BLOCKED!

[aidave]

<center>http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/news/2006_05_07_blocked.gif (http://www.blocked.ca)</center>

BLOCKED!
In another life, you were Budge: a reckless, careless, inventor. Yet good of heart. Now stuck in a mysterious limbo, you have a dreadful feeling that you are incomplete. You can no longer talk or invent the things you were once able to. Soon you discover that your soul has been split into separate shards.

The creative spirit has dislodged from your soul, and without your heart to guide him, he has become mischievous and mad with power. Inventing fiendish machines and diabolical traps, he aims to stay free from you forever. The only chance you have to become whole again, is to find the scattered shards of your soul and trap him. He calls himself Block, and he stole your smile!

http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloud-spell_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloud-spell.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/gearguys_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/gearguys.jpg)
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloudipede1_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloudipede1.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-hydra_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-hydra.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/icejump1_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/icejump1.jpg)
http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead1.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead5_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead5.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead7_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead7.jpg)

BLOCKED
PGD 2006 Competition Edition
Pentium4, 3.0ghz, 1G RAM recommended
Download Blocked at our site (http://www.blocked.ca/)


THE GAME...
You must find each Shard and secure it. There are energy Wells throughout the world. Place a Shard inside a Well to secure it, then touch the Well. Gathering items around the Well will cause it to generate Power. You can then get Energy from the Power in each Well.

Some enemies will try to destroy the treasure near your wells, and some will try to capture your wells. Most will try to destroy you! You will have to defeat them, and force Block into a final showdown.

THE COMPETITION...
Blocked was created over a period of four months specifically for this competition. We did not have anything ready beforehand, except for a mission to make a multiplayer game, where teams construct and destroy each others castles. This was dropped for the singleplayer Boss contest, but we will resurrect the multiplayer vision next. The Bosses turned out to be too much work to sync over a network, along with many other complicated issues. You can see our stages progress and notes here (http://air.sourceforge.net/blocked.html).

All code, art, music, and many of the sounds, are original works created by the team. There will be video walkthroughs of each level to come!

We hope you have fun playing Blocked!
-Dave Kerr
-Reid Bianco

8)

[savage]

Please see my post on the Stage 6 Feedback thread.

[aidave]

thanks, uploaded!

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi aidave,

setting my regional languagesettings to USA solved the problem. You should really do something on that issue. The whole game craps if the regional settings are set to german.

Now I just have to find out how your game works ^^

Greetings,
Dirk

[aidave]

Unfortunately to play Blocked you will have to use English language.

Sorry! :oops:

It didnt occur to me to try it with other languages,
I wouldnt even know where to begin to make it compatible for others.

[aidave]

Here is a patch, using Michalis' advice, for foreign languages:

BLOCKED foreign language decimals patch (http://www.sundrop.ca/files/BLOCKED-0701-patch.zip)

[Huehnerschaender]

Seem to work on my german machine... Thanks... now I don't have to change system settings anymore ^^

[WILL]

A patch??? Why don't you just update your files? You still have time... (extra day extension)

;)

[aidave]

Good point ... I uploaded the patched version just in case.
It also contains extra cheat notes for the judges, to help them get to the boss in level 3.

It really bums me out though, because its the 8th day of the 5th month, and 8+5=13 :(
But if you add 2006 digits you get 21, which is divisible by 7, so I suppose its lucky overall! :)

[WILL]

:lol: oh man, you're not going to do that to yourself are you? :)

[aidave]

heheh, well im not really superstitious, just have a crazy thing for numbers.

You'd be amazed how often 7 appears throughout the code!

8)

[Huehnerschaender]

Hiho again...

I finally had time to punish the first boss with it's death for going on my nerves some hours :lol:

Level 2? Hmm .... started it, tried to stay alive but.... man! How can you defend yourself against the enemys and build your "castle" when the rocks are in the water, where sharks attack you and you have no chance to avoid them because they are 5 times faster than you are?

There must be some trick, but maybe there is something you should investigate: I played it on my laptop and then I realized, that the lower the FPS are, the slower the game runs. This indicates, that gamecalculations are not FPS-independant. Maybe thats why its so hard for me to play on my desktop (which is quite fast). The boss always hunts me and drives over my head while I loose life. No chance to avoid him. I finally know that he gets stuck in the "canyon" when there are many blocks, but that can't be the solution I guess.

