Can we have an Android port please?

[Tind]

Dear Teltale!
I have been thinking about buying Walking Dead, but I always hesitate, because I can't really see myself as playing with a "simple" (not literally what I mean!) game compared to Battlefield 3 or Mass Effect 3 on PC, but when I saw that there will be an iOS port with new touch interface, my heart started pounding!

Only problem is, that I own an Android device, a Sony Ericson Neo V phone with 1 core 1Ghz CPU and Adreno 205 GPU. Dead Trigger with Tegra 3 graphics (water effects+ragdoll effects+advanced lighting) runs fine on this device.

This is how it looks:




(Please note that the minor graphical bugs you see are not present during gameplay, the program used to make the screenshot is responsible for those bugs)

I assume if Dead Trigger can run with advanced graphics like that on a 1 core ARMv7 CPU+Adreno 205 GPU, then Walking Dead could run with minor or no lag at all.

So could you please port it for Android too? Like I said, I hesitated about the purchase of the PC version, but I would pick up all episodes on Google Play, that is 100%.

Please don't let down your fans by making this an Apple exclusive title. That would not just hurt your fans, but also would not be good on financial side. Apple is great, iPhone/iPad are neat devices, however in almost all major countries (including the United States and most European countries) iOS sales are nowhere near Android sales.

Just in the US 51% of smartphone users are Android users and iOS is "only" 32%.

So please make the Walking Dead episodes for Android too

[Zeruis]

While it would be great to see the episodes in Android devices, didn't TT say that it would be too hard to release the episodes on the devices due to the advanced specs?

[Tind]

Originally Posted by Zeruis

While it would be great to see the episodes in Android devices, didn't TT say that it would be too hard to release the episodes on the devices due to the advanced specs?

I don't know, but Madfinger Games and Gameloft release games now that are optimised for all devices and the files are stored on the Google server so they wouldn't have to bother with that either.

It is true, that there are more kinds of GPUs in Android devices and more testing/optimization would be needed, but the sales would be twice as much too.

If they really want to make a profit, it would not be wise to leave out Android devices. Even though Final Fantasy 3 is really overpriced, it earned more than $1 million only on Android devices in 1 month. I think that's not bad for a mobile phone game. Leaving out Android would be like leaving out X-Box 360 or PS3 and only release it for the other one.

Also, TT would not have to start making the Android version from 0, they already have some things done (like the new UI and controls).

[Milosuperspesh]

next people will want a nintendo 3ds version...

people also want on time releases once a month and lots of spoilery info on the game.

sheesh

[Tind]

Originally Posted by Milosuperspesh

next people will want a nintendo 3ds version...

people also want on time releases once a month and lots of spoilery info on the game.

sheesh

Porting to 3DS is a bit different than to Android, so many changes would have to be made that I don't even know why do you mention the 2 together.


Any company that cares about their fans and of course profit, ports the mobile game that they release/released on iOS to Android too.

[Milosuperspesh]

i mentioned it cos sooner or later theres going to be a thread for each of the remaining formats...

pc and consoles are better in everyway compared to tablets and phones which basically need to be attached to a power source to run it other wise the battery will die quickly and so you can't play it...hence more whinging..

[Tind]

Originally Posted by Milosuperspesh

i mentioned it cos sooner or later theres going to be a thread for each of the remaining formats...

pc and consoles are better in everyway compared to tablets and phones which basically need to be attached to a power source to run it other wise the battery will die quickly and so you can't play it...hence more whinging..

I sense that you don't even like that it was ported to iOS

Porting from iOS to Android is not as a big job like poring it to 3DS or Vita, that is why most companies release their mobile games for Android and iOS, since if you make it for one of them, it's not that hard (I'm not saying it is easy) to port it to the other.

[Milosuperspesh]

i'm indifferent lol

mainly cos the only apple products i use is a 4th gen ipod video with itunes and a 1st gen shuffle thats it lol

[toothiersnow]

i once asked this very same question on these forums and got the answer that porting to android isnt as easy as iOS as there are multiple android devices which operate on different versions of android, and each have different specs. so unlike with the standardised iPad/iPhone, porting to android would not be a straight forward task, and if they started porting to the higher end android tablets, those with lower end ones would get all pissy about it and demand it got ported to there specifications. And for a time/reward point of view, porting to a very small number of android tablets would probably not be as fiscally rewarding as iOS.

TL DR: Quit ya bitchin'

[Tind]

Originally Posted by toothiersnow

i once asked this very same question on these forums and got the answer that porting to android isnt as easy as iOS as there are multiple android devices which operate on different versions of android, and each have different specs. so unlike with the standardised iPad/iPhone, porting to android would not be a straight forward task, and if they started porting to the higher end android tablets, those with lower end ones would get all pissy about it and demand it got ported to there specifications. And for a time/reward point of view, porting to a very small number of android tablets would probably not be as fiscally rewarding as iOS.

