Battle Jewels Alpha 3 .. A Whole Lot More Cowbell.

[skeezix]

Edit May 6: Try this build, I think I tracked down the ui.e.vit crash a few people saw. Lets hope this one is stable so I can move on with more features instead of tracking that damned issue
http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...ejewels-016.zip

Edit: If you had crashes in alpha 3, please try this build:
http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...ejewels-015.zip
I think I found the bug, but please beat it up and let me know

--

Well, its a Friday, so why not get another build out there? Its not tested heavily, but I think its pretty stable!

A LOT has gone into the engine in the last week; play is still solid, though animations are a little tweaked and smoother, and theres more graphical flares thrown on. The menus and dialogs are much sharper looking, positioned better and nicely transparent. You can save and load to a single game (will add a virtual keyboard for naming soon), so you can keep playing one character over time. Win stats are kept. You can accrue gold and use it to buy some gear. Youv'e got a backpack and an equipped system, so you can put on and off various pieces for mixing up which statistics you want at any given time. (More gear and classes to come, but the systems are in place The AI is a touch smarter and uses his spells a little better. Long list of other changes but I forget offhand which things were in the last alpha

Download it here:
http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...4-alpha-003.zip

I think its really shaping up, so take a look! Hope you enjoy it

jeff

Edit: The help system isn't built in yet, so you might want to visit the website for details; the triggers show character sheets for you and opponent, which helps a lot
Battlejewels home

 

[mth411]

What is the flashing text box on the top left about? It just flashes ui. sel and piece at some crazy flicker rate.

 

[reaper79]

"Trust me... ya gonna want that COWBELL!"

 

[mth411]

I have had it crash (lock up) twice while almost winning the first "hand"/game. Each time just defaults, top character choice, second time full batteries (first time batteries were almost dead). Will try again.

 

[skeezix]

What is the flashing text box on the top left about? It just flashes ui. sel and piece at some crazy flicker rate.

Thats some debug helper; if anyone sees a crash, they can let me know what it says in the top left and it gives me a clue as to whats going on.

jeff

 

[mikeful]

Tried 4 times and the game freezed every time. 2 times in the end of battle and 2 times in screen after battle.

GUI needs also some work. Tile swapping animation is still too slow (I think). There should be gold counter in shop and you should add description + mana requirements screen in spell list in battle.

 

[techFreak]

This one will be really cool. But I'm sure you can do the swapping animations cooler and smoother. (Maybe faster?) The final product will be one of the best titles for GP2X homebrew. It didn't crashed in my fw3.0 loaded GP2X.

For virtual keyboard you can use something like I used in my notes2X WIP editor.

Congrats and Keep up the good work!

 

[Huxley]

Agree with TechFreak...faster animations = more time for fun.

But really, this is excellent stuff skeezix. Very good idea, I'm impressed. Keep it up!

 

[mth411]

When I lose, it doesn't crash, when I win, it does. Will watch debug next game.

Also, I am sure it is a future feature, but could you put the cost of the spells on the spell-list (r=2g=3b=0w=0)? Also, having a hard time with the text for hp count and mana on the sidebars, maybe 1 fontsize bigger?

Great game, looking forward to each revision.

 

[skeezix]

PLEASE TRY this one

http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...ejewels-015.zip

After a week of debugging I think I found the buffer ovrrun that slowly messed things up leading to these crashes or odd things going on. Bloody 'ell, it looks like it was going 1 byte too far in a couple of places, and slowly munching the stack

jeff

Tried 4 times and the game freezed every time. 2 times in the end of battle and 2 times in screen after battle.

GUI needs also some work. Tile swapping animation is still too slow (I think). There should be gold counter in shop and you should add description + mana requirements screen in spell list in battle.

I will be adding an option for animation-speed; faster, normal (now), and slower.

I've a few people who want it slower, and a few people who want it faster

The dialogs need lots of work.. they're placeholders for now .. functional enough to play, but need to be fixed up. ie: Show mana costs right there on the display, and gold, and item and spell descriptions, etc etc. We might redo it all to be nice fancy graphical dialogs, or just improve whats here now..

You can get the mana requirements in the 'left trigger' screen.

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Damnit I'm told the crash can still creep in. Thats going to be a tough one to track down (especially since it doesn't seem to show up much on my 2x, or maybe I play in such a way as to not evoke it.. :/)

jeff

 

[slashank]

Damnit I'm told the crash can still creep in. Thats going to be a tough one to track down (especially since it doesn't seem to show up much on my 2x, or maybe I play in such a way as to not evoke it.. :/)

jeff

I was able to complete 2 'duels' and save too. But every time thereafter, the game crashes when the enemy's HP is low (1 or 2). The top left debug msg says 'ui . e . vit'. Also, I see a string 'o-n' next to the debug bar, not on the bar itself. Hopefully this is of some help.

Love this game!

 

[skeezix]

Do all crashes end in ui.e.vit now?

jeff

 

[slashank]

Do all crashes end in ui.e.vit now?

jeff

For me, yes.

 

[mth411]

Yeah, always crashes on ui. e. vit. here too. I did beat one level without it crashing though.

Will try the new release.

Also, sometimes the damage (cpu -1 hp) or such ends up being scrunched into 3/4 characters, almost impossible to read.

Also, any chance that the cpu could have onscreen what his attack/magic was, so that we can use the same in the future.

Thanks again.

Also, you might run alley oops on the binary on linux to find if there are any memory leaks. It is a very easy program to use.

 

[skeezix]

Ahright, I've tracked down the ui.e.vit crash I think; when player or enemy were near life and a duelist was involved, it coud get wonky when the Thrust spell was cast (it damages player and opponent and could wonk things up.)

Watch for next build

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Please try this build and let me know if the crashes are gone

http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...ejewels-016.zip

jeff

 

[slashank]

Please try this build and let me know if the crashes are gone

http://www.codejedi.com/battlejewels/binar...ejewels-016.zip

jeff



I played 3, all pushovers (hobgoblin, rogue, duelist), and didn't face any crashes.
Aside: Why are the pushovers so easy? They move, perhaps once, for every ten I make; they stand back and watch me destroy them. Granted they are pushovers, but there is not even a semblance of a challenge there. 'level 1 means' are a different story though.

QUOTE
Ahright, I've tracked down the ui.e.vit crash I think; when player or enemy were near life and a duelist was involved, it coud get wonky when the Thrust spell was cast (it damages player and opponent and could wonk things up.)



Earlier, I had problems while facing a 'level 1 mean duelist'. I haven't got to one yet with the new build.

Thanks!

 

[skeezix]

Currently for the AI, theres three 'moods'; pushover, mean and .. the other one I forget offhand

Essentially the mood sets the weighting modifier for skulling; a pushover means he'll pick up more mana than skulls and try to go for various spells more, while a meaner mood AI will go right for skulls and get more aggressive about them as you get more hurt.

The 'mood' and 'class/monsterness' is random.

jeff

Hopefully thos crashes are a thing of the past, so I can add new ones