unity Project. File -> New -> Import Module... then choose the directory where you saved the Unity Project in Step 1 then press Next followed by Finish and let the project set itself up.

Step 5: Once it is set up you need to Delete the MainActivity.java file from the wear folder. 

wear -> src -> main -> java -> co.uk.mycompany.test -> MainActivity

Step 6: Copy the unity-classes.jar from the module you imported it will be in 

test -> libs -> unity-classes.jar and paste this into the lib folder for the wear module (wear -> libs ->...)

Step 7: Copy the assets, java, jniLibs folders from the imported Module test -> src -> main -> and paste them into the main folder for the wear module wear -> src -> main -> ... 

If everything is done correctly you should be able to deploy this onto a device or emulator. I will be posting about how to run a game straight onto an android watch in my next post :).

If you want to make any changes to your unity project and then make it wear friendly all you have to do is start from Step 4. But i would suggest deleting the test module first.

I would like to credit technidus but had to amend a few things to make it work fully!

Lifestyle choice.

Im a Vaper now :)!

I have always enjoyed a shisha here and there not because of the smoking part just the part where you get to do smoke tricks etc.. so then i looked into Vaping and have not looked back! so many different flavours and MODs and all are so good! i am currently vaping on the iStick 50 that i got from moonVapez who are based in Birmingham UK! they have the best flavours too and most importantly the owner encourages customers to try before buy! No one else lets the customer try their products!

So Thumbs up for Vaping and moonVapez. :)

Developing for the Apple Watch

Apple Watch is poo.

Ok so for the last 2 days i have been working on small prototype games/apps for the Apple Watch and i must say it is an absolute nightmare! the Dev kit (Watchkit) is so limited!! Let me list all the issues i have come across so far.

• I wanted to have a slider in my game so i can use the value from the slider in the game. You may be thinking thats simple..... O but wait the device cannot recognise any touch gestures except tap. to if i wanted to you a slider i would have to tap the +/- to increase or decrease the value which is not good for games especially when you want to use it for a smooth mechanic. 
• O wait I'm sorry it does recognise touch gestures but it already has predetermined behaviours for those gestures!!! leaving the developer with only ONE gesture to work with - TAP. 
• "O but wait Abdullah on the ad i am sure i saw a smooth animation of the maps being zoomed in etc." well they achieve this via the Digital crown which again developers have no access to! it can be used to scroll up and down when required! but cannot retrieve the value from it. (But i will be looking into a hack version where you can retrieve a value).
• Next was i wanted to add a 2x2 grid on the screen so i can place 4 buttons inside the grid to create a small game but nope the interface does not allow me to Align buttons in a group also we cannot add buttons/sliders/groups etc programmatically. 

So after 2 days i have had 1 integration of the Apple Watch into one of my games where i can use the watch to turn an object on screen. but I'm not entirely happy with that either. AND finally every 5th/6th time i run on the simulator it hangs on the spinner. so i have to close everything and open again!

On the plus side it was quite easy to set up the Watchkit with Unity. and send messages to Unity code. :)

Theres my little rant on the Apple Watch, maybe i will be happier when i can get a hacky way to get the behaviour i want! 

Just goes to prove Apple as an organisation do not care about developers or users they just care about making money! 

Tiki Tapa Multiplayer

Multiplayer Challenges

This is the most important addition to the game! In this post i will take you through how to use this feature in the game and what the point of this feature is.

First thing is first check out the new Main Menu layout!

Because we had to add more options to the menu such as Multiplayer and Pundit corner we could not keep it as a Row of buttons so now we have grouped the buttons the Top 3:

• ARCADE
• CAREER
• MULTIPLAYER

will lead the starting the game while the Bottom 3:

• LEADERBOARDS
• YOUR LEGACY
• SETTINGS

will keep you within the main menu.

So to use the Multiplayer feature you will obviously have to click on the Multiplayer Button which can have a notification circle on it depending on whether or not you have any incoming challenges or results from other games that you have sent out! 

