September has been one of the busiest months yet on Lode Runner - this month alone has seen 70+ fixes, updates and enhancements. Head on over to the downloads page to get the September edition of Lode Runner: The Mad Monks' Rewrite. Usually there are two developers working on this project but this month my brother has been away for work leaving it all up to me. Still, quite a lot was done.
If you find anything at all that is wrong with the game so far or have any ideas or suggestions, please get in touch with me. Your feedback is very important to making this project as good as it can possibly be.
The next build will be at the end of October. Can't wait until then? Just shoot me an email and I'll send you a patch to try out - just remember that patches may be a little unstable.
Special thanks this month to Kyson and Rick for play testing and finding bugs. Thanks, guys!
Continue reading for a summary of all the fixes, improvements and new features in the September update.
Editor
- the speed of adjusting settings (pliers tool) increased
- code clean-up
- YOG cheats (except puzzle skipping and turbo mode) now work again in the editor
- full support for restarting puzzles added
- cheats now longer work when trying a puzzle
Increased alpha tint level on the paint helpers, making them less distracting
Settings now draw over the top of the paint helper (pliers tool)
When creating puzzles with lots of teleports and/or receivers, it can get a little confusing. The editor now draws a link between the teleport and the receiver as you can see in the nice video below.
*Easy to visualize teleport links*Game
- the game now launches in full-screen by default; remember, you can use ALT+ENTER to toggle between full-screen and windowed mode
- games can now be saved and restored;
- unlike the original, games can be restored from the single/two-player games via the main menu
- snare/rope trap now behaves the same as the original game
- fixed bug that stopped you from skipping to the last puzzle in the set
- sound effects now resume after the game starts (after pausing when runners enter the puzzle standing)
- players can no longer leap off a ladder and through the side of a fall-through block
- game paused when over - matches original
- enter sound no longer plays twice for two-player mode
- puzzles no longer need to read from the disk after loading
- YOG monk mode fixed
- fixed bugs that crashed the game when playing secret puzzles
- tweaked blasted block aborting when monks are too close
Monks
- monks no longer stand still and prevent you from completing a puzzle when runners cannot be reached (in a hidey-hole for example)
- fixed monks jamming/odd behaviour when entering a ladder from the top above another monk
- fixed bug that prevented runners from safely walking across spawning monks
- fixed bug that prevented monks from climbing out of a blasted hole if they were waiting on a blocking monk
- monks now wait before drowning if they are above another monk - matches original
- fixed bug that caused monks to move left/right when they should not have been doing so - this was introduced by tweaks to support LAN games
- fixed bug with monks getting stuck when spawning into the puzzle on top of another monk
- fixed bug that caused monks to drop gold into the same blasted block if there were falling
- YOG cheat controlled monks cannot move before a runner - matches the original game
LAN
- improved lobby system behind-the-scenes (with only support for two players, it still looks like a message box for the time being)
- improvements to the core networking, reducing bandwidth by about 70%
- machines use player one (Jake Peril) input controls
- games that are no longer available (host no longer hosting) will be removed from the list periodically
- you can now double-click on a game to join
- pausing support added
- LAN gaming mostly in-line now with single/two player gaming
- UI no longer paused when host is cheating or machines are quitting
- you can no longer kill another player via shortcuts or the UI
General
- slight performance increase and memory reduction
- obsolete code pruned from the project
- sound manager;
- fixed bug that stopped some sounds from playing
- removed some obsolete code
- fixed bug that did not save whether or not you enabled/disabled sound effects
- fixed bug that caused audio crackles in AVI cut-scenes (Astro/Aqua worlds + ending)
- moved LAN prompt and puzzle error prompts to the language files
- partial support added for older Gravis Gamepad Pro USB models