Upcoming Android Games reviews on youtube

I’m planning to release some Android Games review videos on Youtube soon. Here’s the list of definites. These will all be reviewed using my Samsung Galaxy S2

• Order and Chaos
• World of Goo
• Atomic Bomber
• Air Attack
• Field Runners
• Gem Miner – Dig Deeper
• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Modern Combet 3

A note on the Google adverts on my youtube videos

I just wanted to write a short post explaining the adverts that have now appeared on some of my more popular YouTube videos.

I’m experimenting with Google adwords in order to fund more videos. I’ve had some changes in my personal life (think engagement ring, marriage, new house) which means I can’t afford to spend money on new software or gadgets which I’d like to review and potentially do some tutorials on, so I’m looking to other sources of income.

If the adverts really piss you off then let me know, but so far I’ve had no complaints.

The channel address is: http://www.youtube.com/amcadam26

New web address

You can now reach this site from: http://www.coffeeinducedgames.co.uk

That is all.

//

MineCraft Pocket Edition Review – Android

I’ve posted a short review of MineCraft – Pocket edition on youtube (see link below). this is recorded on a Samsung GalaxyS2 Android phone. I used Screen Cast Video Recorder to capture the video - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ms.screencast

The game plays really well, really smooth, and pretty responsive controls. They’ve got a long way to go yet though, currently you can place blocks and break blocks, but there’s no crafting, no internet based multiplayer (local LAN only). No animals, no enemies, no day night cycle, no health, basically nothing apart from just placing blocks. Still, it’s a good indication of how smooth the game will play once finished, and how the controls will work. I’m currently not paying for the pocket version until they massively update it. I know with the PC version, Notch used the money to help develop the game further, but now after selling over 3 million copies of the desktop version and having over £30,000,000 to play with, I don’t think he needs the money for the mobile version, so I’ll wait.

 

Check out the video, and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

And to you Blitz basic devers, don’t worry, I’ll be publishing some new Blitz programming stuff soon….

 

 

 

 

Samsung Galaxy S2 with Cyanogenmod 7

I’ve taken the plunge and installed CyanogenMod on my Galaxy S2.

In a word, it’s Great!

I am currently running the nightly build #47. It’s very stable so far. I got the rom from here: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices/samsung-galaxy-s2

 

Although on checking the Cyanogenmod website now I see that there’s a stable ROM available as of the 10th of October 2011. I can’t see it being much different to the one I’m running now though as mine is only a week old.

The phone boots up faster, everything is much smoother. I can now clock the CPU up to 1600Mhz, which gets me over 4500 on Quadrant.

The new lock screen is good, and having lock screen gestures is a nice touch.

It uses ADW launcher as the default launcher, which works really well and never goes jerky.

You don’t get Google services as standard, so you have to install these separately, I used Rom manager to do this.

I do get the odd random crash, and have had to hard reset the phone when this happens (hold down the power button for ten seconds). The phone has also restarted itself once or twice without warning. Also, the music players wouldn’t open at one point, but a restart fixed this (standard music app and DoubleTwist).

Compared to the Stock Samsung Rom, it definitely boots faster and works smoother. As for battery life I can’t say as yet I’ve not done any testing on that.

Cyanogenmod has a couple of nice extra features you don’t get with Stock Android. The first of these is “Permission Management”. This enables you to remove individual permissions from applications, like being able to access the internet, or access to contact data and phone details.

The other feature is “Phone Goggles”, which from what I can see is like a safetly measure to stop you using your phone when you’re drunk to send drunken texts or make phone calls to people you might regret, it has a setting to ask you math problems before it will dial.

I’ve added some screen shots below to show my current look for the Rom.

Future Blitz3D tutorials – you decide!

I get comments asking for more tutorials, sometimes 2D, sometimes 3D, but what’s the overall feeling?

If 2D, then I’ll look at more 2D graphics stuff like pre-calculated image scaling, rotation, collision detection and retro style effects.

