Wagic on Android: Work-in-progress release

[jwilkes99999]

I know I want the interface as a secondary control scheme for when the touch interface isn't a viable option, not as the primary interface option. I don't see how its poor design when it will help expand the playability of the app.

Ex. I run an elf token deck in order to get the immortality achievements and just because I love having 200+ creatures on the field. When there's that many creatures on the field its nearly impossible to find the one you want with the touch interface, especially if you have big fingers like me. Even if you can find it in the group, good luck trying to tap the pixel that corresponds to that one card.

I'm on the galaxy tab 10.1, which I believe is the largest screen this app can be run on and its still occasionally a problem for me. Occasionally, I also drag my finger over a card to make sure I'm selecting the right one and when I tap it still manages to select the card under or beside the one I wanted. This is really a pain in situations like playing a land from your hand where there isn't an option to take back a mistake (as opposed to say if I accidentally used a card that required a target so I could back out before choosing said target).

Edit:

Also its hard to make an ability target a player. I end up having to tap around the opponent's image like five to ten times to hit them with lightning bolt or millstone.
If I get a chance I'll post an image of what I was thinking (hoping) for.

Another Edit:

So loaded up the program today and ran into a major error. When I try and start a game match the game crashes. After I select my opponent it goes to a black screen that says "Error loading hand texture : D:/programming/wth/projects/mtg/Android/jni/../jni/../../../". Not sure what happened...

[gothx]

I am sorry to have annoyed you. what i meant was that while the phase bar is on the left side if you were to touch the right side and slide your finger up it would switch through to the next phase. i am not able to open my hand, just while closed i am able to see it. which is ok just making an observation about it. while buying cards, i try to reload or look at new cards to see other choices to buy like on the psp how you press square you try to do that on screen it only asks if you would like to buy this or that. I am sorry i was vague before like I said I am at work and was looking and decided to make a quick post. My apologies, I shall not be so vague in the future.

[wololo]

Let me clarify a few things about controls, and the intent of Wagic on Android, in general.

About the idea of a D-Pad overlaid on the screen: this is something we discussed, but this is not how we envision our port. We want to provide a real Android/touch interface rather than a port of a PSP game. The PSP has 12 buttons and we use all of them. If we were to overlay that on a screen, especially on phones, it would basically be all over the place. Some emulators do that, but mostly they benefit from the fact that they are supposed to show a 4/3 screen, not 16/9.
However if somebody gives us the code to do that, we'll gladly integrate it and make it an option

About elf decks with hundreds of tokens: If that's the only case where you're running in problems, I think we can fix it long term, not only for android, but for all platforms: we shouldn't show that many tokens on the screen. Instead, we should show one token with a counter on it. We would "merge" all cards/tokens that are entirely similar. For example, if you have 100 elf tokens, and one has an aura, it is displayed separately, while the others are displayed with one card, and a number "99". When you decide to attack, as you click on the card with "99", its counter decreases, while another card is rendered, tapped, with a counter that increases... things like that.
This is not a short time change, but token decks have been a problem for a long time, not only on android.

Djardin: I agree with the customization, but only short term. Basically, until we fully support controls customization on android (which is something I'd like to have in the future), we should deactivate it.

To jwilkes99999 and gothx, About DJardin's answer: don't take his answer too badly . DJardin has worked extremely hard on making the Android port playable, in a few months we've gone from something that was barely playable, to an experience that is relatively smooth. You guys haven't seen the progression, so it means that you can't see all the progress that has been made so far (hence DJardin's emotional involvement and his answer on this), but it's also valuable because unlike us, you can see in "absolute" value what sucks and what doesn't in the interface. So don't take our answers the wrong way: your feedback is extremely important.

About the deck editor, the shop, and MTG on Wagic in general: there's a good reason I am suggesting people to use my mod Knights and Dragons on Android: Our current support of the shop and the deck editor is minimal, and this is intentional: eventually we will fix those, but for now they matter less, because Wagic on Android will not officially support MTG, rather we will be supporting other games. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure some devs will unofficially improve the MTG experience on Wagic, but for legal reasons we will not be able to distribute an MTG game in the US (and therefore, on the android market). WotC has patents on many things, especially the possibility to build decks in card games. This means officially we won't provide a deck builder in Wagic on Android, and this is why our efforts are focused on other things.

I agree that targeting players is slightly difficult, we'll see what we can do for that.

[vicious]

Sorry for a late replay

Yes - I can start a game with open slider - D-Pad works great - but buttons doesn't - only Circle (because circle is used also as a back button)... Triggers and Cross, triangle and square doesn't works.

I have a big request - make a possibility for packed images in ZIP folders because i freeze my Xperia Play. Gallery widget tried to load all images (all card sets) and - as You can Imagine - phone cannot stop . Battery run from 90% to 13% in 1h - when nothing was open . I must stop testing for now and wait for zip compatybility.

[jwilkes99999]

You probably have to use the key binding tab in the options menu to map your circle button to the wagic input circle button. Do you understand what I mean?

[vicious]

I understand - but I can assign only a Circle button - else doesn't react and cannot be assigned.

[Djardin]

while the phase bar is on the left side if you were to touch the right side and slide your finger up it would switch through to the next phase.

"swipe up" is bound to "next phase"

i am not able to open my hand, just while closed i am able to see it. which is ok just making an observation about it.

No idea how you installed your resources but the game is not supposed to be played with closed hand in "invible" mode on Android or in any touch-enable device. So, if you just set it to "visible" and you won't have any problem anymore. I think we should simply remove this option as it makes the game not playable at all on touch devices ...

while buying cards, i try to reload or look at new cards to see other choices to buy like on the psp how you press square you try to do that on screen it only asks if you would like to buy this or that.

"more cards" is bound to swipe left (or is it right ?) in the shop.

I am sorry i was vague before like I said I am at work and was looking and decided to make a quick post. My apologies, I shall not be so vague in the future.

Thanks for the additional precisions, they help to understand your reactions. We still have a lot of work to #ifdef out all the legacy PSP logic and icons on Android.

[jwilkes99999]

Then it sounds like the program isn't catching the keydown response from your buttons. I know enough programming to say that but I have no idea how wagic reads input so wololo is gonna have to let you know if there's anything you can do to fix that or if the program has to be updated for some reason to accommodate this.

Btw, I found a major bug in the android version. For some reason it started deleting the unzipped jpgs out of my sets folder and it was causing my game to crash when I would try to start a game. I figured out that copying a fresh version of sets would let the program run, but eventually it would stop working as well. Then when I was comparing a fresh folder with a broken folder I realized all the jpgs were missing, it only had the subset folders. As a temporary solution I created a folder called backup and copied all those files into it so when they get deleted I can just copy them from backup back into sets.

[wololo]

I have a big request - make a possibility for packed images in ZIP folders because i freeze my Xperia Play. Gallery widget tried to load all images (all card sets) and - as You can Imagine - phone cannot stop . Battery run from 90% to 13% in 1h - when nothing was open . I must stop testing for now and wait for zip compatybility.

Wagic already supports zipped resources, and especially for cards it has been the case since day 1. How exactly are you installing the graphics?

[jwilkes99999]

I believe he means compressed zips.

Also going back to my missing files it appears images are also being lost from the graphics folder. I just noticed most of my wallpaper is gone.