yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
great new release!

is there a possibility to purchase an ad-free version?

just today i saw an ad in german with the title "learn more about god" (roughly paraphrasing). that ad lead to this website: http://www.jesus2020.de/

i spare you the detalis. it's a propagandistic, religious website that i don't want the kids to see. from my point of view it's a crime to expose children to religion.

but to the point - is it possible to remove ads from the game?
[Android Apps and Games] Espaa Valorum:
Just downloaded it and played a little bit, and i like it this far :)
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Ya, I've been thinking about this. I haven't done anything yet because I feel my effort is better spent trying to add features than trying to make money. I had "religion" ads disabled, but these must have gotten through the filter. If they're trying to circumvent advertiser filtering, then I agree that it's a propaganda troll (regardless of if its jesus or stuffed animals.)

Ads suck. That's life. My revenue from Germany today is 33 cents. In the life of this app, I've made enough to buy 1 beer. At this rate, ads will pay for my hosting and developer fees, but not phones or bills, and certainly not my time. That's ok though.

I was actually surprised to see a handfull of comments *requesting* a paid version! I'd like to get some ideas though.

I could make an "unlock key" version which would be detected by the game in order to disable ads. All else equal, I'd rather do this than keep posting two versions since that doubles my chances to screw something up.

What do you think? If you are a developer, what worked or didn't work for you? If you're a user, which type of apps do you prefer?

Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
User survey

I made a really short user survey!

If you've tried Island Settlers, please take a couple minutes to give some feedback.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dF96dlJCRUxnLWV0Sm9YVGhjdnlUX0E6MQ#gid=0

Thanks a lot!
[Android Apps and Games] combatdan:
Keeping us in the loop!

Glad to see you continuing the community effort!
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Following up on some common requests:

- I have a development build with "ai turn delay" so you can see them move one at a time. This required some mid-sized changes, so there are still a few odd bugs to work out.

- New textures are in progress. They're looking great so far, so expect a nice surprise some time soon!

Should be past 5000 downloads by now. Not bad for a niche game I think.
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
do you already have a sufficient amount of data to publish from your user survey?

i'm still seing the above mentioned, very annoying ads i really want to get rid of.
[Android Apps and Games] BenjaminJC:
Oh man, I'm feeling like a Puerto Rico / Carcassonne / Catan Marathon this weekend.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Yup, I'm working on that too. I just want to make sure I roll it out right. What I think I'll do is have an "unlock key" version you can buy on the market. I'll also have a separate version of the unlock key that I can give to contributors.
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
sounds great!

just make sure that the unlock key app doesn't get an icon in the app drawer - a couple of apps do that and i don't think it's necessary ;)

some app i have installed did it another way -> the unlock key app needs to be launched once, tells you that the key has unlocked the full version and that after the next reboot the icon is gone from the app drawer.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
New release

Grab the latest release (r8 or 1.1.0) for beautiful new artwork by Adam Garland!

I also added turn delay for AI turns. I can set this as a configurable option later. Let me know if you have issues with this.

Update: I added "Island Settlers unlock" to disable the menu ads. The whole game is still free of course.

Here's a teaser screenshot:
[Android Apps and Games] Mujib@r:
First off, awesome game! I'm a big fan of the original Settlers. Thanks!!!

The new artwork looks really good on my Fascinate. (Kind of hard to make out how many stars for each resource, but that's minor.)

I haven't yet played this w/ any other human players. That said, one thing I miss from the previous version is the turn summary pop-up that preceded my turn. It's difficult to figure out what the other players did. Any thoughts of bringing that feature back?

EDIT

: Just saw the version 1.1.1 update that restored this feature. How's that for service? Thanks, theeil!!
[Android Apps and Games] mykro:
Really love being able to get a quick Catan fix on my phone, thanks theeil for the awesome effort you've put into this game.

My feedback:

1. The new graphics are really good. However the colours of the tiles are very strong and they clash with the primary colours of the pieces, particularly in the zoomed out view. Please consider "dimming" the tiles somewhat so their colours are a little more muted.

2. Similarly, the purple of the vacant spaces is too strong, it seems like a player with hundreds of purple houses! This could be a bit paler in colour.

3. A dialog for selecting discarded cards would be great.

4. The AI is really impressive considering the short time this has been in development. I did note that it is a little road-happy - it will keep building roads when it has already reached a good node and would be better off waiting a turn or two for enough cards to build a settlement. Getting a third settlement up quickly is crucial, and making that an explicit goal for the AI would make them much more competitive throughout the game.

5. Could the turn log show more info? "Penny rolled a 6. You got 1 grain, 2 lumber". Also, "Penny moved the robber and stole a lumber from you.".

