yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Ok first pass of AI is complete. I am sharing it here so people can try it out and give me feedback/report bugs before I put it on the store and push it to a couple of thousand people.

This should be absolutely fine to install over/run alongside your other version without damaging your save file, however since it has not been thoroughly tested it is slightly more risky.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

I'm only sharing the free version, however it's fine to run alongside the paid version (they will share the save data).

Features

- 4 difficulty levels of AI for every single game mode

- AI can sensibly lag, break, call balls and pockets, opt to replace cue ball, rerack, push out

- AI can play shots at varying speeds and spin

What you can tell me

- does it work? is it fun? is it realistic? is it slow? are the difficulties what you expected? any glaring bugs? any ridiculous strengths of the ai? any obvious weaknesses?

This is by no means done, I still have a nice big list of ways I can improve it, however I know a lot of people wanted to try this out so I wanted to get something playable in your hands as quickly as possible. As well as improving on the ai and performance I want to add game modes and unlocks related to the ai, is there anything here you'd really like to see (no promises).

Thanks a lot for your time, please try it out and give me feedback.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

Fixed bug where taking a shot during opponent's thinking time messed it up.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
No one biting? It even has a bug which gives you an unlock for free.
[Android Apps and Games] MustNotSleep:
Playing with the AI version now. Will let you know how it goes.

BTW, it's impressive you managed to have an almost-complete AI version in like a week...
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Cheers, it's been a lot of work already but as I say since so many people are asking I want to get this into people's hands as quickly as possible.

As I say I'm not completely happy with it yet, and some of the rulesets I'm not particularly familiar with so am even less sure about those (I'm a world rules guy), so outside feedback along with my observations should really help push towards something good.
[Android Apps and Games] aziz_0:
Thanks for this app, it's great :)
[Android Apps and Games] MustNotSleep:
Well, the AI is genuinely fun. I didn't find any bugs as far as I'm aware of. I'm not familiar with the different rulesets so I can't comment on that, but I did have quite a challenge beating the AI on medium difficulty and it was downright impossible for me to do so on Hard or Expert, but I'm not a very good player (IRL and in the game).

Let me know if you want me to test something in particular, but it was pretty fun as it is. Can't wait to have it in the full version.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Thank you.

Cool, I will tone down the difficulty. Developing it I was playing it on PC mainly which is actually quite a bit easier than on phone. Nothing in particular to test, just wanted to get a multitude of opinions on it as well as having it running on different hardware to see if there's any massive problems there. Did you ever have that save problem repeat?
[Android Apps and Games] MustNotSleep:
Don't tone down the difficulty just based on my experience, I'm really not great at the game, plus I enjoy the challenge. Wait until more people comment on it. And I've seen the CPU miss a few shots on Medium, so that's good.

I'm running it on my Galaxy S2, with MIUI (2.3.7) and it runs great, same as the stable version as far as I can tell.

And no, haven't had the save file issue again, although I make a backup every now and then, just in case. :-)
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Hey, it's not just your experience, but reaching a bit of a consensus now :). The more opinions the better as far as this one goes.
[Android Apps and Games] *se-nsei.:
My word, hats off to you developer. This is the most amazing, polished and superbly designed game I've ever played. I'm a big snooker/pool fan, and trust me this is as good as it gets on a smartphone!! I love it man.

Just saw the AI pre-release, will test asap. Thank you. Just a quick suggestion - while progressing with this app, I'd say keep it as simple, fast and efficient as possible. This is what I love about it.

Also, it runs very smoothly on my Wildfire S. Running only at 806mhz with Adreno GPU binaries on CM7.2. :) Lags only after playing for a long time.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Wow, thanks a lot, I'm a big snooker/pool fan too, I hope it shows. I'd love to do a snooker game too but it's just too tiny on a phone if I do it the same way!

I can give you my word that the game will stay as sleek as I can keep it. No "wacky" modes, no in-game currency, no facebook/twitter integration.

The game shouldn't really lag as I've tried to do no allocation when in game, however in the free version there is some unavoidable slowdown when switching adverts (I try to minimize this by having it happen between shots) and some allocation when requesting adverts which may lead to the garbage collector being invoked (nothing I can do about this).
[Android Apps and Games] Itslife:
Fantastic job

You have done a fantastic job with this game. I haven't had the opportunity to play for very long, but I did not experience any issues while I was playing. I have a few suggestions for your consideration:

- Add the game of snooker - I am a big snooker fan and would love to be able to play snooker;

- Mute button (minor point) - This may be there, but I could not find an easy way to mute all sounds other than setting all three sound bars in options; and

- Replay speed control (minor point) - It's great how you can re-watch a match. I wonder if it might be possible to replace the three speeds with a slider which would provide the player with more control? (as an aside, is it possible to save a played match for viewing later?)

