Thanks for the hint. At least on mobile multiple tabs shouldn’t be an issue since the game runs in it’s own web container. Think I’ll combine more than one save condition but I haven’t had time to investigate yet.
Today’s progress:
Fixed the menu slide in animation offset issue
Added a pulsating icon that gets displayed when the menu is closed as a hint that the player needs to click at the bottom of the screen to open the menu
New fishes spawn slightly hungry so the player can already feed them once after they got created
The hunger value now grows faster (I accidentally forgot to calculate in 60fps so the hunger rate increased way to slowly). The fishes now need to be fed at least once per day
I will upload a new version once I have also fixed the saving freezes.
For the save you can add a “Save” button too, also you could do the autosave less frequently but always warn the player the game is autosaving, so the people know there is an autosave, how often, and it will explain them why the game freezes every X seconds/minutes. Also they will be able to save manually before closing the game.
The autosave warning could be a simple animated sprite created two seconds before launch the save, and deleted after the save ends.
Food will no longer spawn when moving the mouse out of the window
Fishes will no longer freeze in place when more than one fish is hunting for the same food particle
No more mini freezes when saving by storing the save file in memory and only saving it once (no noticeable freezes with 60 fishes (probably more))
Hunger now gets calculated when the tab / mobile game is sent to the background (before it was only calculated when the game was closed)
I will test the game a little bit more until I upload the new version cause I want it to run stable and bug free.
The next task will be adding a little more eye candy.
So stay tuned.
[size=150]New version 0.2.2 of Sakawochi released[/size]
Sorry it took a little longer but fortunately I didn’t specify which weekend the update would come.
If you have already played the former version the new one will probably feel like a completely different game.
So here are the main new features:
New Android version
Completely new comic style graphics
Sounds and Music
Brand new Asset store where you can buy fish and decorations for your aquarium
The game is localized now (EN, DE, FR*)
Unfortunately the French I learned at school has become quite rusty, so I had to let the computer translate for me. If you find something funny in the descriptions please let me know. (Also if you would like to contribute an additional language)
[size=200]Version 0.2.5 of Sakawochi released[/size]
[size=150]New Features:[/size]
Step by step tutorial
If you have played a later version of Sakawochi you need to reset the game in the options screen to see it.
The tutorial is in english, french and german. (please tell me if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes)
You can now buy crabs
Buy them in the store under “fishes”. Crabs eat spare fishfood and keep the tank clean
Spare fishfood now spoils the water
The more spoiled fishfood on the ground the more algae will grow in the tank
New version for Linux, MAC OS and Windows
In addition to Android and Ubuntu Touch
[size=150]Changes:[/size]
Fishes can now survive two days without food. But you can still feed them every 6 hours
Sounds and music was convertet into m4a format. Please tell me if sound is better on android now (haven’t gotten any feedback on this since last version).
I’m eager for your feedback (especially on the android version) You can find the download links in the opening post here.
Looks like you are more into action games but maybe I can encourage you to test this game with a[size=150] tasty cake [/size]for everyone that manages to keep their fish alive for two weeks?
[size=50]Don’t listen to him, the cake is a lie[/size]
You did come a long way with this game well done
Unfortunately I never had an aquarium for real because having a fish was never interesting to me and I guess I can’t really say anything different for this game either.
I also don’t really find virtual pets that interesting in general because all you do most of the time is feed them, wash them, treat them and you get nothing in return. Even if pets are funny with nice animations and sounds it get old really quickly so I don’t think I’m the right person to comment on this game from a player perspective. From a developer perspective I do find the game well made and polished and all it matters if you do enjoy the process of making it.
I think you should really share this game at itch.io as I was suggesting at the beginning because then maybe you could get valuable feedback from actual players who do enjoy and seeking this type of games.
Hey ddabrahim, thank you for your kind and honest words.
I indeed intend to publish it on itch.io in the near future but before I do this I’d like to get some feedback from other developers. There have been some issues with sound on android for example on my side and before I’m going more public I’d like to sort this out.
Even this WIP thread came too early since the initial version of Sakawochi was very bugged and unintuitive to use.
I’d really like to become a “real” indie developer one day which is why I want to publish only polished and nice looking games to the public so my portfolio doesn’t start with kindergarten graphics full of bugs. Sakawochi will probably not become the next Minecraft but I’d still like to train the PR stuff as early as possible since it is (unfortunately) one of the most important things for game creators nowadays.
Unfortunately I haven’t yet gotten any feedback for any platform while at the same time the game has issues on my own (dated Android phone) hardware. So I can’t publish it with a good conscience at the moment.
My own test results so far (family+friends): GD5 Preview / Web export:
Everything runs perfectly fine with Firefox and Chrome Android
Huawai Honor U8860 with Andorid 4.0.3 → no sound, runs very slow since WebGL was introduced around Android 5 or 6
Samsung Galaxy S5 mini → doesn’t run at all, just a black screen
Wiko Cink Peax 2 → runs smoothly but without sound and the game freezes after a couple of seconds Ubuntu Touch
Fair Phone 2 → runs nicely, only the sound level doesn’t update immediately - need to change the scene for that
GD’s HTML5 export can easily be converted into a “click” package that can be submitted to Open Store with the help of the “clickable” command line tool.
Steps:
Import the ppa for clickable to get the latest version as described here
Create and enter the folder in which you want to create your clickable project
Type “sudo clickable init” in the terminal (It needs to be run as root because clickable works with docker containers). When you are asked what type of App you want to create chooes “[4] html - HTML App”
Type in the title, description, version, author etc. of the App
When you are finished a project directory is being created with a folder called “www”.