6. It would be cool to highlight the map tiles as the dice are rolled by each player, so you can see in real time where you scored loot from.

I tried to give feedback appropriate to incremental development. I know asking for super AI, multiplayer, seafarers and variable maps is a bit much :)

Great work so far, really keen to see where this goes.
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
http://kuler.adobe.com/

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

those might help you with that

what do you mean exactly?

good ideas, both seconded

THIS is a very good idead - i really would like to see this one!
[Android Apps and Games] floric:
Simply want to say that it's a great game! The new graphics and these many updates are great. :)

But one little "bug":

If you have another language (for example german) then nearly all is german.

But the red buttons for trading, "end turn", "status"... are still english. But I think it is easy to understand and not really a bug. :)
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Some great ideas!

For 1 and 2: I'll work on this in the future. I haven't touched the town/city/road drawing recently, so it should be due for an update soon.

3: When someone rolls a 7, all players have to immediately discard half their resources if they have over 7 in total. Right now they are picked randomly. As of last night, I have a working version that asks you what to discard (and the AI also picks it's preferred discards.)

4: I consider the AI to be the most neglected part of my code. There's a lot of room for improvement, even with small tweaks (as we saw the last time I updated it - that was a really small change.)

5: To do this properly, I may need a separate "event log" that's different from a "turn log." Putting that in the turn log wouldn't make much sense because you can get resources during any turn. Also I want to do this in a way that allows for multiple human players.

6: Simple, but could be great! How about if I dim all the tiles that haven't just been rolled? Then it addresses #1 too.

@floric, I'm aware of this. I just need to work with my translators to find short enough words to fit on the buttons for each language. Right now I only have translated buttons for Chinese.

A couple questions for everyone:

How are you finding the trading with AI. When you propose a deal, each of them either accepts or rejects it. As is, they only accept if it lets them build something new and they don't think you're about to win shortly after trading. They never jump for an "amazing deal" unless it gives them something new. Do you find that they're accepting enough trades, or too many?

I'm also planning to have the AI propose trades with you. I'll need to restrict how often they will try though, so that you don't get 100 proposals per turn ;) My initial thought is to have them build whatever they can, then consider if a single 1:1 trade will let them build something else. If that's the case, they can make one proposal to you. Once I add counter-offers, this approach will be a little better too. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] mykro:
Hi theeil,

If you haven't seen it already, Pioneers (URL: pio DOT sourceforge DOT net) is a pretty good open-source Catan game written in Java. I play it all the time on Ubuntu, though there is a Windows download.

Pioneers has a pretty good client & server implementation. It would be really cool if your client could connect to a Pioneers server. Since it's in Java you could probably port the server to Android as well. Having this ability to host and/or join a Catan game from almost any operating system is unprecedented and would seriously rock.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
That sounds like a good idea, but I want it to be easy to start a server from anywhere. Most people won't be able to host an internet-wide game from their cell phone, so that would only work for people with on wifi with port forwarding, etc. It's actually written in C (using gtk for the ui) but looks like a cool project.

I'm thinking of having a universal server on the web that anyone could connect to and start a game. That way no player has to run a server, or worry about it shutting down if the game goes on all week.
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
wow that's really great! thanks for the tip!

here's a clickable link: http://pio.sf.net

that calls for an official inofficial Pioneers/Island Settlers protocol ;)
[Android Apps and Games] mykro:
Oops, sorry about that! I played with the source of a few different projects and I remembered the language of this one wrong.

Still think there's a lot that can be learnt from Pioneers - the AI is quite good in particular, and the custom maps are lots of fun. Its server implementation is confusing for most people though, so there are things that can be done better. I like your universal server idea.
[Android Apps and Games] tfinch2:
I saw this thread when it was first started, but I was just able to install the app yesterday. It is really impressive given the short amount of time. Once I play it a couple of times hopefully I will be able to provide some feedback.

I skimmed the thread and did not see it mentioned, but you might want to give JSettlers a look (since I'm a noob I can not link, but it's on sourceforge). It is an open source Java implementation of the game.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Another new release (1.2.0)

I released a new version to the market (and my website)

These updates were mostly based on feedback here, on my website, survey, and by email, so thanks for taking the time to contribute your thoughts!

Harvest development cards: get two free resources

Monopoly development cards: steal all the resources of a given type

Pick resources to discard (when someone rolls a 7 and you have over 7 cards)

Highlight tiles when their number is rolled

Wider outline on town and city icons

More info in turn logs

I've been really busy lately, but had some time to work on it today. Hope you guys like it!
[Android Apps and Games] finsmaniac02:
I for one can NOT wait until this has multiplayer from multiple devices with push notifications :-D

Don't matter if it's only android for now, got a couple people that would play with me lol.