Great job!

Richard
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Thanks a lot.

I am a big snooker fan too, and of course a lot of the systems I have written for Total Pool would work great for snooker. The big problem however is the size of the balls on screen, the initial tests I have done are not promising. Either I could keep the same camera and controls and restrict the game to large screen devices, or I could rewrite controls to allow a movable camera (perhaps using multi-touch). I feel that either way I would want to do the game justice and it would be a separate entity to Total Pool, rather than a sub-optimal tacked-on experience. I hope this makes sense.

This is true, there is no mute button. I will bear it in mind and certainly try to add it if I get more feedback saying this is an issue.

The slider thing would not be difficult to implement, sounds like a nice idea, plus it will probably look better than those icons.

Having saved replays would be lovely, many a time have I not wanted to quit because I've just played a great shot and have no-one to show. The reason that is hasn't been done yet is twofold.

- I haven't thought of a way to fit this into my UI, but mainly:

- The replays are saved as just the initial shot parameters (ball positions and orientations, cue speed, angle, spin, elevation, calls if you're interested) and the deterministic physics does the rest. Thus if I change how the game works in any way, either in the physics simulation (not out of the question) or how a shot is defined (I did this massively when writing AI, and might again if I can do network play) then none of your saved replays are guaranteed to work any more, definitely a sub-optimal user experience. If this does come it will only be when I am totally satisfied that the game is mature and I won't change it again.

Thanks for your suggestions, all the best.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
To keep people informed on AI, I am not particularly happy with the iteration I posted here earlier and am currently working on rewriting a lot of the fundamentals of shot selection. I think we are looking at a release to the market some day next week. Thanks for your patience.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Hello all,

I'm back with a much better (hopefully) ai opponent. Try it out here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

Free version only, but can be run alongside the paid version. A couple of notes though about save games. If you try and use a save game from this version with an older version of the game it will crash (should only happen if you install the paid version after this free version without uninstalling this). From now on there shouldn't be any crashes due to save games going forward.

in this version:

- 4 difficulties of computer player to play against in every single match type

- harder difficulties unlock after beating the easier ones

- fixed a couple of crash issues

- fixed rendering bug on turn arrows

- fixed total snooker logic bug

- balls are placed properly on a break (previously could overlap slightly)

- save games should be more robust

- balanced a couple of challenge levels

- 3 challenges unlocked at a time instead of one

- minor bug fixes

please please please try it out and give me feedback, it would be really useful, is it fun? too easy? too hard? any ridiculous strengths of the ai? any glaring weaknesses?

thanks a lot, I look forward to hearing from you.
[Android Apps and Games] chelsea_fc:
The ai version was great

Bugs :

- landscape orientation always on left side (latest paid version was fine on both orientation)

Suggestions:

- add fine tuning

- add ball rack sound in the begining of rack

- multiplayer mode via bluetooth, wifi or online

Tested on nook tablet using cm9

Thanks
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Thanks for the feedback.

Could you clarify this? I'm not quite sure what you mean. The adverts are persistently at the top but the orientation can be changed in settings.

I'm still not convinced about fine-tuning, it's hard to think of a nice way to integrate it with the current controls, and the further shots should be more difficult than the closer ones, I don't like cue sports games when you line up your shot and then just press "go".

The ball rack sound is on the cards, my audio guy is extremely busy with other work at the moment but there is plenty more polish to add here.

I'd love to do multiplayer, and will look into the possibility seriously after this ai stuff is all out there. Of course the more people buy it the more compelling multiplayer becomes for everyone.

Since this build I've already made a couple of fixes, you don't get to see the first collision any more when ai is playing a shot (or when watching a replay), this helps with you being able to tell exactly what will happen on the ai shot.

Also the settings screen has been fixed to only show single player controls when playing vs an ai.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Quick update

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

- no more preview of ball collision when ai takes shot or on replays

- fixed problem with quitting and restarting while computer is thinking

- fixed straight pool unlocks (first to 50 rather than best of 3)

- fixed lag being played perfectly by ai

- settings for single player used when against ai

- fixed issue when quitting while balls are being moved around

- updated to latest libgdx (0.9.3)

please give feedback on the performance and playability of the ai, particularly the games i'm less familiar with (anything except world rules basically!)
[Android Apps and Games] Itslife:
Thanks for the updates. The games is running well for me. Is there currently a way to change the view and play as if you are standing at the table rather than always above the table? (See International Snooker HD by My interactive for an example).

