Today Mass Media Games 'The Midway' update went live. I was personally working on this improved version of The Midway. I am so happy to see it up there and see the annoying bugs fixed. Ok, so most of the bugs i fixed were even noticed by the general populace, but it mattered to us, to me.
The main fixes are generally cosmetic, with spectators now seeing Frog Flinger players frogs being propelled correctly after the player reaches level 5. We also altered lighting on the prize board towers and that makes them much easier to see. They now read much better and I like em. Then there were improvements to the scrolling messages, and that bug fix wil make it so all 5 slots can be changed and not only a select few (bad bug, get squashed!). There are a couple of more major fixes, but again i am not sure anyone really noticed, but if they did i thank you for not raising hell about it.
We made the whole scene more efficient, raising the base frame rate and also making the scene load faster.
Then finally our last fix was for the Freeplay Frenzy. Did you notice how occasionally everyone seemed to know which game was going to be free and already be playing it? Well we had a bug where there could be a disparity between each players timer. This could cause a several second difference in when you saw Freeplay Frenzy being on. So sometimes you would be first easily and sometimes feel like you were last. Every player was however awarded the full minute to be able to try and get into the game. Now the timing issue has been fixed and now everyones Freeplay Frenzy will happen on the same second.
We also added an advertising opster near the entrance to liven that area up. Keep a lookout for future posters coming soon. Also we expanded the Ticket Booth shop to now include all of Mass Medias for sale in the Mall items. Making it more convenient for shoppers of fine virtual items :D
That's about it. I sure hope you are all enjoying your Midway.
Laters
Showing posts with label the midway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the midway. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
How to find a Bug
Today i worked in The Midway for PS3 Home. In fact i spent quite a number of hours looking into a couple of annoying bugs in there. The first one ended up being quite easy to fix once i had figured out what was wrong. the second one took a while but i got it in the end.
The first bug is simply a sorted list problem. I say simply but in fact it took me a while to fix because it wsn't an error on an existing line of code. It was in fact a missing line of code that was the issue. So the list (actually an array) needs to be shuffled down to let in the new element. Simple enough and i could see the shuffle code was there. Only the bug happened to be the fact that although the list was being shuffled for it's main attribute, it's other attribute was not. So that mean't that a sorting element was not being suffled along with the main element. DOH! Easy 1 line fix.
The second bug was interesting as it was a network bug. We had no idea what was causing it and yet we know of certains apsects or manifestations of the bug. So i spent some time in the midway trying different things to no avail. Then i examined the code directly to see what i could see. Finally i ended up talking with the designer and another prohrammer about the bug and i got some useful ideas i could try out. As it happened the first thing i tried worked great. The fix will be easy enough tomorrow.
So how do ya find bugs?
Number 1, Find a reliable repro for it (reporoduction steps). If you have this you can find any bug. Though some are still harder than others haha!
Number 2, don't be afraid to talk to others about it, even none programmers.
Number 3, don't ignore any coincidence, however remote or inconsequential it might at first appear.
G'night and happy bug hunting.
The first bug is simply a sorted list problem. I say simply but in fact it took me a while to fix because it wsn't an error on an existing line of code. It was in fact a missing line of code that was the issue. So the list (actually an array) needs to be shuffled down to let in the new element. Simple enough and i could see the shuffle code was there. Only the bug happened to be the fact that although the list was being shuffled for it's main attribute, it's other attribute was not. So that mean't that a sorting element was not being suffled along with the main element. DOH! Easy 1 line fix.
The second bug was interesting as it was a network bug. We had no idea what was causing it and yet we know of certains apsects or manifestations of the bug. So i spent some time in the midway trying different things to no avail. Then i examined the code directly to see what i could see. Finally i ended up talking with the designer and another prohrammer about the bug and i got some useful ideas i could try out. As it happened the first thing i tried worked great. The fix will be easy enough tomorrow.
So how do ya find bugs?
Number 1, Find a reliable repro for it (reporoduction steps). If you have this you can find any bug. Though some are still harder than others haha!
Number 2, don't be afraid to talk to others about it, even none programmers.
Number 3, don't ignore any coincidence, however remote or inconsequential it might at first appear.
G'night and happy bug hunting.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Midway (release report pt4)
Ok, so this is less of a report than it is an update. But i really liked the way the title showed, some form of consistency from me, not that it happens too often :)
The Midway appears to be a huge success. It is very popular in the Home circles and we have heard an awful lot of praise. Which is truly appreciated. Most things have not gone wrong, altough a few things have. So i will list a few god/bad things:-
The Bad,
1. SDTV issue is a biggie. when 10% or so of your clientel cannot play your games. It is bad. The fix should be live already.
2. Darlas Darts Prize 6, male version only. In home this special TShirt appears to be white. There is a shader issue with the object and somehow we missed it. It will be fixed on the 15th.
3. Meet Darla time is silly. We did not do a special version of The Midway for europe. so they got the same time offset from GMT that America did. This is bad when Darla appears at 5 in the morning in England. Paris fared little better with her appearing at 6am. I have read of people setting their alarm clocks to go online and meet her. BAH! This will also be addressed on the 15th of July. The new time will be 6 hours earlier.
Ok more bad things later when i recall them.
The Good,
1. The Midway spaces always look busy when we go there. It is a joy to behold so many people running around in there and making it look busy. It was part of our dream to see a space in home that did not look dead, or populated by zombies. From what we saw people really like the fact the place is happening. The spectator mode was a lot of trouble to make work, and i feel players or even just visitors are appreciating this.
2. People are really prepared to spend money on these simple little games. Yeah, we wondered at first. Knowing it is a casual market is one thing, appealing to it is another. We think we got it mostly right.
3. We felt before launch that a number of our games could be considered too hard. We are pleasantly surprised by peoples willpower and dedication to winning all the prizes. It is amazing to us that so many people already own a Golden Jacket.
More positives in a later post as well.
Info..
I was informed that there were 50 instances of The Midway running on Thursday morning when it launched. Is this a lot? I don't know. Probably about 2500 people. I sure hope there are more people in home than that, but still a great start...
The Golden Crown has been seen in Home now. I believe a number of people have figure out where it comes from, etc.. but i can reveal the truth. We check your inventory when you enter The Midway, and if you own a Golden Toilet, then we GIVE you a free Golden Crown. We also hope to do this kind of special bonus rewards system for future releases, in relation to our older releases of spaces and items etc. I sure hope that it is a recurring theme for Mass Media.
G'night.
The Midway appears to be a huge success. It is very popular in the Home circles and we have heard an awful lot of praise. Which is truly appreciated. Most things have not gone wrong, altough a few things have. So i will list a few god/bad things:-
The Bad,
1. SDTV issue is a biggie. when 10% or so of your clientel cannot play your games. It is bad. The fix should be live already.
2. Darlas Darts Prize 6, male version only. In home this special TShirt appears to be white. There is a shader issue with the object and somehow we missed it. It will be fixed on the 15th.
3. Meet Darla time is silly. We did not do a special version of The Midway for europe. so they got the same time offset from GMT that America did. This is bad when Darla appears at 5 in the morning in England. Paris fared little better with her appearing at 6am. I have read of people setting their alarm clocks to go online and meet her. BAH! This will also be addressed on the 15th of July. The new time will be 6 hours earlier.
Ok more bad things later when i recall them.
The Good,
1. The Midway spaces always look busy when we go there. It is a joy to behold so many people running around in there and making it look busy. It was part of our dream to see a space in home that did not look dead, or populated by zombies. From what we saw people really like the fact the place is happening. The spectator mode was a lot of trouble to make work, and i feel players or even just visitors are appreciating this.
2. People are really prepared to spend money on these simple little games. Yeah, we wondered at first. Knowing it is a casual market is one thing, appealing to it is another. We think we got it mostly right.
3. We felt before launch that a number of our games could be considered too hard. We are pleasantly surprised by peoples willpower and dedication to winning all the prizes. It is amazing to us that so many people already own a Golden Jacket.
