Week #6 and #7 update

When a weekly update is skipped, it is usually because not much work was done or something has prevented me from posting. It was a bit of both this update. It was 42 degrees in my office last weekend so any work on Lode Runner was ruled out and this week saw a bushfire come within 2 metres of my house. Apart from the lawn and some singeing of some trees, I was rather lucky. 24 power poles caught fire so I had no power for 72 hours.

Before the bushfire, I'd' been going through the code line by line and tweaking bits here and there. You'd be surprised how many changes I've been making. A lot of the code I've not really touched for 2 years or more. The editor + core gameplay were the main benefits after the C# converstion. The rest got minor tweaks here and there.

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 blocks not having a flat bottom when painted on bottom row of puzzle

Game

• fixed goop not working on bottom row of puzzle (Howie)
• blastable blocks restoring now remove rubble state (Howie)
• refactored runners using tools
• fixed the "Suspended monks" quirk getting applied when Quirks Mode is disabled (Howie)

Networking

It has been brought to my attention that the LAN/web gaming experience has deteriorated since the December build. If you are playing a LAN game you should be fine. Online gaming is still very much a work-in-progress. I know it looks like hardly any progress is being made but progress is being made (albeit slowly).

• fixed bug that crashed the game when adjusting speed
• RPC framework overhaul;
• reusable in other projects
• reduced dependency on Lidgren
• added decimal type support
• basic playback buffer added to smooth gameplay for connected clients

General

• minor tweaks to content manager
• fixed score transition effect on main menu
• scoreboard streamlined and improved;
• this does mean your old scores will be wiped, sorry!
• regenerating/lit bombs no longer show in puzzle previews as per the Original
• you can now highlight, cut, copy and paste text in the textbox control;
• thanks to Gareth for taking some time off his hobby project (Lode Runner 2) to add this into the project
• the standard Windows shortcuts apply
• reinstated die icon in Options Dialog;
• somewhere along the line, this icon was replaced with the older glyph that looked like the runner was suffering chronic back pain

Replaced die icon in Options Dialog

Bugs being worked on

• monk hump 'n bump does not always work

What I'll probably do next week

• input predication (web games)
• monks merging when crossing ladders
• code cleanup