Week #47 update

Like the last couple of weeks, most of my time was spent playing LAN games over the Internet with my brother. The rest was spent taking care of some bugs.

The next monthly update - December's - will be uploaded on December 1st (Australian time). Usually monthly updates are uploaded on or around the last weekend in the month.

A name in parenthesis and in bold is the finder of the bug/quirk. Thanks to all, I really do appreciate your time and support. Cheers!

Editor

  • streamlined box tools (line, box)
  • minor tweaks to cut/copy/paste
  • 125 lines of code removed from editor

Game

  • fixed several logic flaws in player movement
  • rewrote some collision methods (~50% smaller, less complex)
  • you can no longer use the pickaxe under a ladder - matches the Original (Howie)
  • fixed bug with monks being under pickaxe rubble not being able to be stood on by runners (Howie)
  • refactored code that handles darkness mode

There are some differences between this rewrite and the Original game regarding rubble;

  • rubble draws 1 pixel down so you don't see players feet sticking out (right side in both images)
  • runners don't stand up inside the rubble - it looks a little odd (right side image)
  • if there is rubble where a monk is then he won't stand up inside like runners (middle image)
  • runners stepping on monks (left side of image) will fall/stand on him whereas the Original has the block the monk in as solid

Monks in rubble
Monks in rubble

Runner in rubble
Runners in rubble

LAN

Testing Internet gaming this week has shown an average of 65kb per puzzle in bandwidth with 75% of this originating from the host. We played the excellent Debra puzzle set (ships with all copies of this game) made by Debra Day for Lode Runner: The Legend Returns. Of course, this isn't a set rule: games with more action (lots of monks, tools, blasting, gold collection) going on will use more bandwidth.

If you're only an occasional blog reader you might be wondering why bandwidth matters that much for LAN games or how you access web games. Bandwidth matters since LAN/web games are one and the same so we want to squeeze as many bytes out as we can. As for how you access web games, at this time you can't. If you'd like to play you'll need to use a tunnelling service (such as LogMeIn's Hamachi).

  • significant bandwidth reduction over previous builds (~50%)
  • added dark transparent background behind chat messages;
  • improves readability
  • it does block some of the game if action is taking place in the top corner but there isn't much that can be done
  • fixed bug that could cause lobby to misread game data
  • if the game goes out of sync all machines in the game will be alerted

Out of sync
Out of sync message

Chat messages
Tweaked chat messages

Bugs being worked on

  • some Windows machines not be able to detect LAN games (Steve)

What I'll probably do next week

  • work on outstanding items on my TODO list
  • improve network gameplay