AWESOME work so far though. Thanks so much!
[Android Apps and Games] BenjaminJC:
Updates

Neil,

These were some surprising updates. 0_o

I did not expect to see so much, so fast. Congratulations (love the new artwork).

I look forward to the AI overhaul.

-Ben
[Android Apps and Games] Mujib@r:
LOVE the new updates, esp. the highlighted resources after a roll. Thanks for all the hard work! It's much appreciated.
[Android Apps and Games] mykro:
Nice work on 1.2.0! All the new features are awesome. I think that's the full Catan ruleset now. Well worth buying the unlock :)

More feedback:

1. The tile highlight is excellent, but it is a bit confusing when a number is rolled twice. Is it possible to make it ramp up to a certain intensity/colour, then fade away a bit, but still be shaded? Then when you see it glow twice you know that number was rolled twice.

2. Maybe the robber being activated could be indicated by highlighting the desert tile. Or some sort of flash or glow of the robber circle as it moves.

3. Have you tried making the robber circle black? Using purple for a negative ("can't get any resources here") and purple for a positive ("can build here") is a visual design conflict. In fact, purple is one of the player colours in 6 player Catan, so you might consider a different colour now for the buildable locations if you can find one.

4. On the trading/discard screen, can you fit the number of cards held next to or superimposed over the icons on the left? This is easier to read than having them displayed in a separate row at the bottom. You can perhaps put the bank trades (as 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 buttons) on this screen too, eliminating the first trade popup dialog entirely.

5. A dice histogram is a good way to generate more trust in the algorithm - I just had a 7 rolled 4 times in a row! Something like this makes it really easy to see which numbers were above and below the average:

6. The zoomed in view is just a bit too close. On my screen it zooms in to 2 tiles wide and 2.5 tiles high. I almost never use it. I do have a 240x320 screen though. Do people with larger screens find it more useful?

7. You might as well associate a handy shortcut with the "search" physical button. Maybe "status", ie. to search/look at the other players. Or "trade", ie. search for resources.

Good stuff so far!
[Android Apps and Games] Sinas:
I was trying to improve the GUI of this game. I love this game, but i also love graphics.. :)

Current UI

My try to improve the UI:

@TS, please let me know what you think about this work in progress, and if you want to use it.. :)
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Cool! that looks pretty slick. Send me an email at omnionic at gmail and I can send you my UI textures so you can get the sizes needed. We can discuss some details and requirements. I like having labels on the buttons because it makes it more obvious. Then again, it's annoying to translate them...

New icon coming soon too!
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
I've already got some improvements done based on 1, 2, 3 and 7. Great ideas!

4: I'll work on consolidating these windows when I get a chance.

5. Someone else suggested roll stats previously, but I'm still thinking about where in the interface it belongs. Bottom of the player stats (below turn)?

6. I really intended the zoom view to make it more finger/thumb friendly. You should be able to zoom in and out really quickly, which I find more effective than panning. I'll consider working on that aspect some time in the future perhaps.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Release 1.2.1

I've been super busy in the last couple weeks, but none the less I managed to do another update tonight.

Release 1.2.1 brings some nice little updates:

Highlight now flashes on after each player rolls so it's more obvious

Click "search" button to open status window

Highlight the desert when someone rolls a 7

Added an option to discard automatically (avoid the popup in quick games)

Made the robber overlay image grey

New icon by Adam Garland (who did the graphics)

Avoid race condition which I think causes the crashes some people experienced quite randomly

Option to discard automatically when someone rolls a 7 and you have 8 or more resources

Most of these are based on feedback. I'm trying to develop in a "community oriented" way, because in the end, you guys play it a lot more than I do.
[Android Apps and Games] Vinny75:
Might be nice if you get the top buttons on one row like your design then move the map up and put an extra row at the bottom for status of victory points, card, etc.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Subtle improvements

As the title suggests, today's update is nothing dramatic, but mostly things that have been bugging me for a while.

Merged trade with bank and trade with players

New resource bar

New robber icon, black fill in purple outline towns/cities

Anti-aliasing in drawing (roads and numbers)

More accurate drawing (fix for galaxy tab)

Resource images in reference window

Fixed option to disable turn delay

Made another attempt at determining the cause of the random crash bug

Enjoy!
[Android Apps and Games] mykro:
Latest updates are awesome, really easy to see what's going on around the board now, and games go much faster. Couple more suggestions:

1. Long press on a resource icon at the bottom to initiate a trade for that resource, ie. launch the trade window and pre-select the combo.

