Android Compatibility?

[The Revanchist]

A simple(?) question. Will any version of ToME work on an Android tablet?

If so, are there any pitfalls to watch out for?

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

I'm not sure, but my gut feeling says no. There's still way too much complexity for this game to run on a tablet. That and it's a 150mb file and that'll run like ass on a not-computer.

[Zeyphor]

Do you understand how many buttons ToME has Revanchist?
Do you know how slow this game can make some computers run in some areas?
Even if they could make ToME run on a phone, it'd be slow as all (@&!, and the UI would suck, not only because you'd be using a phone, but because of the potential to hit the wrong button by mistake, then having to compensate for it by putting freaking everything on talent confirmation to avoid screwing up.
Not only that, but if ToME was put on a phone somehow, the game would likely have to have cut content or features or something so the phone can handle it, and new players who come across the phone version first would be more likely to dislike ToME.

[The Revanchist]

Do you understand how many buttons ToME has Revanchist?
Do you know how slow this game can make some computers run in some areas?
Even if they could make ToME run on a phone, it'd be slow as all -, and the UI would suck, not only because you'd be using a phone, but because of the potential to hit the wrong button by mistake, then having to compensate for it by putting freaking everything on talent confirmation to avoid screwing up.
Not only that, but if ToME was put on a phone somehow, the game would likely have to have cut content or features or something so the phone can handle it, and new players who come across the phone version first would be more likely to dislike ToME.

Fair points, all. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

I do agree that any chance of benefit is pretty heavily outweighed by the many drawbacks. That actually are there.

[darkgod]

Actually lots of high end android smartphones are WAY more powerful than the PCs used by some tome players ...

[tylor]

Having Tome4 on phone is strictly better than not having Tome4 on phone. And it's a turn based game, so phone controls will not be (as) big problem. Worst case, it will took a little more time to do things. Maybe more deaths here and there because of misclicks - but it's not a big issue in Adventure mode.

[fnordcircle]

Being able to play ToME when my wife drags me out with her friends to drink at a bar would be fantastic even if it was laggy. I've actually considered getting a Windows 8 tablet just to see how it'd work.

Drunk nurses slapping each other's ass and dancing is not as exciting as it sounds. Or maybe I'm just old.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Actually lots of high end android smartphones are WAY more powerful than the PCs used by some tome players ...

I assume you're talking about my HampsterPuter (TM)?

If ToME can run on my machine which is a mere Intel Celeron 2ghz (single core) CPU, an integrated intel graphics GPU (64 meg of visual memory, no shader support at all), 512 meg of ram, and a 40 gig hard drive... Then I'm pretty sure most tablets blow that out of the water.

Lack of a keyboard might be an issue, but with mouse controls mapped to touchscreens, that problem goes away.

Other then maybe... naming your characters? I don't see how there is a problem, other then making it compatible with whatever libraries/capabilities would be on the tablets in question. Smaller phones might be a bigger issue, with resolution size, screensize, etc. But some of the modern tablets should be more then capable of displaying things in a useful fashion.

(Now granted, I'm no programmer, I don't know how big a hurdle making the game run on whatever functions/libraries/etc are on a tablet would be. But in terms of processing power, they far far outstrip my computer, so that's not even on the table...)

Also, I seem to recall someone mentioning working on an device for Andriod/Ios tablets in another thread... Can't seem to find it off the top of my head though.

[Faeryan]

Being able to play ToME when my wife drags me out with her friends to drink at a bar would be fantastic even if it was laggy. I've actually considered getting a Windows 8 tablet just to see how it'd work.

Drunk nurses slapping each other's ass and dancing is not as exciting as it sounds. Or maybe I'm just old.

I'm old, I know it, but not old enough not to not prefer drunk nurses slapping each other over ToME.. Who am I kidding, I'd still do ToME.
What kind of processor architecture does Windows 8 tablet use? I'd imagine it's some light mobile one just like in other tablets and stuff. Don't know if Windows handles regular windows executables differently but at least Linux does so no executing desktop processor architecture apps on mobile ones.

On the power side I'm running ToME on my desktop computer AMD DualCore 2GHz with 3 gigs RAM and on a 10 year old laptop, think it's 2GHz single core Celeron with less than 1Gb RAM. On the laptop it's painfully low even on the lowest settings though. My Galaxy Note 2 phone has Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A9 processor with 2Gb RAM so I would imagine the game being rather playable on it.

Currently I'm playing Record of Agarest War (yes, the PS3/Xbox360 title) on my phone and the game is huge and pretty complex, but being a turn based one it's no problem to do it on a phone. On that matter I would imagine nearly any turn-based game being possible to be played on a phone. Heck, the ToME2 is available for phones and while it's a bit troublesome to use full on-screen keyboard to play the game I'm still doing it, and I know I'm not the only one. Compared to that ToME4 has it much better.

Long story short, to answer the original question I'm pretty sure it won't run on any tablet due to processor architecture, not because of lacking power. I would imagine though that in a year they will introduce tablets/phones that can handle the game as it is, though someone DID mention a possible Android/iOS version being in the works (dunno how far exactly), but for now you *could* run the game on your computer and use a remote control app on your tablet to control the computer from wherever you are. I've done it occasionally, just not with games, but it'd still work.

[Canderel]

Old tome2 is available on android. Dunno how playable, but my brother finished a game on his ChaCha.

Although te4 may be a bit complex to play on a phone, other modules made for that should be able to work 100%. If you design the ui and the game mechanics from the start with that in mind I think a t engine game will work marvelous on a phone.