ErnCon

[ernestw]

Hello JGO - I just opened up public beta for my new multiplayer shmup Android Game called ErnCon.  Please give it a try!

Public beta is open for USA, Canada, and most of Europe (slowly adding all of Europe - please be patient!).  Android 2.2 or higher, hardware OpenGL, and a network connection (WiFi/3G/4G) is required.  I hope you guys enjoy it!

Here's a screenshot:



Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYNwfnSuAdY

You can download ErnCon from Android Market:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.amorph.erncon

[CommanderKeith]

Pretty cool looking in the trailer!

I've never seen a real-time android multiplayer game, I'm looking forward to try it.

Nice job

[ernestw]

Thanks!  I'm trying to make synchronous mobile multiplayer my niche.  Hopefully I can make more games like this in the future.  If you have any feedback or find any bugs, please tell me!

Pretty cool looking in the trailer!

I've never seen a real-time android multiplayer game, I'm looking forward to try it.

Nice job

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[H3rnst]

Hey, nice trailer!! 

Guess we'll have to wait for a while down here in Argentina to try it

[ernestw]

I'm still in the planning stages for South American support.  Right now I'm limited to deploying servers over Amazon EC2 and the only South American data center is in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I could open up to South American countries but I'm unsure of your network performance going to Sao Paulo.  I'm trying not to overpromise to gamers 

Hey, nice trailer!! 

Guess we'll have to wait for a while down here in Argentina to try it

[H3rnst]

Ok, don't worry. You're doing a great job, keep it up! 

[Aeroren]

I just tried it on my HTC Desire S. I Completed the tutorial (or at least the first level of it, don't know if there's more?) and then the game seems to hang at the loading screen. The animation and music continue, but other than that nothing seems to happen. I'm from the Netherlands.

EDIT: oh, lol, when I pressed my phone's back button I got into the mission menu and everything seems to work again

The controls take some getting used to, but I do like it so far

[ernestw]

Thanks for the reply - what happens after the tutorial is that I try to launch the store to show you the weapons/robots/fighters you can buy.  I think the call to grab the store inventory is failing sometimes and I'm handling the error poorly.  I will fix that for the next release.

Glad you tried again and actually got into the game 

I just tried it on my HTC Desire S. I Completed the tutorial (or at least the first level of it, don't know if there's more?) and then the game seems to hang at the loading screen. The animation and music continue, but other than that nothing seems to happen. I'm from the Netherlands.

EDIT: oh, lol, when I pressed my phone's back button I got into the mission menu and everything seems to work again

The controls take some getting used to, but I do like it so far

[CommanderKeith]

May I ask, how do you do the multiplayer, using the 3G phone network or using wifi or using bluetooth?

And what strategy do you use for sync'ing everything?

Must have been a royal pain to work that out. Well done getting it to run in a polished game.

[ernestw]

May I ask, how do you do the multiplayer, using the 3G phone network or using wifi or using bluetooth?

ErnCon is meant to be played over the Internet so 3G or WiFi (connected to the Internet of course).

And what strategy do you use for sync'ing everything?

ErnCon is essentially using a Java implementation of the Quake 3 networking model.  I followed this article: http://web.archive.org/web/20060322211154/http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/TheQuake3NetworkingModel.html

The above article only describes the networking layer so I still had to come up with things like client-side interpolation to mask lag, serializing/deserializing game objects to/from the network stream, etc.

Must have been a royal pain to work that out. Well done getting it to run in a polished game.

Thanks!  I actually implemented this in FRG multiplayer about a year ago so I wasn't starting from scratch for ErnCon.  The effort I put into FRG multiplayer was still almost a year of my spare time but it was really fun and interesting!

If you have any specific questions about ErnCon's networking model, please ask!  I'm always up for knowledge sharing.

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[dishmoth]

"Insufficient space on device" when I tried to download it.  I'll try it again if I can clear enough internal memory (>20meg).

Obviously that's my problem not yours, but I'm just wondering whether you're setting "preferExternal" in the Android manifest.  I've got more than enough external storage to hold the game.  I don't know anything about how Android works, but I'm a little surprised that it's insisting on downloading the app to internal storage.

I managed to watch the trailer at least, and that looked pretty nice.

Simon

[ernestw]

"Insufficient space on device" when I tried to download it.  I'll try it again if I can clear enough internal memory (>20meg).

Yes I'm setting preferExternal.  On my Nexus S, I noticed the phone started constantly complaining about Insufficient Space when I had less than 100MB free.  While developing and installing/uninstalling repeatedly I think the free space becomes fragmented somehow.  A reboot of the phone tends to fix that issue for me.  I'm not sure if the same is happening to you.

[dishmoth]

A reboot of the phone tends to fix that issue for me.

Didn't work for me I'm afraid.  Just not meant to be I guess.

[CommanderKeith]

And what strategy do you use for sync'ing everything?

ErnCon is essentially using a Java implementation of the Quake 3 networking model.  I followed this article: http://web.archive.org/web/20060322211154/http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/TheQuake3NetworkingModel.html

The above article only describes the networking layer so I still had to come up with things like client-side interpolation to mask lag, serializing/deserializing game objects to/from the network stream, etc.

Must have been a royal pain to work that out. Well done getting it to run in a polished game.

Thanks!  I actually implemented this in FRG multiplayer about a year ago so I wasn't starting from scratch for ErnCon.  The effort I put into FRG multiplayer was still almost a year of my spare time but it was really fun and interesting!

If you have any specific questions about ErnCon's networking model, please ask!  I'm always up for knowledge sharing.

That's interesting, thanks for the info. If I had to do a multiplayer game i'd use the same strategy. Back in the day I tried to make a multiplayer game using something different. If you're interested it's here: http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/multiplayer-top-down-view-shooter/18019/msg/141395/view.html#msg141395

Keep up the great work with the real time networking. I think that's one of the hardest things to do right in any game.