TL DR: Quit ya bitchin'

Why on Earth would they port it to just tablets? Most people use phones, porting it to tablets (either iOS or Android) only would be a stupid idea.
Yes, porting to Android would take a bit more time, but wouldn't the profit+the gratitude of the fans compensate for the extra time it took? What else could they possible ask for besides more money and more fans?

Like at the iPhone 4, a phone with at least 1 core 1Ghz ARMv7 cpu+Adreno 205/PowerVR 530 gpu should be enough to run it if ported right, this would cover most of the Android users. Yes there is a small percentage who uses old phones with ARMv6, but if they can handle the people who own Iphone 3G and 3GS, then they could handle those too.

[Macfly77]

Telltale's crofael posted this in April:

Originally Posted by crofael

We currently have no plans to do releases on Android. The main reason has to do with hardware. iOS devices all have a similar profile: there's an easily identifiable minimum amount of memory, CPU and GPU power that we can target from an engine standpoint.

Now think about Android. How many different Android devices from how many different manufacturers are available? In the hundreds. And for the most part, they are all extremely disparate in their hardware specifications. Between this device fragmentation and the fact that most Android devices on the market are not all that great for gaming, we'd rather focus on making our engine better on the platforms we already do support.

All that being said, I'm a programmer and so I'm not up to speed on what our sales and marketing plans are for the future, so it's entirely possible that at some point we'll start putting our games on Android. But in the meantime I'm afraid it's not in the cards.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :/

[Tind]

Warning! Wall of text incoming!

That is just really sad to hear.

Rockstar games was able to bring GTA 3 and Max Payne in the same quality on Android as they released it on iOS.

"most Android devices on the market are not all that great for gaming"
Now that is not true. If they really mean this, then they should say the Iphone 4 is not good for gaming, but instead they released the game for it. Yes there are obsolete Android phones and tablets with outdated ARMv6 CPU that could not run the game with acceptable FPS, but they can easily roll out these phones by setting Google Play to check build.prop for this line:
"ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a"

If the phone has this line, that means it has enough juice to run it, at least most of the times, there are a few exceptions. By exception I mean that there are some CPUs that are ARMv7, but only have Adreno 200 GPU, which I assume would be slow for this game. But finding out which phones are these is not that hard, it didn't even took me a minute to find these phone models on wikipedia.

So rolling out the potential weak devices is actually quite easy, all they need to do is set Google Play to check the build.prop for the mentioned line and set the phones with ARMv7 CPU but Adreno 200 GPU, to be not compatible...these phones would be:

HTC Explorer, HTC Desire C, Motorola Defy Mini XT320, LG Optimus L3 E400, LG Optimus L5 E610, Sony Xperia Miro, Sony Xperia Tipo, Sony Xperia Tipo Dual, Motorola Motoluxe XT615, Samsung Galaxy Mini 2, Nokia Lumia 610, Huawei Ascend Y200, Acer Liquid Glow, LG Optimus L7, Motorola Defy XT XT535, Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus, Samsung Omnia M, Huawei Ascend G300, ZTE Blade II, HTC Desire V(WCDMA)/VT(TD-SDMA) (China Only), HTC Desire VC T328d, Huawei Ascend C8812, Acer Stream/Liquid, Acer neoTouch S200, Dell Venue Pro (Lightning), Dell Streak, Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile REGZA Phone T-01C, HP Compaq AirLife 100, HTC Desire, HTC HD2, HTC 7 Mozart, HTC 7 Surround, HTC 7 Trophy, HTC HD7, HTC 7 Pro, Nexus One, Huawei SmaKit S7, Lenovo LePhone, LG Optimus Q, LG Optimus Z, LG Quantum, LG Panther, Pantech IM-A600S, Pantech IM-A650S, Sharp LYNX SH-10B, Sharp LYNX 3D SH-03C, Samsung Focus, Samsung Omnia 7, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Toshiba dynapocket T-01B/KG01, Toshiba TG01/TG02/TG03., Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile REGZA Phone IS04(TSI04), Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile T006 (TS006)/iida X-Ray (TSX06), HTC Arrive, HTC Droid Incredible, HTC Evo 4G, LG Apollo GW990, LG Fathom VS750, LG GW820 eXpo, LG GW825 IQ, LG Optimus 7, Sharp IS01 (SHI01)/IS03 (SHI03), Sony Ericsson S004 (SO004)/S005 (SO005)/S006 (SO006)/iida G11 (SOX02)/S007 (SO007), Toshiba dynapocket IS02 (TSI01)/K01, Toshiba T004 (TS004), Pantech Sirius α IS06 (PTI06), Kyocera Echo, Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile T007 (TS007), Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile T008 (TS008), NEC Casio CA007, Kyocera K009 (KY009), Fujitsu F001 (FJ001), Sony Ericsson Arbano Affare (SOY05)

These are the phones that could not run it and would not even need testing, and the other ones can be easily rolled out with the "ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a" line check. With this line check and the above list 50% of the Android devices was rolled out, however the other 50% can run it.
Anything that has that line and is not in the list, like Sony Ericson Xperia Play, Sony Ericson Xperia Neo V, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, Motorola Defy+, Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus, etc (and these are only the popular budget phones that have the same processing power (or even more) than the iPhone 4), would be able to run the game just fine. Not to mention the more expensive phones...

they are all extremely disparate in their hardware
Got a point there, they would have to optimize the engine for 4 GPUs (this would be probably the only hard part):
-Adreno (Adreno 205 and 220)
-Mali (Mali 400)
-Tegra (Tegra 2 and 3)
-Power VR (wait, iPhone/iPad has Power VR, so they would not have much trouble with this, since it is already done)

Testing would not be that hard either, would be pointless to test it on all existing Android devices that are capable of running it, it is enough to test it on 1-2 phones with the same CPU/GPU and on Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich.

