Screen
orbstarstudios
Member, PRO Posts: 4
Hey I am having trouble with publishing and screen size for my game. I just recently finish my first game but having trouble when I preview it on adhoc with iPhone X. Everything runs well when I try it on gamesalad viewer on the app but once I try on adhoc it seems to be off. I have tried overscan which made everything zoom in, then letter box which makes everything smaller on screen. Stretch takes up the entire screen where things are lil off at the top. Im just trying to find out what setting should I use. I started my project in iPad portrait with resolution independence because the game will only be played in portrait mode. But as I stated earlier everything works well in the viewer its just adhoc after publishing is the problem. Im thinking it might have something to do with universal builds from the little research I have done but just need little push in the right direction for understanding.
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Sorry, this is sort of our fault. We haven't updated the viewer to reflect the current state of things yet.
The previewer currently doesn't stretch to full screen on the iPhone X like the engine does. This is a side-effect of updating to the published engine to the newest iOS SDK. Basically once you compile with the newest SDK, the default is to take the whole screen. Older games currently get a pass with the games rendering at the aspect ratio of the older phones with border boxes.
Apple frowns on newly released apps that don't take up the whole screen, so if you are designing for iOS, you will need to design for overscan on the iPhone X. If you pay attention, you'll notice that as most games get updates, they take up the whole screen.
Your game should adapt to the phone's resolution. So your game needs to either detect the iPhone resolution and move UI to accommodate, or have all UI in a safe zone that will display okay on both devices with the overscan setting.
So this is not exactly what you're looking for, but hopefully it gets the idea across well enough for you to figure it out.
Say you have a game that must preserve it's aspect ratio to work right, but you have to deal with different devices. One trick you can do is adjust the camera and put some padding textures around the game play area.
Shmups often do this when to console:
Another example of this is Area of Valor:
The player list on the left and right don't show up on the 'normal' phone width. Apple probably loves it because it's a bonus feature for iPhone X users. They just added some helpful stuff that doesn't affect core game play, but still makes use of the extra and keeps the main gameplay aspect ratio intact.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rp75paol1w4a98s/DIY Letter Boxing.zip?dl=0
Basically I made an iPhone game that I wanted to maintain the same aspect ratio on iPad, but I don't want to use the letterbox feature because Apple will likely reject it.
So for iPhone I'm just gonna display a nifty blue border instead of a standard black letterbox (to indicate that its on purpose). In a real game I'd replace it with a special texture or something. Maybe I'll put some extra UI there later that's exclusive to iPad if Apple's picky.
To see the effect, preview, change to iPad landscape, and then refresh the game (since to work the system needs to see the device aspect ratio at start).
So if cutting off game play area is impossible / unadvisable for your game, you can adjust your camera when you detect the iPhone X aspect ratio and pad the extra area with some cool bumper image or add bonus UI.
I hope that helps!
@adent42 Thanks a lot I really got a better understanding now.
Any ideas when the iOS viewer app will be updated to reflect iPhone X changes?
**hi obstarstudios i really kinda agree with adent but my suggestion to you is you take this things into consideration before taking any step !
**he optimal resolution for a game from the start of development can reduce headaches with porting later on. In this Quick Tip, I'll help you choose the best screen resolution for your game.
The "best" resolution depends on a lot of factors:
The platform the game is supposed to be released on first
Other possible platforms you plan to port to later
Graphical fidelity (An 8-bit or pixel art game doesn't need to be hi-res.)
Genre (A puzzle-game can probably get away with a lower resolution, but a high-speed competitive FPS might not.)
I'm going to focus on the platforms, and specifically those that are most relevant to indie devs. This data is based on the resolutions of the devices available, and my own experience with them, which I've gathered making games for PC, Mac, the web, mobile devices, and microconsoles. Different platforms come with different requirements, and this should get you up to speed.
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