P.S. A stupid question, but how do you save/retrieve games?
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
There is no alternative view, the game is designed to be played top-down and I can guarantee that is how it is going to stay. If you want a 3d pool game then I'd say either pool break lite or virtual pool are the best ones out there.

There is no functionality to save a game beyond navigating away from the game (with home) and back again at present.

I will be posting one more update here later today, then hopefully pushing to Google play tomorrow.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Ok Total Pool Free 1.1

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

- 4 difficulties of computer player to play against in every single match type

- harder difficulties unlock after beating the easier ones

- save games more robust

- balanced challenge levels

- 3 challenges unlocked at a time instead of one

- crowd cheer and murmur sounds in match mode

- reduced frequency of switching ads to aid battery life

- minor game logic bug fixes

- crash bugs fixed

Please let me know if this works fine for you, should be totally safe. Then I can upload it to the market tonight.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
I decided to just risk it and push to the market.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
Great game!

First of all can I say, what a game! Easily the best pool game on Android, I reckon the best on a mobile device bar none. The execution is just fabulous, the attention to detail, the simplicity and ease-of-use of the menus. The graphics. I love the whole thing.

Issue:

Now, I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 2.3.4 (Unrooted) and it crashes for me a lot, almost every session it crashes. It just hangs, no force close error. There doesn't seem to be any particular circumstance other than it's usually mid shot towards the end of the motion of the balls.

** As I was writing this I was actually playing Total Pool and it happened to crash. This time I waited and the crash report actually appeared and should be with you now. Hope you can sort this! Thanks!

Suggestions:

1. Definitely fine-tuning, I like the 2 finger method mentioned by someone else earlier but i don't know how easy that would be to implement if at all. If I think of anything I'll get back to you. Maybe do it such that the shot isn't executed as soon as you aim and lift your finger, but rather that only decides the rough direction and shot power, the aiming guide should remain on the screen after lifting your finger. Then you can have left and right buttons for fine tuning and a shoot button to complete the shot. These can be on the bottom cushion out of the way...

- It definitely loses a bit of the slickness so I would suggest making this an option in the settings menu so people can choose to use if they wish.

2. I don't know how it looks on other devices but on the SGS2 there is some empty space either end of the table, I think here you should put a graphic of what balls have been potted like the rack at the side of tables in real life.

3. I cant wait for Snooker. You have got to do it at some point! And it will work, no doubt at all. Furthermore I'd be happy to pay again, ie make it another app. Same for Carom and others.

4. As others have said, online multiplayer would be fabulous.

It is testament to the quality of this game that I continue to play it and have even rated 5 stars in the store. Of course I have the paid version.

Thank you for a wonderful game! I also admire your dedication to listening to peoples suggestions long may that continue!

Hardy

---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:44 PM ----------

Ah, something I just noticed... In world rules and black ball, if the opponent fouls and you are playing the black, there should not be two shots? Or am I wrong?

Thanks,

Hardy
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Thanks a lot, great to hear.

Far less great to hear! Does this only happen when playing against the cpu or can it happen in 2p/challenges? Did you have the game before the ai update and did it ever happen then? I did get one ANR message through and will look at it later, bit mroe difficult to debug than a straight up crash though.

I hope to have it sorted asap.

Interesting ideas, I still feel it will be difficult to keep it elegant, multitouch would reduce the potential number of devices too.

The location and size of the extra space will depend on the device aspect ratio, table size and the size of the ui. I really have tried to make the table appear as large on the screen as possible, and even though you might have the extra space, other devices and setups won't and forcing their table smaller is definitely undesirable.

I did think of having a potted balls area of the screen but decided it wasn't important enough to take up the screen space it would have required, since the information can be determined from the balls that are visible.

Well you will have to wait for the moment I'm afraid! When are the snooker world finals?

I agree. But no promises here, it's a big big task, especially as I have no prior experience in this field, and if I do it it needs to be done "right".

Cheers, I'm finding the feedback very useful.

In the official rules I used for reference you still receive two shots on the black. The rules I have in game can be found on the stats screen. I understand that a lot of people play a lot of different rule sets in their local and I contemplated having more, or rules you could switch on and off but decided against it for both logistic and aesthetic reasons.
[Android Apps and Games] *se-nsei.:
Yeah great update :D btw, if you do decide to add snooker, carom etc. Make them separate apps with the same physics menu etc. Trust me. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
More

Especially for the larger table sizes (6ft upwards) the fine tuning is really quite necessary. Again, I would suggest that you leave it as is, as standard and have an option in the settings menu for those that deem it necessary. This will maintain an elegance for most players though you might argue that it clutters the settings menu haha. I like your style.