Ok, just wanted you to know, that the speed of video card and processor influences gameplay a lot.
I will go on trying to see the centipede without cheating ^^

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

I'm hoping to play all the final submissions this week-end, assuming they have been posted on the forums.

[aidave]

Level 2? Hmm .... started it, tried to stay alive but.... man! How can you defend yourself against the enemys and build your "castle" when the rocks are in the water, where sharks attack you and you have no chance to avoid them because they are 5 times faster than you are?

Make note of the books near the new spell marbles.
The rocks are there to trick you! :wink:

There are a few different paths you can take to winning level 2, once you understand the way the ice and the new gears work, its easy.

Another tip, you can drop marbles you arent using near your well, for energy (G).

[idee_fixe]

Dirk,

I am the other half that made blocked with aidave (well, maybe other quarter, aidave did most of the work!).

I found Level 2 a challenge myself, at first, but I think it is a level that rewards bold action. The first Level let you sit back, build a castle and attack at your leisure, where as the second one is easiest if you go on the attack. You just need to remember three things: the GunGuys are slow and have bad aim, fireballs melt ice (and ice castles), and exploding GunGuys can be useful!

I hope that helps!

BTW, I've played Tanx, congratulations, I think it's a really good game!

[aidave]

What!?!? The gunguys have bad aim?? I made their aim. Im insulted! :roll:
Now go stand still by one and see how long you last.

[idee_fixe]

Sorry - correction - the GunGuys have slow aim. And they tend to hit the stuff you hide behind. Hint hint

[aidave]

8)

[Huehnerschaender]

hydra boss now.... all three "heads" off and then they respawn? Why?

[aidave]

cuz its a hydra!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra
:hellspawn::hellspawn::hellspawn:

as long as the body is alive, the heads and necks will regrow.
you can optionally blow up the engine to make it stop moving.
good luck!

[Huehnerschaender]

*hmpf*

Ok, tomorrow is hydra day.... is there a way to go directly to the hydra? I think it's getting boring to play the whole level again and again (took me half an hour to get to the hydra!). Tomorrow I get myself a bag of potatoe chips and then she has to die....... I hope so.

Otherwise I think there is no other way than to cheat for me.... Blocked takes too much time ^^ I have to go on with my project, otherwise it will never get finished....


Ok, thats enough for today, have to go sleeping now... it's already 0:30 am here.....

read ya tomorrow...

Greetings,
Dirk

[Traveler]

I've tried your game as well and,... well I think I need to try again. Been playing for about 25 mins or so, but I still dont understand what it all does. Some of the hints disappear quite fast. Some refer to cannons, but I dont quite understand which, or what I have to do to get them. Could be me though. I've tried the tutorial, and most was very helpful, but the part where it said I had to get the well inside the stone castle was very confusing.

[aidave]

That part isnt too clear, you're right.

What happens, is that when your well gets 200 points of energy, a cannon appears.
Use this cannon to knock away the castle and capture the well.

with a budger attached,
keys 1,2 aim the cannon up and down.
keys 3,4 aim it right and left, or you can push it physically
key 5 fires it, or you can shoot a fireball at it.

:king:

[Traveler]

Thanks,.. i'm going to give that a try.

[aidave]

http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloud-spell_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloud-spell.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/gearguys_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/gearguys.jpg)
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloudipede1_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/cloudipede1.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-hydra_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-hydra.jpg) http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/icejump1_small.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/icejump1.jpg)
http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead1.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead5_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead5.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead7_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots02/cloudhead7.jpg)

We have an official website now:

www.blocked.ca

There are forums there with hints and tips on the game,
including a cool new trick for defeating the rotors!
Plus a video walkthru of the first level is online.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Dave,

nice!

One question. You managed to get more than 7 minutes of video in 20 MB filesize. How did you made the video? I mean, which program did you use?

Greetings,
Dirk

[aidave]

Hi Dirk, I used my video camera to make an AVI file, then put that into Windows Movie Maker that comes with XP. I know... its MS ... :oops: bleh... but tried many many compressions including DiVX and they either didnt work, or couldnt give a decent file size, so I gave up and went to MS. With WMM you can tell it how big you want the file, the trick I used is to keep the final resolution to 320x200.

:arrow:

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Hi Dave,

I just downloaded and played. Congrats to you and Reid, nice job.

It played ok on my machine which is seriously under the minimum requirement. Got a bit jumpy when the gear boss appeared, but overall its pretty good.

I didn't have any real issues, except maybe that the information you present in the tutorial isn't accessible once its gone from screen... would be nice to have like a journal so you can go back and refresh your memory... lots of different actions on the same keys confuse me immensely.