More positives in a later post as well.
Info..
I was informed that there were 50 instances of The Midway running on Thursday morning when it launched. Is this a lot? I don't know. Probably about 2500 people. I sure hope there are more people in home than that, but still a great start...
The Golden Crown has been seen in Home now. I believe a number of people have figure out where it comes from, etc.. but i can reveal the truth. We check your inventory when you enter The Midway, and if you own a Golden Toilet, then we GIVE you a free Golden Crown. We also hope to do this kind of special bonus rewards system for future releases, in relation to our older releases of spaces and items etc. I sure hope that it is a recurring theme for Mass Media.
G'night.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Working on Scheduled posts
I have been searching for how to do scheduled posts now for a coulpe of weeks. I knew then that i was going to visit England and i wanted to write some extra posts that i could make appear as if by magic during the days i am not around.
As usual i failed at this task and so thought that Blogger didnt have this functionality. Well i was so wrong. It is there hidden in a way. Although if you know it is there i am sure it isn't a problem. Now however i have a new problem. Just how do i test it effectively. I have no days left to be able to test this thing.. bah!
So if you are reading this post. then you have seen it work. Yup.. ahuh! This is my test post for scheduled posting. i will however be on a plane on my way to England when it posts, if indeed it has. Hmm, if you are reading it then it worked. I seem to be feeling a conundrum and no idea why, lol.
Tomorrows post should be more normal. I wonder which day i will get to talk about PB Winterbottom and Xblig comparison.. We shall see. Also more news from The Midway on PS3 tomorrow, if i can get to a pc.
G'night
As usual i failed at this task and so thought that Blogger didnt have this functionality. Well i was so wrong. It is there hidden in a way. Although if you know it is there i am sure it isn't a problem. Now however i have a new problem. Just how do i test it effectively. I have no days left to be able to test this thing.. bah!
So if you are reading this post. then you have seen it work. Yup.. ahuh! This is my test post for scheduled posting. i will however be on a plane on my way to England when it posts, if indeed it has. Hmm, if you are reading it then it worked. I seem to be feeling a conundrum and no idea why, lol.
Tomorrows post should be more normal. I wonder which day i will get to talk about PB Winterbottom and Xblig comparison.. We shall see. Also more news from The Midway on PS3 tomorrow, if i can get to a pc.
G'night
Thursday, July 8, 2010
I suck at The Midway Comps
So far i have run 2 competitions for Codes for The Midway. Both have managed to suck in some way or other. Let me tell you about them.
1. My first try was to do a ReTweet competition. I see these all the time and i think they are fast, dynamic and easy. Well i thought they seemed easy till i actually did one. First off ya gotta have enough followers that are interested in what you are giving away. Most of my followers are industry peeps and mostly on the Xbox. This seems like the wrong demographic to be giving out codes to. You are correct of course it was. Though that was not my real issue.
I started off by saying the comp would end at midnight and someone would be chosen that was following me and retweeted #themidway tag. Seemed simple enough and i was just following on from what i have seen others do. However i ran into an issue right away.
Which midnight? Yep, thats right i needed to clarify that i mean't Pacific standard time, as i am a west coaster. DOH! time for some retweets of my midified 140 chars.
At 10 minutes to midnight i decided to start looking at who might be eligible for winning. I was really interested in how many people were in the running. As it turns out a quick search showed me 3. I had hoped for 6 at least, ahh well. Then i went thru my emails telling me that people had started following me. Lo and behold there was a person in there that had started following me and had also retweeted my message, BUT was not appearing the search list. How, How can that be? I still do not have the answer, but i added him to the list and at 12 midnight i got a random number and it hit one on the list. I DM'd him the code and that was that.
2. My second competition was simple as well. This time i put in a barkey code into a post i have on this blog. I then colored it black to match the background. To see it you just have to select the page and Whammo, there it is. I only tweeted about the fact that it existed and before long someone had found it. But it did not work for him. I was sorely disappointed, but at the time had no idea why it did not work.
It has to do with zones. I did not know that my codes were only for the American servers. So the people that kept finding the code in my Blog post were from Europe, bah! This disappoints me greatly.
In the end someone tried the code from America on my blog only to discover it has already gone. Though i do not know who has claimed it, as they have not told me. But i am glad someone is using the barkey now 8D
Next competition will be another twitter one, but i am running out of time before i travel to England tomorrow. so maybe i will get one more in tonight, and then i will do more of them when i get back from Blighty. Also i will ask for some european codes as well. I hate to miss people out, isn't that some sort of prejudice ? haha
Laters
1. My first try was to do a ReTweet competition. I see these all the time and i think they are fast, dynamic and easy. Well i thought they seemed easy till i actually did one. First off ya gotta have enough followers that are interested in what you are giving away. Most of my followers are industry peeps and mostly on the Xbox. This seems like the wrong demographic to be giving out codes to. You are correct of course it was. Though that was not my real issue.
I started off by saying the comp would end at midnight and someone would be chosen that was following me and retweeted #themidway tag. Seemed simple enough and i was just following on from what i have seen others do. However i ran into an issue right away.
Which midnight? Yep, thats right i needed to clarify that i mean't Pacific standard time, as i am a west coaster. DOH! time for some retweets of my midified 140 chars.
At 10 minutes to midnight i decided to start looking at who might be eligible for winning. I was really interested in how many people were in the running. As it turns out a quick search showed me 3. I had hoped for 6 at least, ahh well. Then i went thru my emails telling me that people had started following me. Lo and behold there was a person in there that had started following me and had also retweeted my message, BUT was not appearing the search list. How, How can that be? I still do not have the answer, but i added him to the list and at 12 midnight i got a random number and it hit one on the list. I DM'd him the code and that was that.
2. My second competition was simple as well. This time i put in a barkey code into a post i have on this blog. I then colored it black to match the background. To see it you just have to select the page and Whammo, there it is. I only tweeted about the fact that it existed and before long someone had found it. But it did not work for him. I was sorely disappointed, but at the time had no idea why it did not work.
It has to do with zones. I did not know that my codes were only for the American servers. So the people that kept finding the code in my Blog post were from Europe, bah! This disappoints me greatly.
In the end someone tried the code from America on my blog only to discover it has already gone. Though i do not know who has claimed it, as they have not told me. But i am glad someone is using the barkey now 8D
Next competition will be another twitter one, but i am running out of time before i travel to England tomorrow. so maybe i will get one more in tonight, and then i will do more of them when i get back from Blighty. Also i will ask for some european codes as well. I hate to miss people out, isn't that some sort of prejudice ? haha
Laters
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Midway and Kickstarter Project
I keep checking my kickstarter project like a grown up checking their baby to see if anything has happened yet, even though they are sleeping. It is early days yet and i am hopeful that the Project will get funded, if not i suppose A Shooter will just have to go live as it is. Which will be a disppointment for me, but a nescessary time to move onward with my game development. So if you know anyone interested, please let them know.
The Midway was my full time project today, well apart from the bit i worked on The Midway2... Yup, we are already working on this and have been for some time. This was started because we felt like The Midway would be a success, and therefore be worthwhile to do. If we can make each project financially viable, then we can move onto bigger and better things.I was told that the SDTV fix i did should go live tomorrow, YAY! Today i talked to several people with this issue, i will be glad not to have to talk about it again.
Another change i coded today, that will go into next weeks releases (or possibly the week after) is a time change for Meet Darla. The europeans were unfairly treated on this one and the redo of time will make it a lot easier for them to be awake to see Darla.
I go away on vacation on Friday to England, the land of my birth. It is going to be an amazing journey as it always is. Seeing family and friends and more family :) However during that time i will probably be posting quite eractically. I will do my best though.
G'night.
The Midway was my full time project today, well apart from the bit i worked on The Midway2... Yup, we are already working on this and have been for some time. This was started because we felt like The Midway would be a success, and therefore be worthwhile to do. If we can make each project financially viable, then we can move onto bigger and better things.I was told that the SDTV fix i did should go live tomorrow, YAY! Today i talked to several people with this issue, i will be glad not to have to talk about it again.
