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"Loader"
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Owner:
| drmartin
| | Showcase Entry:
| Loader
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| Total Entries: 7 | drmartin
Entry: 7
06/20/2004
01:20 PM
| *** Release 1.01 ***
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash if it was started from a directory other than its own. Unfortunately, this happened when the game was started from the start menu shortcut in release 1.0. | drmartin
Entry: 6
06/20/2004
01:20 PM
| *** Release 1.0 ***
- Fixed a bug that caused the game not to remember the last levelset used, though it was saved properly when the game quit.
- Fixed a bug that made the line at the bottom of the menu disappear when the game was lost. Sounds wierd, I know.
- Added a help-text to the main menu. I think people read these more often than separate readme-files.
- Added an option to show the "aim". It's a small dot that shows where the truck looks for a box when you try to pick one up.
- Removed the small oil drops that used to leave a trace after the truck.
- Fixed a bad tile.
- Added the word "Level" in front of the level number indicator in the ui.
- Added the word "Progress" above the progress meter in the ui.
- Added per-pixel collisions for tiles. Up till now a tile has had to be either a wall or not a wall. Now it can have a wall-mask, which means it can be *partially* wall. This is really great, since we can have wall-objects shaped as something else than squares. What's also really great is that the game runs just as fast as before, no notable speed reduction. Whee!
- Gave the truck a small facelift. The truck was the first thing to be made for Loader, I drew it before I started programming, and it just didn't match the other graphics perfectly (since it was made to look good against a black background).
- Added a "backdrop" to the levels. Instead of having Carl making a lot of different space-tiles, there will be a space backdrop that can be seen through all transparent tiles. For example, a single window tile will show different things depending on where it's located, just like a real window. Later I made the backdrop scroll sideways slowly, it looks really good.
- Until now, the number of slime producing tiles hasn't had any effect on the number of slime blobs produced. Now every slime tile can produce a slime blob independent of any other slime tiles. Muahahahaaa! Hrm.
- Fixed a bug that caused the volume to sometimes go directly from 2 to 0 when you lowered it in the menus.
- Added a pretty ugly workaround for tiles removed from the tileset, because the space-tiles won't be needed anymore now that there is a built in space background.
- Improved the less-than-perfect collisions slightly. Primarily the bug that make a carried box stick to the wall, and the bug that causes boxes to get stuck to the wall when they're picked up.
- The particles in the game doesn't fade to transparency, but to a fixed color (to use less CPU). This color used to be hard-coded into the game, but since new tilesets might use a completely different color scheme, this was pretty stupid. The color value is now loaded from the tileset.
- Re-arranged the items in the Options menu a bit, they're now in a more logical order.
- Added support for a low CPU mode. Normally the game uses up all free CPU to run as fast/smooth as possible. With this new mode, the game tops at around 60 FPS, and sleeps for the rest of the time. The CPU load drop from 50-70% to 5-15% in low CPU mode. While the game might run slightly smoother with this option off, 60 FPS is a perfectly fine framerate.
- Added support for larger levelset files, as the old format wasn't big enough to fit all the levels that will be in the final game.
- If the Esc key was pressed when the game was paused, it used to just quit. Now it returns to the menu instead.
- The first order and delivery now take place after the time specified by each level (the same amount of time as between two orders/deliveries). It's been set to fixed values all this time.
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to go straight from "Press any key to start!" to pause if the window lost and re-gained focus before a key was pressed.
- Added a scroll text before a new level starts, so that there are two texts between the end of one level and the start of the next. The new texts tell the user how many crates must be delivered to complete the level. | drmartin
Entry: 5
06/20/2004
01:20 PM
| *** Beta 5 ***
- The volume settings and sound in general now work as supposed to.
- Boxes drained by slime creatures now lowers the status (score) by one.
- If a gate orders a box, and a box of the right kind sits in front of it, the gate now accepts the box. It used not to.
- Fixed a bug that caused a click to be heard from time to time when the first level was started.
- The game can now be shut down by closing the game window when in the menus. This wasn't possible before.
- Found a workaround for a bug that caused the black background of the box symbols to become transparent. It's not perfect, but it works.
- Fixed a bug that caused boxes to be delivered too far from the gates at low framerates.
- Fixed a bug that let boxes being pulled in by gates go right through boxes standing in their way. The gates now let go of a blocked box.
- Fixed a stupid bug that caused levelsets with an upper case file extension not to be found.
- Found a workaround for a bug that caused the game to run really jerky on some computers. It turned out the game got a lot smoother when it ran slower (lower FPS). Therefore, the option "Wait for monitor" was introduced, it limits the framerate of the game to the same value as the refreshrate of the monitor. Turning this option On caused the game to run really nice on an affected computer.
