1. #1

    Suggestion: Detect Inactivity

    Not a gameplay suggestion, but ...

    Scenario: I am playing TF and something else makes me put the device aside. Half an hour later I realize that I forgot to switch off the screen. The device is incredibly hot and its battery almost drained. (Happens to me a lot on various Android devices)

    To prevent that the game could detect inactivity and allow the OS to switch off the screen and/or go into standby even when the game is in the foreground.
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  2. #2
    i dont know if there's a game that will automatically close if detects inactivity. i think the best option would be rooting your phone and download a third party application like xposed framework, in there you can able to manage and customized all settings that you want
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  3. #3
    Originally Posted by Zarrex081985 Go to original post
    i dont know if there's a game that will automatically close if detects inactivity.
    It's not about closing the game if I do nothing. It's about not preventing the screen from automatically switching off. There's many games doing that. I can understand if a video app keeps the OS from switching off the screen when the user is doing nothing (except watching the video, but that's currently not detected fortunately). But a game? Might as well save power when the user is not active. When I turn the screen back on, the game will ideally be as I left it.
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  4. #4
    justinman114's Avatar Senior Member
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    I have done this a few times in the past, but most of the time it's because I was playing before bed and fell asleep! Kinda sucks in the morning when I wake up to go to work and my phone is dead!

    At the very least there should be an option to turn off the screen after x amount of inactive time.
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  5. #5
    Ubi-JollyCharly's Avatar Community Developer
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    Hi all,

    I don't know exactly if it's technically possible (or let say easy), but I'll forward it to the team.

    JollyCharly
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  6. #6
    xitooner's Avatar Senior Member
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    But a game? Might as well save power when the user is not active. When I turn the screen back on, the game will ideally be as I left it.
    Yep. there are a number of games that detect inactivity and do things . . . my favorites are the platformer games where the guy is on the screen waiting for a command for a minute or two and when you dont do anything.... the character yawns etc and falls asleep (lies down and snores) on the screen (touch anything and he is instantly back up again). I have seen a few others where the character waves at you and tries to get your attention too...

    ... and there are also games like Crashlands where if you are inactive for long enough it will simply auto-put you in their pause screen (freezing/removing all graphics/collision detection to minimize battery usage) until the OS itself puts your app to sleep.

    Any decent gameframework (unity, cocos2d-x, etc) have callbacks to notify the apps when the OS is putting it to sleep/recovering, so the game has the opportunity to go into "quiet" mode, save,reload, etc. All good games use those.

    Bottom-line; Frontier shouldnt be draining your battery after 3-5 minutes of user inactivity.... if they are they arent trying hard enough.
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  7. #7
    Bonxy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Doesnt auto lock do exactly this ? After 2 minutes of inactivity my iphone screen locks ?
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  8. #8
    Originally Posted by Bonxy Go to original post
    Doesnt auto lock do exactly this ? After 2 minutes of inactivity my iphone screen locks ?
    Not so on Android.
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