Another change i coded today, that will go into next weeks releases (or possibly the week after) is a time change for Meet Darla. The europeans were unfairly treated on this one and the redo of time will make it a lot easier for them to be awake to see Darla.
I go away on vacation on Friday to England, the land of my birth. It is going to be an amazing journey as it always is. Seeing family and friends and more family :) However during that time i will probably be posting quite eractically. I will do my best though.
G'night.
The Midway for PS3 Home (release report pt 3)
It’s a blur… (12:30pm ?)
This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. What quite came first.. where did all the hours go etc. I know I spent a few more hours in The Midway itself. Talking to people and playing the games. We didn’t believe the phantom ticket was our fault. Therefore it was very unlikely we could fix this. So we were left to look at what else was happening. I started looking at some aspects of The Midway that may need fixing up or improving for the next version or upgrade for this one. Mostly the afternoon went very fast. As I said, playing the games and wandering around chatting to people. I cannot honestly remember much else about Thursday afternoon, it’s all a blur…
july 2nd -Friday (9am)
Friday morning started bright and early and I was looking forward to seeing how The Midway survived the night. So I eagerly headed off for work a bit early and got there at about 8:30am. The place was fairly quiet. Then the boss comes in and starts to tell me about the PS3 forums and what has been going on in them. This was the time we were informed that the forums had mentioned a possible fix for The Midway not working correctly for some people. Someone had figured out that it was due to having the Video settings set to SDTV mode and not widescreen. Whhaaat? How can this be? They also mentioned this fixed Andy’s room and the jumping on the bed minigame in there (Andy’s room for Disney is also one of our recent jobs). Woah, I had to run to my code immediately. A quick search for code specific to the aspect ratio of the game soon turned up an answer. This took me approximately 20 seconds to figure out what was wrong. Needless to say I was not quite as disappointed as I expected, in fact I was rather happy I had the solution to people not being able to play or get rewards.
So armed with this very startling information I headed off to the computer. I happen to know we have very little code pertaining to the SDTV functionality, so I knew I would be looking at a very small selection of code. (handy knowing what we test for). First thing I did was a sanity check and I downloaded The Midway to a PS3 I have set in that mode. I saw the crash of the Scene script immediately. I saw there was no HUD, and I also saw there was no Darlas Den given at the start. Finally I saw that none of the games could be played. This is the exact problem as described by people in The Midway having issues. So it was time to look at the code. I popped up my Codewright and searched through all the Lua code for Widescreen. BAM… I will say that again. BAAAM!! There it is. Yeah it was that easy. Staring me in the face was the widescreen test, and inside the If-then statement were a couple of lines that we should not have there. It was the dreaded test code. In fact you might all be interested to know that the test code was to show the current Prize score while in The Midway itself. So what had happened was the definitions and code for these variables had been commented out. However these two had been left and not noticed.
This was a real downer for a moment, till we all realized that we had at least got the answer and it wasn’t so in depth a code change that we could not get this online asap. So I altered the code and packaged it up. Then I tested it of course. It worked as expected, so now we need to get it uploaded to the Sonys CDS.
ARGH! (9:30am)
Here we are with a quick fix. A simple fix and one that I had the fullest confidence in. Which is unusual for me as I tend to always expect things to break if they can. And here it is, the break is simply that after an hour of trying to upload the scenes package file it crashes. Yeah.. so I am trying all sorts, going out to the internet through a second jack and therefore the T1 line. It did not matter, the CDS was having issues and I could not force them to be better. So after some time I settled on looking at the Bouncing on the bed code from Andy’s room.
Bouncing bed of fun (11:30am)
I went right in on this code and looked up the widescreen variable as before. Lo and behold it quickly sent me to an If-then-else statement. In that statement were two possible routes for the code to travel. In the first half there were a couple of variables for counting the number of stars collected. It had the declaration inside the If statement. In the else part though there was no declaration of the variables, but they were still used, exclusively in widescreen mode. This was the culprit, a nil varable. So after commenting out 4 lines of code the Bouncing on the bed worked fine in SDTV mode. YAY! Two fixes in one day. I passed the fixes over to the guy who was looking after Toystory and he was going to upload the fixed minigame. However CDS was still having issues. So it must have been lunch time. So off we went to lunch, and I cannot even remember where.
In the afternoon we managed to get the version up into the CDS, but could not quite push them through to Sony test. It did seem like Sonys servers etc were being inundated and we hoped it was a successful launch of The Midway that did this. So we filled in all the paperwork and emailed Sony the relevant information. Then I went back to The Midway to spend the Bosses tickets :D such fun haha. I was also helping pass the word about the widescreen mode fixing the SDTV mode issues. This was a good way to work on a Friday afternoon.
I did hope that Sony would get back to me before the day was out, but that did not happen. So I was left to wonder over the July 4th weekend. Or was I ?
G'night
This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. What quite came first.. where did all the hours go etc. I know I spent a few more hours in The Midway itself. Talking to people and playing the games. We didn’t believe the phantom ticket was our fault. Therefore it was very unlikely we could fix this. So we were left to look at what else was happening. I started looking at some aspects of The Midway that may need fixing up or improving for the next version or upgrade for this one. Mostly the afternoon went very fast. As I said, playing the games and wandering around chatting to people. I cannot honestly remember much else about Thursday afternoon, it’s all a blur…
july 2nd -Friday (9am)
Friday morning started bright and early and I was looking forward to seeing how The Midway survived the night. So I eagerly headed off for work a bit early and got there at about 8:30am. The place was fairly quiet. Then the boss comes in and starts to tell me about the PS3 forums and what has been going on in them. This was the time we were informed that the forums had mentioned a possible fix for The Midway not working correctly for some people. Someone had figured out that it was due to having the Video settings set to SDTV mode and not widescreen. Whhaaat? How can this be? They also mentioned this fixed Andy’s room and the jumping on the bed minigame in there (Andy’s room for Disney is also one of our recent jobs). Woah, I had to run to my code immediately. A quick search for code specific to the aspect ratio of the game soon turned up an answer. This took me approximately 20 seconds to figure out what was wrong. Needless to say I was not quite as disappointed as I expected, in fact I was rather happy I had the solution to people not being able to play or get rewards.
So armed with this very startling information I headed off to the computer. I happen to know we have very little code pertaining to the SDTV functionality, so I knew I would be looking at a very small selection of code. (handy knowing what we test for). First thing I did was a sanity check and I downloaded The Midway to a PS3 I have set in that mode. I saw the crash of the Scene script immediately. I saw there was no HUD, and I also saw there was no Darlas Den given at the start. Finally I saw that none of the games could be played. This is the exact problem as described by people in The Midway having issues. So it was time to look at the code. I popped up my Codewright and searched through all the Lua code for Widescreen. BAM… I will say that again. BAAAM!! There it is. Yeah it was that easy. Staring me in the face was the widescreen test, and inside the If-then statement were a couple of lines that we should not have there. It was the dreaded test code. In fact you might all be interested to know that the test code was to show the current Prize score while in The Midway itself. So what had happened was the definitions and code for these variables had been commented out. However these two had been left and not noticed.
This was a real downer for a moment, till we all realized that we had at least got the answer and it wasn’t so in depth a code change that we could not get this online asap. So I altered the code and packaged it up. Then I tested it of course. It worked as expected, so now we need to get it uploaded to the Sonys CDS.
ARGH! (9:30am)
Here we are with a quick fix. A simple fix and one that I had the fullest confidence in. Which is unusual for me as I tend to always expect things to break if they can. And here it is, the break is simply that after an hour of trying to upload the scenes package file it crashes. Yeah.. so I am trying all sorts, going out to the internet through a second jack and therefore the T1 line. It did not matter, the CDS was having issues and I could not force them to be better. So after some time I settled on looking at the Bouncing on the bed code from Andy’s room.
