Quark Robot dev blog

Week #20 update

Quark Robot -

What I've done this week##

This week has been a bumper week. Lots of bugs and quirks have been fixed, the credits added and loads of play-testing on all platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac). Special thanks to Lavi, Adam and Mark for helping me out with testing. Thanks guys!

The ***** means all credit to Lavi for finding the bug.

Remember to head over to the downloads page if you haven't already and try out a copy for yourself.

Editor

  • improved dragging a selected region

Game

  • added support to allow blasting when hiding in a hidey-hole (matches original)
  • improved heroes standing on monk heads
  • added support for monks to choose a random path if any hero (single or two-player games) cannot be reached (in a hidey-hole or both players dead and waiting for SkyNet to send them back in two-player);
  • this will have ongoing improvements and tinkering
  • very rough and doesn't work as the original, but it is a start
  • added support to collect gold and bombs on top of a ladder when a player runs and slides down the ladder in one fluid motion*****
  • fixed an introduced bug that prevented heroes from passing monks that are gassed or caught in a snare trap*****
  • fixed bug that fired a click event when closing a modal in the editor*****
  • such as clicked the fill tool, then showing the change title dialog, then click either OK or cancel
  • this was introduced during the UI overhaul a few months back
  • fixed issue when a player climbs down a ladder onto a monkey bar*****
  • fixed issue when a hero can abandon using a tool after activating it and then moving up or down*****
  • fixed bug that allowed a player to cross from a ladder to a block and climb a ladder that didn't exist*****
  • fixed flaw that prevented a hero from setting up a snare on a ladder with a blank tile below it*****
  • fixed bug that prevented the player from immediately teleporting when moving from a ladder to a teleport when the ladder was not placed above a solid block*****
  • fixed quirk that allow a player to run and stop just over an empty tile and not fall*****

  • added support for heroes to switch to the climb ladder animation after using a tool on a ladder - this matches the original
  • this also includes the snare: the original did not do this
  • this does look a little odd in the screenshot, but playing the game it looks nicer than him standing on nothing and does match the other tools


The original on the left and the mod on the right

  • fixed flaw that would show Jake as having a goo bucket when Wes collected it
  • improved monkey bar;
  • fixed bug that allowed players to enter liquid next to a monkey bar*****
  • players now drop onto the monkey bar with the same animation frame as the original
  • improved the position when flipping from left to right and vice versa
  • fixed some quirks with monk on monkey bars
  • fixed quirk that sometimes allowed you to stand on top of nothing when next to a rock debris pile from the pick-axe
  • heroes can no longer use goo buckets or gas on ladders if there is a block you can stand on to the side;
  • this matches the original as the default direction to use the tool is right (since you can't choose a direction a ladder)
  • I've made a slight change to the original in regards to using tools on ladders: if the block to the right is blocked, he will try the left
  • the original has our hero doing nothing which I think is a little bit odd considering he can use the tool


This illustrates how a tool is used on a ladder. The hero will use the tool to the side that is free, preferring the right

General

  • added more tooltips
  • fixed bug that happened occasionally on the completion of a video (cut-scene)
  • I worked out what was causing some of the original sounds not to work with Open AL (fourteen of them to be precise) and fixed it. This means my resampled Presage archive is no longer needed and you can now use the original from 1995
  • fixed bug in the video player which could sometimes block the playback thread from exiting when quitting the game
  • increased video player performance slightly when playing credits and videos
  • fixed inconsistency between the world dialog modal colour and the rest of the game modals
  • fixed a bug when caching some textures
  • added the credits to the game which can be viewed when you finish the game
*Credits*

What I'll probably do next week

  • monk AI
  • some small items on my TODO list
  • possibly install Ubuntu Linux on an old laptop