iPhone port started!

[Aethaeryn]

I've had my phone for more than two years. If Wesnoth were on the iPhone, I would definitely consider buying one.

For me, however, user made content greatly extends the life of the game. How would we handle add-on downloads if at all? Multiplayer? (This is a little more excusable if you can't do MP.)

Would there be any way to have compatibility with the non-mobile version of Wesnoth? (Example: moving over saves, being able to synchronize add-ons.)

Terrain sprites: again a bit like the unit srpite point and sound effect point above… Do we really need 3 different types of roads? 3 different types of grasslands? An animated windmill? about 3~4 different house designs for each type of villages (maybe keep 2 at most)? And so on, and so on…

As a mapper, I can say yes we do need multiple types of flat, mountain, sand, etc. The game is a lot more beautiful with the new trees, for example, and simplifying terrain could definitely kill the mood of a scenario (no winter trees in a winter scenario, for instance). Animated terrains, of course, could always be made still if necessary without killing the actual map design.

[penguin]

I have a 32GB iPod Touch. This would be really cool!

[Mordocai]

Well, i don't have an iPhone, but i've been thinking about buying one... having wesnoth on it would definitely tip the balance.
The only thing as far as features to cut, I think one thing that must stay(at least for me), is being able to play a local "multiplayer" game. You could play hotseat or just against the computer this way... of course it'd be more like "hot hands" . It'd actually be much easier to keep the other player from seeing what you are doing in that mode on the iPhone... just pass it to them after you end your turn...

[KylePoole]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! So far I am sorting out the dependencies, and have reached the milestone of getting everything to compile without errors. Now on to making it start up!

Planned feature cuts:
- no translations, english only
- reduction in music and sound effects

Must-haves:
- all mainline campaigns
- downloadable content
- cross-platform multiplayer

Other feature cuts, such as reduced animation frames or smaller graphics will be determined by the memory situation and/or performance. But my goal is to bring as much of the Wesnoth experience to mobile as I can...

[Kalajel]

As a mapper, I can say yes we do need multiple types of flat, mountain, sand, etc. The game is a lot more beautiful with the new trees, for example, and simplifying terrain could definitely kill the mood of a scenario (no winter trees in a winter scenario, for instance). Animated terrains, of course, could always be made still if necessary without killing the actual map design.

Well, I'm not really asking to get rid of all, or even most for that matter, of the terrain types. What I'm saying is, for example, if we want to simplify the grasslands, perhaps we could make teh "flower" tiles part of the "default" grassland tile and have them pop-up at random like those pebbles… then you would be left with "savana", "dirt", and "road" as alternate grassland graphics… Of course I wouldn't touch the snowy forest; could you imagine just how weird it would be to have green, lush forest pop-up in the middle of snowy terrain?

Not every terrain type are amenable to cut backs. I would have trouble picturing reducing the hills and mountains; sometime I fell they're lacking variety in the normal game… Anther terrain type I could see being cut back would be "sand"; either remove "sand" or remove "desert" or somehow merge them together. I doubt this would hurt terrain diversity; a lot of people seem to have been using "sand" anyway to make their desert (hekc, even the randome maps are guilty of this… but then again the random maps also use "dirt" to make their roads)…

[ancestral]

Ohhh good luck with the multi. Hotseat/local and bluetooth/wifi with other iPhone/iPod touch will be way easier than the online server. I really don't know the feasibility of online play for a strategy game on a cell phone, especially when cell service can go in and out frequently, at a moment's notice.

[Aethaeryn]

Ohhh good luck with the multi. Hotseat/local and bluetooth/wifi with other iPhone/iPod touch will be way easier than the online server. I really don't know the feasibility of online play for a strategy game on a cell phone, especially when cell service can go in and out frequently, at a moment's notice.

Even though it's probably impossible, it would be awesome if you could access the MP server on a mobile version of Wesnoth. That would be iPhone's "killer ap" for me and probably a handful of other Wesnoth geeks.

[Max]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! So far I am sorting out the dependencies, and have reached the milestone of getting everything to compile without errors. Now on to making it start up! :hmm:

you're really fast - good luck and keep us updated...

[Dave]

Must-haves:
- all mainline campaigns
- downloadable content
- cross-platform multiplayer

A problem with downloadable content and cross-platform multiplayer is that Wesnoth is still changing, and if you are maintaining the iPhone port as a separate tree you will have to make sure it stays in-sync/compatible with the main tree. Otherwise things will go stale.

Not that it can't be done, just that it's a lot of maintenance work that would have to be done.

