How bad is Windows Phone 8 game development?

Started by Blizzard, January 27, 2014, 07:17:50 am

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Blizzard

January 27, 2014, 07:17:50 am Last Edit: September 11, 2014, 02:44:45 am by Blizzard
Well, it's pretty bad. Aside the facts that you have to manually implement screen rotation in DirectX11, the matching touch coordinate translation and that viewports get messed up depending on which side of the screen they are and other stuff because of which I am have PTSD, I just came across something that baffled me so hard that I just had to share it.

So, one of our games is a bit RAM heavy and hence it won't run on low-memory devices (512 MB), even though they run fine on an iPhone 3GS with only 256 MB RAM. Figures. Microsoft has an option which can be added in the app manifest to require at least 1 GB of RAM for the app. So I add that XML to the manifest.

Code: xml
    <Requirements>
     <Requirement Name="ID_REQ_MEMORY_300" />
   </Requirements>


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681682(v=vs.105).aspx

And I get this error when I compile it.

QuoteThe element 'App' has invalid child element 'Requirements'


What. The. Fuck. Seriously, Microsoft, what the fuck?! I literally copy-pasted that XML from their documentation. Alright, I go googling that error to see if somebody else had it. And I come across another site with documentation, but this time it's a different one, saying 50% of the same stuff that I read on the other one. But notice this little extra detail here in the first site:

QuoteThe Requirements element should be listed after other elements in the App element, but before the FunctionalCapabilities element, if both are present.


And this one in the second site I found:

QuoteThe Requirements element is a child of the App element, and should immediately follow the ScreenResolutions element for Windows Phone 8...


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/ff769509(v=vs.105).aspx

Well, fuck you, Microsoft. What kind of godforsaken XML parser do you use that you have problems with ordering in XML where ordering is not important?

EDIT: Well, I have to admit that developing for Windows Phone 8.1 is a whooooooole lot better. It's on par with WinRT since it basically is WinRT. There are a few minor differences and things that are supported or not supported, but nothing that can't be made to work using a few "#ifdef"s. Still, WinRT development is still flawed. That means WP development isn't neckdeep in shit now, it's just waistdeep in shit. There are still certain issues such as deployment which takes ages. Where Android needs 5 minutes to deploy an app, WP needs 15+. I can't remember all the issues now, but admittedly WP8.1 development a huge improvement over WP8 development. The problem with this is that WP8.1 is what it was supposed to be from the beginning. That means MS is getting to their base level just now, 3-4 years after everybody else. And they are still far behind as everybody else already moved on and improvement their development processes.
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

G_G

LOL! Oh my god. This is hilariously stupid. I don't think I'll ever develop for a Windows phone, The only person who I knew had a Windows phone was my girlfriend, but it broke within a month and we had the biggest troubles trying to get the appstore up and running.

Zexion

I now understand why win8 phones never get things like snapchat, draw something, etc. Thank god I decided against that phone in the end lol!

Blizzard

I'm seriously telling you guys, stay away from Windows Phone 8. WinRT development is already shitty as it is, but P8 has not only a reduced WinRT API, it also has twice (or maybe even 3 times) as many problems. You don't even wanna know how much time I have literally wasted for nothing just to get the software keyboard to pop up. I have to admit that 70% of WinRT is great. But 20% is barely holding up and the last 10% are so horrible that you just want to kill yourself. Not to mention the lack of API calls for commonly used stuff since the majority of Win32API is not available.
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

G_G

Alrighty, I'll stay away from it. xD

It's stupid that Zune software is required to update the phone. No OTA updates, which would normally be okay, because iOS you need iTunes to update, but iOS lets you access their damn appstore even if you're not on the latest version. Win8 would not let us do it on Brittany's phone until we plugged it in and updated it. And it installed like 6 fucking different updates, and it turns out that the latest software had a bug in it. Everytime you unplugged it from the charger, it kept making that sound everytime you plug your phone in (the little "boop" that tells you it's charging) and it kept showing that the phone was charging. Looked it up online and a lot of people were having the same issue.

Blizzard

Zune is only needed for WP7. WP8 has that Windows Phone app that is used. The problem with store access is because WP7 is totally different than WP8.
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

G_G

Maybe it was WP7 then. Lol, regardless, I don't really care for Windows phones. Have you developed for WP7? If so, was it as bad?

