In this session, we cover what's needed to bring your Android app or game to Fire TV. We walk you through controller support for a game scenario (buttons and analog sticks), controller support for UI (selection, moving between menu items, invoking the keyboard), and how to account for the form factor (overscan, landscape, device and controller detection). By the end of this session, you'll be able to understand what you need to do if you want to build or modify your own app to work on a TV.

1. © 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in partwithout the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.
November 12, 2014 | Las Vegas, NV
AFF302Responsive Game DesignBringing Desktop and Mobile Games to the Living Room
Jesse Freeman, HTML5 & Game Developer Evangelist, Amazon

2. ONE OS, MULTIPLE FORM FACTORS

3. For the first time in Amazon’s history, we have a complete device ecosystem for publishing your game.
FIRE OS ON PHONE, TABLET & TV

4. Our platform is the perfect fit for any developer publishing Android games. We’ve found that most Android apps we tested just work on Fire OS devices. If your IDE outputs an APK,we can run it!
CHANCES ARE YOUR GAME ALREADY WORKS

5. Making a Mobile Game? AMAZON FIRE PHONE
Got a mobile game? Try out our Fire Phone, which features top-end specs, dedicated GPU, 2 GBof RAMand unique features such as Dynamic Perspective and Firefly.

6. Got a Tablet Game? AMAZON FIRE HD & HDX
Building for tablet? We have several Fire tablets ranging from 6”, 7”,and 8.9" sizes. Each tablet has blazing fast processors as well and high-resolution HD displays. Our Fire HD lineup also has great performance at a more affordable price point for customers.

7. Making a PC or Console Game? AMAZON FIRE TV
Want to build your games for the big screen? Target Fire TV, which allows you to take Android games and publish them for the
10-foot living room experience.

8. Putting It All TogetherAMAZON GAMING SERVICES
We have services designed exclusively for game developers such as GameCircle. If your current game has leaderboards, achievements, and cloud syncing it shouldn’t take long to migrate over to our APIs. We even support Unity and other third-party game frameworks.

9. Distribute Your Game with Us
THE AMAZON APPSTORE
Reach hundreds of millions of new customers in 236 countries across multiple platforms:
•Fire Phone
•Fire HD & HDX
•Fire TV
•Amazon App for Android
•BlackBerry
•Mac & PC

10. GATEWAY TO THE LIVING ROOM

11. Amazon Fire TV gives you a familiar Android-based platform to extend your apps and games to the big screen.
WHAT IS AMAZON FIRE TV?

12. Choose between the Amazon Fire TV Remote or the Amazon Fire Game Controller for a richer gaming experience
POWERFUL ANDROID-BASED GAMING

13. The Amazon Fire TV isINCREDIBLY POWERFUL
Amazon Fire TV uses a Qualcomm Quad Core Snapdragon Krait 300 processor with Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM to support high-performance game experiences.

14. Support for multiple types ofGAME CONTROLLERS
Amazon Fire TV works with the Amazon Fire TV Remote and the Amazon Fire Game Controller through the Bluetooth HID gamepad profile.

15. Full support forLOCAL MULTIPLAYER
Amazon Fire TV allows up to 7 game controllers to be connected at one time, opening up multiplayer gaming in the living room.

16. Taking advantage ofSECOND SCREEN
Amazon Fire TV supports second-screen experiences using DIAL, an open standard, that allows customers to discover and open apps on their television right from their tablet or phone.

17. Full support forHD VIDEO OUT
Amazon Fire TV has support for full HD video out from your app or game at 1080p.

18. WHAT IS RESPONSIVE GAME DESIGN?

19. a set of guidelines and best practices that help websites scale from desktop to mobile.
ON THE WEB, RESPONSIVE DESIGN IS
http://bit.ly/1vT19ek

20. Same Site on Desktop and Mobile
Responsive design allows the layout of a site to adapt to different screen resolutions.
A
B
E
C
D
A
B
C
D
E
RESPONSIVE DESIGN

21. similar concepts to include other key aspects you need to consider when making multi-platform games.
RESPONSIVE GAME DESIGN BUILDS ON

