Forth Level: still....

I'll update this post once I get through the level but right now I'm stuck for the very first time, I can't seem to get into the door that leads to what looks like the command bridge, I've turned on the engines, but nothing seems to let me in, even mysterious girl voice doesn't chime in to let me know what is going on.

Finally figure it out, I found another key, (HEY DESIGNERS NICE POTTY JOKE) and I won't ruin what I'm really talking about to the rest of you, but when you find this key, check out the objects nearby, the designers added a special feature inside the ship.

P.S. BlueBeast and Dennis_Fantasy are you guys the only ones who worked on this project, its not half bad for a first try, pretty expansive for a first try as well.

Well guys, you can see my top post for my final error, on two earlier occasions when I had the game minimized (different levels) and then finally three more on the fourth level all during the asteriod battle, the game crashes so I can't test it any more, bummer, I'll finish the game though if you post a fix . Cya then.

**Happy Birthday FeiHong!!**

The errors during the asteroid-shoot minigame are a problem Im hearing about more from people.
*** NOTE *** we cannot recreate the Acknex errors listed. But more than one person can't get beyond the asteroid minigame. We would appreciate any ideas/suggestions why this problem occurs. Any expert programmers out there who can look through the code and see what may be the problem?

Also some people can look through the walls. We cannot. Why would this be different on different computers??

Hey trooper,

Nice breakdown of good/bad!
All except a few models, I did the entirety of the game content myself. The whole game, Photography/levels/models/sprites etc etc. And Dennis did the large majority of the code himself. I'm sure he had his helpers to every so often, but the code was his baby, and believe it or not, he did the majority of it in, like, a month or two of hard work! I'd like to point out that any code errors etc were do to the too short of time to continue work on/playtest the game. He coded whatever I asked of him though, so any issues are my fault.

-- There wasnt a lot of time to fine tune enemy spawning. And so there are also no pre-existing enemies hiding around corners... yet.Will fine tune stuff.

1) The 'M' key brings up a Menu which tells what key does what...
... The F1 F2 are quicksave/quickload keys
I heve to redo the RB_read.txt to include the gameplay elements like that. I did have a sheet included with The CD for that. Also the DX9 info will be taken out since it's in the Demo.

2) "there is total of 3 moving parts to the gun" You mean on the cart, yes? It's just 3 things at all happen are called to happen when the 'fire button is pressed.Some happen right away and some wait x seconds. (I like the cart gun too

3) The cart rolling, we'll just leave as/is. I know it's not perfect rolling up hills, but gotta draw the line somewhere

4)Walking on top of the slides was intentional. If they could jump into a slide, we'd have to make it so the sliding begins wherever they landed, which was too much work. It's preffered they just start at the top. But we'll see if we can change that easily, i have an idea or two.

5) Game direction: The last night before release, Dennis was only available up to a certain point. And I still had to place the voice clues. I wanted repeating clues, but the ifs/elses/whens are beyond me, which would be needed for clues to work the best way. I think just one clue just as you start should point you in the right direction for the first level. But i'll add more anyway.

6) will check out Jetack problem at that spot.

7) Jumping has always been a problem. Simply, if anyone can help with a smoother jump, we'd appreciate the assistance! We just cant seem to figure it out lol

8)River: will fix sound problem. Also will make enemies act different so you can actually fight some

9) Almost every key is a 'one time use' item, hence, they are gone after next level. BUT maybe we can set it up that it dissappears when it's used. The jetpack is, so far, only available in the first level. (also a jetpack won't work when it's submerged in water )

10) 3rd level River Hanger:, I have to avoid that blue door issue with an invisible block Thanks! The bounding box/walls problem... It used to work great, and I noticed/fixed it in one level, but didnt realize all levels were affected. I don't know what we changed that affected that since it wasnt an issue before. Will definately fix it.

11) Spacecraft level: the yellow key shouldnt have been with you that long. Will check to see problem is fixed.

