The Pawn :: iOS (iPad, iPhone and iThings)
Good evening
How is progress going on porting The Pawn to the iPad going? My wife's itching to play it 
Regards
Emil
Good evening
How is progress going on porting The Pawn to the iPad going? My wife's itching to play it
Regards
Emil
Comments
Sorry, been delayed on this a bit. I need to get back to it. Stefan has managed to get a static iOS build working. We need to build the latest code and start making our application to Apple.
Hopefully we will get something into testflite. Do you want to be a beta tester?
Yes, won't mind to be one.
Hi, can I also be a beta tester for The Pawn on ios, please???
I played and completed both pawn and thieves on amiga when they were released in Italy :-)
@robriz, sure thing!
Good timing, because we're planning to finish the development of the iOS version next. We'll definitely be needing beta testers!
There are a few technical problems with the build, and we have to deal with the Apple submission process, but after that we should be able to put out a beta on testflight.
It looks like only iOS 8 and above can be supported, as this appears to be set by Apple.
Got a spare ipad at work that I can borrow for testing purposes.
Great!!
Hi Everyone,
Apple Testflight Beta of The Pawn
We've started the ball rolling on the iOS testing programme with testflight. The way it works is you are sent testflight invites into the beta programme from Apple. If you PM me your email address (or one you want to use for beta testing), I'll send you out an invite.
Then you load the Apple testflight app, which requires iOS 9.1 or later and that app performs the necessary downloads and update notifications. This is all explained in the invite.
Be advised, the version currently built might not work on real iOS devices, it's had almost no testing on real iPads or iPhones, although it seems to work fine in the Apple simulator.
But that's what testing is all about!
Pricing
It appears Apple still have their "tier" pricing model. We can choose 99c or $1.99. Unfortunately, that price is the final consumer price including fees and sales tax (Apple take 30%). So, for example the 1.99 tier nets only GBP1.16, USD $1.40 or EU 1,34.
We're currently going with 1.99 according to our "pound a punt" model, since it nets just over 1 pound (eg $1.40 ~= GBP 1.08).
We don't plan to make profit on the products, but we'd like it to cover costs. Apple memberships costs $99/year. Currently, the first year's been paid for by the Android sales. :-)
Additionally, Apple could reject the project on any ground whatsoever and we have no comeback; not even a refund. Let's hope they don't.
Beta Testing
Anyone that participates in beta testing will receive a free copy of the final product as a thank you.
We really appreciate all your help with real devices.
Thanks!
-- Strand Team.
I jumped the gun a bit.
Builds that go into beta have to be reviewed first by Apple. This is in addition to being reviewed for release.
I've submitted our iOS version for beta review. Not sure how long this takes. a few days maybe.
In the meantime, you can go ahead an PM me emails for beta test, and I'll add them and you'll get invites from Apple. But until Apple approve the app for beta, you wont' actually be able to download it.
What larks 'eh!
Approved! external beta test should now be possible!
A new iOS build 1.0.2 (4) has been uploaded. Minor image colour glitch fixed.
Got it all.
First impressions : looks good.
Possible bugs :
The location shows that I'm at the gatehouse, but I cannot drag the picture down to view it.
Map and objects (inventory) restores just fine.
Will test further when I have some time
Thanks for the feeback. I'll look into the flickering problem.
There is no picture at the gateway, so you wont be able to reveal one after a save. This was one of the bug fixes, to not restore the wrong picture after a save.
But in normal game progress, the picture will be the last one loaded even if you've moved to another location.
Ah, good to know, thanks.
New iOS version posted to testflight: 1.0.3.2
With the following changes:
ADD actionbar compass toggle.
This is a useful feature anyhow, but the iPad already has a swipe from right action, and this can make it difficult to swipe the compass without bringing up Apple's own right sidebar. So you can click on an action bar icon instead.
ADD: actionbar icons can fall into overflow menu. Needed for small devices like iPhone SE.
iPad default font is now 20 point.
Hi, I think there is a bug in the stone bridge location: typing "climb cliff" the reply is "which one, the cliff or the Cliff?"
Thanks for that. There's another one like this at the narrow track, "which track...?"
I think these are bugs in the original game. It might be possible to fix them using extreme cunning, but i can't be sure.
Will have to investigate.
Other news: put out a new iOS beta today. Should make things a bit nicer on an iPad in landscape where the compass now moves according to the picture drawer.
Bug in the original game indeed!
Today, i managed to build the original game source code and run it.
So there's now the possibility to make a release with the re-built code, and therefore the original bugs could be fixed. I know how to fix this problem, but it can only be done by changing the original code.
I guess bug fixes don't count as classic vs modern because they are not changes.
Fixed!
Over here, we fix bugs in the original games :-)
Bravo!
Testing Pawn on IPad: user input
When tapping on the map or on one of the highlighted words, there is a moment you don't know if your command is accepted or not. And you wait and wait.. Maybe the pointer should change to show that the action is in progress?
Nice. I seem to recall a similar one about "the Shaft or the shaft" when playing it back in the eighties. But if so, it was probably not until after you get past the alchemists, and I haven't been that far yet with this version.
There the "narrow track" or the "narrow track" as well. I think my fix covers all these cases.
However, it's going to be some time before this version is ready for release because it's a total change to the game codebase. At some point we might put out a test version for people to kick the tires.
@robriz, good point. I have seen delays sometimes that are a bit too long.
So far no big issues, all seem to be well. Should be able to spend a bit more time in detail with the pawn as I was busy setting up a new server and VM's for my company.
Great. If you're running the iOS version, hang on a bit, i'm about to release a new build.
iOS build released with Theme selector.