22. Responsive game design can be summed up in the following key requirements:
1.Game graphics and UI support multiple resolutions
2.Game mechanics work across multiple types of input
3.Publish to multiple platforms with the same codebase
4.Saved data is synced across all platforms
APPLYING RESPONSIVE DESIGN CONCEPTS TO GAMES

23. PART 1 – GAME GRAPHICS AND UI

24. What does it take to get a game’s graphics and UI to look good at multiple resolutions?
SCALING GAME VISUALS ACROSS DIFFERENT RESOLUTIONS

25. You will have to design your user interface differently for people sitting 10 feet away from the display.
WHAT MAKES DESIGNING FOR TV SO DIFFERENT

26. The goal of 10-foot user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, with as few button presses as possible while still having an intuitive layout, in terms of accomplishing user goals—what is often called user- centered design.
THIS IS CALLED THE 10-FOOT USER INTERFACE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
“

27. CLEAN, SIMPLE, AND EASY TO NAVIGATE
THE AMAZON FIRE TV’S UI IS

28. Navigation should beREMOTE FRIENDLY
Remember that every Fire TV comes with an Amazon Fire TV Remote so:
•Focus on the core navigation buttons.
•Standard Android navigation for Menu, Home,and Back buttons.
•Reserve media buttons for playback only.

29. Chances are that your existing landscape designs will work perfectly as-is,assuming it supports:
•Button states for selected, disabled, etc.
•Easy navigation via the Amazon Fire TV Remote
•Clearly indicates how to move from screen to screen
WHEN DESIGNING MOBILE FRIENDLY UI

30. Handling different resolutions is all about understanding aspect ratios. Design for 16:9 and 4:3 along with UI that dynamically adjusts for either ratio.
SUPPORTING MULTIPLE RESOLUTIONS

31. Resolution Scaling Demo
CODE EXAMPLE
Leveraging a 3Dcamera to maintain pixel perfect scaling

32. ANTICIPATE USER NAVIGATION FLOW
Never let the player get stuck or backtrack through navigation groups.

33. PART 2 – GAME INPUT

34. Evolution Of The Console Controller
GAME INPUT EXAMPLE
http://gizmodo.com/5110650/the-evolution-of-the-console-controller

35. With a lot of planning and consideration, it’s possible to have games work with a single input mechanic across different devices.
SUPPORTING CONTROLS ACROSS DIFFERENT INPUT TYPES

36. That means at the very least, your app should support simple four-way navigation and selection input from the remote itself.
A REMOTE IS INCLUDED WITH EVERY AMAZON FIRE TV

37. Endless runners, turn-based games,and other mechanics that don’t require precision input can be played with the remote.
DESIGNING FOR THE AMAZON FIRE TV REMOTE

38. This is theAMAZON FIRE TV REMOTE
The remote has all the core navigation buttons you will need for your app and casual games:
•Navigation and selection wheel
•Android navigation buttons for Menu, Home,and Back
•Media playback buttons
•Voice Search (reserved for system only)

39. THE 6 MAIN INPUTS FROM THE REMOTE

40. Code exampleCAPTURING KEY EVENTS
Handle DPAD_UP, DPAD_DOWN, DPAD_LEFT, and DPAD_RIGHTto navigate your layout.
DPAD_CENTER is the “Enter” key. You can capture these events by overriding the onKeyDown method of your View.

41. Build upon your existing Amazon Fire TV Remote’s controls with the Amazon Fire Game Controller,which adds analog sticks, additional buttons,and a dedicated GameCircle launcher.
THE OPTIONAL AMAZON FIRE GAME CONTROLLER

42. THE AMAZON FIRE TV CONTROLLER
Similar to a console controller with a full array of buttons

43. The Amazon Fire Game Controller is perfect for games that require precision controls and multiple buttons.
DESIGNING FOR THE AMAZON FIRE TV GAME CONTROLLER

44. Code exampleCAPTURING MOTION EVENTS
To access the joystick axis, you can override Android’s built-in onGenericMotionEvent method in the Android View. You’ll have access to the AXIS_X& AXIS_Yvalues.

45. You can connect up to 7 Bluetooth game controllers to the Amazon Fire TV;only 4 of those controllers are assigned to player numbers in the GameController API.
SUPPORTING MULTIPLE CONTROLLERS

46. GAME CONTROLLER API
http://bit.ly/ftv-controller-api

47. The GameController API, part of the Amazon Fire TV’s SDK,offers the following things:
•Methods to associate game controllers with the player numbers as defined by the Amazon Fire TV.
•Methods to query controller state at any time.
•Input event constants specific to gamepads.
•Behavior to enable you to process gamepad input events on a per-frame basis (that is, within a game loop).
THE GAME CONTROLLER API

48. Cross-platform Controls Demo
CODE EXAMPLE
Single input for moving a character on desktop, mobile, tablet and TV.

49. DETECT THE PLATFORM
And always display the correct input controls based on the platform the game is being played on.

50. PART 3 – SINGLE CODEBASE

51. When targeting multiple platforms,the key is to try to reuse as much code as possible.
PUBLISHING A SINGLE GAME FROM THE SAME CODEBASE.

52. Pick Frameworks THAT SUPPORT MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Pick the right framework to build your game with:
•Unity
•GameMaker
•Unreal Engine
•HTML5

53. PART 4 – SYNCING DATA

54. A key component to the responsive game design concept is allowing a single game session to extend across different devices,allowing your player to start on one platform and continue on another.
SAVING STATE ACROSS DEVICES

55. GameCircle provides everything you need to implement achievements, leaderboards, and saved-game synching on mobile devices regardless of platform.
FIRE OS HAS BUILT IN SUPPORT FOR GAME CIRCLE

56. Whispersync for Games automatically synchronizes game data and resolves any conflict arising from offline and simultaneous game use.
WHISPERSYNC FOR GAMES

57. You define achievements for your game in the GameCircle panel of the Amazon Apps & Games Developer Portal, enter metadata associated with that achievement,and upload the images to display for that achievement.
ADDING ACHIEVEMENTS TO YOUR GAME

58. Leaderboards can also extend the audience of your game, as players encourage their friends to play the game so they can be ranked against people they know.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERBOARDS IN GAMES

59. LEARN MORE ABOUT GAMECIRCLE
http://bit.ly/amzn-gc

60. REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

61. Terraria on the Amazon Appstore
http://amzn.to/1vsR5WR

62. Terraria’s gameplay can be broken up into 4 distinct modes:
1.Dig -Exploring the world
2.Build -Creating new structuresin the world
3.Fight -Completing missions and activities
4.Explore -Vast open-world sandbox environment
WHAT MAKES TERRARIA UNIQUE

63. Each gameplay mode requires different levels of precision making it ideal for playing the game on different form factors that cater to each type.
DIFFERENT STYLE OF PLAY

64. 64
DIGGING
Ideal for playing on touch screens while on the go

65. BUILDING
Works well on touch screens and controllers for more detailed building

66. FIGHTING
Requires precision and is ideal with a game controller

67. Terrariaalso takes advantage of GameCircle’s WhisperSync,making it possible to switch between Fire phone, tablet, andTV based on what you are doing and where you are.

68. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

69. EXTENSIVE ONLINE DOCUMENTATION
http://bit.ly/ftv-sdk

70. RESPONSIVE GAME DESIGN POST
http://bit.ly/rgd-post

71. WANT TO LEARN MORE?
http://bit.ly/games-on-fire

72. The End
THANKS FOR WATCHING
Don’t forget to check out
https://developer.amazon.com/public/
for more info on how Amazon can help you publish and monetize your own games.
See my blog posts at http://bit.ly/freej-amzn

73. NextSessions:
Thur11:00 in Murano3304
AFF202: Everything You Need to Know about Building Apps for the Fire Phone
Thur4:30 in Murano3304
AFF301: Fire Phone: The Dynamic Perspective API, Under the Hood

74. https://developer.amazon.com/welcome
https://developer.amazon.com/blogAndroidFire phoneKindle FireFire TV and Fire TV StickBB 10

75. http://bit.ly/awsevals