Avadon/Avernum and Hi-res tablets (nexus 10)

[spawneh]

Hi,

 

I first learnt about Avadon over a year ago and from the start I was intrigued, what looked like an old style rpg I could really get into. I was really excited to play this and have it as a travel game I could play while heading to work via train.

 

In December last year I purchased my first tablet, a Google Nexus 10. I thought that this was the time, I could now grab Avadon and play it on my ride to work. I thought I would get the demo just to check it out and then purchase soon after. However once I tryed out the demo I found that the UI was extremely small and almost impossible to use. Avadon was relatively new to android so I sent off an email about my issue and quickly recieved a response, stating that they were aware of the issue and a fix was soon to come.

 

I have waited patiently for this fix, it was mentioned in the email that the fix would be released in February and I would be contacted when it was released. February came and went and I had no response. So I sent off another email and I have yet to receive a response.

 

I then hear of Avernum being released for Android, so I quickly check the forums and find that it also suffers from the same issue. Poor ui for Hi-res tablets.

 

I want to know several things, has the UI issue been fixed for Hi-res tablets such as my Nexus 10 for Avadon just without any indication? Does Avernum escape from the pit have a suitably sized UI for the hi-res tablet? Is there still the possibility of a fix for either of these?

 

Thankyou,

 

Spawneh (James)

[spawneh]

Bump.

 

Still waiting for some information on this, good or bad.

[Earth]

Avadon and AEFTP ports were made by third party and you can send your question to androidsupport@spiderwebsoftware.com.

[cbecker78]

Bump.

 

Still waiting for some information on this, good or bad.

 

The UI is still very difficult for touch-interaction on High-Res Tablets. It is a breeze though using the stylus that comes with the Galaxy Note Tablets for the 10.1 and 8.0. This is a pointed, pen-like inductive stylus. One of the rounded capacitive stylus types that you can get at Best Buy or similar would probably improve usibility significantly and will work with your nexus (if you don't mind the 10-20 US dollars you would have to spend on it). Very useful with a tablet though, imo. Don't even bother with the cheapo spongy styluses. (And just in case you didn't know, the Galaxy note styluses only work with Note devices or other screens that respont to that type of stylus).

[BrettTurner]

I'm playing Avadon reasonably well on the new Google Nexus 7 at 1900ish by 1200ish resolution.

 

It was unplayable on the Nexus 7 out of the box, at least using a finger (as opposed to a stylus), the squares were too small.

 

BUT there is a simple trick which fixes the whole problem!

 

Go into settings (sweep down from the right half of the top of the screen and select settings; or, touch All Apps and then Settings). Scroll down to the Accessibility section. Tap to open it. Scroll down to magnification settings. Turn it on.

 

Once you turn on magnification settings, you can triple tap the screen to zoom in. While zoomed, you can zoom in or out with pinch zooming, and drag two fingers on the screen to move the zoomed-in window. It's mostly just like pinch zooming was included in the port (which it absolutely should have been), except that you have to triple tap to turn it on, and you can't zoom out to more than about x2. You can zoom in as far as you like, enough to tap a single square in combat with 100% accuracy. Triple tap again to return to unzoomed screen.

 

With magnification settings on, Avadon is very playable on the Nexus 7. I assume there is probably a similar setting on the Nexus 10 and perhaps other high res Android tablets, but I don't have them so I don't know.

 

I have a feeling that owners of high res tablets, especially 7 inch ones, should all enable magnification settings, as there is probably a whole bunch of other tablet software made to work only on low res tablets.

 

If Spiderweb informs users about the magnification settings fix, I suspect that the Android version will sell better. I would certainly buy additional Avadon/Avernum products if released for Android.

 

And next time, make sure that any Android port includes pinch zooming from the get-go. It's a very well done port generally, the games plays well and I have had no problems, maybe one freeze in two weeks of play.

[Randomizer]

The Android port isn't done by Spiderweb Software. Only Mac, iPad, and Windows PC are done by Jeff.