Cheap phone

Thanks man, the more info the merrier, I'll get reading.

I've just finished a game for Windows, just trying to see if I can get it released now. But after looking around, I really think it's best to do simple games for as many platforms as possible. So I want to get started on this whole tablet/phone stuff and see where it leads me. For one thing, I need to start working with touch-screen instead of mouse, so my whole thinking about games needs to alter slightly. I'll look for the cheapest possible phone/tablet and try to think up game ideas that work on that. Then I can look into other platforms.

As you said in an earlier post, Windows 8 looks most promising right now since it's under-saturated. I'm going to install W8 on this PC, then maybe get some touch-screen device to develop simpler W8 games for tablets or whatever. So I guess right the best bet might be some cheap W8 tablet or... something, lol xD

Your welcome farflamex <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Just remember the windows phone 8 store is for windows 8 phones only. While the Windows 8 store is for tablets, and PC running Windows 8 OS only. I just don't want you to be disappointed with the platform you choose, and there differences.

Also I believe you need windows 8 pro, and some other system requirements to run the new visual studios development tools. For example my PC is 3 years old so the windows phone 8 emulator wont run on my PC. Just read over Microsoft's dev centers tools system requirements before purchasing Windows 8 OS.

Luckily, it was W8 Pro that I ordered. It was �100 direct from Microsoft but only �50 on Amazon - no idea why but I read through and people were saying the same thing, but the Amazon version is the correct one.

That'll allow me to develop for W8 Store then. So now I need a cheap W8 phone or something for testing.

Here is a cheap Windows Phone 8:

Nokia Lumia 620

It says in the U.K. starting at ?150 but look at the hardware specs 512MB of RAM. Not much there but the rest of it sounds like the first Samsung Galaxy S.

I guess if you could get a game to run well on it it would run on all Windows Phone 8's. Sounds like what you were looking for. I just wish they sold them in the U.S. I would probably get one.

Edit:

If you read down that page it says that "the Lumia 620 is not such a great choice for pocket gamers". But nether was the first Samsung Galaxy S that I used last year.

On a good note it looks like IE11 may support WebGL in the future which would make your games run fast on that phone.

Looks like a winner, cheap and it's got plenty of good reviews on Amazon. It doesn't look like the best phone out there but that's the point really, and people are saying it's pretty good, even with games. Thanks :)

I don't suppose you know if I can just buy one of these and then switch my sim from my old phone over to it? I barely use my phone but if I'm going to buy this for developing, I may as well use it as my phone too. I know so little about phones and it's so hard to find anything other than hype and advertising, I don't know how to switch my handset. Can I just buy a new one and carry on with my pay-and-go style? I have no idea where I ask for this kind of advice.

I'm not sure if you can just switch your sim over like that. Your current phone would have to run on one of the same frequencies that the Nokia Lumia 620 runs on for that to work. I would just ask your cellular provider if that would be possible maybe you will get lucky.

I know one of the nice things about the Nokia Lumia 620 is that it is advertized as an unlocked phone. That means that you are free to choose your cellular provider as long as they sell sim's that support your new phones frequencies. But some of those phones are sim free which means you would have to activate it with a sim free provider like T-Mobile.

Here is a list of pay as you go offers, and providers for the Nokia Lumia 620 in the UK:

http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/products/phone/lumia620/buynow/?ct=Pre

There are probably more if you ask around but those are right from the manufacturers website.

I've decided to go ahead and buy it anyway, since I do need a phone upgrade, even though I never use mine. Still, perfect time to upgrade while I'm looking for something to develop on. Maybe I could develop without a contract at all? I'll see what happens when it turns up, but it does look like the perfect cheap phone for a developer.

I'm intrigued to get working on ideas for touch screens. I can't even think how a platform game is gonna work, but it'll be fun finding out.

farflamex Do you remember me saying how I wish they soled the Nokia Lumia 620 in the US because I would probably get one? Well look what I found:

Sleeper hit? Nokia Lumia 620 already a top selling phone on US retailer

and:

Nokia Lumia 620 available in the U.S. through Expansys, just $289.99

It comes fully unlocked, and they say "as an unlocked world-phone it should play nicely with AT&T and will also work okay with T-Mobile". So if anyone from the US is reading this, and looking for a cheap fully unlocked Windows Phone 8 you can get them here:

Nokia Lumia 620 Windows Phone

Let us know how C2 games perform on your new phone because I am considering getting one now.

Will do, thanks for your advice. Even better, I told my Mum this story and she decided to buy it me for my birthday, so it's even cheaper now :p

Wow! That's a pretty nice birthday present, and even a nicer Mum you got there.

Since your going to be developing Windows Phone 8 games now you might want to bookmark this:

Add ads to Windows Phone 8 game

In case you want to try monetizing your games with ad revenue.

By the way Happy Birthday!   <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Cheers, nice one and thank you :)

Hi Wink,

I got my Lumia 620 today and I'm well impressed! Bear in mind I'm new to these things so I guess I'm a little bit easily pleased. Still, it's great fun just playing with Construct and seeing what I can do.

Some tests. I did a physics object test, just randomly creating rocks which fall down into a pit. On my PC, it can easily fill the entire screen without any slow-down, but on the phone it managed about 20 rocks before it started to struggle, and by about 40 rocks it would be 'unplayable'. Still, I think that's quite good since physics objects are fairly stressful on a processor, especially as these had about 8 points.

Sprites weren't so good though. I just had 64x64 pixel sprites being created and it started to slow down faster than I'd hoped - after around 70 sprites it dropped below 60fps and reached 30fps at about 150 sprites.

Still, great fun to play around with and I'm sure it can handle simpler games.

farflamex Congrats on getting your new phone, and thanks for the performance update on your new phone.

Yes, physics are a mobile performance killer but it looks like Windows Phone 8 beats Android big time on performance.

30fps with 150 sprites is still playable, and since your new phone is on the lower end of the scale hardware wise any game you make will run on all windows phone 8's. Also you could probably cut down your sprite count if you creatively use tiled backgrounds instead of sprites whenever possible. 150 sprites is more than enough to make short platformer levels.

Strangely we've found that Base64 encoding images in the exported js allows for many more sprites onscreen without a drop in fps. A good way to get a sense of what the performance gains can be like is to load the exported html in the browser.