Ludacrist
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I'm a Drod addict who unfortunately doesn't always have much time to game on my computer, but I'm constantly on my phone. I would LOVE to have Drod at my fingertips. Has this been attempted/discussed?

I'm a software engineer and would gladly help with the port however I could if there's interest and support from Caravel.

averagemoe
Level: Smiter

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Well, Flash DROD has already shrunken down a lot of rooms from KDD. Could that be small enough for the elements to be clearly distinguishable on an iPhone screen?

We'll also need an interface for controlling Beethro with a touch screen, which includes undo, restart, and battle. It can't be done by touching parts of the room, because the player should be able to scan monsters. If character speech doesn't get cut, it can be handled by a text box appearing in the same area as a scroll. Mechanics with the shift key can be removed, since they battle key handles them better. We can condense shift-wait to being what happens if the player uses the battle command when the last move was waiting.

Even with these theories on how to pull it off, I'm still debating whether it's feasible.

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kieranmillar
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DROD in it's current form would struggle to work on mobile because movement and sword rotating takes up 11 different buttons. I think you could maintain the spirit of DROD in some sort of spin-off but it would need to be designed from basic principles with small mobile screens in mind.

On the other hand, DROD RPG would work fine if you got rid of the need to strike enemies with your sword to hit first, it's already fully controllable with only the mouse, but it's already different enough from regular DROD that I'm sure that wasn't really what you were interested in.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 11-15-2018 07:15 AM]

Ludacrist
Level: Goblin
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I have seen several iOS games that handle similar control schemes with swipe mechanics. i.e., swipe left anywhere on the screen to move left, left-up to move left-up, etc. Then you would just need two buttons to rotate, and probably an additional button or two for other functions.

I would be happy to take this on as a passion-project if it's something Caravel would support, and if there are other interested engineers. I think it's very feasible, and something to help preserve DROD's life!

ErikH2000
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Personally, I think for the best results...

Make a new game that uses DROD mechanics. And be ready to drop things that don't work well with mobile.

The end result would be better.

-Erik

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skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Actually I believe the real problem is not the controls - I've played Flash DROD on a mobile device (a special built for testing) and it worked well and it was a solution I threw together in 10 minutes.

I think the real problem is scale - DROD rooms are huge and mobile input is slow. Assuming there was a Mobile DROD, a dedicated-enough player could play any hold they wish and bear with the slow input, but when making rooms for mobile you'd ideally want to make them smaller and avoid puzzles which rely on making a lot of moves.

Of course assuming what you want to achieve is a port of the ruleset. If you are making a new DROD game for mobile that you want to market to people outside DROD community you most likely should redesign it .

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Insoluble
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Honestly wish I had any programming skills at all to volunteer to this, it's such a great idea! I know that working out interface details wouldn't be easy, but it would be so incredibly worth it. Something like this could breath new life into the community. Things like Flash DROD and 2-player DROD online are pretty solid proof that you can get a great DROD experience with fewer tiles per room. I'm sure with a simplified ruleset (so that you don't need tab or special command for instance) that the interface could be made to be pretty smooth. I seriously hope that this idea sticks around.

Anyway, this whole discussion ended up reminding me of this little post from a few years back. (Take a look at the date for clarity.)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=37102

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Pinnacle
Level: Smitemaster

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I think a from-scratch reimplementation of DROD has a lot of potential. A simple gesture system (tap to wait, swipe in a direction to move that direction, a 90 degree arc to turn, double tap to wait a full cycle, and undo/restart buttons possibly?) would help with not needing a lot of on-screen buttons, and starting with a smaller pool of elements and focusing more on consistency of interactions, minimizing the weird edge cases.

A tablet is probably a better target than a phone though.


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mrimer
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Insoluble wrote:
Anyway, this whole discussion ended up reminding me of this little post from a few years back. (Take a look at the date for clarity.)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=37102

Oh...dat thread...

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