I wanted to drop a big thanks to the members of this message board for helping me through the development of my first game for Android - Lava Ball 3D. It took 4 months, but I am right at the finish line.

I am finally going to drop this bad boy on the Android Market some time tonight.

Without the help of this board and the individual contributers to it, there is no way I would have ever completed this game. I had to re-learn my trig, remember matrix algebra, learn OpenGL, learn Android, figure out what a BSP was, and do it all in Java, which I had never used. Along the way, everyone here has been very helpful. And, in the end, I think I have produced a very good product.

Lava Ball is a 3D ball rolling game with some very cool innovations.

The first is something I am terming Wicked Cool Perspective (WCP). Without revealing a lot, I think that WCP produces one of the most realistic shifting 3D perspective effects seen in an Android game. I hope you like it. Lots of help came indirectly from this board in understanding and implementing matrix transformantions and matrix stacks required to make this work.

The second technology involves the use of the accelerometer for the game. The game features full all-axis accelerometer controls. You can flip your phone any which way and watch the ball roll on the walls or even on the back side of the screen. This combined with some intensive collision detection code creates some really good physics in this game. This board helped a lot with inspiration to make this work rather than just short cutting it and creating a more limited game.

Then, I got a lot of help with the third technology, if you want to call it that. The ball rolling physics are really good, including proper rotation if you are rolling on one surface, or if you are rolling on two at once. This took time and I am really proud of it.

Finally, this board indirectly pointed me to a great level editor to modify for use in my game. I was working on this from scratch before a conversation on this board inspired me to go a different route. As a result, I got it done faster and with a lot better quality than I would ever have acheived without this change in plans.

Check out Lava Ball at http://www.exit4gaming.com and on the Market very soon. And, if you get a chance, tell a friend.

As a thanks, I am going to finish the 3D game tutorial I started a little while back. I will have a little bit more time now. Hopefully, I can inspire someone else as much as this board has helped to inspire me.

Thanks again,
Charlie