Post on 16-Dec-2015
Java ME vs. Flash LiteJava ME vs. Flash Lite::AA comparison of mobile comparison of mobile phone game phone game developmentdevelopment
Alex Koller
Supervisors: Greg Foster, Madeleine Wright
Overview of Presentation
1. Project Synopsis
2. Research Findings
3. Demonstration
4. Results
5. Conclusions
6. Future of MobileGame Development
7. Questions?
Project Synopsis
Comparison of mobile game development between Java ME and Flash Lite 2.1
We investigated the available APIs Understanding capabilities of each platform Designed and developed a cross platform
game designed to test the capabilities of Java ME and Flash Lite
Project Synopsis Cont.
Developing a complete game allowed us to: Test all aspects of game development Test supporting functions, such as persistent data
storage, menu creation, etc. Assemble quantitative comparison results
Research Findings
Game types and genres 3D games becoming more viable – phones with
increased processing power and onboard GPU Simple and addictive game play over graphics Simple user controls Arcade-style games are well suited, and have
been successful on mobile phones
Research Findings Cont.
Important features of a successful arcade-style mobile game Decent speed/frames per second Minimal memory usage Quick return on investment – short development
time Small file size for transfer and storage Addictive, easy to play and fun!
Immerse the player in the game
Research Findings Cont.
Development Environments Java ME:
Many development environments to chose from Sun Wireless Toolkit excellent free choice Comes with many utilities for emulating, testing, method
profiling, memory monitoring, etc. Flash Lite:
Flash CS3 Professional is the only option Propriety software (US$600) Crashed multiple times while developing, emulator
occasionally refused to run
Research Findings Cont.
Development Environments Compared
** Average of five successive start-ups** Initial memory usage immediately after start-up
Development Time Roughly three weeks for each platform
Development Environment Start-Up Time (seconds) * Memory Usage (mb) **
Netbeans 25.6 121
Eclipse 13.2 67
IntelliJ IDEA 24.6 140
Java Wireless Toolkit 3.4 33
Flash CS3 Professional 20.4 89
Demonstration
Black Sky is a top-down perspective, arcade-style, tile-based game
Both implementations are almost identical
Black Sky(Java ME)
Black Sky(Flash Lite)
Results
Frames Per Second Average FPS over 30 second period:
Java ME: 22.91 Flash Lite: 19.75
Memory Usage Peak memory usage over one minute period:
Java ME: 516 kb Flash Lite: 1032 kb
Java ME peaks when initialising, while Flash Lite continues to rise, peaking at the end.
Results Cont.
Lines of Code Java ME more ‘complete’ than Flash Lite version
Java ME: 3000 lines Flash Lite: 1000 lines
Final file size: Most mobile phone games aim for ≤ 200kb
Java ME: 81.5 kb Flash Lite: 59.3 kb
Results Cont.
Problems Encountered: Java ME:
Creating GUIs required some trial and error – can only be created programmatically
Flash Lite: Flash CS3 does not natively support MIDI – requires a
laborious 10 step workaround Difficulty creating a tile-based game engine without
BitmapData object (introduced in Flash 8) Input validation (button presses) too slow for fast-paced
games – results in unresponsive controls
Conclusions
Both Java ME and Flash Lite are capable mobile game development platforms
Java ME is more mature than Flash Lite Java ME has been in use for many years Flash Lite is a relatively new platform
Java ME has more variety in development environments
Conclusions Cont.
The game we created allowed us to perform comprehensive testing on both platforms Memory usage and frames per second
Java ME outperformed Flash Lite in these two vital tests Number of lines of code and final file size
Flash Lite achieved better results
Java ME is better than Flash Lite For almost all aspects of mobile game
development, we found Java ME enabled us to achieve our goals more precisely and easily
Future of Mobile Game Dev. Java ME
Solid development being made on the Java ME framework, specifically the gaming APIs
Over 1 million developers currently using Java ME Flash Lite
Flash Lite 3.0 recently released Focus is on video/multimedia, not game development Based on Flash 8 (still no BitmapData object though)
At this stage, Java ME is staying ahead of Flash Lite in terms of mobile game development