Battle Kid 2 - Releasing on 12/14

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Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

I wanted to quickly announce here that I have, with Sivak's permission, made the new Battle Kid 2: Mountain of Torment Demo available on Apple's App Store. It's a free download for any iPad, iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 5 or later. View Battle Kid 2 Lite on the App Store

The app features the latest version of my Macifomlite emulator/ROM wrapper and has the following new features:
  • * Native support for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch at standard and Retina resolutions.
    * Square-pixel and 4:3 aspect ratios available in portrait and landscape modes, respectively.
    * Support for iCade-compatible external Bluetooth controllers. (Configurable from the BK2 Lite item in the Settings app)
    * 60fps video and 44.1khz audio on all supported devices.
For those who are interested, I'd be grateful for any feedback on the app via PM. I plan to push an update to coincide with the full cartridge release from RetroZone.

I'd also appreciate it if someone would heckle the first reviewer :)
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thefox
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by thefox »

Battle Kid on a touch screen? Oh no... :)

Some criticism:
- Still slight stuttering on the audio from time to time.
- Nearest-point filtering in the landscape mode looks kind of crappy, especially in text parts. Maybe it's a lesser of two evils when compared to bilinear filtering, though...
- The buttons in landscape mode obscure the game play, I prefer Mega Man 2 Lite's way of having the buttons on the sides.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
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Sivak
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Sivak »

Ah yes, this finally came out. I myself can't actually play it though. :(

Still is a cool means for others to try the game out.
-Sivak
tepples
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by tepples »

thefox wrote:- Nearest-point filtering in the landscape mode looks kind of crappy, especially in text parts. Maybe it's a lesser of two evils when compared to bilinear filtering, though...
mikejmoffitt and I agree that perhaps the best compromise in this case is to blow it up to x2 using point sampling and then blow it up to the final size using bilinear.
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thefox
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by thefox »

tepples wrote:
thefox wrote:- Nearest-point filtering in the landscape mode looks kind of crappy, especially in text parts. Maybe it's a lesser of two evils when compared to bilinear filtering, though...
mikejmoffitt and I agree that perhaps the best compromise in this case is to blow it up to x2 using point sampling and then blow it up to the final size using bilinear.
I agree, that looks really good!
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

thefox wrote:Battle Kid on a touch screen? Oh no... :)
Bluetooth controls are also available, and that's my preferred way to play. I've surprised myself with how proficient I've become with the touch controls in portrait mode, though.
thefox wrote: Some criticism:
- Still slight stuttering on the audio from time to time.
- Nearest-point filtering in the landscape mode looks kind of crappy, especially in text parts. Maybe it's a lesser of two evils when compared to bilinear filtering, though...
- The buttons in landscape mode obscure the game play, I prefer Mega Man 2 Lite's way of having the buttons on the sides.
- You're right. For the next version I'm making my audio buffer a tick longer to smooth over that. I'm mindful of audio latency, though. It would be nice if I could sync to sound as I do on the desktop but I don't have an efficient way to do that yet.
- I'm going to look into tepples' suggestion here.
- I did this so I could have the same scaling in place for landscape mode with and without external controls enabled. It doesn't work so well for games like Battle Kid where you enter from one side of the screen and exit through another in nearly every room. For the next version I think I'll scale the video less in landscape when using touch controls to keep it out of the video area.

Thank you for the honest feedback. It really helps me to prioritize changes for the next version. :D
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

tepples wrote:
thefox wrote:- Nearest-point filtering in the landscape mode looks kind of crappy, especially in text parts. Maybe it's a lesser of two evils when compared to bilinear filtering, though...
mikejmoffitt and I agree that perhaps the best compromise in this case is to blow it up to x2 using point sampling and then blow it up to the final size using bilinear.
Hadn't thought of that but I see the logic. Investigating...
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

thefox wrote:Battle Kid on a touch screen? Oh no... :)
- The buttons in landscape mode obscure the game play, I prefer Mega Man 2 Lite's way of having the buttons on the sides.
I put in a couple of days working to improve touch controls for version 1.1. I've rewritten my touch routines to be more tolerant of errant taps, reduced the size of the dead-zone in the center of the d-pad, and redid landscape mode on iPhone along the lines of Mega Man 2.