Erase everything inside “www” and copy the content of your html5 exported GD game into it.
Edit the YourAppName.desktop file and set the path to your launcher icon (this can be inside the www folder).
Type “sudo clickable build” to build the app. A folder named “build” is created.
Type “sudo clickable click-build” to create the click package file that needs to be uploaded to the store
Type “sudo clickable review” to perform a check if there are missing files or wrong paths in the manifest, desktoplauncher etc.
Open https://open-store.io, log into your account and upload the myapplication.click file that was created in the build folder
Maybe we can welcome some Ubuntu Touch game developers here in the future.
Good idea. I’ll add it together with some screen shots when I find some time.
I’m glad that I didn’t launch the game on all platforms at the same day. I already got enough feedback to keep me busy for the next month. And I haven’t even (officially) launched on Itch and Gamejolt yet. ^^
Would you mind sharing how many downloads you got on Ubuntu Touch?
I’m wondering how many people actually using the OS. Too bad they don’t support HP Elite X3, now that Windows 10 mobile is not getting any more updates people are selling this beast even in new condition for a fraction of it original price. The hardware is great but the OS is dead. It would be the best fit for Ubuntu Touch with Convergence after all it was one of the main selling point of both HP Elite X3 and Ubuntu Touch. Could be a great combination now that Windows 10 mobile is dead.
I’m wondering too. The devs promised to put up the download statistic for Ubuntu Touch back up again after Canonical jumped ship a long time ago but nothing happened until now.
Sakawochi had about 26 downloads at on Sunday when I published the App. Currently it is at 58.
The value is slightly fluctuating so I guess it also counts uninstalls.
I got some replies on the UBPorts forum. Two members offered to translate it into Spanish and Italian. And I got a suggestion to implement gettext for easier localization. There is a javascript implementation on Github, but I don’t know how much effort it is to implement it in GD5. Maybe I’ll just create my own json based localization system via “Send a request to a website” to read a local json formatted translation file. This should be "quick to implement"™.
But I also had reports about flickering on some devices similar as Bouh described here. I’m going to try the workaround and if it fixes their flickering I’ll create a pull request for it.
Here is the link to the UBPorts forum thread: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1482/sakawochi-development-thread/12
Yeah, really sad that Microsoft just dropped their mobile OS. A little competition on the market would have been good. But I thought they would at least keep on providing updates for their customers.
Btw, on Ubuntu Touch OpenStore Sakawochi is now at 144 downloads, yay!
Would never have thought that a niche game like this would have so many downloads on a niche operating system like Ubuntu Touch.
Would you be able to add a button to speed up time?
As a sort of “farming” game where you take care of your fishes and their environment and then sell them, buy new ones, upgrade, maintain the aquarium…etc would be interesting even to me.
Congrats on the downloads!
In my opinion at the moment Ubuntu Touch is lack of good quality apps and games so more people willing to take the time to download and try new apps. On Anroid and iOS if you you upload something it is virtually get lost among the hundreds and thousands of titles. It is not even come up in search until you hit a certain amount of download at least this is my experience. Ubuntu Touch is definitely more welcoming at the moment in that regard. I’m also considering to target Ubuntu Touch, only trying to find a compatible device that would be not too expensive (to flash it) yet still powerful enough for everyday use.
I designed the game to be able to be played by both casual players that only run the App every second day and power players that want to run it several times per day. Snails appear every half hour and plastic between 10 minutes and an hour so there should be something to do whenever you run the game.
I’d like to add some mini games that don’t just include taping on something but also solving a little puzzle to create some variety.
If you have some ideas for certain features that would make Sakawochi more enjoyable for players who like more action please let me know.
I like Ubuntu Touch very much. My Fairphone2 has a bug that causes it to reboot from time to time because of a memory issue but all in all it is a very nice and open OS to use. Maybe you can get a used phone on ebay, these deveces are officially supported: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
Well, since there is not many action going on with having an aquarium, I think the only thing can be used here is the fact we do need to change water and filter time to time. So how about this. After a certain amount of time we need to get the fishes out of the water, but we would actually fishing. We would have a rope and the fishes moving left-right and so we need to shoot the rope in the right moment to catch the fish. And then to change the water, we could play a water pipe type of game to get the dirty water from the aquarium and then get the clean water in to the aquarium.
Maybe also need to catch the fish when we buy it?
To clean the filter we could play a memory card game maybe, I don’t know.
It is not realistic, but at least something to do time to time.
I still believe some sort of farming game to breed fishes and then sell them would be the most fun, but it would have nothing to do with your game after all.
I find them way too expensive. It would be for development only. Nexus 4 would be the cheapest solution, can get one from ebay as low as 30-50 euro, all the other options are 100+ not to mention the flagship phones cost 400+, I’m not going to spend that much on an ubuntu phone. I did mentioned on the forum there are many cheap chinese phones (since Microsoft also announced to no longer supporting Windows 8 devices), I don’t get it why the UBPort team and contributors not targeting those cheap devices. Everybody trying to flash UT on flagship phones cost 500-800 euros, it makes no sense to me.
I may get a Nexus 4 or 5, I like the OnePlus One best, but convergence with Nexus sounds interesting
But not sure if it actually matters, convergence wasn’t a big success I don’t think many people would use it anyway
I don’t think many people would use it anyway 