Week #13 update

A few things discovered with the March build have been fixed and the downloads all updated. These bugs (marked with an asterisk) greatly affected performance and in some cases, rendered the gameplay impossible. If you downloaded the March build the day it was released, you'll need to re-download the build to fix these issues.

Very early builds frequently featured players randomly "teleporting" to the sides and tops of a puzzle. It took a while to find the cause and fix the issue. Turns out, it wasn't completely fixed for some scenarios - mainly monks on ladders. It's been taken care of now. Below is a video made by Leandro showing how easy it was to get the bug. Altering the game window (such as moving it or toggling full-screen) on Windows would also cause teleporting.

*Monks teleporting*

The reason behind it all is some animations need their position tweaked in order to get a nice transition from one to another (example: running from idle or idle from run, climb ladder from climb down ladder). The way the Presage animation files work, each frame have a different X and Y offset so it is far easier to get the final position of an animation after it has finished drawing. If an animation is swapped from one to another and then used, it won't have had a chance to draw yet. The same goes when you move the game window or toggle full-screen - the game falls behind so some draw calls are dropped in order to catch up [source]. This results in a draw position of zero = teleport.

I was watching television last night and the thought "do I have a copy of all the new artwork (dialogs, cut-scenes fonts) or does my machine have the only one?". Frighteningly, it was the latter. I've made a complete backup. All the work can just be extracted out of the Presage files but I won't have the source files in case I need them later on.

Special thanks this week to Leandro, Jayde and Jared for their continual testing of this project. Leandro has been helping me to find the cause of builds after January not launching on his Windows 8 machine and Jayde and Jared with their testing uncovered quite a whack of bugs and inconsistencies VS the Original. A few more bugs were found but will be fixed next week.

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!

Game

  • fixed bug that caused the game to drastically slow down when loading monk animations***** (Jared)
  • fixed dark-mode not drawing correctly*****
  • fixed bug that prevented resetting of puzzles played***** (Jared)
  • when in full-screen mode, changing the display size (or just clicking 'okay') will no longer drop you out of full-screen (Jayde)
  • fixed monk teleportation bug (Leandro, Lavi, Jared)
  • fixed draw error when blasted/phase blocks are being drawn
  • monks with no start location are no longer added to a puzzle***** (Jared)
  • puzzles created or edited with Jim Winkler's Lode Runner Hacker's Editor appear to be the cause since it allows you to tinker with every aspect of a puzzle.
  • fixed positioning system that caused some animations to be off (jackhammer) (Jared)
  • fixed bug that allowed a player to climb a ladder past the top of the screen and out the puzzle (Jared)
  • you're no longer allowed to blast a block that has a buried ladder above it - this matches the original (Jayde)
  • fixed bug that allowed a runner to stand on top of a monk caught in a snare if he landed on a different monk (Jayde)
  • fixed bug that caused monks to wait indefinitely if another monk is in a blasted hole (Jayde)
  • players no longer "bounce" off the wall when running right if holding the left key (Jayde)
  • fixes to secret puzzles;
  • fixed bug that caused a secret puzzle to not reset correctly (Jayde)
  • saving a game will now take you back to the puzzle rather than straight to 151 (Jayde)
  • fixed bug that showed 000 as the puzzle number in secret puzzles instead of ??? on the UI
  • fixed bug that prevented YOG skip cheat (CTRL+F8) from working in secret puzzles
  • fixed bug that caused a rope trap spring to not match the original
  • rewrote handling of runners escaping puzzles
  • streamlined handling of cut-scenes in single-player games

Restore a game
Proper restore of a game saved in a secret puzzle

General

  • added support to draw an animation frame within a set region
  • optimized video player
  • fixed bug that caused crash when closing the options dialog if key binding box was blinking (Jeffrey)
  • streamlined the puzzle schematic control
  • made a complete backup of the project

Bugs being worked on

  • game failing to launch on some Windows 8 PCs (Leandro)
  • blocks blasted instantly 'healing' and crushing a monk - timing dependent (Jayde)
  • case-sensitive filename support not working correctly on non-Windows machines
  • monks repeatedly running and stopping in goo causing them to move backwards rapidly (only occurs when under the influence of YOG)

What I'll probably do next week

  • project clean-up
  • LAN lobby