Release Frozen Bubble

[fusion_power]

Well, I'm not colourblind so it is not easy to judge about the visiblity of the colourblind versions. ^^" I don't wan't to big changes in the graphics, maybe some colour blind useres can play around with contrast/brightness in a Graphics program untill it fits their needs.

 

[Mr Rob]

Release 2.2.0.2 Changelog (2011.10.31)


1. Multiplayer should work just fine now, over the local network and remotely to some Frozen Bubble game servers. I tested this between my Pandora and my laptop, and worked surprisingly well.


2. No long crashes if left idle at the opening screen. As it should, it now shows some demos.


3. Libraries no longer clobber each other; umounts properly.


Entering high scores still doesn't work (pango/iconv issues) and there'll more than likely be an update in the future to enhance some of the color blind bubbles.

 

[ckblackm]

does it unmount properly?

 

[Mr Rob]

does it unmount properly?

Yeppers. Like a dream come true.


I'll add that to the release info above.

 

[may88]

More excellent work. Thanks.

 

[fusion_power]

So, I tested the game but I have to say, it is unplayable for me. It is pretty slow mo, I don't know why because the game seems not a graphic orgy. It takes ages to load (again, WHAT is loading there? ^^" ) And the Keys are Keyboard only at first. Re-defining works but again, the game is unplayable slow. Even the emulated Puzzle Bobble is full speed so I wonder what I do wrong. You say the game plays great so maybe I have to set some things different ingame?


I really wonder what makes this little game that slow, and what takes 35MB in there?


EDIT: ah, it runs better over Mini Menu. usualy I play from XFCE Desktop, but Frozen Bubble doesn't seem to like this. ^^""

 

[may88]

Works fine for me on hf6 600MHz. Played through to level 70 with no major problems.


When loads of balls are cleared then it is a bit slo-mo as they start to drop.

 

[Mr Rob]

So, I tested the game but I have to say, it is unplayable for me. It is pretty slow mo, I don't know why because the game seems not a graphic orgy. It takes ages to load (again, WHAT is loading there? ^^" ) And the Keys are Keyboard only at first. Re-defining works but again, the game is unplayable slow. Even the emulated Puzzle Bobble is full speed so I wonder what I do wrong. You say the game plays great so maybe I have to set some things different ingame?


I really wonder what makes this little game that slow, and what takes 35MB in there?


EDIT: ah, it runs better over Mini Menu. usualy I play from XFCE Desktop, but Frozen Bubble doesn't seem to like this. ^^""

Fascinating, I've only ever played it through MiniMenu, I'm not quite sure why that would make a difference, though.


Frozen Bubble is a odd port; there's some Perl bug within Angstrom, and I couldn't seem to compile a new Perl under Angstrom either. So for the longest time it's been unported. My hackish fix involves including all of Perl and other required Debian libraries from Debian's arm distribution. You pretty much need to include all required libraries, the ones in Angstrom are compiled slightly differently than Debian's, so things that would normally be shared (libogg, libX11, etc) have to be packaged up. So that's one reason why it's larger than one would assume. But on the other hand, the graphics and music do take up about half of the PND, anyway. Uncompressed, the data files (frozen bubble graphics/music) take up 29MB (FB provides two level qualities of music, I'm using the higher quality ones). The PND's are squashfs-ed, so that decreases the size a bit, though.


Though I think it'll always have some speed issues. On my laptop, it took about 25 seconds to load, so God only knows what it's actually doing. And still lags a bit with some of the transitions, but that's just the way it goes.


Should anyone figure out my Perl problems and can port it completely using the Angstrom libraries, I'll happily concede my port to them. But until that day, I'll play wackily ported Frozen Bubble, ha.

 

[fusion_power]

Pearl? Interesting. ^^ I don't know much about it but it seems not that common for games? Well, I know that this game was made for PC so I don't expect miracles for the Pandora Port. It runs in MiniMenu and does what it should. Of course feel free to make a Puzzle Bobble game for the Pandora from Scratch. Or even better, a "Magical Drop" like Pandora Game, ED would be happy.

 

[Mr Rob]

Ha, yes, Perl. I'm as shocked as you are; it's the only game I know of this magnitude written in Perl. I think the developers know that, too, as the comments in the code contains....

# Yes it uses Perl, you non-believer :-).

But Perl has SDL libraries, so they used them.

 

[mcobit]

If it is running better from minimenu as from xfce, it is maybe a ram issue, but that is no wonder, if you have to load all the libraries twice to get it running...


Goonies for example runs from minimenu, but crashes most of the time from xfce.


A swapfile could help to store all the angstrom stuff away, while frozenbubble loads all his libraries, but might increase loadingtimes further.

 

[fusion_power]

Ha, yes, Perl. I'm as shocked as you are; it's the only game I know of this magnitude written in Perl. I think the developers know that, too, as the comments in the code contains....

# Yes it uses Perl, you non-believer :-).

But Perl has SDL libraries, so they used them.

At least they didn't use Java.


Well, many programms feel smoother with MiniMenu, no wonder, it uses much less tasks in the Background than XFCE Desktop. (I checked this with the Task Manager). But Frozen Bubble shows a big slowdown during gameplay, it is the only game for me so far that is not playable under XFCE Desktop. But no problem, I also use the MiniMenu for Gaming, I just boot in XFCE Desktop. ^^


Does SDL means, the Game does not use any HW Acceleration? I've read often that SDL only supports Software Acceleration.

 

[milkshake]

frozen bubble works great for me from the desktop without overclocking or anything like that, i played it for about 20 levels the other night. (non colour blind one)

 

[mcobit]

At least they didn't use Java.

well, there is a javaversion of this, that runs great on Pandora, too. But only very basic, not as advanced, as the full game.

 

[Mr Rob]

Does SDL means, the Game does not use any HW Acceleration? I've read often that SDL only supports Software Acceleration.

Yep, no hardware acceleration at all. Bummer, yes, but I don't plan on porting it to OpenGL ES anytime soon.


Also, I believe the correct response is: At least they don't use COBOL.

 

[Nardella]

Finished the game in a few hours, very fun, tyvm!


High Scores doesn't work, no way to pause, loading time is very long.

 

[Mr Rob]

Finished the game in a few hours, very fun, tyvm!


High Scores doesn't work, no way to pause, loading time is very long.

Good, thanks for playing (I've never gotten very far in the game, by the way). Loading times are long even on my laptop, so that's a problem in the core game. As for high scores, that's a Pango problem (I think) that I haven't fixed yet..., I'm a slacker.