David

[appleide]

I'll be inclined to think wesnoth-on-iPhone players will form enough of a player-base to deserve a server for themselves. That way iphone versions won't have to be maintained. Of course that reduces total playing time as eventually new user made content become incompatible...

[Kalajel]

I'll be inclined to think wesnoth-on-iPhone players will form enough of a player-base to deserve a server for themselves. That way iphone versions won't have to be maintained.

Hmm, how about releasing a "basic package" without the MP app first to see how big teh iPhone player-base will get, and then, if demand warrants it, add the MP app to it later…

[Aethaeryn]

I'll be inclined to think wesnoth-on-iPhone players will form enough of a player-base to deserve a server for themselves. That way iphone versions won't have to be maintained. Of course that reduces total playing time as eventually new user made content become incompatible...

I'm not sure that it would be a problem to release one iPhone release for 1.8, 1.10, and so on and only update for the minor version updates if there is a critical bug (e.g. 1.6.3 to 1.6.4 is a necessary upgrade if you play MP with some maps). Major versions aren't released too frequently. The main issue would be that people probably wouldn't upgrade even then unless there was an in-game upgrade/patch feature for the iPhone version.

An iPhone running 1.6.0 would be compatible with a computer running 1.6.4 in multiplayer, so no need to have a separate server. (The only issue would be if there were iPhone releases for the development versions. The few fanatics who do this might as well compile it themselves every time, or download a free binary off the website to help test it out.) I don't see the problem you raise affecting stable versions. They are release infrequently because they are just that: stable.

Although I don't count for much (what influence does a wiki moderator have on iPhone packaging?), I can speak as someone who has at&t (the iPhone provider here in the US) and a phone that needs upgrading in a few months (possibly to the iPhone). If at all possible, I'd prefer to use the iPhone version to play with my friends on the main stable server. The royalties going to Wesnoth (for those who pay, which I'd gladly do) could easily handle the extra server load.

I think it would be healthier to have a unified stable-branch multiplayer server rather than a segregated one. If iPhone-only users also play on the multiplayer server, it will mean that it will be easier for everyone to play more online games (although it would take a few months for the new players to cease being newbies) and easier to sell the iPhone version of Wesnoth (you already have opponents waiting). It also allows me to play the same Wesnoth I'm used to on-the-go. Really, having iPhone Wesnoth multiplayer benefits everyone who plays Wesnoth multiplayer.

Personally, add-on compatibility and multiplayer compatibility would make Wesnoth the "killer-app" that persuades me to by the iPhone (and probably would apply to others in the Wesnoth community). Of course, that's if it is technically possible. I don't really know because I am not personally developing the port. It's understandable if some sacrifices have to be made. I'm just providing my input to help the developers make more informed decisions (the more that do so, the better). My opinion (and it might even only be my opinion) is that add-ons and multiplayer greatly extend the life of the game, and thus would sell more copies (word of mouth is powerful) and have those players playing longer.

[Zarel]

2] Our text files take up an enormous amount of space. If you came up with a binary serialization, you could write a script to translate everything to it, and would probably collapse the size of our data files, at least by half, I suspect. Doing this would be very hard, but would be feasible. We have them editable on computers because it's such a catalyst for User Made Content, but they don't need to be editable on a mobile device; that's what PCs are for, and it would be horribly awkward to try and edit anything there.

Is there any reason why you can't just use an existing compression algorithm, like ZIP or Tar/GZip? It's my impression that most "Zipped text files" is a pretty popular file format (see ODF) since it has the advantage of both small size and easily editable.

[Blarumyrran]

"enormous"... in 1.7.1 there are ~10MB worth cfgs & txts. It doesnt sound like a killer.

[KylePoole]

Here's a status update for everyone... After various hacking, the game is up and running on the simulator.



The splash screen that I threw together, when the game is launched.




The loading screen that we know and love heh




The main menu looks ok in lower resolution... But I might redo everything to give it some more polish...




The campaign selection screen might need some work.




Campaign intros come out very well. The text is small but pretty readable, although the kerning is a bit too compact. Have to put some screenshots on the device and see how it looks there...




Unscaled tiles look good at this resolution, and have the perfect amount of detail. Scrolling around the map will be quick and easy, by dragging a finger around on the screen. Tap on a unit to select it, tap on a spot you want to go to (which will show the footsteps), tap again on the spot to confirm and move.

Now I am working on a custom resolution wml to layout the UI, and fixing a problem with refreshing the status panel as you can see.

The next step will be to implement the new iPhone controls as described, then reduce the memory requirements so that it can run on the device.