Testing Wanted For A New Gp2x F200 Game

[Noremakk]

Yes, I can confirm that sbock is right; it works.

 

[iprice]

Cheers.

It's now implemented into my game's Options screen. I'm going to add it to other menus later. I really appreciate your commitment to this game. Thankyou.

 

[iprice]

New update available - please check PMs.

 

[Manjuu]

New update available - please check PMs.

The touchscreen is still broken. It seems to stop functioning after the first use while in the following screens: Splash Screen, Language Select Screen, or Options Screen. It doesn't work on the Start Screen, How to Play Screen, Confirmation Dialog, and In-game though.

The only place touchscreen consistently works is in the Puzzle Editor, but it also has a problem. The Puzzle Editor itself works fine, just like before, but the Confirmation Dialog no longer works. Even the D-pad controls for the Confirmation Dialog doesn't work. When you press the screen while in the Confirmation Dialog, the tooltip of the last item selected (i.e. Clear Data) is displayed, and it disappears when depressed, but it does not highlight either the OK or Cancel items on the dialog. Curiously enough, the touchscreen in the Load/Save Dialog works, but stops working once it goes to the Confirmation Dialog. :huh:

Loading and saving a puzzle seems to work. Although the Puzzle + & - seems to be buggy as it increments or decrements twice when touchscreen is used; the first is when you select either of them, and the second is when you the select something else. The Load/Save Dialog & Confirmation Dialog seems to overlap each other for a brief moment, and they also seem to display a number on their upper-left side.

The D-pad controls is very good in this build; although it doesn't work in dialog boxes (as well as In-game). It also seems that the Left D-pad was mapped as the OK button in these dialog boxes. There was an instance that the mapping of the B button got screwed up after leaving the Options Screen back to the Start Screen; it kept highlighting the Start Game item when I tried to exit the program. I don't know how to reproduce this bug. :blink:


P.S. I managed to solve all the puzzles on the PC a week ago. The two puzzles that I was stuck on were simple to solve once I figured out the technique involved in them (while half-asleep).

 

[iprice]

The number on the dialogue boxes is a debug aid - it simply tells me which dialogue box is being displayed. D-Pad controls in dialogue boxes was my next task to implement fully.

The menu problems consistantly rear their ugly head. With regard to menus only working once, I wonder if the code is remembering the last values of the variables. This shouldn't happen - I'll have to test that theory.

I really hoped that this release would fix all of those previous problems, not bring up new ones too

At least D-Pad is working for the most part (having an F100 really helped here).

Time for a rethink, methinks!

Thanks Manjuu

 

[iprice]

Another update available (from the same address as in PMs)

Fixed:-

GUI menus were incredibly slow (on GP2X), hence not working properly
Options touchscreen control now press to activate (in the hope this now works)
OK/CANCEL on GUI dialogues now work with keys (not SAVE/LOAD/CANCEL)

No other fixes ie game still non-playable

 

[sbock]

Options touchscreen control is not working in this newest build.
OK/Cancel on GUI dialoges seem to be OK. The keys are equipped with a fast repeat function with is not the best solution.

Sometimes the keys lose their functions in the option menu.

The start-up log now only shows one warning:

CODE
close..... touch
Using mmuhack.o
Got /dev/mem at 0x5
Got blitter at: 0x422bb000
BackBuffer is 0x422e2000 (virtual)
get pid
read link
exepath via /proc/ = /tmp/mnt/sd/blox_gp2x/blox.gpe
chdir("/tmp/mnt/sd/blox_gp2x") = 1
fopen("smalfont.bmp", "rb") failed. Mode is rb
fopen_case - bailing out
can't open(3):
Init OK


Regards,
Stephan

 

[iprice]

Cheers Stephan

The keys are repeating faster because I speeded up the drawing process of the GUI dialogues - they were taking an age to draw on GP2X (which couldn't be seen until I tried something today), so I recoded them and managed to get a significant improvement in performance. I'll slow down input response to them - you should have seen the response this morning; took a second or so to actually activate the OK/CANCEL button, while using the old system.

Not sure about keys losing their functionality - I'll have to check that one out. I have a theory.

OK. Looks like the best bet is definitely to replace the "release to activate" touchscreen controls again.

BTW Did you have problems with the Options screen highlight returning to the Music Volume option?

 

[iprice]

I've created a wew standalone F200 menu test for anybody that wants to give some feedback. http://www.iprice.remakes.org/stuff/menu2.rar (975kb)

This is for F200 touchscreen support ONLY - it runs on an F100, but you won't be able to activate any menus.

There are 3 different menu tests, each using a different method of screen polling and menu access. Hopefully at least one will work correctly.

[PRAYER MODE] Please work![/PRAYER MODE]

 

[Noremakk]

Test one goes red when pressed, blue when released.
Test two goes red when the cursor is over it, blue when pressed, red again once released.
Test three goes red when pressed, dark green after pressed, then goes back to light green when a different option is pressed.

It's all perfectly done.

Good luck with the game, I hope to see a working menu system then (eventually) a working game!

 

[Manjuu]

I've created a wew standalone F200 menu test for anybody that wants to give some feedback. http://www.iprice.remakes.org/stuff/menu2.rar (975kb)

This is for F200 touchscreen support ONLY - it runs on an F100, but you won't be able to activate any menus.

There are 3 different menu tests, each using a different method of screen polling and menu access. Hopefully at least one will work correctly.

[PRAYER MODE] Please work![/PRAYER MODE]


All 3 menu tests are working properly, but with different behaviors. :lol:

Test 1: As long as the screen is remained pressed, the crosshair will follow the stylus, and the menus will be highlighted/unhighlighted properly. The highlight will disappear as soon as you stop pressing the screen.