Bouncing bed of fun (11:30am)
I went right in on this code and looked up the widescreen variable as before. Lo and behold it quickly sent me to an If-then-else statement. In that statement were two possible routes for the code to travel. In the first half there were a couple of variables for counting the number of stars collected. It had the declaration inside the If statement. In the else part though there was no declaration of the variables, but they were still used, exclusively in widescreen mode. This was the culprit, a nil varable. So after commenting out 4 lines of code the Bouncing on the bed worked fine in SDTV mode. YAY! Two fixes in one day. I passed the fixes over to the guy who was looking after Toystory and he was going to upload the fixed minigame. However CDS was still having issues. So it must have been lunch time. So off we went to lunch, and I cannot even remember where.
In the afternoon we managed to get the version up into the CDS, but could not quite push them through to Sony test. It did seem like Sonys servers etc were being inundated and we hoped it was a successful launch of The Midway that did this. So we filled in all the paperwork and emailed Sony the relevant information. Then I went back to The Midway to spend the Bosses tickets :D such fun haha. I was also helping pass the word about the widescreen mode fixing the SDTV mode issues. This was a good way to work on a Friday afternoon.
I did hope that Sony would get back to me before the day was out, but that did not happen. So I was left to wonder over the July 4th weekend. Or was I ?
G'night
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Midway Prize Point System Explained
I realised there is no reference to how the Meta Prize points are doled out per level won. so here is the information for anyone who is interested.
EARNING POINTS
You earn points for winning levels in the 10 carnival games in The Midway. The number of points you win equals the level number times 4. Level 10 gets you an additional 30 point bonus. You use these points to win Meta Prizes that are shown on a board in Darla's Den.
Win Level 1 = 4 points
Level 2 = 8 points
Level 3 = 12 points
Level 4 = 16 points
Level 5 = 20 points
Level 6 = 24 points
Level 7 = 28 points
Level 8 = 32 points
Level 9 = 36 points
Level 10 = 70 points (40+30)
TOTAL POINTS = 250 per game, 2,500 for all 10 games
(NOTE: Points are not awarded for Trigger Happy In-A-Box or Big Bang that are found in Darla's Den)
META PRIZES
You win the first meta prize for 250 points, second meta-prize for 350 points, third for 500 points and so on. That way, you can get the points by playing a few games well instead of having to master them all.
Meta Prize win levels:
1. 250 (Clown Shoes)
2. 350 (Clock in Darla's Den)
3. 500 (Clown Gloves)
4. 650 (Access to the Hot Tub in Darla's Den)
5. 800 (Clown Pants)
6. 1000 (Access to the Disco Darla area in Darla's Den)
7. 1250 (Clown Shirt)
8. 1500 (Unlock Big Bang, play for free, win 5 levels for 5 prizes)
9. 2000 (Clown Wig and Nose)
10. 2500 (You win a Gold Leather Jacket and Darla comes to dance in the Disco Darla area. This is the maximum number of points you can win in The Midway. )
Yes that DOES in fact leave those 5000 and 7500 points prizes as unattainable. That is because they are for the planned future expansion of the Midway (hopefull in a couple of months depending).
BAR KEY
You need to buy the Bar Key to open up the area that contains Trigger Happy In-A-Box and Bell Ringer. Both can then be played for free by any visitor in the space, including the owner. You can win 5 prizes with TH In-A-Box, or win all 10 prizes in Bell Ringer.
KCPM-J9BP-J8H6
Hope ya found that info useful.
Laters.
EARNING POINTS
You earn points for winning levels in the 10 carnival games in The Midway. The number of points you win equals the level number times 4. Level 10 gets you an additional 30 point bonus. You use these points to win Meta Prizes that are shown on a board in Darla's Den.
Win Level 1 = 4 points
Level 2 = 8 points
Level 3 = 12 points
Level 4 = 16 points
Level 5 = 20 points
Level 6 = 24 points
Level 7 = 28 points
Level 8 = 32 points
Level 9 = 36 points
Level 10 = 70 points (40+30)
TOTAL POINTS = 250 per game, 2,500 for all 10 games
(NOTE: Points are not awarded for Trigger Happy In-A-Box or Big Bang that are found in Darla's Den)
META PRIZES
You win the first meta prize for 250 points, second meta-prize for 350 points, third for 500 points and so on. That way, you can get the points by playing a few games well instead of having to master them all.
Meta Prize win levels:
1. 250 (Clown Shoes)
2. 350 (Clock in Darla's Den)
3. 500 (Clown Gloves)
4. 650 (Access to the Hot Tub in Darla's Den)
5. 800 (Clown Pants)
6. 1000 (Access to the Disco Darla area in Darla's Den)
7. 1250 (Clown Shirt)
8. 1500 (Unlock Big Bang, play for free, win 5 levels for 5 prizes)
9. 2000 (Clown Wig and Nose)
10. 2500 (You win a Gold Leather Jacket and Darla comes to dance in the Disco Darla area. This is the maximum number of points you can win in The Midway. )
Yes that DOES in fact leave those 5000 and 7500 points prizes as unattainable. That is because they are for the planned future expansion of the Midway (hopefull in a couple of months depending).
BAR KEY
You need to buy the Bar Key to open up the area that contains Trigger Happy In-A-Box and Bell Ringer. Both can then be played for free by any visitor in the space, including the owner. You can win 5 prizes with TH In-A-Box, or win all 10 prizes in Bell Ringer.
KCPM-J9BP-J8H6
Hope ya found that info useful.
Laters.
My Kickstarter project is GO!
Here is the link, go check it out and then come back.
A Quality Shooter
Woah eh!
Well there it is, i have spent way too much of my time over the last 2 months getting that setup (yeah 2 months to write that and do the video). ok, so i have been busy with The Midway and actual coding and other work. What matters is that it is now there. I sure hope some of you people that read my blog will want a piece of the action. Then you really will be part of my family.
I know you all expected more about The Midway (report pt 3), but i have to admit to it not quite being ready for public viewing. You see i have had a headache all and day and i do not write very well, in fact i can hardly face my PC when i feel like that. It is half written, and so i expect it to come out tomorrow along with prossibly part 4, the final part of the report. we shall see how busy a day i have i suspect.
So back to the Kickstarter project. This is very exciting to me and i sure hope to see a lot of interest. I have tried hard to provide what are original and exciting rewards. Of course a lot of those rewards are going to cost me a lot of time in development. That i am ok with of course. It is just hard for me to want to spend all my money on a project while i am also spending all my time. I am hopeful this will see the light of day and i can know the kinds of improvements that i can get done. Being a one man army can have it's down sides. But knowing other talented people is definitely a plus!
Please tell anyone you can about my project. The more it spreads the more chance i will have of succeeding and making a better shooter than i expected to make.
If you have CC membership, go check out the comments that were made on the game when it was in Playtest many moons ago. There you will it as it was, and it has already come a lot further along than that.
Ok, i will write more when my head can stand it.
G'night
A Quality Shooter
Woah eh!
Well there it is, i have spent way too much of my time over the last 2 months getting that setup (yeah 2 months to write that and do the video). ok, so i have been busy with The Midway and actual coding and other work. What matters is that it is now there. I sure hope some of you people that read my blog will want a piece of the action. Then you really will be part of my family.
I know you all expected more about The Midway (report pt 3), but i have to admit to it not quite being ready for public viewing. You see i have had a headache all and day and i do not write very well, in fact i can hardly face my PC when i feel like that. It is half written, and so i expect it to come out tomorrow along with prossibly part 4, the final part of the report. we shall see how busy a day i have i suspect.
So back to the Kickstarter project. This is very exciting to me and i sure hope to see a lot of interest. I have tried hard to provide what are original and exciting rewards. Of course a lot of those rewards are going to cost me a lot of time in development. That i am ok with of course. It is just hard for me to want to spend all my money on a project while i am also spending all my time. I am hopeful this will see the light of day and i can know the kinds of improvements that i can get done. Being a one man army can have it's down sides. But knowing other talented people is definitely a plus!
