Dave Hailwood's Forum Posts

  • SecondDimension

    Aha! So all I need do is flash up a quick message that reads 'Please press F5 a million times', link in some sort of 'Achievement' and everything's cool! (or I could just switch to Google Drive...) Thanks for giving it a try again - it's much appreciated.

    danuyos

    strange that Chrome seems to have taken a disliking to it. Hadn't heard about the Ddos attack, so that's interesting to learn.

    Ashley

    I'm hoping to submit my game for the Newgrounds competition, so fortunately it'll be hosted on their site. I heard Clay.io is a good place to try out, so I'll give that a go too. It's nice to learn it wasn't my 'Mash Keys And Hope' approach to programming that was causing the problems, anyway.

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  • SecondDimension

    Out of curiosity, did you try the original Board Horde link above, or the version that's ammended with 'https' (such as this one: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97335933/BoardHordeC2ver2/index.html)

    I've had some reports that the new ammended link works perfectly in Chrome, but then I was originally getting reports saying the old link was working just fine. Seems Dropbox is being very temperamental at the moment (and my game's only 3mbs in size!)

    Thanks for the Google drive tip - if Dropbox is still misbehaving when I do my next game update, I will definitely look into using it as an alternative.

  • Kongregate test 2:

    Browser Used: Chrome (On same desktop PC as previous result)

    Much better results; the game loaded fine, and the sound effects were all there. The Ad Choice advert was still there throughout, obscuring the game and ruining the experience; if there's any way of moving this, or perhaps having it only appear on menu screens etc then this would be a wise choice (I realise that ads are the only way to make money on many of these social gaming networks, but if it puts people off the game and makes them rate it lower then it probably won't make you much money anyway as no one will ever play it).

    One other text related issue I discovered; if you dock with the space station and have all the commodities text up, when you click the missions button the text comes up white and is almost completely obscured by the other text (most other menu options come with a text box that helps make the text stand out).

    Also, I'm guessing some sort of Auto Save feature is in operation? As there's a load button and no save button, it might be worth changing 'Quit' to 'Save and Quit' so that players are more aware they can continue where they left off.

    Anyway, I will try and test the game on Firefox at home, though it probably won't be until tomorrow (I'm sure you already have plenty to digest!)

    • Dave

  • farflamex

    Kongregate test 1:

    Browser Used: Internet Explorer 9.

    The first issue I experienced upon loading the game was it quit almost instantly, and my machine froze. After a short while the freeze stopped, and I was returned to Kongregate to find the game loading. An Ad Choices ad popped up in the top far left corner of the game, obscuring some of the buttons and causing a nuisance! Also, there was no sound whatsoever (I stopped playing after about a minute, as that's probably what any 'normal' user would do upon encountering that problem. I will try it for longer a bit later, and see if there's any other issues).

    I'll give it a go in Chrome once I've finished eating me sarnie!

  • farflamex

    I'm hoping to try your game out again later on Kongregate to see if I have any issues playing it there (I will report back to you).

    I think W8 (and possibly Chrome, though paid games dont seem to get many downloads there) is likely to be a better market for a game of this depth, as the majority of web game surfers are just looking for a quick fix and won't experience the masses of depth hidden away there.

    What keeps me coming back to Korelos is that there's always something new to discover; you've created a very nicely functioning Elite-style eco-system within which to play the game (trading, factions, pirates...it's all there).

    The thing that excites me most about Korelos is the ship damage system, and what you describe about different parts of the ship shutting down and having to combat fires internally; this is very 'FTL' in scope (if you haven't played that game, it's quite cheap to download and well worth a look) and probably needs promoting a bit more as people may not be aware of it at first glance (I just sat there, burnt up and died a bit!) and it's a really nice feature.

    The only thing that (in my opinion) currently lets the game down a bit is the combat (this may get more exciting when your ship is kitted out a bit more, but to start with it's a bit dull). To explain how I handle combat: enemy ships come towards me, and I stay in one position and shoot in one direction until I finally kill something. The thing is, the game's almost encouraging me to play like that, as it's difficult to aim for the ships (hence firing in one direction) and there's no real feeling of speed or manoeuverability, which would probably prompt me to fly around more during combat. Although Korelos is far more than a shootemup, it might be worth looking at shootemups for inspiration, as if you can capture the sheer manic nature of a dogfight properly (one thing I do love about the combat is the way the enemy fighters bob and weave about) your game will have three major selling points; an elite style trading/exploration eco-system, FTL style internal ship management with do-or-die consequences, and fast-paced and dynamic combat.

    Anyway, I realise the suggestions I've given aren't quick fixes and you're more than welcome to ignore them. You're made a rather marvellous game here (probably the most in depth Construct game I've played so far) and I'm sure it will get better and better as you iron out the wrinkles.

    All the best,

    • Dave (ps, the Board Horde link might be working now. Turns out the problem was caused by some sort of dropbox security change)

  • Kuso

    thanks for taking the time to check it out. At least I know it's definitely working for one person! I've ammended the link on the front page now, so hopefully it will continue to work until dropbox changes its security protocols again. This also tends to suggest that preloading my audio wasn't the cause of the problem, so I can probably do that again to improve the sound.

    I should have a new update ready by Friday, fingers crossed!

  • Kuso

    I've been meaning to try this platformer out for ages!

    Enjoyable stuff, and I really liked the various layers to the scrolling and that the game doesn't make things too easy for the players (I jumped on a snail, expecting him to die. But no, no such luxuries here!).