Test 2: The crosshair will only move once you stop pressing the screen; it moves to the last coordinate before you stopped pressing. If the last coordinate is within a menu, then the menu will be highlighted and remain highlighted until you press a different area. The current highlight will disappear when the screen is pressed.

Test 3: Combination of Test 1 & 2. The crosshair follows the stylus, and the menus will be highlighted/unhighlighted (phase 1) as long as the screen is pressed. If the last coordinate when you stopped pressing is within a menu, then it will be selected (phase 2) and remain selected until you press a different area.

Great work on these menu tests. I guess Test 3 would be the appropriate one for the game.

 

[iprice]

Three menus that all work, that makes a nice change! Now to implement one of them.

Great input guys. Cheers.

 

[iprice]

New update available - check your PMs.

I've only had time to implement the new menu system into the OPTIONS screen so far (at least it's the largest and most important menu - if it works here, it'll work anywhere!)

Let's see if this finally lays the menu problems to rest

 

[Manjuu]

New update available - check your PMs.

I've only had time to implement the new menu system into the OPTIONS screen so far (at least it's the largest and most important menu - if it works here, it'll work anywhere!)

Let's see if this finally lays the menu problems to rest

The touchscreen is working properly in the Options screen. :lol:

Although, it breaks if you try playing a puzzle first and then go back to the Options screen. It no longer highlights the menus, but the crosshair still follows the stylus; the only menu that responds is the Music Volume bar (including the + & - buttons). This problem also affects the Exit item in the Start screen; the highlight jumps back to the Start Game item when you try to exit. It might just be because the In-game isn't working properly yet and just screws things up.

This might be intentional, but the graphics for the dialog boxes seem to be missing. I also notice that D-pad controls for the Confirmation dialog seems to be working now.

 

[iprice]

At last!

The graphics for the dialogue boxes shouldn't be missing - they display fine on my GP2X :blink: Do you only see the dialogue text?

Key control has been restored/implemented to dialogue boxes (except the LOAD/SAVE/CANCEL one), and appear to be working properly.

The Options screen breaking may just be a stray variable not resetting and should be easy to trace/fix. If it's working properly at one point, then stops working that's usually the cause.

Now to implement the code into the other menus and then start fixing the game

 

[Manjuu]

The graphics for the dialogue boxes shouldn't be missing - they display fine on my GP2X :blink: Do you only see the dialogue text?

Oops... it seems the culprit were outdated files. Got them to display fine now. :lol:

 

[iprice]

QUOTE
Oops... it seems the culprit were outdated files. Got them to display fine now.

That's good news

New update available - http://www.iprice.remakes.org/stuff/blox_gp2x.rar (0.99Mb)

WARNING - THIS IS AN UPDATE AND CONTAINS NO MEDIA.

This fixes all menus and adds a (still very WIP) puzzle select screen. Game not updated, so consider this more of a final menu test.

 

[Manjuu]

This fixes all menus and adds a (still very WIP) puzzle select screen. Game not updated, so consider this more of a final menu test.

Sadly, this won't be the final menu test.

Not all the menus are working yet. The Language Select screen doesn't work with touchscreen, but the Main Menu now works fine. The Confirmation dialogs also doesn't work with touchscreen. The Load/Save Puzzle dialog is now working with touchscreen (although the responsiveness seems to be poorer compared to other screens), but doesn't work with D-pad; once it proceeds to the Confirmation dialog, then it no longer works. Also, why is there two Cancel buttons in the Load/Save Puzzle screen? The How to Play's OK button also doesn't work for touchscreen. The repeat interval is too fast when using the D-pad to select items such as in the Confirmation dialogs. The repeat bug for the Puzzle + & - also is still present when touchscreen is used.

The new Puzzle Select screen looks nice, but is indeed still WIP. It works fine when selecting puzzles, but it seems that there is an excess column of puzzles at the left edge of the screen, which can only be accessed by the D-pad. The Difficulty item also doesn't work, but it could be that it's not yet implemented. Same goes to the limit of 12 puzzles. The main problem I encountered is that it often causes the program to crash when I exit back to the Main Menu.

 

[iprice]

Great input Manjuu

It's good that the Main and Options menus nowwork, but I'll have to have a look at the Language Selection again

I might have forgotten the OK touchscreen option in the "How to play", so that's a good call.

LOAD/SAVE/CANCEL hasn't got D-Pad controls yet. I will address the responsiveness issue. The two CANCEL buttons are due to carelessness on my part - I noticed them once, but forgot about them (I was developing this at way past 4 in the morning ) I was concentrating on the menus really, so they weren't a priority at that point.

Dialogues and touchscreen. OK, that's my next task.

Repeat bug for + & - I will look into. That only occurs on touchscreen, right? Seems OK on F100/ Does it increase/decrease when you first put the pen down and then again on removal?

D-Pad repeat on confirmation dialogues is still too fast on certain dialogues, that's easy to sort.

Well spotted with regard to the Stage Select screen - the D-Pad shouldn't be able to go off the left side of the screen like that. I hadn't noticed that at all (I blame my maths!) I haven't implemented a difficulty selector yet - needless to say that you'll be able to access all puzzles eventually.

How are you exiting from the Stage Select screen back to the main menu? You shouldn't be able to do that - it should go straight to the game. There will be a CANCEL button soon though. If it crashed as a result of a different action, then can you let me know.

Nice one

 

[Noremakk]

Seems like one more version to go until the menus and level editor are all good, then we can get on to the real game.