[aidave]

thanks Athena! :queen:

we will take your advice into consideration,
probably a "notebook" you can go back to review all the hints and tips as you play.

:read:

ps. there is a small patch (www.blocked.ca/files/BLOCKED-0712-Patch.zip) for Blocked out; it fixes a bug when halting the game with windows.
If you play with the original version, please use the "exit" menu item to quit! :shhh:

[Robert Kosek]

This game is the most disappointing of the competition for me. Please don't be offended by my opinion, but I find the game far too tedious and not very fun at all. You both have worked extremely hard on this, and you deserve kudos for that.

Allow me to quote you some advice that Alexey Pajitnov, the author of Tetris, gives out in the book Game Design Secrets of the Sages:
Nothing Is Too Simple
Pajitnov says nothing is too simple for players and mentions this first because "when you get too close to your work and you're involved with it for so long, things tend to look simple to you." With the puzzle games Pajitnov has worked on in the past, everything looked to be trivial after a while, but he later realized someone who hasn't seen the game yet would likely find it challenging.

Don't Neglect The Hard Puzzles, Either
"No matter how difficult the task, there will be the player who figures it out," says Pajitnov. He admits this is contradictory to the first point, but they're both correct. "Don't neglect hard puzzles because you don't think someone will figure them out; there will always be a smarter gamer than you."

What I found in Blocked is that the difficulty became rediculous after the first level. Allow me to correct myself: From the first boss onward.

The first boss took many shots to the gears and "axel" but showed no sign of damage. I died 3 times before cutting him off at the waist, and by then he was INSIDE my base. Yeah, on the opposite side blasting all my treasures out to sea. I figured out that I could throw his bottom half and knock the remainder into the sea, but it took awhile. This is 45 minutes of playtime, 2nd try, and the boss was still firing. I finally finish the level. Then the ice one came along...

Your statement that the gears in that level are inaccurate is inaccurate, they're slow to aim (IE they don't predict fire), but they are very accurate over range. That said, they also spawn too quickly. (Alot of my issues could be solved by a difficulty setting.) I found in the first and second try, not lives, that I had to stay mobile. I couldn't even grab a few of the stones (hopping from ice floe to floe) without fireballs wizzing past. The sharks are perfect though and provide a steady and even difficulty, I even blinked twice when one somehow jumped out of water and up onto land... The Hydra is just too difficult. I made it to the island, with the spawn trigger, with full lives and lost them all trying to figure out how to kill the blasted thing. I blew off a total of 6 heads and my slowly regenerating energy was just a joke. I never damaged it past that. I tried creating ice bricks under it's belly, dunno how I got under there without dying, and the engine seemingly absorbed them but without any effect. I got rid of about 3 bricks in the enemy ice castle one time, but lost 4 lives in the process. The only gears actually shooting are the close ones, who are hard to dodge. All in all I gave up in 3 tries and 2.5 hours of irritation.

My first suggestion is the addition of a difficulty system with at least 2 levels. Second, I would put a slight rotation snap to the blocks, so every 45 or 90 degrees they would have a tendency to snap to. Also you might want to look into changing the energy system to a float value, then incrementing it steadily instead of in chunks every 2-3 seconds.

Again, I don't want to diminish your success at reaching this point because it's taken a mountain of work. I just wish that it were a bit better balanced for a casual puzzle gamer. The physics system and the lighting are quite good, and I was very impressed with the "budger" and bumping blocks together. Ice in the water, as well as wood, was also very cool. You've really put alot of work into the physics, as well as the graphics.

If you'd like a bit more specific critique on what you could improve, let me know. I hope I haven't come across as flaming, it sure isn't intended as such, and I really do wish you teh best of luck.

[idee_fixe]

Robert,

Thank you for your comprehensive feedback. Far from being offended, I greatly appreciate your opinion.

I think your post addresses the issue a couple other people have had with Blocked - it is not a simple game to step into. I think you would have to admit that it is very different in the way you need to approach it. It is not a deriative shoot-em-up or 3rd person action adventure like tomb raider.

I could go on at length about our game and how we designed it, our intentions, and so on, but I don't think that would help play-ability. If you check out blocked.ca, aidave has provided some hints and tips and walkthroughs. Each level of Blocked may seem tough at first, but it each has it's own strategy and unique solutions.

