Quickgame challenge -- anyone interested?

[Cody0023]

really cool challenge. I know nothing about making games,and im really impressed.

[Disch]

So.... I got pulled away from this bigtime, and had to stop like 2 days before my deadline. So I'm going to give myself 2 days this weekend to finish up.

[a k n]

Gravity
I made this game (https://github.com/amhndu/gravity ) for my school project in C++/SFML.
Although I had made this some weeks ago , this took me around a week.
For more information look at the README (https://github.com/amhndu/gravity#gravity ).

[Duthomhas]

Dang, I'm having an insane amount of trouble just making sound work properly! Good grief!

[chrisname]

I wish I had the free time to commit to this, but even during half-term I will have so much coursework to do that there's no way I can take a whole week to make a game.

[Duthomhas]

Well, I can't spend any more time on this right now. You can download and play the beta version from

http://home.comcast.net/~michaelthomasgreer/prog/septoku/

Please let me know:

    • If it works|breaks for you.
    • Your OS and hardware (and if you want something I didn't provide).
    • What the first song it played for you was.
      (And whether you had any trouble with the music/sound. I can't test sound on *nixen)
    • What you think of the gameplay. Anything you'd add? Change?

(Oh, and don't ask for 64-bit builds. Your 64-bit OS will handle the 32-bit executable just fine.
Do ask if you are running on non-Intel hardware.)

Enjoy!

[firedraco]

Seems to be working.
Windows 8 (not update to 8.1 yet).
Something with some soft strings and stuff (on the title screen).
Gameplay seems good. Only thing I might change is maybe auto-write in answers that have only one pencil answer once you remove them from penning in an answer?

[Duthomhas]

Wow that was really quick!

What do you mean by "soft strings and stuff"?
(And what song did it play for you first?)

The auto-pen thing is a little trickier than that -- if I let the program do that then either it'll let the human cheat or it won't do it as often as the human thinks it ought.

[Zhuge]

• If it works|breaks for you.

Worked for me.

• Your OS and hardware (and if you want something I didn't provide).

Windows 8.1.

• What the first song it played for you was.
(And whether you had any trouble with the music/sound. I can't test sound on *nixen)

A Donkey Kong Country remix, I think. It didn't seem to play anything else after that one finished, though.

• What you think of the gameplay. Anything you'd add? Change?

Works quite nicely. I found myself always penciling in every number then removing the ones that weren't possible, though; maybe you could add a clear/activate all button at the bottom? That would really just be convenient for me, as I could just as easily use the same process, skipping digits I see and adding digits I don't.

[m4ster r0shi]

Awesome stuff from everyone so far :)

I've made some progress too. ATM, the core mechanics of both Heart Star [1] and Sky Island [2], as well as very primitive (text based) level editing functionality are implemented. No fancy art yet, just some cute stuff I made with Inkscape. Also, somewhere along the way I decided to switch to Gameplay3d [3], since I wanted to release an executable without also effectively releasing the source (which would be the case with a jar). Overall, I think it turned out OK. I'll probably continue working on this when I find more time.

You can use WASD (recommended) or arrows to move around, SPACE to switch characters, and click & drag to change your point of view. The girl (pink cube) does not interact with star blocks and the boy (blue cube) does not interact with heart blocks. The characters can also carry and push each other. Try to reach the yellow blocks with both characters (don't expect anything special to happen when you do though :P). Then, try creating your own levels by editing res/level.txt. The format is self explanatory. Just one thing that may not be obvious: The '#' char indicates a range. For example, if you want a 3x3x3 cube centered at the origin, you can specify it as -1#1 -1#1 -1#1.

Have fun! :D

png -> http://tinypic.com/m/iei6c2/3
exe -> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/144894537/hsi/hsi.zip

EDIT: Another, (supposedly) more stable build -> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/144894537/hsi/hsi-sdl.zip

PS: You may need vcredist_x86 ( http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784 )

[1] http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/647851
[2] http://armorgames.com/play/10899/sky-island
[3] https://github.com/gameplay3d/GamePlay

[Duthomhas]

I've downloaded the Microsoft Redistributable for VS2013 (both 32- and 64-bit, but your app looks to be 32-bit) but heart-star-island.exe will not run for me. (Instant abort, with no error information.)

Windows 7 Professional, SP1, 8GB memory, AMD Sempron 130.

BTW, the redistributable is so called because you are permitted (and I personally encourage people) to also distribute the required MS DLLs with their program, or at least provide a link to the Microsoft site to find them.

[m4ster r0shi]

Damn... One of my friends had this problem too. There must be some other dependencies I'm missing. I guess I'll have to look into it... Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for reporting this.

[Duthomhas]

I believe it's the OpenAL32.dll's dependency on ole32.dll, which has this odd list of dependencies:
- API-MS-Win-Core-Debug-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-ErrorHandling-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Fibers-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-File-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Handle-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Heap-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Interlocked-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-IO-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-LibraryLoader-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Localization-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-LocalRegistry-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Memory-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Misc-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-ProcessEnvironment-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-ProcessThreads-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Profile-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-String-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Synch-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-SysInfo-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Core-Util-L1-1-0.dll
- API-MS-Win-Security-Base-L1-1-0.dll

Likewise, OpenGL32.dll requires ADVAPI32.dll, which as a similar list of dependencies.

I'm not sure how these misconfigured DLLs got on my system, but all those API-MS-*.dlls are Windows 8 stuff.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh802935(v=vs.85).aspx

(I'll have to figure out how to fix either the affected DLLs or install the Win8 API set.)

Alas.

[edit] I found them. They're in the Side-by-Side system directories...
Now to check to see if they're really working right...

[edit 2] So that's not the problem...

[m4ster r0shi]

heart-star-island.exe depends on msvcr120.dll (hence the vcredist 2013 dep), but I just noticed that Openal32.dll depends on msvcr100.dll. Does this mean that an earlier vcredist version is required too?

[Duthomhas]

Yes, but everyone has msvcr100.dll installed. It's not the problem.

[S G H]

All those DLLs are required by most applications.
If you know you have openal's dll in your path, the problem may be misplaced game data, since missing dlls are usually reported on startup, and it seems you are receiving no warnings.
EDIT: also make sure it is a RELEASE build. Should not be the problem.

[m4ster r0shi]

I just noticed something weird. I updated the zip with some more game data files (not sure whether they are needed or not), then downloaded and extracted it on my desktop, and this is what happens now: Whenever I open the hsi folder and run the exe, it crashes immediately. All subsequent attempts to run it work fine. If I close and reopen the hsi folder, this behaviour is repeated (i.e. it first crashes and then works fine).

Any idea about what might be going on?...

I smell a bug somewhere in my code...

EDIT: Okay, I figured it out (I think). The problem was an OpenAL32.dll version mismatch. I'm not
sure though if this is the same problem Duoas has. My friend still can't play and I don't know why...

EDIT2: I'm not sure why this works for me though... It shoudn't, as I try to load a 64 bit dll from a 32 bit app.
And my friend gets a relevant error message ( http://stackoverflow.com/q/10492037/2327880 ) when he tries that.

EDIT3: Neither the OpenAL32.dll from my system folder seems to work for my friend :/
(the ones I used so far were Gameplay3D's) There's no error, the game just doesn't run.

[m4ster r0shi]

Alright, here's another build for those who had problems with the previous one, with something
extra to make up for the delay: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/144894537/hsi/hsi-sdl.zip

Let's hope nothing breaks this time...

BTW, Disch, I'm waiting for your game (and I'm sure other people are too).

[Duthomhas]

Well, it's not crashing.

It's just a white screen.

(Sorry.)

And ditto for Disch.

[Duthomhas]

What's the trick to beating the first level?
I can get one of them up high enough to bump a yellow block, but that's it. (And nothing happens.)