Version: Smart Feature Phone 2.5

Develop using Defold

Games for KaiOS using Defold

In collaboration with the Defod team, we have created a reference game, Roids. The game uses hardware keys for gameplay and has KaiAds SDK integrated.

Roids on GitHub .

Background of Defold Foundation & Refold

Defold's official website: Defold engine and editor FAQ

Key highlights:

Developers can use one Engine to publish their apps to different platforms (JS) including KaiOS.

Game logic is written using Lua programming language
Similar to Unity mixed with Visual Studio Editor
Build with Multi-Platforms (E.g. HTML5, Android, iOS, Steam, Windows, Linux.)
2D, 3D, and animation support
Rapid workflow (Doesn't need any dependencies)
The engine is scripted by C, runs on HTML5, Switch, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux & macOS
Debug & Testing tools are available
Extensions (C, C++, Objective-C, Java, JavaScript)

The quick start guide from Defold: Introduction to Defold

Technical Documentation

Sample app by KaiOS (Roids) Link: GitHub

Installation

To use this library in your application, add the following link to your ‘game.project’ Dependencies.

For more info: Working with library projects in Defold.

Usage: KaiAds Extension

Heap Size

If you want to run your game on both 256MB and 512MB devices, we suggest lowering the heap size as much as possible. The reason is the heap size can minimize the memory usage and run the game smoothly on a 256MB device.

However, 512MB won’t have the above issue as it has more memory usage.

For reference, the minimum heap size of the Defold sample app is 32Mb.

Softkey

Thanks to the Defold Team, the Softkey feature for the KaiOS device was released. Please check out the following link for more information.

Usage: KaiOS Extension

Sound

If you are targeting 256MB KaiOS devices, we recommend that you don’t have sound files in the app. As the rendering will slow down the game and cause the app to crash easily.

Thanks to the Defold Team. The sound feature is working in the KaiOS device. Please check out the following link for more information.

Usage: Usage: KaiOS Extension

Texture

The textures must be lower than the size that can fit the device screen size (W: 240, H: 320). We recommend developers do not use the scale method of implementation in the game engine as it may increase memory usage when running the app.

Exit Game

According to the Defold API Reference, there are two ways to exit the application as follows.

sys.exit(0)

However, both ways aren’t working properly on KaiOS devices at the moment.

Alternatively, the Defold team suggested a way to close the application directly.

if html5 then html5.run("window.close()") end

For KaiOS, the application will call the above code in H5 and shut down immediately. Finally, the device will be returned to the operating system.

Integrating KaiADS SDK

The web integration is selected by default in the main branch dependency. We prefer developers to use web integration as it can run the KaiAds in both the KaiOS device and browser.

This is an example of how to apply KaiAds to your application.

local json = require "kaiads.json"

local function on_kaiads_event(self, event, code)
    if event == kaiads.PRELOAD_OK then
        print("KaiAds has successfully preloaded an ad")
        kaiads.show()
    elseif event == kaiads.AD_DISPLAY then
        print("KaiAds is showing an ad")
    elseif event == kaiads.AD_CLOSE then
        print("The user closed the ad!")
    elseif event == kaiads.AD_CLICK then
        print("The user clicked on the ad!")
    else
        print("Something went wrong", code)
    end
end

function init(self)
    if kaiads then
        kaiads.set_listener(on_kaiads_event)
        kaiads.init("[YOUR PUBLISHER ID]")
        local fullscreen_config = {
            app = "defoldsampleapp",
            slot = "myMainMenu",
        }
        kaiads.preload(json.encode(fullscreen_config))
    end
end

// For KaiOS app (KaiOS device only)
<script src="kaiads.v4.min.js"></script>

// For web integration (KaiOS device or Browser)
<script src="https://static.kaiads.com/ads-sdk/ads-sdk.v4.min.js"></script>

Replace the [YOUR PUBLISHER ID] in the mainMenu.script and you are done!

If you are not able to see an ad impression, check if the browser has an AdBlocker extension and whitelist the localhost link in your anti-virus software or browser. There are TWO ways (KaiOS App & Web Integration) to integrate KaiAds with your project.

WebAssembly

Since KaiOS 2.5.x or below does not support WebAssembly, we recommend deleting the following files in the deploy/js-web/[YOUR APP NAME]folder before you upload your package. This reduces your package size and improves gameplay on the device.