I only own a Windows Phone, should I make a Windows Phone game?
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Dude, you've got to develop something for the Roku, that's where the money is. And you'll learn a lot about their super cool BrightScript language.
And the best thing? It's dynamically typed, no emulator hogging your CPU cycles and a lovely set of UI components and you'll have to implement every-stupid-function you take for granted in any language like
split.And since you're already a registered user, becoming a developer is quite easy and free.
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As far as pushing to Windows Phone goes, you can't do that in the free version
Yes you can
"The Unity Windows Store add-on is included in both the free version of Unity and as a Pro add-on in Unity Pro. So any Unity developer can port their 2D and 3D content to Windows Store and Windows Phone 8 for free."Game development for desktop | Unity
Maximize your game’s full potential by creating desktop games with Unity’s end-to-end solutions for PC and Mac.
Developing for Windows 8.1 will also get you most of the way to being able to release on Xbox One, at which point you may want to start looking at http://unity3d.com/pages/windows/offer, which is primarily rewarding you with some benefits (licenses, vouchers, promotion within the stores), but also selects some (top-three candidates each month) to be reviewed for nomination to ID@Xbox.
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Kind of want to get into mobile development, since I have some time right now, but the only mobile device in my house is a Windows Phone 8.1 (Lumia 1020.) Is it even worth learning on this, considering it's 90% likely nothing I learn will be applicable to iOS or Android?
It will, however, be applicable to all new Windows versions. And it will be easiest from the mobile platforms for you (do I remember correctly C# is your preferred language?).
But for a game it's probably best to start with an existing portable engine.
I work on application that runs on multiple mobile platforms (WinCE, Android, iOS, WinPhone8 and Bada (now deprecating)) and is written from scratch and can tell you it's huge pain. Each platform has it's own framework that does stuff differently and wrapping them to something generic is a real pain tough they are all trying to solve the same problems and have roughly the same functions. We've put probably a man-year to each platform and we have common drawing and only need a blit and events. And various things like where to store files, how to invoke other applications like send email, how to enable being opened from other applications and bunch of similar "small" things that eat inordinate amount of time. You won't need a lot of that, but still. I don't recommend doing it yourself.
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Blakeyrat isn't your windup doll to amuse you whenever you feel like it.
I agree. He's perfectly capable of winding himself up. I'd be sad if eclipse caused him suicide, but I think we can all agree we'd get classic blakeyrants out of the deal.
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I agree. He's perfectly capable of winding himself up. I'd be sad if eclipse caused him suicide, but I think we can all agree we'd get classic blakeyrants out of the deal.
Funny thing is, I was trying to defend him from the folk who are @mentioning him and winding him up. I guess my own fault for bothering.
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Funny thing is, I was trying to defend him from the folk who are @mentioning him and winding him up. I guess my own fault for bothering.
Dude, he wasn't asking for help.
I found the original summoning interesting. It was after he semi-rage quit. Turns out (as we know from his attendance badges) that he was still lurking and had emails turned on. We got him back as an active participant and I, for one, haven't been abusing the @<blakeyrat>blakeryat mentions since then.
I just abuse him in the traditional ways now.
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I just abuse him in the traditional ways now.
Sometimes the old ways really are best.
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Dude, he wasn't asking for help.
I found the original summoning interesting. It was after he semi-rage quit. Turns out (as we know from his attendance badges) that he was still lurking and had emails turned on. We got him back as an active participant and I, for one, haven't been abusing the @blakeryat mentions since then.
Exactly. That's what I meant by it was funny once. And it was.
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That's not what the Buy page says
(I have a Unity Pro 4 licence, so...)
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Is it wrong that I took this stuff seriously rather than expecting it in the traditional blakey sense?
Sod it, don't care if it is. Depression sucks. Feeling that low sucks. Been there, done that. Ain't happening again.
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But for a game it's probably best to start with an existing portable engine.
So is that basically Unity, Xamarin, or are there more options out there?
Honestly this was more a "playing around with" project than something I expect to turn into an actual product. I'm not really what you'd call a self-starter.
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So is that basically Unity, Xamarin, or are there more options out there?
Honestly this was more a "playing around with" project than something I expect to turn into an actual product. I'm not really what you'd call a self-starter.
Ogre3D is the other one that comes to mind...
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Is it wrong that I took this stuff seriously rather than expecting it in the traditional blakey sense?
