Beta Bubbman 2

[Tempel]

At zRichi's request, I've packaged up BubbMan 2, created by pymike. It's a fast-paced side-scrolling jump 'n' run that's pretty tough (at least, it took me a while to make it through all eight levels).

The current experimental version is available for download from my own site, while the latest stable release is available from the file archive. I'll uploaded to the app store as soon as I'm given the rights.

 

[whynodd]

Short test: It starts and runs in a window, displays the game menu. But when I want to begin, it crashes and the window disappears.

 

[007jaws]

hi same problem here it crashes but if you press enter in the controls section you can access that also the screen frame size is like a square and slightly small, i would prefer widescreen or a slightly rectangular screen

cheers

007jaws

 

[Tempel]

Well, this is unfortunate. My best guess is that it's improperly detecting the Pandora's built-in game controller, but there's only one way to know for sure: could you please post /tmp/pndrunbubbman2.out? At least, I think that's what its name should be.

I'd like to make sure it works before I start messing with screen sizes. Regardless, I'm reluctant to make it the full width of the Pandora's screen, just because that might affect gameplay. But I might see how it goes later on.

 

[007jaws]

Cheers man for all this, the screen size is ok not bad at all, i post a bit later on more information about the game

Ta

007jaws

 

[007jaws]

Dude what do you want me to check with this bubbman 2 game?, i have it on my SD card can u tell me what i need to go into?

 

[Tempel]

Well, I just need to find out why it's crashing. So I would be thankful if you first run the game until it crashes, then upload the file /tmp/pndrunbubbman2.out to here. When replying, you should see an "Choose File" button below; click that, then go to the top-level directory (on the NAND), then to the folder "tmp", then find a file containing "bubbman2" in its name. That file will tell me what's going wrong.

 

[WizardStan]

The crash occurs trying to create the default save file. worldmap.ph, line 28, open("data/prog.sav", "wb"... whatever. The problem is that the "data" directory exists in the PND but not in the appdata directory, and the union mount is getting confused.
You can work around the issue by creating the "data" directory in the appdata/bubbman2 directory after running it once. The next time it is run, it'll have no problem writing to the data directory because it now exists in a writable location.
The game itself is a little slow, and the controls need some tweaking, but it has potential.

 

[Tempel]

Argh, I feel stupid. I thought about that, then convinced myself it wouldn't be a problem. If I recall correctly, it's a problem on FAT-formatted cards, but not ext-formatted, right? I'll just need to remember that in the future.

I've fixed it and it's available from the same URL. I just modified the sources so that all save files are put in the root of the PND instead of a subdirectory.

As for the controls: what are they like, and how could they be improved? According to the readme, it uses gamepad buttons 3, 4, 9, and 10, but I can't guess how that maps on to the Pandora.

 

[007jaws]

Well, I just need to find out why it's crashing. So I would be thankful if you first run the game until it crashes, then upload the file /tmp/pndrunbubbman2.out to here. When replying, you should see an "Choose File" button below; click that, then go to the top-level directory (on the NAND), then to the folder "tmp", then find a file containing "bubbman2" in its name. That file will tell me what's going wrong.

hi i confirm that the game works by creating a folder called 'Data' in the app directory increasing the cpu speed to 700 makes the game much faster also, great work mate working well speed increases as you increase the cpu speed, the only downside i have is that the frame is like a square and the characters legs are hidden at the start because of the window frame being an akward size but when he goes onto a valley or hill its okay you can see the whole character, so changeing the window frame will make this perfecto, at the moment it is also perfectly playable and great

bye

007jaws

 

[007jaws]

Argh, I feel stupid. I thought about that, then convinced myself it wouldn't be a problem. If I recall correctly, it's a problem on FAT-formatted cards, but not ext-formatted, right? I'll just need to remember that in the future.

I've fixed it and it's available from the same URL. I just modified the sources so that all save files are put in the root of the PND instead of a subdirectory.

As for the controls: what are they like, and how could they be improved? According to the readme, it uses gamepad buttons 3, 4, 9, and 10, but I can't guess how that maps on to the Pandora.

controls via keyboard z is jump and x throws a rock

enter key starts game
bye

 

[007jaws]

[/quote]
L button gets you back to last checkpoint (save feature)
window can be moved upwards so you can see all the character properley now

bye

007jaws

 

[Tempel]

controls via keyboard z is jump and x throws a rock

enter key starts game
bye

So it's not responding to the game buttons at all? WizardStan, do you know if pygame can detect the buttons as a gamepad? If not, I can access them as page up/page down/home/end, right?

If L takes you to the checkpoint, then it's acting as select; this means it's either being read as button 10 or Shift. Does it normally act as shift?

Oh, and I should probably tell it to launch in fullscreen mode so you don't have window borders taking up space

 

[007jaws]

Hi again

its not responding to the game buttons just the d-pad is working fine, if you want you can leave it as it is and upload it to the openhandhelds apps website, its good as it is, runs perfect at 700mhz, but if you want to improve window size upto you

any chance of PND BUBBMAN 1?

 

[WizardStan]

So it's not responding to the game buttons at all? WizardStan, do you know if pygame can detect the buttons as a gamepad? If not, I can access them as page up/page down/home/end, right?

You can read them as gamepad buttons (on joystick 0), but it'd be easier to read them as the pgup/pgdn/home/end keys, yes.

If L takes you to the checkpoint, then it's acting as select; this means it's either being read as button 10 or Shift. Does it normally act as shift?

L is shift, left shift I think. R is control (left again, I think). Start is alt and select is the other control button (right, I think).
I may have my left and rights backwards there.
So yeah, make jump->pgup/pgdn and throw->home/end (or vice versa or something), make start->alt (instead of enter), and make select->ctrl (right-ctrl, if you can) and that should set the controls all nice.

Oh, and I should probably tell it to launch in fullscreen mode so you don't have window borders taking up space

That'd be helpful, yes

edit: actually, make start be enter AND alt if you can. I know some people for whom enter is more natural and it might be nice for them if it can handle multiple keys.

 

[Tempel]

All done, and at the same location. I left all the original controls in place, adding your suggestions (I also made them side-independent; RAlt and LAlt are both start, RCtrl and LCtrl are select). I have to give credit for pymike for having created such a nice framework for controls.

But I also tried making it widescreen and it ended up broken, so I won't give him credit for resolution independence . That'll need more fiddling that I don't care to do immediately. But if anyone else wants to try, I can post my modifications on github.

EDIT: Source has been posted.

 

[WizardStan]

Controls are good now, and it's fullscreen technically. Tiny little window though, which is strange; when it was windowed, it was large enough, but now that it's fullscreen, it's black bordered all around. Maybe I'll get a chance to look at the source and help out later.
Still fairly slow at 500Mhz though.

 

[Tempel]

Wow. No, that was my fault. The engine has a built-in scaling feature. When I made it fullscreen, it stretches proportionally to fill the screen on my desktop. Since I assumed the Pandora would do the same, I turned off the engine's scaling, thinking it might be a little faster.

So this one should fix it!

 

[WizardStan]

That's got it. Aspect ratio maintained, black bars on the side, but I'm not too worried about that. Too bad it's so slow at 500Mhz. 700 does seem to make it more reasonable though.
Cheers!

 

[Tempel]

Cool beans. Last question, then, before I upload it: Do you think I should set the clockspeed attribute in the PXML to 700? Or let users decide to do it on their own?