If 3D, then I’ll look at modelling in Deled and importing B3D models into Blitz3D, 3D Collision, lighting, camera work, moving around in 3D, texturing, 3D animation, 3D sprites, etc…

Either way, I’ll still cover topics that cover both areas, like pathfinding, file access, user input (mouse/joypad), networking, sound effects.

Go please vote, so I know what the general feeling is.

Blitz Coding – 360 Degree Movement – now on Youtube

I’ve uploaded a new Blitz coding video onto my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFAaILFJtCY

The main channel page is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/amcadam26

Get the source code here:

http://db.tt/opTMdI47

I show you how to move objects in 360 degrees by using a simple overhead tank game as the example.

Go check it out and let me know your feedback in the comments.

Laptop SSD one year in long term comments

Okay, so it’s been over a year since I was raving about my new OCZ Vertex 2 60gb SSD drive.

Well, it’s still running great. My boot up time onto the desktop is about 25 seconds from pressing the power button.

I have an external Sata drive that has a 7200rpm 320gb Cavier Black drive in it for large games and videos. This solution works really well and the games still seem more responsive than having just a normal HDD.

Web browsing is still noticeably faster than on other HDD based PC’s.

Not much else to say really, simply that it still running really well, everything’s still really fast and I’ve no complaints. I will no doubt upgrade to a new laptop at some point soon but I’ll be leaving the SSD in this one instead of moving it over. I’ll opt for a larger one for the new machine, probably a Vertex 3 drive with 240gb of space.

How World of Warcraft addiction nearly took hold of me….

I’ve spent some hours today going through old files on external hard drives. I figure I need to sort out my old Blitz Basic source code files and arrange things properly so I can have a proper system back up running. But everything needs a good spring clean first.

I found a text file diary thing I wrote when I first started playing WoW a few years ago. In the end I quit after about seven months of playing and getting to level 72 on my main char and had some middle level seconds chars. But anyway, enjoy….

Day One:

Okay, started installing the game nearly two hours ago. It comes on fives discs, and each one seems to take an age to install. You tehn have to go through the signup process, which was really really painfully slow as the pages took a long time to load, and half way through the first time I tried to sign up, it failed so I had to do it again.
I’ve now gone to sign into the game, and it’s spent five minutes downloading a patch, then said it had to restart, it didn’t restart, instead it’s gone into windows and showing me an updater program, which is currently downloading 697 megabytes to patch the game upto version 2.0.1. This is just great. So a good tip for anyone wanting to play this. Get yourself a DVD and some snacks, cause you’re going to need both just to get through the installation and patching of this thing.

Why they can’t put the game on DVD is beyond me.

Half nine: just under three hours in, it’s still less than a third of the way into getting this damn update.

Just after half ten: Thank god I’ve got other stuff to do, we’re up to 52%, maybe by midnight then…..

Just after midnight: It’s finished installing and is ready to log in. That is, if the servers were even working. It just keeps failing to connect. Found a posting on the forums saying there’s a major problem and the server status page shows most the servers (realms) and being down. This isn’t looking good. I’m going to bed.

Day Two:

I finally got on this morning. Been playing all day and I’m up to level 12, woo hoo, only 48 more levels to go! I disconnected for dinner, now have just tried reconnecting to find myself waiting for five minutes in a queue to get on ’cause the servers full. You know for a game you pay £9 a month to play this is pretty poor. I’ve played a couple of free rpg’s before and the servers where never down and you never had to queue.
End of day two: Im half way through level 14 with my warrior, hanging out in Westfall doing quests. Stuff liek collecting goretust livers and defias trapper bandanas. It’s pretty good, the auction houses are a great idea, like having ebay in the game. I read somewhere that you can use itunes while in the game, but I think this may only be on apple macs. Anyway, time for bed (3 AM).

Day Three:

Got up late, this is normal for a sunday though, so no blaming warcraft, went to sign in, there are 305 people infront of you in the queue, well that’s just terrific, it’s like they don’t want you to play. So I tidy up a little while waiting and grab myself a coffee. Ten minutes later and I’m in.

20% into level 16! Woo hoo, basically means I can do more missions and use better weapons now.

Two and a half weeks later…..

Sorry not written in a while, been too engrosed in the game, as well as work and other stuff I get up to.