I'm not sure what "this stuff" is here, so I'm unsure how to answer. Since you're saying it all on Discourse, however, I feel comfortable in saying that you're Doing it Wrong.
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I'm not sure what "this stuff" is here, so I'm unsure how to answer. Since you're saying it all on Discourse, however, I feel comfortable in saying that you're Doing it Wrong.
The anger and whatnot earlier in this thread where I actually posted a nice response, that sort of thing. Scroll up, it's all there.
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The anger and whatnot earlier in this thread where I actually posted a nice response, that sort of thing. Scroll up, it's all there.
Ah, OK. No, there's nothing wrong with that in my book.
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Even Microsoft doesn't seem to want people to write Windows Phone apps. That's the full list of Windows Phone demo code. There is precisely... one project. Ugh.
I might start over with the HTML5 project type. I'm good with JS at least, and I don't think I need anything more advanced graphically than a HTML5 Canvas object.
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Windows Phone C# sample apps: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/site/search?f[0].Type=Platform&f[0].Value=Phone&f[0].Text=Phone&f[1].Type=ProgrammingLanguage&f[1].Value=C%23&f[1].Text=C%23
I have a collection of WP8-8.1 presentation slides and sample code from a few of the developer workshops Microsoft has run here too, which I can forward/upload for you too if you like.
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Nah I think HTML5 is the better option, as it'll make eventual porting much easier. The side-effect is I'm not really learning anything new, but ... meh.
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That's the full list of Windows Phone demo code. There is precisely... one project. Ugh.
Does it include a toaster icon? CBA to look...
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Even Microsoft doesn't seem to want people to write Windows Phone apps.
Microsoft seems to have trouble realizing that they need to make it super easy for people to target their platform. They seem to be following Apple suit, but Apple could afford throwing some sticks in developers way because they were first and they had some fanatic followers. Microsoft is late to the party and should be making it easier for publishers to catch up the number of applications Android and iOS have. Strangely Microsoft does not seem to know what they want. Embedded C++ 4.0 (the WinCE variant of VS6) used to be free, but then WinCE was dropped from Visual Studio Express 2003 and later and only available in the paid version. Now the WP8 target is available in Express again, but IIRC you needed some not-that-cheap license to publish on Live store or something like that.
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Microsoft seems to have trouble realizing that they need to make it super easy for people to target their platform.
Which is hilarious considering they used to know that--isn't that a major part of the reason for the VS Express Editions?
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They should maybe bundle a folding chair with each Lumia ...
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Which is hilarious considering they used to know that--isn't that a major part of the reason for the VS Express Editions?
Well, apparently no, at least not for their mobile platform. The Express editions did not contain WinCE support. And while the 2012 Express edition seems to have Windows Phone 8 support I remember colleague arranging purchase of license to something with discount in some limited offer as it normally was not exactly cheap (as in rather expensive for indie author and enough to make manager think twice for company). I believe the license was not required for development (as the Express edition can do it), but was required for publishing. I don't know whether they changed the policy since.
I suspect it was more to avoid Visual Studio being displaced by MinGW with developers targeting desktop.
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The Express editions did not contain WinCE support.
I meant "make development easy" in general, not CE-specific.
I think the developer license for putting apps in the store was similar to the Apple one: $99/entity/year.
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So is that basically Unity, Xamarin, or are there more options out there?
There's also Qt. For a simple app or a game that's at the level of complexity you're describing you can ignore C++ (almost?) completely and do it all in QtQuick, meaning QML (their declarative language) for visual stuff and JavaScript for the scripting.
I made a quick Space Invaders clone in it without touching any C++ and it worked fine. The only question is if you'd be willing to cope with the C++ if you go on doing something more complex in it later on.
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There's also Qt
For generic apps with standard widgets and such, Qt is probably the most portable thing out there. It works on almost everything including somewhat obscure platforms like Bada and the new Blackberry. But I recently looked and didn't see WinRT/WP8 port. Something about WinRT/WP8 being DirectX 12 (or whichever version but older versions are not available) and they only have OpenGL backend and the glue they'd use otherwise was not updated to that version of DirectX yet.
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But I recently looked and didn't see WinRT/WP8 port.
Coming in 5.4, full release on Dec 2 if nothing changes.
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Thanks. I was searching and it turned out some older discussions only.
