Experiences porting a build from desktop to mobile

[Shakezula]

Hi

For those of you who have or are planning to soon release the same Ren'Py project to both desktop and mobile at the same time, please share your experiences making tweaks between the different versions.

What if any issues if any did mobile users run into with some of the more advanced features? What resolution(s) did you find optimized screen presentation for phones/tablets with widescreen dimensions?

The RPG-ish thing I'm currently designing has a UI reliant on several screens that are always docked to different corners, and I imagine doing widely different variants of them mean redoing a whole lot of image mapping.

[Facelord]

That sounds like a pretty complex interface, by Ren'Py standards. I'm just working on a standard VN but I'm planning on porting it to pretty much every platform possible and launching on multiple digital distribution services; Ren'Py really does work just as well with touch, a gamepad or a mouse, it's so port-friendly.

I'd probably just make sure it works at several different aspect ratios(16:9, 16:10, 4:3, etc) with good image scaling and then play around with it on several devices. Think you're going to maybe edit the interface to suit the controls of the various different platforms later? Like, make sure it's fun to play through tap, a mouse or a gamepad? I think that's the key thing, the "joy of play." Any game that has you interface with menus more than half the time you're playing needs to have enjoyable menus. It might help to look to titles like X-Com: Enemy Unknown for good examples. I have that game on PC, PS3 and Android, and it plays VERY well on each platform. I actually prefer it on Android for the mobility.

When I finally hit the optimization stage of my VN's development, I plan on testing it out on quite a few different devices - a $20 Android phone(3.5-inch, 320x240), a Motorola Moto G(5 inches, 1280x720), a Nexus 7 2013(7 inches, 1920x1200), an $80 Windows 8.1 HP Stream 7(7 inches, 1280x800; best "value" device in the world for VN consumption), a $340 Asus T200TA(11.6 inches, 1366x768) and a 1080p monitor. Luckily I have friends with even more devices who will probably be willing to playtest the VN, so I'm going to end up with a ton of quality assurance testing across a wider variety of devices.

Sorry I couldn't be much more help, I'm a writer and a designer but not much of a programmer and I don't quite have that much RPG experience behind me. Best advice I can give here would be to playtest playtest playtest, and if it doesn't feel right you should consider stepping out of your comfort zone and trying things a little differently.

[Shakezula]

No your post actually did hep, I'm trying to promote a conversation for everyone to share their experiences about all projects simple to complex, for others to benefit from,

And yes, I'm going to have to redesign certain screens for a touchscreen variant. Perhaps define only a long press to be an action so that a tap is equivalent to a mouse hover.

And also I did figure I would have to do several different aspect ratios anyway, But I was wondering specifically which one I should lean towards for mobile. I don't think doing 4 different aspect ratio releases is efficient.

The desktop build is likely going to default to a 4:3, and for the mobile I'm leaning towards a 16:9. I don't think the black bar on 16:10 devices will be too huge.

[Facelord]

No your post actually did hep, I'm trying to promote a conversation for everyone to share their experiences about all projects simple to complex, for others to benefit from,

And yes, I'm going to have to redesign certain screens for a touchscreen variant. Perhaps define only a long press to be an action so that a tap is equivalent to a mouse hover.

And also I did figure I would have to do several different aspect ratios anyway, But I was wondering specifically which one I should lean towards for mobile. I don't think doing 4 different aspect ratio releases is efficient.

The desktop build is likely going to default to a 4:3, and for the mobile I'm leaning towards a 16:9. I don't think the black bar on 16:10 devices will be too huge.

16:10 isn't too important, lots of 16:10 mobile devices have little pop-up controls on the bottom of the screen in those extra 120 pixels that pretty much make it 16:9 anyways; the borders are tiny in this situation, too.

The only two aspect ratios you really have to focus on are 16:9 and 4:3, and 16:9 is always the most important. 4:3 is good for tablets like the Nexus 9 and iPads, but most displays are 16:9. Heck, I'd say that on desktop 16:9 is way more important than 4:3 - 4:3 displays are even less common on desktop than mobile.

Glad to hear my message was beneficial in some way. If you have any questions you think I can answer, just go ahead and ask. :B

[Shakezula]

You're right about 16:9. I settled on 1280:720 as the main resolution

I just read in the documentation tht iOS doesn't support multi persistent. Looking an alternative way for 2 similar games to share data between each other

[Jibus]

@Facelord, so you handle two types of asset for your images ? How ?

I was planning to make some test, with renpy.get_physical_size() and set two types of assets. Not sure if it's the best tough.