For example: If they test it on Sony Ericson Neo V under official Gingerbread and ICS, then there is a 99% chance that other phones with the same hardware, like the Xperia Neo, Xperia Play, Samsung Galaxy W, Alcatel OT-995, etc can run it just fine too so it would not be really needed to test it on those too.

All the phones that have the above mentioned line in the build.prop and are not in the mentioned exception list, have the same or more computing power as the iPhone 4 (CPU power, GPU power, RAM amount), so the game engine would not have to be degraded, so they could keep the good graphics quality, but maybe even enhance it.


I am an idiot without years of programming experience, but even I was able to shorten down the time and effort of an Android port, so blaming that there are too many devices and because of this, it is impossible to port it, is pointless. Yes, there are more than iOS and there would be more job with optimizing the engine (again, no degrading needed, they maybe even could enhance it) for more GPUs, but it is not as horrific as that programmer states it is.

ps: sorry for the wall of text, I just hate it when someone does not have the effort or will to do something and finds something to blame instead. A small Czech company has the time, effort and knowledge to optimize their games for Android besides iOS in order to not let down their fans and gain more profit, but not Teltale...give me a break.

ps2: I don't even dare to mention that anywhere I found news or information about the iOS version, there were tons of people begging for Android port...

[thestalkinghead]

the problem is probably more that as a PC gamer i know that my system specs have to meet the minimum requirements to play the game and if i buy a game i cant play because my PC isn't good enough, i feel like an idiot and i would just keep the game until i had upgraded.
however a lot of people don't even think of anything other than a PC to have specs (its magic or whatever they dont want to think about) you wouldnt believe how long it took me to convince a console gamer friend (but not an experienced PC user) that an xbox 360 is basically the same as a PC but just with a different operating system, he thought (or didnt think) that they were just made of totally different stuff all together.

so, when the inevitable happens and someone/thousands of people buy it for an android model where the game doesn't/wouldn't work, telltale would have to deal with loads of backlash and either try and make it work or give refunds

[Milosuperspesh]

Originally Posted by thestalkinghead

so, when the inevitable happens and someone/thousands of people buy it for an android model where the game doesn't/wouldn't work, telltale would have to deal with loads of backlash and either try and make it work or give refunds

+10 char to you

and we have enough backlash as it is

[Tind]

If they were able to not allow people to purchase the game for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, then why not do the same for Android? Like I said above, it is not that hard to filter out incompatible devices.

[Milosuperspesh]

Originally Posted by Tind

If they were able to not allow people to purchase the game for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, then why not do the same for Android? Like I said above, it is not that hard to filter out incompatible devices.

no it's not but some people would see that as a challenge and buy it anyway then for some reason get royaly po'd when it doesn't work and don't understand why hence more bitchin

[Weeksy]

Originally Posted by Tind

If they were able to not allow people to purchase the game for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, then why not do the same for Android? Like I said above, it is not that hard to filter out incompatible devices.

I would second this - the Play store can filter out incompatible apps.

Originally Posted by Milosuperspesh

no it's not but some people would see that as a challenge and buy it anyway then for some reason get royaly po'd when it doesn't work and don't understand why hence more bitchin

No more than those who try and run "JP" or "Walking Dead" on an iPhone 3G or iPad 1 etc...

[CiscoKidd81]

I don't see a problem. Just trade in that Android device for a iPad

Just kidding. It sucks that TT can't make it for all formats but looking at the responses it looks that since the Android OS spans so many different hardware setups that TT porting the game to the Android would be to much work and not enougth profit.

[Tind]

Originally Posted by CiscoKidd81

I don't see a problem. Just trade in that Android device for a iPad

Just kidding. It sucks that TT can't make it for all formats but looking at the responses it looks that since the Android OS spans so many different hardware setups that TT porting the game to the Android would be to much work and not enougth profit.

If they would port it to Android, they could profit at least $1 million, but probably even much more. The mobile version is done, all they need is to "just" port it to Android, which I doubt would cost $1 million


Yes an iPhone is great and many people buy it, however there is 1 tiny problem...an iPhone costs 2x the price of an Android phone with similar specs (CPU, RAM, GPU), so for obvious reasons, many people choose the Android phone instead...like me

[Milosuperspesh]

ipads are overpriced and over hyped..