Friday, April 26, 2013

My first Android app - Marble Lands has been released


I have been playing games since C64 era, but only recently I have joined to the group of people who are also actually making the games! Well, nowadays the iOs and Android platforms have made it "easy" for "everyone" to start programming and publishing games, so making an Android game is not that big of a deal, but I am still very happy and satisfied that I have been involved in this kind of a game programming project.

You can check out the game from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.vihmalo.marblelands

Screenshots and other info can be found from the game's blog: http://marblelands.blogspot.com

Fun fact: Actually my fisheye lens blog post (http://popscan.blogspot.fi/2012/04/fisheye-lens-equation-simple-fisheye.html) was made based on game code, because we really needed that kind of an effect to the ball that is rolling in the game. So load the game and see the fish eye lens effect in action!


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

How enable Android Debug Bridge (ADB) in Acer Iconia B1-A71

When you connect your Acer Iconia B1-A71 Android device to your laptop, in my case Windows laptop, the device chooses one connection method (Media device MTP) and installs drivers for that functionality.

Useful, but not necessary step: 
When still connected with USB, drag down the top status bar, and you can see the text "Connected as a media device". Click the text, and you can change the connection method from Media device to Camera (PTP) mode. Change the connection type and windows will install yet another bunch of drivers.

The most important step:
Now go to the Settings > Developer Options and enable the developer options by sliding the top most button to right. Now select USB Debugging to be active. Windows will now download the drivers for ADB. Wait for the drivers to be installed and then test the connection.

Test the connection:
Open command prompt and type:  
adb devices

You should see something like:
List of devices attached
C4F12260AFFF58F device


Type command:
adb logcat
And you will see the output from the device.

Windows has finished installing drivers.