BYOND on Androids and Apple devices? in Off Topic

ID:248270
 
Feb 4 2012, 12:00 pm
Hey guys, :)

I was wondering if it was at all possible to have BYOND on Android and Apple devices (Iphones, tablets, and smartphones)?

It'd be great to have access to BYOND I.M./chat, as well as seeing if the games are up, and checking up on updates.
#1 Feb 4 2012, 12:26 pm
If I was so desperate to play it on my phone, I'd use Teamviewer, and control my comp through the phone. Though as others have stated it may eat up battery and slow the phone a tad.
#2 Feb 4 2012, 12:46 pm
I would like an app too. I have a couple nice pixel art apps that work very well. It's handy when I have my kids around and I have to be in the room with them, instead of my computer room.
#3 Feb 4 2012, 1:41 pm
In response to Leur (#1)
Leur wrote:
If I was so desperate to play it on my phone, I'd use Teamviewer, and control my comp through the phone. Though as others have stated it may eat up battery and slow the phone a tad.

No one is "desperate", and no one is asking for the actual Seeker client. Maybe Dream Daemon and Dream Maker, if not just the Friends list.
#4 Feb 4 2012, 1:51 pm
Maybe if the Flash client ever comes out
#5 Feb 4 2012, 1:59 pm
In response to Falacy (#4)
Falacy wrote:
Maybe if the Flash client ever comes out

Huh? You don't need Flash.
#6 Feb 4 2012, 2:39 pm
In response to Psychii (#5)
Psychii wrote:
Huh? You don't need Flash.

BYOND itself will never be designed for mobile use, they have said this countless times. They do, however, claim to be working on a Flash client. Which could be used to release BYOND content on mobile devices.
#7 Feb 4 2012, 2:41 pm
In response to Falacy (#6)
Falacy wrote:
Psychii wrote:
Huh? You don't need Flash.

BYOND itself will never be designed for mobile use, they have said this countless times. They do, however, claim to be working on a Flash client. Which could be used to release BYOND content on mobile devices.


Could you please link me to the page where they were discussing that? I'm really interested.
#8 Feb 4 2012, 2:43 pm
Seeing as how BYOND doesn't even have a proper Mac client I can't imagine it ever running on an iPhone.
#9 Feb 4 2012, 3:20 pm (Edited on Feb 4 2012, 3:43 pm)
In response to SuperAntx (#8)
Psychii wrote:
Could you please link me to the page where they were discussing that? I'm really interested.
The Flash client was mentioned in the recent BYOND News (apparently that link doesn't fully work, just click the 'Software Stuff' link near the beginning of that post yourself). However, they've been claiming to have a working Flash client for like a year...

SuperAntx wrote:
Seeing as how BYOND doesn't even have a proper Mac client I can't imagine it ever running on an iPhone.
That's more Apple/Mac's fault than BYOND's fault. How many games that run on Windows also have Mac versions available? The iPhone probably has more games available than the Mac does lol
The link that I posted to was about Flash running on the Android. If BYOND can run in Flash, and Flash can run on Android, then you should be able to play BYOND games on your phone. Flash seems as though it may be coming to the iPhone as well, if it hasn't already.
#10 Feb 4 2012, 3:41 pm
In response to Falacy (#9)
Falacy wrote:
That's more Apple/Mac's fault than BYOND's fault. How many games that run on Windows also have Mac versions available? The iPhone probably has more games available than the Mac does lol

Hah, you're probably right about that. Though, it does seem like more and more games are on Mac now. In addition to all the Valve stuff every time I buy an indie bundle I always see versions for both Mac and Linux. Game Maker, Torque, Unity, they all have Mac versions. It seems the indie scene is the only one bothering with it for now.

The link that I posted to was about Flash running on the android. If BYOND can run in Flash, and Flash can run on Android, then you should be able to play BYOND games on your phone. Flash seems as though it may be coming to the iPhone as well, if it hasn't already.

I'm still super excited about the upcoming Flash client, it really does seem to be BYOND's trump card to keep it afloat in the coming years. HTML5 is great and all but it's not ready for primetime just yet.
#11 Feb 4 2012, 7:56 pm
To say it's Apple's fault is disingenuous. They are under no obligation to cater to developers who depend upon the Windows API, just as it's not Microsoft's fault that Cocoa-based programs won't run under Windows.

However long ago, BYOND decided to be dependent on Windows APIs and controls (and DirectX) rather than use cross platform libraries like Qt, wxWidgets, Boost, OpenGL, etc. If it's anyone's fault BYOND doesn't run natively on OS X and Linux, it's BYOND's, but it's not so much a "fault" as much as it was a choice.

According to forum history, at one point Tom did have a version of BYOND that used Qt widgets rather than strictly Windows', but I'm not sure why they never proceeded with that. It would have made an OS X and Linux release much more realistic.
#12 Feb 6 2012, 11:03 pm
We never had a cross-platform UI. The very first version of the front-end was written in X/Xt/Motif, and for a while there was an OpenMotif project that I was hoping to give us cross-platorm compatibility, but it never panned out. I looked into Qt but at the time it wasn't free. I figured that we would eventually be really big and then it wouldn't be a big deal to just have people write native ports, but of course that never happened either :(

Truthfully, I'm inclined to agree with those that promote "UI-less" games (basically where the UI is a part of the hud/map), as those do look better and are industry standard. They are also, of course, much easier to make cross-platform. The only real nuisance is that they make doing things like chat (obv. extremely important in multiplayer setups) less efficient and a little more work for the dev, but nowadays we even have BYOND libraries to do that.
#13 Feb 6 2012, 11:34 pm
In response to Tom (#12)
Tom wrote:
I looked into Qt but at the time it wasn't free.


My mistake. I believe there was a post in the old guru forums, maybe by Air Mapster, about you having a Qt build working.
#14 Feb 6 2012, 11:46 pm
In response to Airjoe (#13)
I know that Air Mapster suggested we use Qt when we updated the server a few years ago, but I didn't want to split the distribution into two separate units.

Many of the problems with BYOND are just historical-- a lot of the useful tools & libraries today either weren't around or weren't nearly as polished when we considered them. The quality of free libraries is astonishing these days, and I envy anyone starting a project now. While it's true that, with some work, we could integrate new components into BYOND; it's a little harder than it sounds due to the amount of legacy code, stability concerns, and just good old fashioned workload. With a new project, you really only have to worry about the last part (and it's not as bad because new projects are fun).
#15 Feb 7 2012, 9:31 am
Well if you ever want help...