Blizzard

I haven't, but the WP8 API is apparently revolutionary compared to WP7 so I can only imaging what horrors lurked in WP7.
Check out Daygames and our games:

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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Ryex

are you looking forward to Ubuntu phone at all?
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Blizzard

I'm really not sure how development is going to look like, but I have to admit that none of the other platforms (Android, iOS) is that good either. So we'll see.
Check out Daygames and our games:

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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Ryex

well considering that the core system will be ubuntu, complete with debian packaging. the only thing I'm concerned about it the quality of liberties that make to support the phone hardware, IE soft keyboards ect. I'm kinda hoping that they really take off.
I no longer keep up with posts in the forum very well. If you have a question or comment, about my work, or in general I welcome PM's. if you make a post in one of my threads and I don't reply with in a day or two feel free to PM me and point it out to me.<br /><br />DropBox, the best free file syncing service there is.<br />

WhiteRose

Ouch. I've been dabbling in Android development recently, and the XML stuff took a little getting used to. Considering that Android is a relatively easy platform for which to develop, I can only imagine how bad WP8 must be if you're getting this kind of errors....

Blizzard

Android can be nasty, too, if you're doing native development in C/C++. But it's alright if you just stick to Java. WP8 is by several levels worse than WinRT which is by several levels worse than Android. So yeah.
Check out Daygames and our games:

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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

PhoenixFire

January 31, 2014, 11:34:09 am #13 Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 11:36:27 am by DigitalSoul
Quote from: Zexion on January 27, 2014, 10:12:11 am
I now understand why win8 phones never get things like snapchat, draw something, etc. Thank god I decided against that phone in the end lol!


To be honest, some of the reason we don't have some of those, is because the official app wasn't released by the company, and they decided to call copyright claim when a third-party app was released. We had a version called SwapChat, that was actually even better than the iOS and Android app versions, but the company reported the app, and got it pulled from the marketplace. So in some cases, it's not the difficulty of making the app, it's the official company being a jerk about it. That being said, yeah, developing for win8 phones is a challenge. I started to get into it a little bit, and as long as you make sure the screen rotation is locked, and that your game is only text based choices, then you should be okay to make a game =p Actually there is a game series that does just that, called Zombie High. And I believe the same game maker has published other choice based, text style games too.. And I think it's on all three platforms, but he's obviously a minority in the mobile-game making world..

EDIT: yes, I have a win8 phone, and it's honestly a lot easier to use than most other platforms I have used. It has apps that I use that other platforms don't, and, since I use a lot of Microsoft products already, it makes it the most convenient that it has zune, skydrive, xbox live, and other things built into the OS for you. I also like that it integrates Facebook options and feeds into the phone MUCH better than any other platform has done so far..
Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on July 01, 2011, 02:42:19 amNext off, how to create a first person shooter using microsoft excel.

Quote from: Zeriab on September 09, 2011, 02:58:58 pm<Remember when computers had turbo buttons?

Blizzard

If you're a minimalist, P8 is a good choice as opposed to the locked down iOS and heavy Android. But then again, so is a regular cellphone. :/
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

PhoenixFire

hehe... I wouldn't consider myself a minimalist, but I think this phone does suit me well enough.. Just counted, and I have 41 apps installed that I use all the time.. And that's not counting all the games installed on it too. I think what separates users of the different OSes is going to just be preference. I personally like the phone that's rumored to have an android core, with a windows interface wrapper... I found an article a while back that ties into this post very well, and it was all aboy a survey they did. One of the biggest reasons people shy away from the windows phones is lack of marketplace apps. I'll see if I can find the article again to share with you all.. It also goes into that phone I was talking about with the different core and interface.
Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on July 01, 2011, 02:42:19 amNext off, how to create a first person shooter using microsoft excel.

Quote from: Zeriab on September 09, 2011, 02:58:58 pm<Remember when computers had turbo buttons?

Blizzard

Well, I have to admit that developing for Windows Phone 8.1 is a whooooooole lot better. It's on par with WinRT since it basically is WinRT. There are a few minor differences and things that are supported or not supported, but nothing that can't be made to work using a few "#ifdef"s. Still, WinRT development is still flawed. That means WP development isn't neckdeep in shit now, it's just waistdeep in shit. There are still certain issues such as deployment which takes ages. Where Android needs 5 minutes to deploy an app, WP needs 15+. I can't remember all the issues now, but admittedly WP8.1 development a huge improvement over WP8 development. The problem with this is that WP8.1 is what it was supposed to be from the beginning. That means MS is getting to their base level just now, 3-4 years after everybody else. And they are still far behind as everybody else already moved on and improvement their development processes.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.