Please tell anyone you can about my project. The more it spreads the more chance i will have of succeeding and making a better shooter than i expected to make.
If you have CC membership, go check out the comments that were made on the game when it was in Playtest many moons ago. There you will it as it was, and it has already come a lot further along than that.
Ok, i will write more when my head can stand it.
G'night
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Midway for PS3 Home (release report pt2)
Second Hmm… (11:30am)
We had 50 tickets that we had bought, and while we were playing the mingames ourselves spending the tickets a BAD thing happened. But before I mention this I want to talk about playing our own minigames. We had a lot of performance issues while developing The Midway. This is in part due to the strain a managed language (in this case Lua) puts onto a cpu. Also we had a lot of active content in this particular space. Certainly the most of any scene so far released in Home. We had come up with some very clever ways of maintaining frame rate while playing the games and I was hopeful that it would hold up when the scene is full of real people, not just test clones. And.. OMGoodness did it hold up. Woohoo is all I can proclaim at this point. Now back to the first REAL bad news of the day.
We had been spending our tickets and eventually spent the last one. Then at some point shortly after I was playing some Free game (freeplay frenzy I think and not Miz Fortune) and one of my workmates who had come in noticed I still had a ticket. That’s odd we thought, but we musta not noticed that we hadn’t spent the last one. So I go play another game and see my tickets go to Zero. When I come out of the minigame however we are all shocked to see that I get my ticket back. Then we quickly tried to spend it several more times to no avail. We could use it as currency to play the games, but the ticket never disappeared or got consumed. This is real bad.. Mass Media have an awful lot riding on this product. We self financed this with the hope to make at least our money back and if we make more, then we can move more effort into creating great places in Home to go to. If this flops it will cost our small company a lot of money. I cannot really stress how much is riding on this product for us, but suffice to say that it could and probably will spell a turning point in the companies history, one way or the other.
I talked to my Boss and we are not happy. How much money is this costing us? How many people is this affecting. We all went into theory and testing mode. I personally went off to look at the code. At this moment I thought it was my personal fault. I thought I had screwed up badly and left some test code in the game and somehow it hadn’t been detected before release. You see my test code allowed us to permanently have a single ticket, so this looked exactly like my code. I had a major sinking feeling in my stomach and I was a little stressed. Thankfully my workmates, boss and myself are all professional and name calling and blame can come later ;) right now we need to find and fix this issue. This could be costing us thousands of dollars a minute. The boss went off to talk to Sony, we had to cover the fact we may need to close The Midway down till we fix this. Paul one of my workmates went back to his own PS3 and started spending his tickets like a madman to see if he would have the same issue. I was of course scouring my code. Firstly I checked over my single ticket test code. This seems very unviable though and upon looking at it more I knew that it should not be possible for it to be active. Several minutes later I realized it was not my code. If it had been players would only ever see a single ticket count and not the 50 we start with when buying them. Phew…
Then me and the Boss went back to our broken ticket version. Time for more testing we thought. So we left the scene and went to the plaza and back in. This was also a good time for me to see the porta potties in the main plaza that will teleport people to The Midway. They of course look broken to me as they are not rotated quite correctly, though not terribly so. Still I hate the fact something I wrote is even slightly wrong in this way. I apologize to anyone who noticed this. Well back to our immediate issue, the fact we could be giving away infinite tickets, ARGH! We hoped that leaving the scene and coming back in would reset our ticket value. The ticket value is obtained by querying how many you have of the Sony servers, so we figured this should fix the permanent ticket issue. However it did not and this threw a wrench into our thinking that it was just our scripts that were wrong. At about this time Dan another workmate arrived and also confirmed he was able to spend all his tickets and have no phantom ticket at the end. This made us feel slightly better, as the odds of this happening seemed to be going down. What to do about it was the question, along with just how prevalent might this be?
What should we try next and what is still wrong with so many people not being able to play the minigames or receive the Darlas Den free personal space?
More of What happened next in my next post...
We had 50 tickets that we had bought, and while we were playing the mingames ourselves spending the tickets a BAD thing happened. But before I mention this I want to talk about playing our own minigames. We had a lot of performance issues while developing The Midway. This is in part due to the strain a managed language (in this case Lua) puts onto a cpu. Also we had a lot of active content in this particular space. Certainly the most of any scene so far released in Home. We had come up with some very clever ways of maintaining frame rate while playing the games and I was hopeful that it would hold up when the scene is full of real people, not just test clones. And.. OMGoodness did it hold up. Woohoo is all I can proclaim at this point. Now back to the first REAL bad news of the day.
We had been spending our tickets and eventually spent the last one. Then at some point shortly after I was playing some Free game (freeplay frenzy I think and not Miz Fortune) and one of my workmates who had come in noticed I still had a ticket. That’s odd we thought, but we musta not noticed that we hadn’t spent the last one. So I go play another game and see my tickets go to Zero. When I come out of the minigame however we are all shocked to see that I get my ticket back. Then we quickly tried to spend it several more times to no avail. We could use it as currency to play the games, but the ticket never disappeared or got consumed. This is real bad.. Mass Media have an awful lot riding on this product. We self financed this with the hope to make at least our money back and if we make more, then we can move more effort into creating great places in Home to go to. If this flops it will cost our small company a lot of money. I cannot really stress how much is riding on this product for us, but suffice to say that it could and probably will spell a turning point in the companies history, one way or the other.
I talked to my Boss and we are not happy. How much money is this costing us? How many people is this affecting. We all went into theory and testing mode. I personally went off to look at the code. At this moment I thought it was my personal fault. I thought I had screwed up badly and left some test code in the game and somehow it hadn’t been detected before release. You see my test code allowed us to permanently have a single ticket, so this looked exactly like my code. I had a major sinking feeling in my stomach and I was a little stressed. Thankfully my workmates, boss and myself are all professional and name calling and blame can come later ;) right now we need to find and fix this issue. This could be costing us thousands of dollars a minute. The boss went off to talk to Sony, we had to cover the fact we may need to close The Midway down till we fix this. Paul one of my workmates went back to his own PS3 and started spending his tickets like a madman to see if he would have the same issue. I was of course scouring my code. Firstly I checked over my single ticket test code. This seems very unviable though and upon looking at it more I knew that it should not be possible for it to be active. Several minutes later I realized it was not my code. If it had been players would only ever see a single ticket count and not the 50 we start with when buying them. Phew…
Then me and the Boss went back to our broken ticket version. Time for more testing we thought. So we left the scene and went to the plaza and back in. This was also a good time for me to see the porta potties in the main plaza that will teleport people to The Midway. They of course look broken to me as they are not rotated quite correctly, though not terribly so. Still I hate the fact something I wrote is even slightly wrong in this way. I apologize to anyone who noticed this. Well back to our immediate issue, the fact we could be giving away infinite tickets, ARGH! We hoped that leaving the scene and coming back in would reset our ticket value. The ticket value is obtained by querying how many you have of the Sony servers, so we figured this should fix the permanent ticket issue. However it did not and this threw a wrench into our thinking that it was just our scripts that were wrong. At about this time Dan another workmate arrived and also confirmed he was able to spend all his tickets and have no phantom ticket at the end. This made us feel slightly better, as the odds of this happening seemed to be going down. What to do about it was the question, along with just how prevalent might this be?
What should we try next and what is still wrong with so many people not being able to play the minigames or receive the Darlas Den free personal space?
More of What happened next in my next post...
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The Midway for PS3 Home (release report pt1)
Thursday July 1st.
Breakfast time…. (7:45am)
I woke up all excited, it was my 15th Wedding Anniversary and a day I would normally have had as vacation from work. However this was also launch day for The Midway. A public space in the PS3 Home online community. This was gonna be an exciting day as I had been nervous the several previous days. Anticipation was the major feeling I had before breakfast. I had of course woken early with the intention of getting to work earlier than normal. My boss gets in especially early and I wanted to be there for the initial excitement surrounding our area going live.