On top of that, I've implemented a new mode where you can output to an HDTV and use the whole surface of the device as a controller. You can even pair a Bluetooth controller in this mode and basically have a wireless NES. It's a little more costly, but it upscales to HD quite nicely! I uploaded a little demonstration.
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Kreese
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Kreese »

This is really cool! Is there any good Blue-tooth controllers for iPhone?

Anyway, great idea to release this game this way as an option. I suppose Sivak will get his share of every copy that will be sold?
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

Kreese wrote:This is really cool! Is there any good Blue-tooth controllers for iPhone?
It works with all iCade-compatible controllers which includes the iControlPad and the entire iCade family. I have an iCade for my iPad and am rather impressed with the quality of the controls. Here's a video of me playing BK2 on it.
Kreese wrote:Anyway, great idea to release this game this way as an option. I suppose Sivak will get his share of every copy that will be sold?
At the moment I'm only publishing the freely-available demo of BK2. Whether or not the full game will see a release apart from the cartridge version is up to Sivak and bunnyboy.
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thefox
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by thefox »

I tried the new iPhone version on lecture break today, and here are a couple of things I noticed:

- At one point the Left button on the "d-pad" got stuck. Sorry, but I have no idea how to reproduce this.
- In landscape mode clicking on top of the screen takes you to retrousb.com, even though there's no visible link. I tried couple of times to open the notifications bar or whatever it's called (you know, by sliding downwards at the top of the screen), and it would open up the link instead. Also when I returned to the game again, it would sometimes re-open the page instantaneously even when I didn't touch anything.
- Sometimes the controls didn't seem to work after re-opening the game. Once again, no idea how to reproduce this, but I'll let you know if it keeps on occurring again.
- Would be nice to have an option to turn the sound off. Also would be nice if it allowed the music player to be used while playing the game.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

thefox wrote:I tried the new iPhone version on lecture break today, and here are a couple of things I noticed:

- At one point the Left button on the "d-pad" got stuck. Sorry, but I have no idea how to reproduce this.
- In landscape mode clicking on top of the screen takes you to retrousb.com, even though there's no visible link. I tried couple of times to open the notifications bar or whatever it's called (you know, by sliding downwards at the top of the screen), and it would open up the link instead. Also when I returned to the game again, it would sometimes re-open the page instantaneously even when I didn't touch anything.
- Sometimes the controls didn't seem to work after re-opening the game. Once again, no idea how to reproduce this, but I'll let you know if it keeps on occurring again.
- Would be nice to have an option to turn the sound off. Also would be nice if it allowed the music player to be used while playing the game.
Thanks for testing it out and letting me know about these issues. The problem with the d-pad getting stuck in one direction was something I saw on a pre-release build but appeared to be resolved by a code change. It's possible that iOS cancelled a touch for some reason and didn't send me a 'touchesEnded' notification. I'll have to look into that.

Having the RetroZone link still work in landscape is a little wonky, I agree. I'll change that for the next update. I've not had trouble pulling up Notifications, losing touch or having the link re-open so I'm wondering if your config and mine have behavioral differences.

Could you PM me with your device model and iOS version so I can see if there's a config-specific issue here? Thanks.
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thefox
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by thefox »

Noticed one more problem in the iPhone port when playing today: one time that I reopened the game, the sound didn't work. As a little detail, when I tried to adjust the volume by pressing the +/- buttons, it adjusted the ringer volume, not the game's volume as it usually does. Closing and reopening the game fixed this.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
Macifom
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Macifom »

thefox wrote:Noticed one more problem in the iPhone port when playing today: one time that I reopened the game, the sound didn't work. As a little detail, when I tried to adjust the volume by pressing the +/- buttons, it adjusted the ringer volume, not the game's volume as it usually does. Closing and reopening the game fixed this.
Fixed one bug this morning that would prevent the game from unpausing after an SMS or phone call (and possibly other OS interruptions). The purchase link and rotation would still respond, making it seem like the controls had just stopped working. Not sure whether or not that's related to your earlier report.

I spent some time trying to make the + / - buttons adjust ringer volume rather than app volume, but even with audio playback disabled it doesn't happen. Maybe your phone thought it was plugged into an audio dock?

Thanks for the info, as always. PM me with other weird happenings.
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Kreese
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Re: Battle Kid 2 - Trailer & release info. Updated 7/9/12

Post by Kreese »

I hope for a release this year. What's up with this?
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