Once in the Multiplayer view you will see 4 options:

• QUICK MATCH
• MATCHES
• VS FRIENDS
• RESULTS

 QUICK MATCH

Selecting this option will open up a view to select which difficulty you would like this challenge to be (EASY, MEDIUM, HARD) as shown below.

Once you have selected a difficulty the game will look for an opponent suitable for you, this means who has won around the same amount of BALON'DORADOs as you. I have currently won it 2 times so it will look for opponents who have won it around 2 times could be 1/2/3/4.

(I will explain how to win a BALON'DORADO later in this post.)

Once an opponent has been found you will see a dialog like this:

You can earn TT Dollars by playing the game :) its as simple as that the more you play the more you can get, plus if you want a handful you can always get some from the Stadium Gift Shop. 

Which explains the details of this challenge! The challenge is vs someone called syncNexus who has won the BALON'DORADO once and another piece of information which is vital is the COST so to start this challenge is will cost 25 TT Dollars! The challenge cost varies on which difficulty you selected:-

• EASY - 25 TT Dollars
• MEDIUM - 50 TT Dollars 
• HARD - 100 TT Dollars

the more you pay the more you are trying to win so if you win a challenge you will get your cost back + the opponents TT Dollars too for example, if you were to challenge someone on HARD then you would have to use 100 TT Dollars the wait for opponent to complete the challenge if they lose then you receive 200 TT Dollars but if you lose then no more TT Dollars will be taken away!

MATCHES

If you have any in coming challenges then this button will be available otherwise this button will be turned off. Once you click Matches all your on going matches should appear in a list like below:

The Information is set out in a simple manner.

Name - Difficulty - Score to beat

So if i press any of these the game invite dialog would pop up along a Head to head stat displayer:

This shows the current score between me and my opponent if we have any previous history!

Winning the BALON'DORADO

To win the Balon'Dorado you need to get fill the Balon'Dorado which is the blue progress bar next to the trophy:

Mine is pretty much empty as i just won a trophy and it reset back to 0. But once you have enough points to fill this bar you would have won a Balon'Dorado trophy!

To get Balon'Dorado points you need to win Multiplayer challenges! the harder the difficulty the more points you will be rewarded with! 

• EASY - 10 Balon'Dorado points
• MEDIUM - 15 Balon'Dorado points
• HARD - 30 Balon'Dorado points

Well thats it! Thats the multiplayer feature all wrapped up! i know this dragged along a bit, Sorry.

Get Tiki Tapa here

Tiki Tapa Update!

So for the last month or so I have been working on the next update for Tiki Tapa! The biggest reason for the update was to get a higher User Retention rate within the game, to do this i decided to add a Multiplayer feature to the game, where the player can send challenges to his/her friends and hopefully get competitive!

This feature was something that i had partially done before for OC-TANE but for Tiki Tapa i needed to enhance the experience for the user and make it easier for them to understand what was going on, and that is where i came across Gamesparks! It was very simple to set up gamesparks to a state where you could post scores to the leaderboards and get notifications when someone beats your score etc but to get these Challenges to work in the way that i wanted them to work was a bit of a pain, as there is a lack of Documentation on their website however it is nice to know that the Support team are amazing at responding to questions and do it quickly too! With the help of the Support team i had the challenges running very quickly then it was just a matter of testing. So with a massive smile on my face i can say that the game has now got Multiplayer features, Which i will explain and take more about in the next post.

Another new feature for this update of Tiki Tapa is an idea that came about by accident, we were reading an article about some funny quotes said by football pundits/current footballers/ex footballers and we were laughing so much that we decided to created a Pundit Corner! which will let the player read these hilarious quotes and it lets them share them to their friends on Facebook or post it on Twitter. It is set up to get quotes from a live server and then update the list within the game which means we can keep editing this list to keep the quotes fresh in the game!

The final big change in the game is the addition of a second language for the game! Tiki Tapa now translates into Spanish! We had to get this done because it it quite popular in Spain plus it is Tiki Taka styled gameplay which is played mostly by Spanish teams! If the player wants to change the language they can do it via the settings options in the menu!

Thanks for reading this version is currently under review by Apple so will be on the store really soon!

To get Tiki Tapa click here