12) Asteroid spawning, some will miss the ship indeed, and some will be next to impossible to hit during their travel. I did test this part thoroughly, and felt it was more than adequate in the challenge to the player, even if you do get hit a couple times almost unavoidably.

13) Will find a reason for the player to further explore the ship. The saving/asteroid problem is an interesting one, and may be 'OK' as it is... and asteroid field is nice, but if they never get to really see it, that may be OK too as long as the minigame works still. We'll check it out though.

14) Doors open but don't close. Yes no doors in any of the levels close again. Thats a huge inside joke with us, but will maybe make them close as well.

15) LOL the going into the refrigerator thing is kinda funny actually, but will fix that.

16) Yea sometimes you gotta hunt around for the keys We're glad you appreciate the little jokes in the levels!

For those who can't get past the spacecraft asteroid battle, Here is way to continue playing the other levels since after the asteroid battle, the level changes as you exit the cockpit anyway...

If you change the WDL game script, the executable for the game will no longer work. We recommend making a copy of the game folder and it's contents to do this workaround. The levels may not work right if you have the 6.4 update though since 6.314 was used for the code.

Download the WMP for the next level HERE

Open the 1Resot.wdl in SED

Down in line 1380 (in the function start_resort) is the level that will load when the game starts.
Change this from "1Resort.wmb" . to . "4Hanger.wmb"

SAVE the wdl

Open 4Hanger.wmp in WED and run the level. Tha ultra long intro will play again, and then the next level will start. From there you can continue the game, hopefully to its completion.

Keep the help coming! Thanks!

Jason

Quote:

---

**Happy Birthday FeiHong!!**

---

Hehe thanks alot.

Am I mistaken or didnt you release the second level before. I remember the cave,ship and everything even had the same green lights

The games pretty cool. I made it to the asteroid battle and it crashed on me too. Will have to try the work around sometime because Id like to see the rest of this game. Well done Id have to say. Love the flushing toliets

I'm going to try your workaround and keep playing, i'll continue my error hunt for you, I appreciate the feedback as well, it was nice to know you read all of my posts.
About your asteriod problem I'd check the loading section of code since it seems to take a bit before it crashes, so it might be that the transition out of the game or the loading of the next action might cause the problem, I wouldn't show me the code though, I'm decient, but I'd ask someone like Thunder or someone with more experience with the engine.
Since I'm here thinking about it I'll clock the time it takes to crash a couple of times, see if its somewhat consistant (I take it the game is taken through a wait or sleep cycle to use as a timer and once it is finished the minigame is over) so if I find its consistant, that is probably the problem.

P.S. Once I get to play the rest of your game do you want the good/bad posts broken up into levels like before or would you like it in one big post, I can do it either way?

You are far to hard on yourself about the errors, the game is ASSOME I love playing it.
Oh, and by the way, after hearing about all the code being made in about 2 months, I'm still looking for my eyeballs. You see they popped out of my skull when I read that and I can't seem to find them, its been like 5 minutes, this is killing me.

Lastly, I was talking about the gun you hold, here I'll show you, sorry I'm a little confusing sometimes, okay, okay, most of the time.


Bad news, I tried your workaround, I'm pretty sure its not working because I still have A5, not A6, so it gives me "to many paths" errors for music and stuff like that, if you could send me a compiled version of the hanger on that would be great, but that could be asking a bit, depending on what you have to do, so sorry, I'm stuck again

P.S. I found a neat feature in A6, once you change the code and resave it, even if you put the code back to the way it was the shortcut to your game (the compiled version) recognizes the code has been changed, and the game won't run again.

I'm feeling good enough to do a little dance, I uninstalled and reinstalled your game, went through it again, and when I fought the asteriods I beat them, it didn't crash, and I went to the next level. I have no idea what was different, but I don't think it was the ending sequence because I think it was a good minute beyond when I remember it crashing usually before it let me go to the next level. I'll continue my playing spree, and report what I find.

My advice to anyone with this problem, reinstal, see if that helps.