- Fixed an embarresing bug that caused all levels to have the same box delivery frequency. Expect more variation!
- Added the text "Press Esc to go back" below the credits screen in the menus.
- Added source description to all error messages to simplify future debugging a bit.
- Added fullscreen support just for the heck of it. The screen mode is selected under the options menu.
- Made it easier to pick up boxes.
- Added code to produce sparks when you hit the wall carrying a box.
- Added support for swedish characters ε,δ,φ,Ε,Δ and Φ to the bitmap font system, because at least one of them has to be written in the credits list. You're welcome, Mr. Bjφreman. :-) | drmartin
Entry: 4
06/20/2004
01:19 PM
| *** Beta 4 ***
- Added support for bitmap fonts, finally text can be printed without big drops in framerate. This also means I can finish the menus for the game.
- Created a simple bitmap font and added a framerate counter using it.
- Slime blobs attached to a box now starts moving again if their box is picked up.
- Big speed improvement, the game runs about twice as fast as before on this machine.
- Fixed a bug that made the engine sound pitch go directly from max to "idle" when the accelerate button was released at high framerates.
- Fixed a bug that forced me to clear the screen every frame. Fixing it didn't improve speed much though, clearing the screen hardly takes any time at all. It feels good to have it fixed though.
- Added some nice user interface elements to the game window.
- Added graphics for the status meter instead of the old circle (speed improvement).
- Made a "levelset" file format. A levelset is a file containing any number of levels. Loader will come with one levelset, but will support additional ones that may be released in the future. This way we can work on new levels without delaying the release of the game (once the original levels are done). Thanks to the levelsets you can now complete a level and come to the next one, this is a big step in the development, though it might not seem that way. Actually this was the biggest thing left to program for Loader, the rest is probably really simple stuff. Yeah, right.
- Added menus to the game, a lot more work than I thought, but it seems to work fine.
- The options set in the menu get loaded and saved automatically, works fine.
- Slightly updated slime-blob graphics. No, you won't see the difference.
- The levels can now have their own settings for truck start position, box delivery frequency, box order frequency and how much time you have to complete an order. This has been planned for a long time, but there has always been more important stuff to do.
- Tilesets can now supply their own graphics for the truck and/or the boxes. This way you can make the game look completely different just by making a new tileset.
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash if a gate facing upwards was blocked when delivering a box.
- Renamed the program file to "game.exe", since the name "loader.exe" got caught by anti-adware programs. | drmartin
Entry: 3
06/20/2004
01:19 PM
| *** Beta 3 ***
- New game elements added! Empty boxes, recycling gates and slime blobs. Some boxes doesn't contain any goods, they are completely useless. There's only one way to get rid of an empty box and that's through a recycling gate. Delivering an empty box doesn't give you any points, but if you don't get rid of them they will most likely just be in your way. Slime blobs is the biggest addition to the game. Levels may contain certain tiles that produce slime blobs. Slime blobs come out every now and then, and start sliming around randomly. When they hit a wall they will change directions. If a slime blob run into a non-empty box it will attach itself to it. If three or more blobs get attached to the same box they will drain it's content in a few second and the box will turn into an empty one. Slime blobs can also be run over in a very good looking way :-)
- Added support for color variation in particle explosions (used when slime blobs gets killed).
- Fixed a bug that made particles just disappear (instead of fading away) at high framerates.
- Replaced the color markings on the boxes with symbols. Changed the delivery status bars the same way. Instead of colored status bars a symbol is displayed together with a white status bar on a grey background.
- Added "real" graphics for the boxes instead of the old dummy-graphics. | drmartin
Entry: 2
06/20/2004
11:10 PM
| *** Beta 2 ***
- Fixed bug that caused the truck to get stuck inside a box if you were standing in front of a gate when a box was delivered
- Added support for floor-tiles causing sparks to fly when the truck drives over them at high speed
- Added support for particles fading away rather than just disappear, used this function on all particles in the game
- Added support for /fullscreen commandline switch to run the game in fullscreen mode (not finished)
- The game window now has a close button
- Minor speed improvement (185->200 FPS in unlimited FPS mode on this machine), might make a difference on slower machines
- Implemented proper timing of everything in the game to make sure it runs as fast as it should on all machines (slower too).
- Added the previously (but not in Beta 1) available oil drops. | drmartin
Entry: 1
06/20/2004
01:18 PM
| *** Beta 1 ***
- Initial release of the game, not very fast or fun to play |
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