I will say this though, even though I’ve spent a lot of time on the game, it’s not affected me seeing other people in real life or work. I have chosen to play it instead of doing other hobbys I normally do but I kind of expected this for the first few weeks.

Anyway, how am I doing in the world of Azeroth? I’m a level 29 warrior, I’ve currently got about 11 gold saved up, I’ve been in a few dungeons, completed more quests than I care to remember and have about six or seven people on my friends list from raids I’ve done on those dungeons (which as I’ve learnt are called instances).

Since I last wrote, the expansion packs come out – The Burning Crusade. It’s now the fastest selling game in the UK ever, it’s sold something like 4 million copies in one weekend. Apparently there were massive queues of people outside virgin megastores and HMV’s all over the world.

Oh, I’ve leant other in-game words and terms too, like what the hell Agro means, train ,roll and what meeting stones do.

It’s a gigantic game that surprising me all the time with new monsters (mobs), expansive and beautifully crafted new areas, new weapons, skills and a storyline that’s a lot deeper than I expected it to be.

I’ve even started a second character, a mage, who’s up to level 5 so far, but I’ll probably push hima bit further soon. My warrior will always be the best of the two but it’s worth having a back up character for when you feel like something different.

So I’ll check back in in a few weeks and let you know how things are going…. For the alliance!

p.s. all the queuing problems from when I started ahve all dissappeared, I get on every time now with no problem.

So yes, hope you enjoyed that, it’ll mean more to you if you’ve played Wow. After about seven months playing I decided enough was enough, I and my girlfriend had stopped going out and were spending around twenty hours or more per week playing WoW, I was going to work tired from playing till 2am every night and wasn’t taking care of myself properly. Maybe this exaplins my desire for short play phone games now???

Saving Battery life on a Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100

Smart phone’s are great aren’t they? I mean you hardly even need a laptop when you’ve got one of these babies. Only one small problem, they have terrible battery life. You’re lucky to get through a working day in some cases. this is what I found when I first got my Galaxy S2 phone.

Don’t get me wrong though, it’s a brilliant phone, easily better than any other phone I’ve tried. the screen is gorgeous, it’s fast and responsive and I can tweak anything I like. So I thought “why not try tweaking the battery life?”

Here’s the steps I’ve taken to tweak things:

• Rooted the phone – Follow this guide: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/how-to-root-your-samsung-galaxy-s2-50004972/
• Frozen all the pre-installed Samsung software that I don’t use. – I used Bloat Freezer, but that’s not on the market anymore, I know Titanium Back up will freeze stuff but this costs more.
• Used SetCPU to keep the CPU between 200 and 500 mhz - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mhuang.overclocking&hl=en
• Used “Screen filter” to half the brightness of the screen for indoor use - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.haxor&hl=en
• Installed the latest “speedmod” kernel - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182498
• Install ATK to aggressively kill processes when locking the phone - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rechild.advancedtaskkiller&hl=en
• Set the screen timeout to 15 seconds (Settings/display/Screen timeout)
• Turned off Auto sync for all apps (Settings / Accounts and sync / Auto-sync)
• Turn off background data (Settings / Accounts and sync / Background data)
• Set the phone to 2G “GSM” only unless I need 3G (Settings / Wireless and networks / GSM only (This can vary))
• Set the default launcher to “Zeam Launcher” - https://market.android.com/details?id=org.zeam&hl=en

And that’s about it, if I hardly use the phone, I will now get nearly 4 days use. In general it will use less than 1% battery per hour when not in use.

I have just order a replacement battery, the standard battery is 1650mah, my new replacement battery is 2450mah and cost about £10 ($15) on Ebay.Batteries take a few charge cycles to settle in, so I’ll update the post when I’ve tested it properly.

there are a few things I wish I could do that would help greatly with the battery, just don’t know how to do them:

• Be able to only use half the screen for simple tasks like reading texts or browing music tracks (the screen’s easily big enough).
• Have a solar panel on the back of the phone. You could then trickle charge it over the day if you sit next to a window (which I do).
• Any other ideas???