2. Dynamically change the label of the "Trade with bank" button to show how many resources are required to activate it. ie. "Trade with bank (4:1)" or "Trade with bank (3:1)", whether the button is enabled or not. If two of a 2:1 resource is selected, the button could become enabled and say "Trade with bank (2:1)".

3. A little "2:1" icon overlaid on the resource icon in the trade window would also help pre-indicate which resources are favourable to trade.

The UI is becoming very polished. Can't wait to see the AI improvements!

edit: I should add, I've never ever seen a random crash, and I've played it heaps.
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
I implemented your suggestion. It's awesome! I was never happy with the slow drop-down box. I was also considering making the icons on the left to select instead (confusing), or have more at the top (distracting.)

I'm still thinking about the best place to indicate the trade ratio.
[Android Apps and Games] Vanquish46:
I think I was the first to comment, but I haven't really had a chance to try any of the new versions. I'm on vacation though so I've been playing a little. Wow! I really like all the changes you made. Only complaint is the difficulty, but I believe that you are working on that.

Great work!
[Android Apps and Games] netrunner7:
1) i installed the app with the old market version

2) upgrade to market version 2.2.6

-> If i select no the game the market page will not open, it says "app not found" (or similare, this is my transaltion)

-> I can upgrade the app with the menu by pressing it long and then selecting upgrade, this works ?

Why it is no more on the market, are you missing maybe some screen definitions for the htc tatto, or is only my screen definition corrupt using a custom rom ?
[Android Apps and Games] theeil:
Island Settlers development comes to an unfortunate end

I regret to announce that I am discontinuing development of Island Settlers, and have removed it from the Android Market.

This follows from a email discussion with a lawyer, Dr. Johannes Delmere, representing Catan GmbH in Germany. He threatened to press charges for violation of their IP if I didn’t remove it by today. His claim is that while the rules of a game are not subject to copyright, the “fable” created through the manifestation of their rules in a (island) scenario is their property. To indulge your curiosity, here are some excerpts:

Since I’m unwilling to accept the risk of a law suit, I have complied with their request.

I tried to identify what I’m actually infringing on, so I could adapt my application, but I wasn’t able to get any tangible information. For now, this decision stands. The lawyer doesn't seem interested in correction and compliance, just removal.

I’m sorry to let down those of you who have been following this project and have enjoyed playing it.

I heard something similar happened when an unofficial iPhone implementation disappeared from the app store shortly before an official version appeared. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an official Android version soon.

Please direct any complaints to info@catan.com.

Thanks for all the feedback and support! This has been an amazing experience.

Moving forward, I have plenty of ideas. I’ve been chatting with the gSettlers developer, and we’re considering working together on an original game concept in the new year.

Happy holidays! Get off your phone for a bit and spend the time with your families and friends. I wish you all the best.

Originally posted here:

http://omnionic.com/2010/12/island-settlers-development-comes-to-an-unfortunate-end/
[Android Apps and Games] ptronius:
I just sent the following email to info@catan.com:

I just wanted to let you know that I had been playing "Island Settlers" on my Android phone for the last two weeks and had decided, on the basis of the fun I was having playing the android game, that I would purchase the full "Settlers of Catan" board game for home use.

Now that your lawyers have forced the game to be removed from the Android market, I will NOT purchase your game. Your heavy-handed legal action was very bad public relations, and will probably end up hurting you much more than any problem the Island Settlers game might have caused you. In addition, you have removed a very well-designed promotional product that would have increased your game sales. You are doing yourselves great harm by forcing the removal of the Island Settlers game - it introduced your game to a whole new market segment (like me) and allowed us to get to know your game before buying the actual board game.

Your online version of Settlers of Catan is terrible - the Island Settlers game was much, much better. I was able to learn how to play Island Settlers in a matter of minutes, and all the controls were very easy to understand as well as the strategy involved in gameplay. Your online game is confusing, with difficult to understand controls and a non-intuitive interface. It makes your game appear to be difficult to learn and confusing to play and probably dissuades potential customers rather than encouraging them to buy your product.

I hope you will change your minds about forcing the removal of Island Settlers from the Android market. Your actions show very short-sighted thinking and poor judgment.
[Android Apps and Games] ptronius:
Now I have to figure out how to get the app reinstalled on my phone - I had uninstalled it because it wasn't updating correctly, only to find that it wasn't updating because it had been removed. Like an idiot, I hadn't done a Titanium Backup yet that included the game. Ayone have any suggestions?
[Android Apps and Games] cpuks:
Any one have apk of latest version of Island Settlers? Would be nice to heave this in this bad situation for us. Ehh what a vicked world we have now :/
[Android Apps and Games] Vinny75:
Would it be possible to open source your implementation?