I built the application, works fine. But now the boss wants the capability for users to concentrate on a point in the screen and it triggers an event. Call me an old fashioned dev but I haven't got a clue. Any insight would be appreciated.
First off, you really need to find out what your boss means by "... users to concentrate on a point in the screen and it triggers an event". There is no eye tracking capability (yet) build into any VR HMD. That might end the vague request right there.
OTOH - what most apps do that need some user input without using any buttons is called "gaze tracking" or "gaze input" but what it really is at this stage of VR development is if the user has centered the screen about some UI trigger, then you can (typically) show some hourglass-like object superimposed on the trigger in an obvious countdown mode. If the countdown goes off, the input is triggered. If the user "gazes away" (i.e. moves their head), you abort the countdown and turn off the UI visuals. Works best if there's a reticule that's either always on, or comes into focus when it's near a trigger. While reasonably intuitive, it's not my favorite technique, and it's got serious problems when you do it in a stereo scene, but a lot of apps currently use it. Get a GearVR and visit the Oculus store/apps, they do it as good as anyone, plus they have some nice documentation of best practices.
Related
I want the specific behaviour from my apple watch, i am developing a Fitness app in apple watch.
Problem:
When user will be on some specific screen (e.g. Download ODRs from firebase). user faces issue that when user slightly down their wrist and Screen goes deem and Refresh rate goes to 1 FPS. Client has special requirement that Screen should not go to Sleep When that particular downloading process is running.
References(Example):
I tried to find solution everywhere and found some questions also over StackOverflow about this but there also saying not possible so i still haven't found anything related to this but i have found one example that is doing this behaviour is Apple watch app Mindfulness. When user runs this app and start the session as much time user will be on that screen watch will not go to inactive state no matter user raise the hand or lower down the hand.
i want to implement that same behaviour in my app. Client wants no mater what ever it takes make it work. (No issues with battery life also or Computation). i may need to implement this kind of behaviour in other screens as well.
I have tried one solution that is to Turn on auto Rotate so that when user slightly turns their wrist it will rotate instead of going to Sleep or inactive state, but it isn't the solution and looks like something weird behaviour
I have also tried TimelineView() but it will be useful once watch goes to inactive state and also it is useful when doing computations but if i have to update UI it will only do it at 1FPS in inactive state no matter how frequent your data is updating.
Thanks in advance :)
I'm making a turn-based game, using the Game Center Turn-Based Gaming functionality. I'm using the simulator and my iPhone to test notifications of turn events. The results are very inconsistent. About 75% of the time when I make a move on the simulator and pass the turn I don't get any notifications on my iPhone. It seems that this function doesn't get called:
handleTurnEventForMatch:didBecomeActive:
I set the GKEventHandlerDelegate in the code that authenticates the local user and it seems to be set correctly. The fact that I get notifications once in a while suggests that this isn't where the problem lies.
Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem here? Could this be a problem with the Sandbox Game Center Server? Do they limit the amount of notifications you can send in a short amount of time or something like that?
Edit: I just found some posts of people experiencing the same problem, but no solution. No very recent posts though. Any updates?
Edit2: I also find that after a move, when I open the GKTurnBasedMatchmakerViewController on the other device it still says that it's the turn of the other player. When I close and reopen it the information is correct. Also, when I open the game GKTurnBasedMatchmakerViewController when it's still showing incorrect information, it does gives me the correct match object with the updated information. Could this be related in any way?
I thought I would share my solution with you, in the hopes that it is the same problem you are experiencing. As you can see from my comment to your question, I was having the same issue as you. It turned out that my settings in iTunes Connect were the culprit, unbeknownst to me. What you should check for is that you still have Game Center enabled in BOTH places that iTunes Connect requires. First, after going into "Manage my Apps" in iTunes Connect, select your app and on the right menu, and click "Manage Game Center". Make sure this is currently enabled. I would even recommend disabling it, and re-enabling it again for good measure.
In addition (and this is what I was missing), you must enable it in one more place. Go back to the previous screen when you first select the app. The top right is where you can select Manage Game Center, but we are looking on the bottom in the "Versions" section. Click the View Details button for your app, and make sure the Game Center button is enabled near the bottom. Again, I would disable and re-enable it here as well. Give it about 10 minutes, clear all your open turns and matches from the Game Center app (this might be an optional step), and build & run again. Hopefully, you will receive turn notifications properly again.
I got the same problem. However when i tested it on multiple devices it was working fine... May be some problem with the simulator
I'm testing a turn based game between two devices. As far as I understand, sending a turn with [GKTurnBasedMatch endTurnWithNextParticipants:], for example, should automatically push a game center notification to the opponent. Sometimes, this works just as expected: the turn is sent and right away a banner notification shows up on the other device. All is well.
What is baffling me is that other times, even though the turn itself is sent properly (I can tell because when the opponent refreshes the matches, the match is up-to-date), there's no push notification coming in.
Are there any holes in my understanding here? If I'm understanding correctly, the inconsistent notifications shouldn't have anything to do with my code, because the issue here isn't how I handle notifications, it's that there is no notification at all. In other words, [handleTurnEventForMatch:] (aGKTurnBasedEventHandlerDelegate method) doesn't have anything to do with it (I don't think) because if no notification is being received, it's never going to be called anyway.
So, I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. Is it possible that this is due to something in my code? Or, is it possible that the Game Center sandbox is responsible for the inconsistencies, and there's nothing I can do about it?
Any thoughts or ideas would be much appreciated.
It is an issue with GameCenter's sandbox mode. In order for your device to enter sandbox mode you have to open/run your app and authenticate game center. If you say, open a different (published) game after your game is open it will leave sandbox mode and and go back to regular game center mode.
