Sil and Angband variants available on Android

[half]

Scatha brought the following to my attention:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.angdroid.variants&hl=en

It wasn't developed by us, but we welcome its presence. I don't have an android phone or tablet, but it looks like this could be good, especially on a tablet. It is very flexible and I'd be interested to know if people can set up a playable control scheme for it. Sil tries to restrict the command set a lot, so it might be OK once a few things like 'escape', 'u', '/' or ',' are set to shortcuts. If there is something I could add to the game which would make a big difference to the playability of this port, I'll certainly consider it.

[half]

They also have a website and a forum here:

http://angdroid.org/forum/index.php

This lets me see it is part of a wider Angband on Android project, which some of you are perhaps familiar with already.

[Psi]

This is crazy! I never noticed Sil had been added in. I wonder how long I've had it on my phone without realising...

[Psi]

I know some of this will be for the "porters" rather than yourself, but some initial observations...

- the background tile effect for unaware monsters is not showing
- I can't find a "tab" key on the pop up keyboard, though I guess the same can be achieved via @
- I tried adding "u" and "*" to hardware keys but after bringing up a list of objects to use I discovered I couldn't select from that list without the popup keyboard. Being able to move through the list like in character creation would help here.

[retrobits]

Thanks for the bug report Psi,
I will try to get those fixes into the next version.

What we've created for Android is basically a curses emulation engine, so all the games are pretty much unchanged from the upstream projects. We just compile to the unix curses target and link with our curses emulation library. Occasionally there is a minor patch to compensate for a few quirks in our environment. All the bugs you noticed were defects in our curses emulation. Its usually very easy to include additional games. One of our avid users was asking for Sil, so one afternoon I added it. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to play it extensively myself yet, but I hope to remedy that very soon.

[buzzkill]

NPP is in there too. That was never there before.

[retrobits]

yes, quite a while ago when first creating the Angband Variants app, I tried to get NPP working (can't remember what stopped my progress back then). But this time around either our curses library has improved or the upstream project improved (probably the former). Just a clean curses target compile worked on the first try.

[Psi]

Thanks for the speedy reply!

All the bugs you noticed were defects in our curses emulation.

The third point I mentioned is also how it works playing on my laptop, so I suspect half would need to update the in game lists to behave like menu selection for that one.

[nppangband]

NPP is in there too. That was never there before.

Thank you to whoever did this! I had no idea NPP was available for android.

[Psi]

What are the chances of getting some sort of gestures added? '/', '<', '>' seem like obvious candidates for Sil.

[half]

Gestures would be a great idea for the app in general. Regarding > and <, they actually aren't really needed in Sil as 'modifiying your own square' uses stairs if you are standing on them, uses a forge if you are at one, picks up an item if you are standing on one etc. It is usually accessed as 'control-z' or 'control-5' or "/z" or "/5" or ','.

[retrobits]

Gestures, possibly configureable to map to various actions, sound like a great addition for touchscreen users.
I'll add it to the list of feature requests.

[Psi]

Gestures, possibly configureable to map to various actions, sound like a great addition for touchscreen users.
I'll add it to the list of feature requests.

That will be brilliant.

If the list code is modified within Sil to make lists selectable (like the menu code) and we get configurable gesture support, it should make it very playable.

[Ondrej]

One quite serious bug

Sil is very well playable on Android phones with HW keyboard. There is however one quite serious bug:
When you press android home button in angband variants (or somebody calls you - i.e. it switches applications) it saves your game - that's fine. However if you are on the Main Menu screen (with options for tutorial, load game, start new game...) then it will "save" your game as well but that will corrupt the save file. I don't know if it is a bug in Sil or in angband variants though... It worked fine for Tome.

[Psi]

I know some of this will be for the "porters" rather than yourself, but some initial observations...

- the background tile effect for unaware monsters is not showing
- I can't find a "tab" key on the pop up keyboard, though I guess the same can be achieved via @
- I tried adding "u" and "*" to hardware keys but after bringing up a list of objects to use I discovered I couldn't select from that list without the popup keyboard. Being able to move through the list like in character creation would help here.

Thanks for the bug report Psi,
I will try to get those fixes into the next version.

Seems I have previously answered my own question from a future thread. That is special.

I don't suppose that three years on the background tile effect will magically get fixed...