ZDefense

[trjp]

Could you share your experience on how to make a Gameplay video?

I've spent a lot of time looking into this and there are a few options - none of which is ideal...

Option 1
Use a decent webcam (HD pref.) or digicam (HD video pref.) and setup your phone so you can video the screen directly. This has a few problems - not the least of which are your fingers getting in the way whilst you're playing!!
You also need to ensure the camera can do short-focus (for phone screens - their being quite small) as well as fixed-focus/metering (as automatic systems will be confused by moving objects on the screen).

Option 2
If you can find a Samsung Galaxy S or Galaxy Tab device, they have the ability to output their screen to composite video via their headphone sockets (special cable needed - eBay etc. will supply it). This is the best approach bar none, but as far as I know they are the only 2 devices which can do this (and not every version of them has the support as it can be locked-out by carriers).

Option 3
Some newer Android devices will output HDMI - capturing this is possible but it's not cheap by any means...

Option 4
The emulator or an x86 build of Android running under Virtualbox or similar may run your game well enough to screencap it.
I've found that the latest release of the emulator running 2.2 or later isn't actually too bad - a game which gets 60fps on a phone does 20-25 on my PC, which is smooth enough for a Youtube video...
Android x86 I've had less success with - I can't even get an APK installed - but some people have managed this so you might get lucky...

[zergling_zzh]

:( you destroyed my day/night cycle. tried this one level until 3:30 am last night

I have to say your level design is really really good. Some levels take me about 2 hours to finally make it (or maybe I just suck )

Best Regards,
Nicolas

It is normal to try more than 10 times to pass a hard level. Some normal levels such as "Swarm" "Spread" are a bit hard too. We are going to put more tower informations like damage shoot interval etc to tower info panel on next release, Or it is too difficult for players to pass some hard level. We are going to add more game modes on next release, like easy mode (Creeps have only 70% HP) for users who think game is too hard to make them less frustrated, extreme mode(1 life, users can reduce start cash to try the least start cash) for some crazy players.

[Nicolas Gramlich]

We are going to add more game modes on next release, like easy mode (Creeps have only 70% HP) for users who think game is too hard to make them less frustrated, extreme mode(1 life, users can reduce start cash to try the least start cash) for some crazy players.

That sounds great for "hardcore" gamers
Especially in combination with OpenFeint that would be pretty awesome

[zergling_zzh]

Could you share your experience on how to make a Gameplay video?

I've spent a lot of time looking into this and there are a few options - none of which is ideal...

Thank you for sharing! I have made a gameplay video, you can see it on https://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.zstudio.avi . I cut some videos record from HDMI output (Thank Nicolas for recording them) and videos I record by camera to make it.

Actually the video is not good comparing to Hexdefense's one https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... rch_result which looks fantastic . But Hexdefense is ZDefense's main competitor

[zergling_zzh]

We are going to add more game modes on next release, like easy mode (Creeps have only 70% HP) for users who think game is too hard to make them less frustrated, extreme mode(1 life, users can reduce start cash to try the least start cash) for some crazy players.

That sounds great for "hardcore" gamers
Especially in combination with OpenFeint that would be pretty awesome

You are right OpenFeint & Extreme Mode combination is really cool Will add it after next release.

[zergling_zzh]

his version show more loves to generally TD players, like more tower information and Easy Mode. It also make "Hard-core" players happier, because we introduce "Extreme Mode".

Change logs:
Display tower's damage and shot interval on Tower Panel.

Better explosion visual effect. You can disable it by turning off "Intense Graphics" on Options screen if you use a slow phones
Support Easy Mode & Extreme Mode. On Easy Mode, creeps only have 70% HP. On Extreme Mode, you only have one life and can manually reduce start cash to increase the difficulty.
Experimental Map Editor. You can enable it by clicking top-left top-right bottom-right and bottom-left corners on About screen.

[Nicolas Gramlich]

You can enable it by clicking top-left top-right bottom-right and bottom-left corners on About screen.

If that's not an easteregg, I don't know...

[Duiker101]

i wasn't able to open it XD is it avaible in the free version? i like the game and i'll probably buy it. but i think it's sometimes too hard... anyway a thing that would really make me happy is online sharing of the maps... and different map sizes

[zergling_zzh]

You can enable it by clicking top-left top-right bottom-right and bottom-left corners on About screen.

If that's not an easteregg, I don't know...

Actually it is also in app's change log. But I don't think there are many people who can notice that.

[zergling_zzh]

i wasn't able to open it XD is it avaible in the free version? i like the game and i'll probably buy it. but i think it's sometimes too hard... anyway a thing that would really make me happy is online sharing of the maps... and different map sizes

You mean the easter egg? It is also available in the free version. After click 4 corners, return to main screen, you'll see some additional menu items.

I am thinking of make normal mode easier by increasing the start cash, because we've provided Extreme Mode. In some levels like "Sun flowers", actually the start cash is near to the least start cash to pass the level.

Online sharing the maps is our goal. But it is only available in the paid version. We've implemented a feature that the players can download new maps from our server. In next version, we'll add a simple feature to let other players to send the map they made to our mail box, we'll review it before publishing to our maps server. The longterm goal is to build a community to review it and rate the difficulty , then the players can find the maps fit to their TD Skills.

We won't provide bigger map size, because the cell will be too small to be clicked. We already can provide small map by filling some wall cells .