If the rocks are too hard to get on the ice level (and they are meant to be), maybe try to use something else for treasure (ice cubes work great!). If the gears attack you too fast, maybe you are attacking them too fast? Try using their attacks and explosions against themselves! The Hydra is a very tough boss, but only if you are not prepared. If you have two wells, both with lots of treasure, you will find you won't run out of energy.

I've completed level 2 without casting a single fireball, and without getting a single rock. It's certainly not an insurmountable obstacle, it just takes a couple attempts to figure out the best strategy.

If you are interested in any hints or help with any of the levels or bosses, feel free to post either here or in the forums on blocked.ca. We want everyone to get the full enjoyment and experience out of Blocked, so if something has you stuck, we'd like help!

Thanks again for your comments!

[aidave]

The Hydra is just too difficult. I made it to the island, with the spawn trigger, with full lives and lost them all trying to figure out how to kill the blasted thing. I blew off a total of 6 heads and my slowly regenerating energy was just a joke.

You must get more treasure before you attack the hydra,
or you wont regenerate enough energy to deal with it properly.
I recommend 14 items of treasure (or more)

Blocked is an open ended game.
Thus requires a bit of experimentation,
and learning how the dynamics work,
before you can beat it.
You can, if you really want, rush to fight the hydra right away.
If you do that though, you will get your butt kicked!! :roll:


I got rid of about 3 bricks in the enemy ice castle one time, but lost 4 lives in the process.

Try pushing a dead gear near the castle. :cherry:

[aidave]

I've completed level 2 without casting a single fireball, and without getting a single rock.

im bitter. i didnt figure out a way to stop that trick :eh:
congrats for pulling it off tho, i havent yet!
damn hydra always foils my plans :wink:

[Robert Kosek]

Well, I'm doing better (cleared the main island once) but still haven't beaten the Hydra. Got a bit of damage on 'im, then something happened today and the game crashed without an exception. I've no clue what happened, but it was the closest I came to beating the Hydra, since it was on fire.

[aidave]

good god... that bug was hard to find... but its fixed! :oops:
on some systems using 3dNow optimization, killing the hydra will cause an animation error. :fuzzy:
sorry about that, good news is you did kill the hydra ;)

here is the Patch (http://www.blocked.ca/files/BLOCKED-0710-Patch.zip) for it.

For a quick test go to Design mode and type:
"add flatterrain 0 0 -25"
"add hydra"
"slaughter hydra"

8)

[chronozphere]

hi aidave..

when i played your game.. i was amazed... exellent work. :D :razz:
I especialy like the physics and the bosses.

The first level was an easy but interesting level because you could chose your own ways to win.. I first gathered lots of treasure and made wals in the canyon and near both the coast to stop the gear-machines. Then i moved my cannon and some blocks to the castle and after a few seconds.. the boss appeared :evil: :P It was a hard one.. but i have blown him to peaces and thrown all the peaces as treasures near my well.

The second level was very different. I thought the concept of gathering rocks was still used, but short after i started level 2 i found out that there was no good way to defend my own well. I have spend nearly 3 houres on beating this level but it is a much harder level than the first one.

I havent met the hydra yet. I already destroyed the first ice-castle and created some ice blocks around it. Now i dont know what to do. There are two ofshore islands, and one of the books gives me a hint of going there but i constantly get eaten by those bloody sharks. :twisted:

I tried to make an ice bridge to the island but jumping from ice block to ice block is very hard because you often jump too far.

I like this game but the second level is just too hard.

Can someone help me out??? 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

The way to build an ice bridge is the right one.
You just have to put both ice marbles in your hands, which makes you much slower. So you better can aim your jumps on the next block.
That's all about it....

[Robert Kosek]

Fastest way to cross:

Equip budge in the left hand, Ice in the right. Make a block of ice, jump on, switch to full budge. Hold "Slide" (Z) then move the block like a boat.

[chronozphere]

@Robert: i tried your way and it worked great.

Now i was on the island and i took the shard. a few secs later i heard that the hydra boss was coming because many fireballs and bullets appeard and background-music changed but the actual hydra didn't show up. :(

I staid on the island for 2 minutes and then i took the raft and put the shard on it (that took me a while but it worked). Then i sailed to the last island. When i bumped into the land, my raft bounced high in the air and fell on the island, but the shard was gone (probably launched in the air). :cry:

Why didnt the hydra show up and why do rafts bounce angainst shore??? :?

