Quark Robot dev blog

Week #2 update

Quark Robot -

What I've done this week##

This week was spent working on some outstanding bugs, adding a new Quirk and adding support to alter the music track in the editor. A couple of testers have let me know that a few bugs in the December build pretty much makes the original puzzle sets unsolvable - these have all been fixed but since we're only a fortnight away from an update, I'm not going to patch the December build.

If you'd like a patch though, just shoot me an email and I'll upload one for you.

The next build (January 30th) for Mac OS X and Linux will now use the latest version of MonoKickStart. MonoKickStart allows Lode Runner to run on these platforms without installing the Mono Framework.

A name in parenthesis and in bold is the finder of the bug/quirk. Thanks to all, I really do appreciate your time and support. Cheers!

Editor

  • fixed bug that saved puzzle sets with the version 5 flag incorrectly
  • the selected world will remain pressed in the World Dialog - this differs from the original but makes it easier to see which world button is selected


Music can now be chosen in the World Dialog

A number of you have asked if there is going to be a replacement for the old "Music" file menu in the original game. Back at the start of the project we did have a way of doing this but abandoned it. You can read why and see what it looked like in the post on abandoned ideas.

Good news, you can now select which music track you like via the World Dialog. Simply right+click on the world you want the music from. That's it.

Game

  • updated OS X and Linux builds to use the current version of MonoKickStart
  • options dialog can now be accessed and settings altered from within the game;
  • the original did not allow this, you had to save first and then return to the main menu
  • altering Quirks Mode via the in-game options will take place straight-away (except for LAN games)
  • fixed bug that caused monks to not reenter the puzzle randomly enough via monk entry doors (Jeffrey)
  • fixed bug that prevented monks from walking across other monks who've eaten a runner in a blasted hole

I've made some rather major changes to the save game format to allow for future expansion. The downside is that existing saves cannot be recovered. The good news is the changes will make it easy to preserve games if any future changes are needed.

The Quirks Mode list has been updated with a new one that I'm calling Fall Immunity. In the original, if a monks eats a runner when he is falling into a blasted hole he will flee the scene once done instead of falling or idling (if another runner is in the game and unreachable).

If you turn Quirks Mode off the monk will drop into the hole as you can see below.

General

  • launching the options dialog from the main menu will no longer restart the music track if the intro/options track is already playing
  • tooltips are now positioned based on the mouse cursor position

Bugs being worked on

  • monks disappearing and reappearing when moving the game window;
  • only reported on Windows machines but may affect OSX/Linux

What I'll probably do next week

  • play test for bugs
  • finalize LAN gaming
  • start work on black/purple monks from Lode Runner 2