RetroSphere 0.1.13b Released!
Community Forums/Showcase/RetroSphere 0.1.13b Released!
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| Yup we have released another version. The main features in this release are; - 2 player mode now working - Can now assign your own keys - High score table implemented - Editor improved - New tracks - 2,3 and 4 - Many bug fixes For a more detailed list of what's new please visit www.boiledsweets.com Some new screenies below... Download it here!  As usual all feedback welcome :-) |
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| link is down |
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| Might have found a tiny bug: When you look up credits or instructions under "help" and click next till the end. The last page still stays while the main menu pops up again, what does look a bit strange. |
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| Sorry link is now fixed, a typo - ho hum, thanks for reporting it though. Grisu, yes that is a bug, will be fixed in next release. Thanks! |
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| You're welcome! Once my tiny "Plushy Pusher" game is polished, you might give it a try as well. :) |
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| 2 player! Yay! I'll give you feedback this evening when my girlfriend gets home! |
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| Grisu, yes love to, please let me know when it's ready. Also that menu bug is not sorted. |
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| Hey Boiled Sweets, this is coming along great! Got some really nice graphics and SFX in there. Well done. :) You'll be glad to hear (maybe) I don't get the slowdown on the frontend anymore - silky smooth 60FPS now. What was causing that, BTW? I still get a small amount of slowdown while actually playing but nothing much to be bothered about. Sweet! |
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| big10p, thanks. Not too sure what the slow down was. We do however use standard primitives now for the buttons instead of BCF bitmap buttons though I don't think it was caused by BCF. When do you get slowdown? In fact the frontend and game uses render tweening so although the RenderWorld/UpdateWorld may report less than 85 FPS the game logic is still running at FPS and the render tweening should handle the 'missing' frames ok so not as to actually slow the game down. We are very near completing RetroSphere, we just need to; 1) Add another 40 tracks or so. 2) Get it so that the menu can be 'driven' with the keyboard. 3) Get the practice mode working (this will allow you to select a track and select which track tile types you want to disable/enable, also it will let you load in your own custom track) 4) Improve the in game instructions which nice gfx showing the different track tile types. I think that's it. Then we approach a publisher I guess (and start work on a new project). |
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| I get the slowdown ocassionally whilst playing through a level. Seems to be randomly. Everything will just freeze for a split second. I think there might be disk access at that time. I guess you're not accessing the HD during a level so it could be Windows doing some background housekeeping. My PC isn't actually a screamer, either: win98SE, 850Mhz, 128MB, GeForce256. On another point: Any reason you turn off the ball's shadow when it's in the air. I find it disorientating, especially on the 'Freaky' level. :) My brain uses it to position the ball mentally in 3D space so when it disappears, I'm screwed. :P |
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| big10p, we certainly don't read the disk during the game loop. Do other blitz apps do the same? What apps do you have loaded at the same time? I notice I get a slight pause if Outlook is loaded and it polls for mail. Maybe the balls shadow should just get smaller the higher the ball is rather than just disappear the moment the ball leaves the ground. Would that be better? I will try it. You will love the next version. We will have the practice mode working. This will allow you to choose any level (even ones created yourself in the editor) and then allow you to even choose which tile types are active on that level. You can even disable falling down holes... Also we have written (so far) 12 original pumping tunes in cd quality 44 khz to replace the horrid low res s3m tunes. |
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| Boiled Sweets, I've just had another go without any slowdown this time - played through first 3 levels. I don't think I had anything running in the background last time, either, but I could be mistaken. :) Maybe the balls shadow should just get smaller the higher the ball is rather than just disappear the moment the ball leaves the ground. Would that be better? Yes, definately, IMO. ;) Also we have written (so far) 12 original pumping tunes in cd quality 44 khz to replace the horrid low res s3m tunes. Wow, look forward to hearing 'em. Sountracks on games like this are especially important, I think. The original Trailblazer tune was perfect for the game. Oh, one last *minor* annoyance - can you set the mouse pointer to the centre of the screen when the game starts? For some reason, it bugs me slightly having it start in the top-left corner. :P Pedant, out! |
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| The mouse is done. The shadow is a problem though. It is a sprite positioned under the ball. If the player is jumping over a hole then the sprite is still drawn on the hole, looks wrong. THe way round this I guess is to check what tile is underneath the ball and not draw it if it is a blank but it may slow things down. Dos the shaodow bug ya that much? |
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| Hey, it's your baby - you do what you like! :) Have you thought about using sswifts shadow system? I'm not sure entirely how it works but I think it'd be cool to have a proper shadow that wraps around blocks when you jump them, etc. |
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| If the shadow just disappears, it looks odd and becomes a distraction rather than a feature. If you can't make it work in all cases, I would ditch it entirely. |
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