Level 5:
Good:
-It worked this time, okay this isn't really helpful but I am really happy
-New enemies, I'm not sure but I think there tougher
-It was nice of the enemey to decontaminate me before I entered there ship, it looked cool too, but I wouldn't call this believable, you are there to blow em up arn't you?
-The game is definately getting progressively harder, nice job
-Not sure if this is a good thing, but I'm noticing after a few levels of this, that the 2D duck helps you find things, that was pretty funny

Bad:
-It would be nice if I had names to refer the levels by, not nessesary though, the same with our lady speaker, again not nessesary but it would be nice.
-Bad news, periodically it still crashes, still no idea why, but I've noticed this seems to become more of an issue in 5 & 6(it happens a lot more often)
-Because these enemies are slower I've noticed something, at long range, your gun doesn't do any damage

Level 6:

Good:
-The scenery on this one is pretty good outside is a cool picture, and the diagram showing everything was nice
-Ms. Lady is chimeing in a lot in this level, very useful
-I especially liked the progressively blinking lights

Bad:
-Do you want your player to be able to just hoof the trip to the main base, I found it was a lot faster and I could manuever better if I just ran instead of taking the little tram.
-This level also gives me crash issues, only when the enemies first appear and start attacking though

Level 7:

Good:
-It's good to know the aliens are enviromentalists, its a pleasant level
-I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but Ms. Lady is chiming in a ton more. Maybe you should let the character look around a bit (or get close to the fountin (sry sp) before she tells you were the next item is
-Almost forgot, I did notice you taking away some models as you got farther away and putting them back when I got closer, nice optimization

Bad:
-None I can find

Level 8:

Good:
-Not sure if I'm allowed to say that this is good, and once again I won't ruin for everyone else, but now I know its not a family game, the Cinemas title certainly tells me to hide all children under the age of 5.
-From now on, unless I say otherwise, your levels are looking very nice, this is becoming repetative.

Bad:
-I'll put this here to make sure you read it, it seems that whenever there are extenisive enemies (maybe when they spawn or if they are taken away) I don't think the last one is likely, there is tendancy to crash, not at the same place, but frequently
-If you jump on the boxes near the ends of the shops you can lodge your head in the ceiling, for at least a second or two

Level 9:

Good:
-What are these family portraits LOL, I think I'm going to cry, that's clever thinking to prop your level.

Bad:
-Alright, I'll do the same thing with crashing, unless I tell you otherwise, I usually crash about twice before I finish the level, again always happening once the enemies show up, and never at the same time

Level 10 (The reactor):

Good:
-I hope I'm doing this right, because I had to backtrack to use the key, although after I thought about it for a bit it made sense, I think you should give a little indicator for what the key was for, since you do have to backtrack 2 levels. (sorry not really a valid "good" comment)
-It's nice to know the aliens can write in there own language, and in english, so we can understand there notes they write down

Bad:
-Unforchanately it seems to crash when I shoot my gun now, even when enemies arn't around, this was never a problem before, but I've tried it in the alien garden and the reactor levels with similar effects. (I wonder if the installer is delivering corrupt script files, causing it to crash, your readme did say it was having problems with other things earlier)
-To further the previous comment, I can't seem to get through this level without it crashing rather early in the level (before I unlock the matenance door), even with reinstalling and using the old save it does the same problem. I'll keep trying, but for now, its way to late, I'm going to bed

My Specs:
Athlon 64 processor
1G of RAM
ATI x200 Series Video Card <- this might be the problem, but EVERY game I have has not complained (besides lag), and I play way to much games, shaders and all work fine
200G of Hard Drive (about 70G of it is filled)
Oh yeah, and Windows XP Media Center Edition, I personally think its XP that's causing the problems, its the biggest culpret everywhere else
I think everything else is rather irrelevant, anything else you want?

Thanks guys. Yea a changed wdl won't run with the executable after the change.

Yes, I released a few levels before, but since there was so little response, I figured constantly supplying levels to view wasn't worth the effort until the end product.

