Some thoughts on google android as a gaming platform

With the launch of the first android device (T-Mobile G1) just around the corner, I would like to share with you a few thoughts regarding the viability of the android platform for gaming purposes.
Android has rich multimedia and graphics api's:
1.Support for openGL/ES and 2D drawing.
2.Media api's.
3.Support for sensors (GPS and accelerometer).
4.Networking.
5.Optional touch interface.

So in theory, it should be ideal for gaming, right?

Well yes, but there are some caveats:
1. Not all devices will support touch interfaces and sensors.
2. Not all devices will have the same screen size.
3. For gaming, some sort of joystick or D-PAD device is essential. A D-PAD was standard in the various emulator images, since the first SDK, but the first device (The T-Mobile G1) comes without a D-PAD! Instead, we get a tiny trackball, not the best IO device for gaming!
So the problem is that as it seems, we will have a lot of different devices, with different configurations. Some will have touch interfaces, some will not, some will have a D-PAD, some will have trackballs, some will have acceleration sensors and so on. So, a game developer that develops for android will have the same kind of problems that a PC game programmer has. Different screen sizes and IO devices and so on... That increases the amount of time and resources a developer has to use in order to make his game playable on most phones. The same problems that drive a lot of PC game developers to game consoles.

So how can this be remedied? Well I guess that one possible solution is the introduction of a limited set of device profiles. Something like basic, gaming and advanced profiles, that will provide the developer with the same set of IO features.
Otherwise, I see a lot of developers fleeing to the apple iPhone, with it's game console simplicity, rather than the android's PC like capabilities.

I'd love to see your opinion on those thoughts, so shoot!

A simple class for playing music and sound effects for android

I think that android has a few problems in the area of sound/music playback. After much digging, the only way that I have found to play back music and sound effects is android.media.MediaPlayer. I wanted to add music and sound effects to my game monolithandroid. So I came up with the following class, aptly named SoundSystem. This class uses a separate thread for playback, because we don't want our sound to slowdown our game rendering.


package org.teacake.monolith;
import android.media.MediaPlayer;
import android.os.Handler;
import android.os.Message;
import android.os.SystemClock;
public class SoundSystem extends Thread
{
public SoundSystem(android.content.Context context)
{
action = SOUND_DO_NOTHING;
lastEventTime= SystemClock.uptimeMillis();
this.context = context;
try
{
musicPlayer = android.media.MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.intro);
soundPlayerRotateBlock = android.media.MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.rotate);
soundPlayerExplosion = android.media.MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.explosion2);
soundPlayerPlaceBlock = android.media.MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.place);
musicPlayer.prepare();
musicPlayer.setLooping(1);
musicPlayer.seekTo(0);
soundPlayerRotateBlock.prepare();
soundPlayerRotateBlock.seekTo(0);
soundPlayerExplosion.prepare();
soundPlayerExplosion.seekTo(0);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
private void startMusic()
{
if(musicPlayer==null)
{
return;
}
try
{
if(musicPlayer.isPlaying())
{
return;
}
else
{
musicPlayer.start();
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
private void stopMusic()
{
if(musicPlayer==null)
{
return;
}
try
{
musicPlayer.stop();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
private void playRotateBlock()
{
int duration=0;
int currentPosition=0;
if(soundPlayerRotateBlock==null)
{
return;
}
try
{
duration=soundPlayerRotateBlock.getDuration();
currentPosition=soundPlayerRotateBlock.getCurrentPosition();
//if(currentPosition==duration-1)
{
soundPlayerRotateBlock.seekTo(0);
soundPlayerRotateBlock.start();
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
private void playExplosion()
{
int duration=0;
int currentPosition=0;
if(soundPlayerExplosion==null)
{
return;
}
try
{
duration=soundPlayerExplosion.getDuration();
currentPosition=soundPlayerExplosion.getCurrentPosition();
//if(currentPosition==duration-1)
{
soundPlayerExplosion.seekTo(0);
soundPlayerExplosion.start();
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
private void playPlaceBlock()
{
int duration=0;
int currentPosition=0;
if(soundPlayerPlaceBlock==null)
{
return;
}
try
{
duration=soundPlayerPlaceBlock.getDuration();
currentPosition=soundPlayerPlaceBlock.getCurrentPosition();
//if(currentPosition==duration-1)
{
soundPlayerPlaceBlock.seekTo(0);
soundPlayerPlaceBlock.start();
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{

}
}
@Override
public void run()
{
while(!done)
{
switch(action)
{
case SOUND_START_MUSIC:
startMusic();
break;
case SOUND_STOP_MUSIC:
stopMusic();
break;
case SOUND_PLAY_ROTATE_BLOCK:
playRotateBlock();
break;
case SOUND_PLAY_EXPLOSION:
playExplosion();
break;
case SOUND_PLAY_PLACE_BLOCK:
playPlaceBlock();
break;
}
action=SOUND_DO_NOTHING;
try
{
java.lang.Thread.currentThread().sleep(100);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
}
public boolean done;
public final Handler messageHandler = new Handler() {
@Override
public void handleMessage(Message msg)
{
try
{
action=msg.what;
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
};
private android.content.Context context;
public long lastEventTime;
public int action;
public static final int SOUND_DO_NOTHING=-1;
public static final int SOUND_START_MUSIC=0;
public static final int SOUND_STOP_MUSIC=1;
public static final int SOUND_PLAY_ROTATE_BLOCK=2;
public static final int SOUND_PLAY_EXPLOSION=3;
public static final int SOUND_PLAY_PLACE_BLOCK=4;
private android.media.MediaPlayer musicPlayer;
private android.media.MediaPlayer soundPlayerRotateBlock;
private android.media.MediaPlayer soundPlayerExplosion;
private android.media.MediaPlayer soundPlayerPlaceBlock;
}


As you can see the run() method calls the appropriate method for playing each sound, depending on the message received. How do we send a message to the thread? By using the following code:


android.os.Message message = android.os.Message.obtain(soundSystem.messageHandler, SoundSystem.SOUND_START_MUSIC);
message.sendToTarget();


Notice that we use a MediaPlayer object for each sound. I don't know how heavyweight the MediaPlayer object is, and if it is suitable for use for playing 10's or even 100's of sounds. So that could be a problem if you use a lot of sounds for your game. Also, we use synchronous playback, and that could be a problem, too, if our sounds are long. But since it is only version 1.0, it will be improved