best tile size for nokia Ngage game?

[Gorgorath]

Hey all,

I'm quite new to programming for mobile games as a whole. Not to long ago i've decided together with a friend to create a game for nokia NGAGE devices( and beyond ) right now we've come across the problem what is the best tile size? And can tiles be different sizes, for i have never programmed a platform game.

cheers,

G.

[davidaprice]

If you're creating an N-Gage game using J2ME, you'll be using MIDP 1.0 (and Nokia's UI API for sound and full-screen graphics). MIDP 1.0 doesn't have any specific tile support, just the ability to draw rectangular images. So you're free to make the tiles whatever sizes you like.

N-Gage will also run C++ games written using the Series 60 1.0 APIs. You can get an SDK and emulator from Forum Nokia's Series 60 section.  I've not tried this, but I had a quick look at the documentation and again it seems to just support drawing rectangular (and masked transparent) images.

If you're a serious game developer, you can register as an Authorized N-Gage Developer and get the N-Gage C++ SDK. I've no idea what extra features that contains.

[Gorgorath]

thanks for the reply
But let's say i'll have a 16*16 pixels tile based grid, would it be possible to add 64*32  tiles to it( alligned) or should these be converted to 16 * 16 tiles as well?

G

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[davidaprice]

I'm afraid it just depends on how you implement the tile grid. There's no existing tile grid implementation (at least in MIDP 1.0, if that's what you're talking about) which would limit your choices.

[shareme]

If you are develpoing with J2me on Ngage you  will need to look at how to use GCF..it allows you to get acces tyo the flash memory and such..

the tutorial article on gcf for accessing file systems and stuff at java.sun.com in the j2me section

[wooD]

I've done a couple of 20x20 tile based games.  As was stated before, you have to implement your own tile system, so tile size is up to you.

If you want to draw 32x32 tiles on a 16x16 map, you would have to write to code to deal with the varying tile sizes. I recommend keeping them all the same size whatever you choose.

For speed, I draw my tile area to an offscreen bitmap that is one tile larger than the actual screen. When the user moves to the edge, I draw the old background onto a new offscreen bitmap (offset in the direction they moved), then fill in the edge.  Since there can be a lot of tiles and J2ME is underpowered, you want to limit the amount of tile drawing.

When I render the screen I first draw the offscreen tilemap, then draw all the game elements on top of it. Some might argue that all the elements should be drawn to the offscreen as well, but in that case you would be redrawing all those tiles every time.

Wood