I don't know how many paths A5 allowed, but you maybe could still work around that, remove the paths that point to all previous level folders

1resort
1aInn
2River
2aRiverhanger
3Spacecraft

Also if its still to many paths, just start coying/pasting files from the level folders all into 1 location like the GameStuff folder. Any duplicate files just replace all.

About the crash tho, I don't know why it would do it on some machines and not others. I'm sure its something with the end of the asteroids game. Maybe a way to make it a little more stable for all computers, like more or longer waits or something. Not everyone has a monster machine, so maybe theres something with amount of memory.

Another suggestion however, don't minimize the game while playing LOL
I know its easier to remark on issues though.

What are your system specs BTW? maybe that will be some clue. Im thinking a memory problem but I don't know.

Anyone else crashing constantly? Not many people are offering remarks here, it would be helpful to hear other opinions too! Please take a minute or two to help please! Thanks!

Dennis worked on basics of the code previously, but the last couple months he had to work with MY requests, and he learned a lot. As we learn, we learn exponentially. His abilities and progress over that short time was amazing. We both learned a lot, but he certainly had come a long way. I could see the difference big time. He sure got his imaginary diploma from me for FPS coding lol

Remark on the levels any way you wish. I'll know which levels you're reffering to, but maybe other readers would appreciate it broke down a little.

The tram is slower, yes, more of a 'fun' thing to do. Half-Life had similar, but made it in a much larger area, and had obstacles keeping you from doing it without a tram. This straight corridor could be optimized to force the player, but probably not with this game. It did occur to me tho.

You asked about the Raygun, and now half the forums are like "oh dear God, why did you have to bring THAT up..."

Simple answer how it was done... UV shift action. The one everyone wants to get rid of just for the fun of it. It works, it works well, and noone wants it. Every reason not to have it is so lame it makes me want to puke.

This game uses UV code extensivly. Every UFO, all water, all blinking lights stars, health, bubbles,etc etc. ALL done with UV. There is ZERO animations and ZERO shaders in this game. I see no reason to get rid of the simple UV script, and I hope this game proves it's value in games. But I doubt it, people like to think their decisions are indeed the best ones, even if theyre wrong. And I hear it's already gone in 6.4

Anyway, I'm strongly opinionated on the topic because I am, without a doubt, the UV god. If you dont want shaders, or fancy code to get simple stuff done. UV is the best for many things, and any BEGINNER can use it. Unlike shaders. But they want to force YOU to start as an expert programmer before a simple effect like this can be done.
The Raygun is simply the UV action applied to the model. Look at the skin and picture it scrolling from top to bottom. Since the skin constantly moves past the polygons, the appearance changes. How you make it work is the key though.

Keep at it, I hope you see the last 2/3 of the game!

Jason

lol thought so Feels kinda cool knowing I ran thru the level before it was acctually in a game

As for the UV stuff I totally agree with you. Wish I had seen the post that was suggesting getting rid of it.. I see no point in that if its allready there what does it hurt anyone if they dont like dont use it. After seeing what you did with it it deffinately has alot of uses. I wouldve guessed just animating thru the skins but your way seems alot more sensible.

My pc specs are:
P4 3ghz
1 gig ram
ATI radeon 9550
windows xp pro sp2

The game is very fun. Only thing I noticed that I dont think was mentioned is the gun reloads too fast... I never run out of bullets... If it were me Id either A. Slow down the recharge/reload rate or B. Make so that it doesnt recharge/reload untill all 10 rounds have been used then take a second or two too reload.That way you have to plan your shots a little better instead of just being able to shoot like a mad man... While that is fun it might add a little more difficulty to the game tho probally not much.

I really like the water slide btw I laughed when I saw I could acctually ride it down

Well thats one vote for faster reloading and one vote for slower reloading. If you've gotten to the end of the game, I think you'll appreciate how fast it reloads. But then maybe not if you're a good shot.

We'll continue to keep an eye on the balance of all game elements for sure though.


Jason