Going to Work… (8:30am)
On my to work my excitement and trepidation grew. It is thankfully a short journey to work (about 10 minutes). In that journey though I managed to go over all the things that could go wrong. This is a live space on the PS3 network and In all honesty it is just not possible at the moment for the whole experience to be tested in anywhere near the way or to the degree of a boxed game. There are simply to many variables. Also half the solution or problem set id Sonys. We are a set of games built into a black box that Sony produces in London England. We just take advantage of this environment called home. This means there are a lot of things we have no control over. Add onto that the possible server issues and you might understand how come I ma nervous. The excitement is easy to explain. We were going to be the first place that people in Home would actually be able to see and therefore co-experience with their friends. All of our games in The Midway are spectator friendly. We have made them show what a person playing is doing. Of course this caused us many challenges, but oh boy was I excited to hopefully see some full spaces and all that activity. In our own testing at Mass Media we only had about 12-16 people in a space at one time, and this isn’t quite what it is designed for, it is a bit empty with that number.
At Work…. (8:45am)
The boss David was there along with the co-designer of The Midway. There sitting excitedly in the conference room watching what was going on inside one of the (I am told 50 instances) instance of The Midway, which was full of people milling around with some playing the games. David was talking to the occasional person helping them out. My first impressions of the space on the Big screen tv we have was one of joy. There it was, live with a full complement of people running around in it. This is a way I had only dreamed of. Also nothing at this time appeared broken, which was an amazing relief.
First Hmm… (10:30am)
Reports are coming in that a lot of people cannot play any of the games :(. This is not good, also we are talking to people in our instance about this same issue. They go back out and reboot and they still cannot play the games. This is now getting bad as the number appears to be about 10% of the people in the space. The forums are abuzz with people having the same issue. We have no idea what is going on, then we find out that people coming into The Midway are not receiving the free item of a personal space. I know personally this can only happen if the Scene script has crashed. PS3 Home is made up of minigame scripts and a single scene script. They interact and make it all work. At this point we were hopeful that the issue was a server issue and therefore one that Sony would need to solve. Then while we were busy playing the games ourselves.
Then second Hmm came about, though this one was more panic inducing….
More to come tomorrow...
Breakfast time…. (7:45am)
I woke up all excited, it was my 15th Wedding Anniversary and a day I would normally have had as vacation from work. However this was also launch day for The Midway. A public space in the PS3 Home online community. This was gonna be an exciting day as I had been nervous the several previous days. Anticipation was the major feeling I had before breakfast. I had of course woken early with the intention of getting to work earlier than normal. My boss gets in especially early and I wanted to be there for the initial excitement surrounding our area going live.
Going to Work… (8:30am)
On my to work my excitement and trepidation grew. It is thankfully a short journey to work (about 10 minutes). In that journey though I managed to go over all the things that could go wrong. This is a live space on the PS3 network and In all honesty it is just not possible at the moment for the whole experience to be tested in anywhere near the way or to the degree of a boxed game. There are simply to many variables. Also half the solution or problem set id Sonys. We are a set of games built into a black box that Sony produces in London England. We just take advantage of this environment called home. This means there are a lot of things we have no control over. Add onto that the possible server issues and you might understand how come I ma nervous. The excitement is easy to explain. We were going to be the first place that people in Home would actually be able to see and therefore co-experience with their friends. All of our games in The Midway are spectator friendly. We have made them show what a person playing is doing. Of course this caused us many challenges, but oh boy was I excited to hopefully see some full spaces and all that activity. In our own testing at Mass Media we only had about 12-16 people in a space at one time, and this isn’t quite what it is designed for, it is a bit empty with that number.
At Work…. (8:45am)
The boss David was there along with the co-designer of The Midway. There sitting excitedly in the conference room watching what was going on inside one of the (I am told 50 instances) instance of The Midway, which was full of people milling around with some playing the games. David was talking to the occasional person helping them out. My first impressions of the space on the Big screen tv we have was one of joy. There it was, live with a full complement of people running around in it. This is a way I had only dreamed of. Also nothing at this time appeared broken, which was an amazing relief.
First Hmm… (10:30am)
Reports are coming in that a lot of people cannot play any of the games :(. This is not good, also we are talking to people in our instance about this same issue. They go back out and reboot and they still cannot play the games. This is now getting bad as the number appears to be about 10% of the people in the space. The forums are abuzz with people having the same issue. We have no idea what is going on, then we find out that people coming into The Midway are not receiving the free item of a personal space. I know personally this can only happen if the Scene script has crashed. PS3 Home is made up of minigame scripts and a single scene script. They interact and make it all work. At this point we were hopeful that the issue was a server issue and therefore one that Sony would need to solve. Then while we were busy playing the games ourselves.
Then second Hmm came about, though this one was more panic inducing….
More to come tomorrow...
The Midway Report
Ok, so i am not actually gonna do a real report here and now.
The reason is fairly simple. I have had a really busy day and night, and am too tired to write all i need to. I want to do a sort of report telling how my The Midway Live day went, fromt before i left for work until the end of the second day. This will be a set of large posts, as i am not the best writer and i also get cramps from all that typing. Suffice to say it is on the way. Go go The Midway for PS3 Home.
I saw the Physio again today and he was very painfully stretching my shoulder, what is interesting is as he tells me how well i am doing he seems to cause me more pain. Now i do agree with him though, after justa bit more than 1 week of physio on my dislocated shoulder it can now move all over the place. It is also getting stronger through the range as well, which feels awesome. Though right now it is just very very tired..
So it is sleep time for me once i have sent off a Pellmell code to some nice people in france.
G'night
The reason is fairly simple. I have had a really busy day and night, and am too tired to write all i need to. I want to do a sort of report telling how my The Midway Live day went, fromt before i left for work until the end of the second day. This will be a set of large posts, as i am not the best writer and i also get cramps from all that typing. Suffice to say it is on the way. Go go The Midway for PS3 Home.
I saw the Physio again today and he was very painfully stretching my shoulder, what is interesting is as he tells me how well i am doing he seems to cause me more pain. Now i do agree with him though, after justa bit more than 1 week of physio on my dislocated shoulder it can now move all over the place. It is also getting stronger through the range as well, which feels awesome. Though right now it is just very very tired..
So it is sleep time for me once i have sent off a Pellmell code to some nice people in france.
G'night
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The day before The Midway
Here we are in the afternoon before The Midway goes live on PS3 home. I.. scratch that. We here at Mass Media are all very excited to see our game go live. If it does well i hope to be partying through the day, if there are issues i expect to be programming through the night haha!
The excitement is from anyone who has worked on the minigames within the space, and of course we are all hoping there are no issues. It is amusing on some level to see how excited we all are even though we are mostly grizzled industry veterans. The excitement i think comes because this is not your normal boxed game, it is different in so many way. Less closed, and for a long time it has ben hard to push boundaries within the next gen computers and systems. This space gives us a way to push boundaries, even if they are imposed by Sony creating a system on top of the base PS3 layer.
Excitment is of course two fold, Epic success or Epic failure are both close brothers and are at this time very close by. We all here very excited to stare at the PS3 tomorrow morning and i usspect we will not get a lot of work done al day as we keep meandering past the Live ps3's we have here at work. BTW, i used Epic cos it annoys some people and i like it 8D
I hope if you go and look at The Midway you enjoy what is there,
Laters
The excitement is from anyone who has worked on the minigames within the space, and of course we are all hoping there are no issues. It is amusing on some level to see how excited we all are even though we are mostly grizzled industry veterans. The excitement i think comes because this is not your normal boxed game, it is different in so many way. Less closed, and for a long time it has ben hard to push boundaries within the next gen computers and systems. This space gives us a way to push boundaries, even if they are imposed by Sony creating a system on top of the base PS3 layer.
