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Android

Posted by Joseph Potts
Joseph Potts
11,187 Points

Released my Android Game - Any suggestions?

With the help of Treehouse and other online resources, I was able to start making games for Android very quickly. Thank you Treehouse!

This is my second game, called Dot Match https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.purgified.dotmatch

Please let me know if there are things I should add/improve upon as I want to know every little bit of criticisms fellow Treehouse students have about it.

Douglas Counts
Douglas Counts
10,060 Points
Douglas Counts
Douglas Counts
10,060 Points

If you don't mind my asking, how do you intend to make money on it? Or is the game just a spring board project into future games that you plan to monetize? Don't have an Android, but both your games look interesting.

Joseph Potts
Joseph Potts
11,187 Points

Sure Douglas! Currently I have two revenue options setup. 1) Through in-game ads and 2) Selling the source code for the game. These were my first two games that solidified my experience with game development, so I decided to sell the source code to others who have more resources to promote their own version of the game than I do.

Thanks!

1 Answer

Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points
Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points

Nice games man! I was looking into making something on android myself so far I only studied unity game engine and c#. I can do 3d though. So just trying to piece it together.

In your situation I would say add some more visual interest in certain parts maybe instead of plain dots they are planets since it looks like it takes place in space or another planet anyway,What if they had to keep press really fast on the planet to blow it up maybe ten times? I would also add instructions. I didn't know what to do at first then I started realize you have to determine where the dot will land. Keep it up! Is it free to get your game on google play by the way?

Joseph Potts
Joseph Potts
11,187 Points

These are good suggestions, i'm writing these down for later! Thanks!

I'm also learning Unity to see what its' like to make games with it (even though it has a huge filesize). It isn't free to publish games on Google Play, though there is only a one-time fee of $25 to setup a developer account (Apple charges $99/month for iOS).

Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points
Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points

Yeah unity is great but the fees involved aren't so great, nonetheless unity makes it easy to export out your product to the different platforms. I would recommend unreal engine 4 they only change you if you make over a certain amount off the game.

Joseph Potts
Joseph Potts
11,187 Points

Unity is the same now as well! You get the Free version of Unity which has all the features of the Pro version except having a default splash screen and a few analytics features. Unity has the same policy as Unreal, which is you have to buy a Pro version if your game company is making over $100k/year.

Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points
Gary Calhoun
Gary Calhoun
10,317 Points

Ahh ok. The best thing about unity is the user support it has, awesome forums, and free tutorials to follow projects. I did most of the projects on their tutorial page learned alot. Would recommend checking it out if you haven't yet.

I like the lighting in unreal engine though and the interface is very organized compared to udk, if I was making a first person shooter then unreal engine is would I would use.

In unity I know you can do raycasting scripting in order to hit a target basically shoots a light and once it touches another game object something happens. For the games you are making though it seems unity would be best for you. If you ever make a steam game or push something out to console then unreal would be the way to go imo.

For the the 3d game I had in mind I was gonna use unity though because its more cartoony, so it will look good in unity. I I can sculpt, model, texture, but I need to work on rigging for animation. I was contemplating taking the android development track on treehouse soon, just at the moment I can't get to bogged down with different programming languages.