Dark_Oppressor

I've got an engine that I wrote that I use for my games. The GUI stuff (windows and buttons and such) currently just work with the mouse, but I am adding keyboard/gamepad support for all of it. I am trying to decide what to do about text input. I can go a classic route with a big qwerty layout or even just a terrible "line of letters" or something, but I also liked the look of what they have in Steam's Big Picture Mode.

 

That got me wondering if that sort of thing is patent-able (which it is, as far as my research told me). That lead me to wonder if that could be a problem here. Since I'm writing it all myself it can obviously look and work however I want, so I could make something similar that is "different enough", if I could figure out what constitutes "different enough".

 

The main reason I want to use something like this badly enough to come ask about it (and Google around for the past few days) is that, since it is a UI thing, I want it to be easy to use and (preferably) recognizable. If Steam popularizes this easy-to-use (at least I think it's great) design, I would much rather use it or something similar to it, and not something much less useful (a big qwerty block).

 

So, is this a valid concern, or just silly?

I'm playing around with a fairly simple 2D space game, in which you fly about controlling a single ship. There are stars, planets, etc. I definitely want planets to orbit nearby stars, but I'm trying to decide if larger objects such as the stars should move throughout the galaxy.

The game is such that you will be mapping it out as you travel, and will possibly want to return to places later on. Thus, my first instinct is that larger objects do not move, and serve as fixed landmarks in the galaxy. However, stars moving about could be really cool, the way I see it, so I am curious if anyone has encountered this in a game before, and regardless, what your thoughts are on the issue? Which sounds more fun?

Bit Beast is a virtual pet game/software toy for Android. It is my second commercially released game, and it's out now!

To learn more about the game/buy it, visit the website: http://cheeseandbacon.org/bit-beast/
It costs $1.99. Actually, it's on sale for $1.49 this week for the #BecauseWeMay (http://becausewemay.com/) sale.

It has a variety of foods to feed the pet, currency which is earned through several minigames (some of which use various Android features like the accelerometer and GPS), battling another pet via Bluetooth, and other standard virtual pet features such as bathing, poop-scooping, petting, training/entertaining, etc.
There are several different evolutionary paths to go down, determined by how you care for your pet.

And now, for some screenshots!









For more screenshots visit: http://cheeseandbaco...screenshots.php

I would also love any feedback you are willing to give!

This is really an interface design question, so I hope it fits here well enough.

My last game (http://cheeseandbacon.org/huberts-island/) used a profile system to allow multiple different people to use a single install of the game. It saved your game progress automatically, so your profile essentially acted as your save file.

For my next game (on the computer anyway, I'm on an Android digression at the moment), I'm trying to decide if I want to keep this. It has required quite a lot of time to maintain/add to. I can think of only a few games that I have played that used a system like this. Most of them either seem to assume only one person will use the install, or are a type of game where it doesn't matter.

For a game with a singleplayer campaign, where a profile system makes sense, would you use one, as a developer? As a player, would you care about such a system?