Even if your game is running in the background, as long as it is the last game-center enabled game opened you should get the push notifications as normal. But if you open the game, and then kill the process, you will no longer be in sandbox mode and will not receive the push notifications.
For those who are experiencing similar problems: this turned out to be a Game Center sandbox problem. It had nothing to do with my code, and things were fine in the App Store release. So, read through the comments here and make sure there aren't other things factoring into whatever issues you're having...but know that it's possible that you're simply experiencing some Game Center sandbox issues that are out of your control!
I am also facing the same problem. My game stops receiving turn events and turn notifications from Game Center, I finished my game and was testing, but this week, the problem started to happen. It was working like a charm but suddenly instances started not to receiving turn events for a couple of days.
I am using the iOS7 SDK and targeting iOS7 (turn event handling is different than prior iOS versions, I will need exchanges in upcoming game features, that's why I am using iOS7).
Then I made a test app to check if it was same with iOS6 and prior SDKs, but no help, it was same. So don't waste your time to upgrade your code to iOS7 hoping it would work, the problem is there. I also tried many things, like resetting devices and settings, using new users, etc.
I also tried it with Ray Wenderlich's Turn-Based Gaming with iOS 5 tutorial, by downloading source code, and it doesn't work neither.
The thing is, usually when I launch the game, game receives turn events, but after a few turns, it just stops, and when it stops receiving, stops like forever. If I reload the match, I can get the updated match and it's data is also updated, so I can make the turn. It means match is updated on Game Center. So, either Game Center is not pushing the data to users (possibly this is happening because user cannot receive notifications from Game Center when the game is in background), or the GameKit is not firing the event to the handler.
I don't know why it is happening, or why it started to happen, but I can't release my game like this, hoping that it would work out of sandbox. I will be trying a couple of more things (like maybe trying turn reminders of iOS7, to see if they push it to the user), then I will ask to Apple's support team. One other thing i am planning to do is, putting my test app to App Store and see it if works out of sandbox.
Hopefully it is a sandbox problem.
Allow me to describe my situation:
I want to develop a game, that is round-base, and pay-to-play. That means you pay one coin, for one round of game, like Pinball etc.
The problem is, when there is interruption, ideally the game should pause, and resume whenever the user desires. Implementing that seems to be a challenge. Say my game was put into background, I would save the game state in ApplicationDidEnterBackground. However the game may or may not get terminated while in the background. So the next launch could be a "fresh start" , or, a "resume from last saved state".
If the app is left in the background long enough, say 1 week, its almost certain that other apps fighting for memory will cause the game to be terminated at some point. When the user starts my app again, they would be playing from a new round, meaning that the previously unfinished game, is gone.
From a customer point of view, this is unfair.
What I can think of is, to implement it so that whenever my app is brought to the foreground, I would go check if there was a saved game. If there was, I shall resume it instead. This poses a security issue:
Saved game, either in most primitive plist format or other formats, are persisted, and poses security problems. (What if players edit the game state and score 10 million points as top score... etc)
Are there any recommended ways to tackle these problems?
I see some Apps simply give up on saving the game, and a new round will be started on resume. Those are not paid to play games, otherwise I can imagine users getting very angry.
I have seen some Apps that saves the game state for a while, but when it got terminated, when next launched, it will start a fresh round. Which seems just as unacceptable in the case where players actually paid money for the round.
And when taken into account the possibility of crashes, I cannot come up with a good solution that ensure paying customer will get to play a full round of game. It would really help me if someone with relevant experience could share their thoughts, and how they make their decisions.
Why not tie the round finishing to the payment? If the round doesn't finish, no payment is taken. If the user's credits are insufficient at the time the round finishes, you could give them the option to purchase more credits immediately (via in-app purchase) to finish the current round.
That simplifies your task as a developer, and also provides a way to prompt the user for additional payment in a non-obnoxious way.
Here's a great tutorial on using NSCoding to save game states. It won't have any problem with the player going in a editing the file, as it is done in NSCoding. If a user REALLY wants to figure out how to un-encode the file and change the contents, which is crazy, you could do some kind of encryption on the data BEFORE you write it to file, so there would be no way the user could change it. Hope that helps!
I'm about to add highscore support to my mobile game and I have a basic understanding problem with leaderboard services like OpenFeint or Apples Game Center:
Suppose I'm logged in to OpenFeint and/or Game Center with my account. Then a pal of mine wants to play, I hand him my device and he gets the best score ever. Is there any way he can get his score listed under his name now? My understanding is that he can't, because when the game is over the score is saved, and it is automatically saved for the current account, which happens to be mine at that moment. Tough luck.
This would mean that if I play the game with my pal in turns we would constantly have to log in and out from both services after each game to get it right in the case that one of us gets a highscore. That seems a bit awkward...
Do I overlook something or is this just the way it works? Or do I have to take care for this situation as a developer? Or do the OpenFeint/GameKit SDKs handle this automatically somehow?
I don't know about Open Feint, but at least for Game Center I think the answer to your question is: Yes, that's just the way it works. Even if you know the Game Center id's for both you and your friend, you don't have the ability to save stats for anyone but the logged in game center player.
It does seems possible that they could have supported this use case, to allow more than one player to be "signed in" on a given device, and then the game could just present a "PlayerA", "PlayerB" button to choose who's playing, instead of having to run the Game Center app to do the switch. But I imagine this use case wasn't a super high priority. (They'd rather have each of you playing on your own devices. And in fact some services like ScoreLoop keep things simple by enforcing a single player per device, period.)