    A few pointers which may improve things; I found the Pepo death animation's a bit to quick; it might be better to slow it down a bit as Pepo flies up into the air, before resetting to the checkpoint. Also I found one of the snails has a bit of a fit when you're standing still on a platform over him (probably because he's trying to home in on Pepo's position, and can't work out whether to face left or right). If you can get it so that when the snail is directly under Pepo it just faces one direction, that might work a bit more smoothly.

    Thanks for the encouragement you've given me on my own game. I'll be sure to play yours more and leave more comments soon (looking forward to the RPG as well, though I realise such games take a LOT of time to create).

    keep up the good work!

    • Dave

  • This topic here might help you:

    http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic65707.html

    I changed my link to 'https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com' and it seems to work just fine now (so far, at least)

  • Okay, after poking around a bit in the forum I found a discussion here:

    http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic65707.html

    I changed the link slightly, and it worked perfectly on Chrome. If you could give the link below a try and let me know if it works, I'll update the link on the front page.

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97335933/BoardHordeC2ver2/index.html

    for anyone else experiencing similar dropbox issues, change the start of your link to: 'https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com'

  • farflamex

    I've just managed to replicate close to the problem you described when using Chrome browser (took ages to load, then when it did all I got was the HUD character selection pictures, and an empty board. After waiting a bit longer, the dice loaded in, followed by the background, but nothing else). According to the console, it's experiencing some sort of 'Dom Exception 18 Security Error in the C2.Runtime.js:49', which I'm guessing could mean Firewall issues. Also a resource fetch failed on one of the .ogg sound effects, so it's possible I uploaded one incorrectly. I'm also getting a message that states 'Viewport Target Denisty.DPI is undefined'.

    I'll try and sort this all out by next Friday's update, and have also signed up at Clay.io to investigate that avenue further (as other creators have been experiencing problems with dropbox, especially where Chrome is concerned).

    Fortunately when I submit the game to the Newgrounds competition they host it on their site, so if the main issue is with dropbox I should be alright (though it sounds like it's a combination of factors).

    Anyway, it's all part of the learning experience; if you hadn't mentioned anything, I'd never have discovered the chrome console, or been motivated to reduce the artwork size to something more manageable, so you've really helped and it's appreciated!

    I will give you more feedback on Korelos later.

  • danuyos

    I've been finding the same thing with the dropbox link to my Board Horde game, but only on certain systems; it works perfectly fine on firefox on my laptop and safari on my ipad, but when I close it down on IE 9 browser and try to reopen it again it hangs at the loading screen (or only partially loads for one other user). I did discover that clearing the history cache made it work again on IE (until I close the browser, then it hangs again when the link is reloaded).

    It's possible that it's something I've done in the export, though it seems odd that it was working perfectly fine at one point.

    If you post your link here I'll give it a few tests on various machines, and let you know what I get (might not have a result until the end of the day)

    If you're able to do the same with this link and let me know if you have problems, it'd be appreciated.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/97335933/BoardHordeC2ver2/index.html

    • Dave

  • mineet

    I love the twisty pixely castle, and the snow background gives a nice feeling of solitude. I take it you're working on some sort of adventure or rpg style game? Just say the word when you have something that needs a bit of testing.

    • Dave

  • ebrar

    it states somewhere in the Newgrounds forum that you can release your C2 game wherever you want, get sponsorship, release on mobile etc, so I don't think you have to restrict the game just to Newgrounds.

    As for deleting it, I'm sure they'd probably allow you to remove the game if you wanted to, though you might have to ask one of the forum moderators (unless there's a delete option somewhere in the Submit Game area)

  • farflamex

    Shame that Kongregate's not working for you, though at least the game's out there, I suppose (and you'll be able to gradually figure out which places are the best to promote your game through trial and error).

    I think there's always going to be people encountering bugs and giving bad reviews - it's a very fragile balance trying to get one game to work on such a wide variety of computers. I can appreciate how frustrating it can be when it's through no error of your own. Incase you're not already aware of it, F12 (or Ctrl Shift J on some computers) can bring up a very handing debugging console which might let you know where things are going wrong. I've discovered a 'CS Runtime is not defined' error in my own game, which may explain why it works once and needs the cache to be refreshed before working again (If I could just work out what the error actually means, I might be getting somewhere!)

    If it's any consolation, I haven't discovered any problems or glitches with your game yet but will be sure to let you know if I do.

    Right, let's try and recall a few things I said the last time before I was denied access to posting comments.

    I really like the way the ship gets crippled by enemies, and you get that note that your crew are dying. I felt nice and helpless, though it might be a nice touch if you include the ability to send out a distress signal when close to death (which can, if lucky, summon allied ships to your aid. If less lucky, it could summon more pirates).

    I still haven't encountered a second mission yet, as I got cut apart by pirates before I could locate another station. I'm keen to find out what sort of missions are on offer, and will definitely play more. Out of curiosity, is there a larger campaign style mssion at work behind the scenes, or is the game mostly about flying around trading, killing and upgrading?

    Anyway, keep soldiering on! You've made a great game, and I'm sure some people will that when they've given it a longer play.

    • Dave

  • Fervir

    looks like terrifically entertaining stuff! I may have to check out the demo soon, and see if I can die in new and interesting ways (I fear my final resting place is likely to be the innards of a worm).

    • Dave