Excitment is of course two fold, Epic success or Epic failure are both close brothers and are at this time very close by. We all here very excited to stare at the PS3 tomorrow morning and i usspect we will not get a lot of work done al day as we keep meandering past the Live ps3's we have here at work. BTW, i used Epic cos it annoys some people and i like it 8D
I hope if you go and look at The Midway you enjoy what is there,
Laters
Friday, June 18, 2010
Bugs to Fix and Tennis
I had an interesting day fixing bugs and getting bugs fixed by artists and another programmer. It all went very well and i managed to get it al put togetehr and sorted out and uploaded to Sony by the end of the regular day. That kind of thing hardly ever happens. I know i took a few short cuts by declaring C class bugs as not important. Well not important enough to have to create new models for as exporting the original ones seems to be broken.
Then i went and supported my tennis team. I would have ben in this playoff match tonight, but with my arm still in a bad way. That just wasn't possible. So i did what i could and cheered on the rest of my team in a very tough playoff meetup. We eventually prevailed 3-2 (in courts) after losing the 2 singles courts but eventualy winning the three doubles courts. thye final match was being played with it all tied at 2-2, and in the background we could hear a bar nearby cheering as the Lakers took the win. It was all real exciting and the second set tie-breaker eventually went our way from 1-4 down to 7-5 for the win! Woohoo, Go team!
I don't feel like going back to work tomorrow, it feels like the weekend has already started for me, but work is work and pay is pay. I also heva few things to mod for The Midway release next week, yeah next week is now what i am being told. bah! One day i promise it will be released...
G'night.
Then i went and supported my tennis team. I would have ben in this playoff match tonight, but with my arm still in a bad way. That just wasn't possible. So i did what i could and cheered on the rest of my team in a very tough playoff meetup. We eventually prevailed 3-2 (in courts) after losing the 2 singles courts but eventualy winning the three doubles courts. thye final match was being played with it all tied at 2-2, and in the background we could hear a bar nearby cheering as the Lakers took the win. It was all real exciting and the second set tie-breaker eventually went our way from 1-4 down to 7-5 for the win! Woohoo, Go team!
I don't feel like going back to work tomorrow, it feels like the weekend has already started for me, but work is work and pay is pay. I also heva few things to mod for The Midway release next week, yeah next week is now what i am being told. bah! One day i promise it will be released...
G'night.
Friday, June 11, 2010
PS3Home update and Printing
I spent a lot of my day today working on the Darlas Den personal space. I branched the P4 repository for this part of our Midway development so i could work on it with abandon. So far it has worked out quite well, though i did spend most of the day copying a minigame we have and thentrying hard to start stripping it down. You see i need to take the now two identical minigames and strip them into two halves, opposite halves i think ya could say. Though this should be easy enough, nothing is ever easy.
With no precompile to tell me of some impending problems i am left to run the ting, and we are out of memory. We really know how to pack stuff at Massmedia and Darlas Den is no exception. Then i had an epiphany... I could just change the scene to a public scene and give myself a load more memory to work with, YAY! Now i could at least run without running out of memory before anything could happen. The rest of the day i stripped one of the games down.
Then just before i left work i realised that i missed something inmportant. So with the removal of a few more lines of code... Everything broke.. ARGH! and then i have my wife call me on the phone at this exact time asking me to grab food on the way home and the family is starving.. DOH! Always at the awkward times eh :S so i have left the issues to be resolved tomorrow :[]
I had printing issues tonight. I have no idea why the printer decided to print over the edges of the page. I wonder if it was a word issue, as it kept complaining about my margins, though my printer will print marginless. Either way i now have a bunch of glossy printouts that are useless. Grrr
to add to that i am still not able to get a hold of Blizzard to sort out my now Banned account. Yeah on monday they banned me. Not sure why atm, as i have no email.
Well, tomorrow is another day, and i am sure it will be chock full of surprises.
G'night.
With no precompile to tell me of some impending problems i am left to run the ting, and we are out of memory. We really know how to pack stuff at Massmedia and Darlas Den is no exception. Then i had an epiphany... I could just change the scene to a public scene and give myself a load more memory to work with, YAY! Now i could at least run without running out of memory before anything could happen. The rest of the day i stripped one of the games down.
Then just before i left work i realised that i missed something inmportant. So with the removal of a few more lines of code... Everything broke.. ARGH! and then i have my wife call me on the phone at this exact time asking me to grab food on the way home and the family is starving.. DOH! Always at the awkward times eh :S so i have left the issues to be resolved tomorrow :[]
I had printing issues tonight. I have no idea why the printer decided to print over the edges of the page. I wonder if it was a word issue, as it kept complaining about my margins, though my printer will print marginless. Either way i now have a bunch of glossy printouts that are useless. Grrr
to add to that i am still not able to get a hold of Blizzard to sort out my now Banned account. Yeah on monday they banned me. Not sure why atm, as i have no email.
Well, tomorrow is another day, and i am sure it will be chock full of surprises.
G'night.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Not on the Sony stand at E3
Yup, ya heard that right. I got told officially today that i wasn't needed fro the Sony stand. I had hoped i could be there showing off my stuff in PS3 Home. That nice personal touch, it would also have mean't that people who i don't really know, but i chat with on twitter and in the XNA forums would know where i was to meet up for an intorductory HI!
I am a bit bummed about this to be honest.
Still, the new release date for The Midway is still at June 17th... So i hope this doesn't change this time. If by friday it is still this date, then i wil have to contact our agent in charge of checking out and reporting on The Midway.
As for my XNA stuff. The stand is looking good, i'll grab a picture tomorrow and show ya what it looks like once i actually get the Xbox into it. Though the stand is not actually attached to the base yet.
Still, i have to go and meet someone about my late taxes tomorrow, so that will be a really fun lunchtime... NOT!
Have a great night,
G'night
I am a bit bummed about this to be honest.
Still, the new release date for The Midway is still at June 17th... So i hope this doesn't change this time. If by friday it is still this date, then i wil have to contact our agent in charge of checking out and reporting on The Midway.
As for my XNA stuff. The stand is looking good, i'll grab a picture tomorrow and show ya what it looks like once i actually get the Xbox into it. Though the stand is not actually attached to the base yet.
Still, i have to go and meet someone about my late taxes tomorrow, so that will be a really fun lunchtime... NOT!
Have a great night,
G'night
Friday, June 4, 2010
Dang Bugs
It's funny how ya can get those bugs in your game to show up at the worst possible times. Not that it was the worst time today when it happened to me, but it wasn't pleasant...
Picture this...
There i am in my office working on some PS3Home stuff, when in pops my boss bringing along with him someone who he wants to impress. I get asked to boot up The Midway for PS3Home and away my boss goes showing off what we have and what it does to Larry. I am interjecting remarks occasionally and it is going well. then my boss asks if we can show off Darlas Den, the free personal space we have created for The Midway.
It boots up fine and the boss starts showing it off no problem. Then we wants to show off more of the space. Well i am a bright spark and i say that i can open up the space with a little addition of some of the many rewards from The Midway placed into our inventory. This should have worked. In fact it sort of did, but also sort of didn't ARGH!
The boards updated.. the meta board updated.. the score updated. But the collision barriers were still in place. Even though they should have been removed. It was quite embarassing for this to happen. After they left I spent about 1.5hours coming up with a solution. This scene is quite complicated and this close to release i am loathe to alter too much code. then it hit me, i could add just one line of code and voila.. it worked a treat. Phew.. that could have been an annoying weekend in work :O
Monday i'll reupload the darned thing. BAH! and double BAH!
this goes to show, it does not matter how much you test a thing, bugs can still reside in the most obvious of places.
G'night
Picture this...
There i am in my office working on some PS3Home stuff, when in pops my boss bringing along with him someone who he wants to impress. I get asked to boot up The Midway for PS3Home and away my boss goes showing off what we have and what it does to Larry. I am interjecting remarks occasionally and it is going well. then my boss asks if we can show off Darlas Den, the free personal space we have created for The Midway.
