Ducky In Space (android) is live!

Hey forum. The last few weeks I’ve been working on the first proper, working, finished (pretty much) game I have ever made with jmonkey and it’s now live on google play here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.renewablegames.duckyinspace
You can also find it by searching Ducky In Space and scrolling down the first 20 or so results (if anyone knows how to get the listing higher any advice would be greatly welcome). The premise is that you are a duck and you have to tap to fly upwards, eventually making your way into space, but the camera moves upwards at increasing speeds and as soon as you fall below the camera level, you die. I’d compare it to maybe doodle jump, but there are some big differences. Anyway, since it’s just released I obviously need your help to test it, I just need feedback on the usual things:

-Any bugs/glitches you encounter
-Whether the game runs quickly or lags
-Whether its fun or not and any ideas you have to improve it

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to leave a rating!

Here are a couple of screen shots:


Thanks for your time if you do decide to download it and help me out, also thanks everyone who’s helped me out on the forum the last few days (and obviously the core team and contributors :smiley: )

3 Likes

It does not run at all on a Nexus 5. I get an error or it freezes after 2-3 seconds :frowning:

Thank you for taking the time to test and download it. Have you tried other JME3 games on your phone and do they work? Please could you also check your google play services version in your application manager (I think it’s in settings for most phone). Oh yeah, and if it crashes please sent the error report! Thanks :slight_smile:

I get to the “Tap to Flap” screen and when i tap, it crashes :frowning: HTC One m7 here.

Hi, same as what I said to mathiasj. Why would it work on only my phone but nobody elses? :frowning: This is a nuisance.

Yes, other jme3 games work. I also get to the “Tap to Flap” screen and it then crashes shortly after tapping. My google play services version is 7.8.99. I hope I could help.

Other jmonkey games work on my phone too. You should try testing with a couple different phones, with various android versions.

Ok, thanks guys. I only have one phone, I can test it on my brother’s when he gets back, I think it may be to do with this App crashes on one phone but not another although I thought id fixed it. To everyone else: don’t bother downloading the game until I’ve fixed this

The game freezing 2-3 seconds after start sounds like a familiar Google Play Game Services issue.

Have you tried pressing the back button and then going back into the game?
In our case it basically created a “null” popup.

It’s a very immature framework.

@eashi was responsible for that part. He can probably tell you, @crunched, what you have to bundle with the App in order to prevent that behavior.

@zanval: in our case the start menu never built, but the game did not crash. If you pressed back to close the null popup of google play games the start menu was restarted, and worked. The issue was fixed by updating the asset for google play games, this also contained the newest jar.

@crunched: the game @zanval is referencing is a unity game, therefore i don’t know much is applicable for your game. I’ll try the game on @zanval s phone tomorrow to see the behavior myself.

@eashi @zanval Thanks guys but I am not using Google Play Game Services. Unless I am mistaken this is a separate framework to Google Play Services, isn’t it? I am not very familiar with… All this google stuff.

That’s correct, those are two different frameworks.

Hi @crunched, I would just like to say congratulations with you first android game.
To get a game out on the play store is the first big hurdle to pass. I am happy for you.

Now for some feedback:

  1. Starting of with the game when I opened the game up I just saw that black screen with text Tap to Flap. To be honest that already told me this game is not finished and needs a little bit of LOVE… hehehe. So I would not have any menu screen just the play screen with that text on it so that players can have a visual idea of something.
  2. The graphics is okay but I would stick to only 2D. For example te platforms, make them 2d as well and I am almost certain you will be able to do much better looking platforms. Make them thinner as well.
  3. The gravity is to low. I would up the gravity a bit more. Like about double what you have now.
  4. I LOVE the transition of the backgrounds. Well done on that.
  5. Don’t show an ad every time its game over.
  6. Sound would be nice as well.
  7. When I exit the game and try to open it up again I get an error message. I think well I am almost certain it is because you didn’t close something in android. It might be the sensor or the ad.
    This is the error screen:

Okay so this is my feedback for now.
I hope it could be of some help and good luck further.

1 Like

Thanks for all your feedback man, glad to see it works on a phone other than mine… at least somewhat! I think you’re right about the menu screen, it is a bit bleak. I’ve got some ideas for that. I’ve had some good feedback on having the blocks 3D, and also the parallax of the clouds/planets and stars having different Z co-ordinates, so I’ll see what others think before making a change. I think maybe you’re right about the gravity too, we will see how hard people find it, or I could make it more difficult by changing the speed of the camera moving up. With the ads, yeah I’m thinking maybe show one randomly one in 3 times that you die? And I’ll have to look into yet another bug you’ve found :frowning: