Chapter 8 — Deployment

Icons

Each of the app stores — the Apple App Store™, Google Play™, Amazon Appstore™, etc. — has different icon requirements and each requests various sizes and design considerations for different devices. There are several online services that will automatically create the entire set of required icons in the correct sizes, although you may wish to design them all yourself. Remember, these will be relatively small in size when they visually represent your app on an actual device, so fine details might be lost.

Making it Yours

This tutorial, and Star Explorer in general, is a starter project that many people complete and potentially submit to the app stores. As a result, many people have deployed the same identical game to prospective players. While this is acceptable, you should consider how to change and customize this game so that it’s yours, distinct in certain ways from the base template we’ve provided. Here are some ideas:

• Change the art/audio to suit your personal taste.

• Change the game title on the title screen and/or use a different background image.

• Utilize additional asteroid image frames from the gameObjects.png image sheet, randomly spawning one of the variations in the createAsteroid() function.

• Implement particle-based effects such as explosions and laser trails using Solar2D’s built-in display.newEmitter() feature.

Once you have a game of your own (based on Star Explorer or some other code base), proceed to the next sections for details on testing and building.

Corona Live Builds

While the Solar2D Simulator is a great way to test your game during development, nothing quite compares to seeing it run on an actual device!

The best solution is Corona Live Builds. Using the power and speed of a local network, you can preview and test your game on multiple devices simultaneously, watching your game dynamically update as you edit its code and assets. With Corona Live Builds, you get lightning-fast development gratification.

To learn how to configure live builds, see the Generating Live Builds guide.

Building and Publishing

Let’s discuss building and publishing! You should always test your app on an actual device before submitting it to an app store. In fact, since this is your final phase of quality control, you should test on as many devices as possible.

The requirements are a little different depending on which platform you intend to deploy to, so we’ll cover them separately.

Congratulations!

You made it! Take a deep breath and be proud of how much you’ve learned in such a short time — you’ve built a complete game using Solar2D and you’re ready to begin your grand adventure into the world of game creation. What enhancements can you add to Star Explorer to make it even better? How about making the large asteroids explode into a few smaller asteroids when they’re hit? The game may also benefit from a few additional enemies to increase the challenge and variety.

What other ideas do you have? Do you want to make a puzzle game? A point-and-click adventure game? A platform game where you run, jump, collect coins, and avoid hazards to claim a prize? There’s an endless variety of games you can make.

Thinking of e-books or educational apps? Want to build something non-game-related like a business or utility app? Solar2D can power these as well!

Where From Here?

Demo Projects

Star Explorer is just the beginning! Now that you’re comfortable using Solar2D and coding in Lua, check out some of our amazing Demo Projects which you can use as open-source templates for your own games!

Match 3 Space RPG		Sticker Knight Platformer		Endless Sk8boarder