It boots up fine and the boss starts showing it off no problem. Then we wants to show off more of the space. Well i am a bright spark and i say that i can open up the space with a little addition of some of the many rewards from The Midway placed into our inventory. This should have worked. In fact it sort of did, but also sort of didn't ARGH!
The boards updated.. the meta board updated.. the score updated. But the collision barriers were still in place. Even though they should have been removed. It was quite embarassing for this to happen. After they left I spent about 1.5hours coming up with a solution. This scene is quite complicated and this close to release i am loathe to alter too much code. then it hit me, i could add just one line of code and voila.. it worked a treat. Phew.. that could have been an annoying weekend in work :O
Monday i'll reupload the darned thing. BAH! and double BAH!
this goes to show, it does not matter how much you test a thing, bugs can still reside in the most obvious of places.
G'night
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Midway in PS3Home - Play to win guide pt2 - Trigger Happy
So Captain Black was taken and removed from The Midway. He was the sneakiest man i have ever met, well met is a stretch, as he always stayed in the shadows. Hard to see hard to talk to, but he knew his stuff. He was one of the best under cover operators ever. So going into The Midway was a challenging prospect.
I am not like Captain Black, i am not an undercover stealth operator like him. The traditional spy. I am more of the So Obvious noone can see me variety, or the hidden in plain sight spy. So i disguised myself to fit in with the Midway carnies and their clientel. this was a bold move, but one i am famous for (well, infamous).
Here i am showing off the game i am going to reveal tonight.
I am not like Captain Black, i am not an undercover stealth operator like him. The traditional spy. I am more of the So Obvious noone can see me variety, or the hidden in plain sight spy. So i disguised myself to fit in with the Midway carnies and their clientel. this was a bold move, but one i am famous for (well, infamous).
Here i am showing off the game i am going to reveal tonight.
I dare to beckon you close, from right in front of the game!
Lets get closer and see what this wonderful game has to offer shall we ?
Check out the prize board
This is THE best first prize in all of The Midway. Ok, i know that is my opinion, but it Rocks. It somehow manages to transcend visual abilities and make it appear that you have a massive hole in your body. Like you have been shot through with a big bullet or something. Marvellous stuff this.
Ok, so lets start this game and see what the HUD looks like.
The Trigger Happy HUD
The Hud has the usual game timer in the top middle. This appears to be standard in all the minigames in The Midway. We start the game with 30 seconds on the clock, and it seems like an age, till you get to the higher levels. In the bottom left we have thenumber of bullets you have in your gun, and fortunately it is Infinite, yup, endless bullets. So go Ape, fire as rapidly as you can. Then in the bottom right corner we have the scoring counter, the t number is the target scorto win the prize for the curent level, the bottom number is your current score value. Don't ever pay any attention to this meter. It is just a distraction from shooting stuff. And shooting stuff gets ya points, and points get ya the prizes. You will also notice a bright green circle with a cross in it on the middle left side. this is your cursor. Your targetting device.
Let's talk about the places or items you can shoot, as they have different point values. This is a very important point (point haha!).
The Score values for targets
As you can see from the Score values. They are spread around a little bit. The secret to the game though is to FLOW. This means keep scoring as many points as you can per second. (pps or points per second). This is achieved by shooting the higher point scorers, but not letting the smaller ones go to waste. One point before we discuss what to shoot. The cursor (your targetting device) never stops moving. so you need to be in constant control of where it is going. Don't let it go by itself anywhere, as you may lose track of it momentarily.
Here is the best scoring path break down...
You start in the center of the screen, so while you are there, shoot the Bulls Eyes out,
then head downwards shooting any cuddle creature heads that pop up on the way,
then you will shoot a bottle or can and onto the BIG points.
Now you are in the fishy area near the bottom of the game. Time your movment to hit all the passing fish. It is possible to not miss a single one.
In the small amount of down time as you shoot the fish, move up ocassionally and take out a can or bottle,
but get right back down for the next passing fish.
In this way you can easily score more points than even the level 10 has you aiming for. Don't go back for the Bulls eyes, I know it is tempting, and the Midway staff want you to do it, but it isn't worth the travel time. Same for those Foosball models feet, lots points but hard as hell to hit.
Here is me celebrating winning the best first prize in The Midway. Woohoo! And not a soul here at The Midway seems to have noticed me. This is an awesome disguise!
That's me wearing the Super Frist prize T-Shirt
So now you know what to do. This is probably the easiest game to win przes at. But like all the games you may need a bit of practice.
Good luck, and I will bring another report next week.
Oh here come the clowns, and it appears they would like to take me to dinner. told ya it was a wonderful disguise, haha!
Bye for now..
Cool huh!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Captain Black was caught by the establishment
This is a quick update to our last story... It seems the establishment caught up with our secret agent Captain Black. We do not expect to hear from him again.
Secret agent No2 has been despatched to The Midway, we hope he will last longer than finding out about one game.
Good luck Agent No2.... (watch out for the clowns)
Secret agent No2 has been despatched to The Midway, we hope he will last longer than finding out about one game.
Good luck Agent No2.... (watch out for the clowns)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Midway in PS3Home - Play to win Guide pt1 - Rebound
Hi,
My real name is unimportant but most people just call me Captain Black (cos i look like a puppet it seems!).
I am going to spill the beans on an upcoming title for Playstaion Home. Yeah, that's right. It isn't even out yet, and i am here giving the skinny on it. I will get you an inside guide each week till i have covered all the games within the Space called The Midway. My guides will help you win the prizes Faster and Cheaper than you ever though possible. We have to get what we can, before the man catches us.....
Todays game is called Rebound. It is a skill game based on timing a little light that goes up and down the backboard of a basketball backboard. The game is easy to find, as it is one of the brightest in The Midway.
Now we have our game started let me tell you what you will see on the screen. The HUD (or heads up display), tells us many things. Well ok, all the important things for this moment in time.
1. In the top middle you willsee the game Timer. Once this has counted down the seconds, the game is over.
2. Bottom left you will see how many balls you have available to throw. Infinite in this game.
3. Bottom right you will see a nice counter. The top of which tells you how many points you need. The bottom number tells you how many points you have currently.
The aim of the game is simple. Throw those balls into the basket and rack up a score good enough to win that level, and then advance to the next level and the next prize offering.
The game is controlled by pressing the X button when the travelling light is in a good place. If you stop the light in the wrong place, you will miss the basket. So listen up and i will point out the SWEET spots for making basket after basket.
My real name is unimportant but most people just call me Captain Black (cos i look like a puppet it seems!).
Todays game is called Rebound. It is a skill game based on timing a little light that goes up and down the backboard of a basketball backboard. The game is easy to find, as it is one of the brightest in The Midway.
Once you have located the game, go stand in front of it, and stop watching other people playing it. Their playing can be a distraction, and you want all your attention focused on the task at hand.
Here you see me staring down the games name. Now press X already and lets get this game going.
Now we have our game started let me tell you what you will see on the screen. The HUD (or heads up display), tells us many things. Well ok, all the important things for this moment in time.
1. In the top middle you willsee the game Timer. Once this has counted down the seconds, the game is over.
2. Bottom left you will see how many balls you have available to throw. Infinite in this game.
3. Bottom right you will see a nice counter. The top of which tells you how many points you need. The bottom number tells you how many points you have currently.
The aim of the game is simple. Throw those balls into the basket and rack up a score good enough to win that level, and then advance to the next level and the next prize offering.
The game is controlled by pressing the X button when the travelling light is in a good place. If you stop the light in the wrong place, you will miss the basket. So listen up and i will point out the SWEET spots for making basket after basket.
Sweet spot #1
Sweet spot #2
Those sweet spots are right next to each other, this llows you some slop in your timing. There is a couple of other spots that can get ya a basket, but stay away from them. concentrate on hitting right under the basket rim with each light.
If you follow those simple instructions you will get your prizes with a fast and furious style. And will see lots of these Winner displays.
Good luck, and next week i will tell you all about the Easiest game to win prizes at.
now shh.. I hear someone coming, and it may just be a clown.....
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