So, monkey then...

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Socoder -> Monkey -> So, monkey then...
Tue, 24 Sep 2013, 13:02
rockford	An OUYA is apparently winging it's way to me right now, and I have an in-built need to evaluate where I am coding-wise. I can code for Android and OUYA in GLBasic, but I could also buy into the whole monkey thing. I coded in Blitz and BlitzMax for quite a while, but not for some time now. How easy is it to to get into monkey? How easy is it to get a monkey app running on OUYA? Can monkey deal with the whole In App Payment shite for commercial apps? Anything I really need to know about what monkey can't do or has difficulty with (or may cause me difficulty)? I remember Jay saying a while back that saving/loading data was a PITA (only string based IIRC?) Has this been sorted? Is sound an issue? Does it support .WAV, .MP3 and .OGG? Those formats are pretty important to me. HTML5 is not a format I care about right now, so if certain features aren't available or are slower in HTML5 then I don't really care.
Tue, 24 Sep 2013, 13:19
spinal	What I know about monkey -> ouya = once you've jumped through the hoops to get it to build for android (jay has a guide on agameaweek) the latest coupld of versions of monkey should have Android(OUYA) as a build option. For audio I've only tried .wav and .ogg, I don't think android provide an mp3 licence of any sort, but ogg is good anyway. I haven't tried in-ap-purchases yet, for two reasons, 1. I can't get the example to compile and 2. I haven't set up any payment info on my ouya (or any of my android devices for that matter) so I wouldn't have a way to test it. (you will need to set up a credit card for use on your ouya, but you can use a dummy one - the sort used for testing online payments and such - as long as it's valid, google can help with that). If you used blitz, then coding in monkey will be quite easy to step into, it's mostly BASIC style, however it is OOP, which I kinda hate, I think jay has a couple of blog posts about it somewhere grumbling about not being able to update the screen from the OnUpdate function and having to do it all in OnRender or something like that. Myself, I cheat a little by using Jays framework, I just change out his menu and game functions with my own and wollop! a working game Saving is still string based I think, it seems to be for a reason though, to keep everything working the same on all platforms including html5. Also, submitting stuff to the discover store is real easy and a lot quicker than iOS, I think my first (only so far) game took about three days from submission to visible online. -=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
Tue, 24 Sep 2013, 13:31
rockford	Cheers Spinal I'm not a lover of OOP either (yeah, hater is probably the right term!), but I used it a fair bit in BlitzMax. I found that once I got something that works I just carried it through to all my other projects anyway so it wasn't a big deal. As long as there are some easy examples I'll get the hang of it. Jay's framework may well come in very handy. As for strings for saving, that's not a big problem as I recently wrote a converter (to use for my Petit Computer games actually). It's not as straightforward as standard data, but at least I have code to deal with it. As long as OGG is supported .MP3 isn't necessary, so that's good. Building Android code with GLB took a lot of hoops too. Once it was set up though it wasn't a problem - is money the same or does it require hoops to be jumped through every time you compile? My appetite is certainly whetted and I'll see how GLBasic does (performance-wise and getting anything to run on OUYA), but I think monkey is looking more and more like the way to go.
Tue, 24 Sep 2013, 15:05
Jayenkai	The usual standard warnings, but I shouldn't need to tell you. But Incase anyone else reads this, Monkey is merely a language, not an entire toolkit. It won't do GUI stuff for you, it doesn't do tilemaps, there's not even a sprite engine, You're on your own. Monkey is a language, just as blitz and BlitzMax were. Android is a one-time deal. Once you've got it up and running, you're ok. Just don't ever format, or you'll be buggered!! Music is complex in that different targets support different formats. MP3 on one, OGG on another.. Just a case of learning, and tweaking where appropriate. *shrugs^ As always, grab the demo first and see if you can get to grips with the HTML side of things, then either move on from there, or go back to GLBasic, Honestly, if you're doing well enough with GLBasic, there may not really be a reason to switch... Unless you just felt like a change!? -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 24 Sep 2013, 16:42
rockford	Yeah, that's all standard stuff and none of it new to me, even the music format stuff (I've released stuff for pc, iOS and Android). I've always created my own GUIs (I can't stand cookie cutter UIs that don't fit the game they're in or waste precious resources a la BlitzMax's awful effort) and tile map routines. The lack of a sprite engine might be an issue, maybe, but I've seen collision routines on the forums. As long as it can draw images on the screen quickly, then that shouldn't be an issue, especially since I tend to specialise in array based games. I'm always on the lookout for something that allows me to do more than I was doing before or do it smoother, faster, easier and I move readily from one language to another. I dunno. I just get the feeling that monkey may well give better performances on pc, iOS and Android. Of course, I don't know but being able to test and compare would be good. I think I need a new challenge rather than just a change. Anyway, all this is food for thought. Cheers chaps.