Fair enough, haha

Cool.

Thanks again,

Hardy
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
I think that's a good idea for a few reasons. Incentive to make them super polished so no one feels ripped off too.

I'm seeing what I can do to make the direction feel more controllable over small distances, but still with one finger. I know this isn't what you want to hear but It'd take a lot to persuade me on this issue. I understand that any table larger than 6 foot is fairly unplayable on a phone, but I made sure it is never essential to play on those tables to unlock anything, they are there more as a bonus and if people want the official size on their tablets.

Cheers
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
Seconded

Yeah definitely.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Ok so regarding your ANR, I actually received two in an hour after having none previously, so assumed it was my problem but it doesn't look like it from either the stack traces. Are you the user running the switchpro widget? If so then that is the culprit.

The other user seems to be having a hell of a lot of location and wifi stuff going on, but no reference to my game. Try switching off location and seeing if the problem persists, or see if you get the same problem in other games. Maybe just a reboot will do it.

edit: after some more research it seems that something is trying to take away context and then give it back really quickly, this will give an ANR as it saves the game on a loss of context and this can take a little time. Was your battery running low or did you keep receiving calls? Alarms?

edit2: just noticed the messages, they were both you! yeah that switch pro widget is causing the issue. it says not to install it on an sd card, perhaps it's this?
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
Thanks, I'll sort it!

A couple of further suggestions:

1. For the fine tuning, maybe you can code it such that the aim is sensitive to the velocity of the finger?

> slower motion, finer aim

> faster motion, rough aim

2. I get your reason for having the space, I thought it might be something like that. But what about using some improved textures, carpet of some sort? Maybe with a hint of a shadow from the table? The black and white I have seen so far are a little plain for my eyes.

My further two cents, and thanks again!

Hardy
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
I uninstalled switchpro widget but still the hanging continues. Location is on via mobile networks but not gps, but I think it should be working under all these conditions anyway. Including switch pro widget to be honest.

Please investigate.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Cheers, can you try sending another report possibly?

I wasn't implying that my game should be always run without wifi or location, but rather that between the two logs there are zero references to my game in the stack traces. That doesn't say it's not my fault, I was just trying to narrow down where the conflict might lie. Sorry you're getting these issues.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
Will do when I get one, thanks.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
Should be with you now. Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Cheers for the reports, there's still nothing that points to a specific part of my code which makes it tricky for me to understand the problem. How reproducible is it? does it happen at a regular point in the match? I have a feeling it may be an audio issue. Would you mind trying to see if this happens when you have all of the audio turned down to 0 in the options menu (not just on the phone).

Thanks for your patience.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
I've done that aswell before but I'll try again.

It may be possible that the phone is clogged up with a lot of bloatware plus all of my own apps.

I rooted my previous phone but held out with this one because I thought it wouldn't need it. Rooting may help.

Thanks for your efforts.

Hardy
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
What about a little popup that let's you know what you've unlocked each time you complete a milestone?
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
You shouldn't need to root, and other software shouldn't be having this effect. I'm looking into it. All the reports are essentially the same so there's no need to keep reporting them. I am looking into this.

Yeah that would be neat. I flash the stats icon to indicate but it's not really enough.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
I've never noticed that, I'll keep an eye out for it next time!
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
It seems that with all sound off in-game it works fine...

Hope that helps.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
That's really useful. I'll work on simplifying the audio. How about if just one or two of the audio channels is turned on? Maybe having music+crowd is too complex sometimes.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
I had sounds effects on only and it crashed within 10 minutes.

Thanks.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Here's an updated version of the free app which should hopefully fix the freezing audio issues some people have been having.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13593420/TotalPoolFree.apk

Would appreciate hearing back if this works for people.

Cheers.
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Anyone mind testing this?
[Android Apps and Games] *se-nsei.:
Would love to. Will report back tomorrow if I've had any issues regarding audio. Or anything else.

Also, you should submit this app to somewhere like android.appstorm for review. This game is absolutely brilliant. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] The Friendly Monster:
Cheers, I pushed this to the market already actually.

I will do a promotional push soon when I have a trailer done. Currently working hard on some other bits and bobs.
[Android Apps and Games] jmin9012:
Amazing game. Addicted to it.
[Android Apps and Games] *se-nsei.:
Cool cool. ;) Found no issues btw, played for 30 mins.
[Android Apps and Games] H4RDY:
I updated earlier and have seen no improvement in terms of the crashing. I turned all sound on and it crashed within 10 minutes.

Will be going back to playing on mute.