P.S its a pitty you cant save and load the game.. That would make the game a lot better because it is a very time-consuming game. I had to claim the pc for 1 hour to play the level, because you cant easily save and let someone else work on the PC. :(

//--edit

The raft acts weird when used with a budge-spell. If you make it fall on the ground. it will sometimes replace itsself in the air and fall 3/4 times one after the other.
:? You should take a look at this :D

[idee_fixe]

chronozphere,

That's a great idea of building walls on level 1 - I wanted to just to see if it would work, but I always end up making a huge tower around my well.

Level 2 is actually not much more difficult than Level 1, you just basically have to approach it in a completely different way. While you can get the rocks out of the water (and they are helpful if you do), it is much quicker and easier to make ice cubes and build a structure with those. If you read the books on this level one at a time that's what we suggested.

Getting to the other islands can be tough - definitely do not try to beat the sharks, they will get you every time. Dirk and Robert both made excellent suggestions, and either way will work to get there. It's funny, that 'z' trick came about almost by accident, but it has really opened up some gameplay options!

I have no idea why you never saw the Hydra. As soon as the shard appears and you here the sounds, it's coming for ya! It comes from behind the other small island and it has long way to go, so it does take a while. If it happens again, could you possibly take a screenshot of where the fireballs are coming from, so aidave and I can take a look? Thanks.

Getting the shard to the other island can be a little tricky, mostly because it's easy to lose that shard in the water if you drop it. My favorite method is to use the raft like a flying carpet, so you hold down the budge mouse button, 'z', 'space' and you direct it near the island. You'll fly up really high, and have to time your release just right, but it's pretty fun to do. You have to keep an eye on the shard too (it helps to budge it in mid-air, so you can help direct it).

I think it's great that some players seem to be getting the hang of the game and are coming up with strategies and suggestions we never thought of! Keep 'em coming!

[aidave]

Some cool tips here! :spidey:

There is a rare possiblity that all the joints in the hydra's physical body will become unstable and it will fly away. That is probably what you experienced, and something I couldnt figure out how to isolate to fix it. As for the raft, coincidentally, I noticed that glitch earlier today. If it falls under the terrain, it goes back up too high. That can lead to the wierd looping effect you saw. :| (patch (http://www.blocked.ca/files/BLOCKED-0712-Patch.zip))

Save/load games werent added, due to time. They would be really nice to have of course. There were many features we wanted to add but didnt have time to. You can, at least, pause the game by pressing F1, and then minimize the window. It will run at ~1% CPU in this state.


cheers
dave

[Traveler]

a rare possiblity eh :roll:

[aidave]

or maybe a shark ate it :toothy:

[Huehnerschaender]

Maybe it got frightened and went in the wrong direction?
Or one of the 3 heads went mad and shot its own body?
Or maybe..... the joints from the physics engine became real joints and the hydra smoked them all and put herself totally stoned to "rest" on the little nice island, counting flying sharks and horse riding gears?

Nobody knows, and nobody will know, I guess...

[idee_fixe]

Dave, I think Dirk discovered the secret!

[chronozphere]

I played this game again and now the hydra did show up.
But that thing is almost undestroyable...:twisted: i know the head regenerate from previous posts. So i decided to shoot at the engine (especialy those 15 secs, all the head where destroyed). :)

But i hav lost 5 lives in this proces and worst of all, there is now hydra health bar. If there was one, the player could say: "Shit, he has killed me just before i killed him... lets try again".
but now the player won't see any progress in reaching his goal. ;)

I will not try it again. I've allready spend about 6 houres playing this game the past 4 days and i think that's enough ;)
Now i will play some other entrys and also continue my own projects. If you changed the difficulty or someone has found a trick to defeat this boss... please let me know :)

I wish everyone good luck with destroying the hydra and i wish aidave good luck with tweaking his game so everyone will have much fun with it (like i had in the beginning ;) )

[idee_fixe]

The only trick to beating the Hydra is being prepared. Before you fight it, be sure you have:

1 - Both fire marbles
2 - Both wells, with at least 10 treasure each
3 - At least 1000 energy stored up

Then, just let the Hydra come to you. Once it is right against the shore of the island, give yourself enough distance to dodge effectively, and fire away with both spells at once. Aim for the heads and engine first, and once the engine is gone, aim for the disc that the heads are sitting on. You get the best aim if you are in first person perspective, so try that if you've been using third person instead.

And remember - keep moving! If you stand still it doesn't take long for him to get you.

For a complete Level 2 walkthrough, check out the forums at www.blocked.ca!

[chronozphere]

Yeah... i used both fire marbles, and i have dropped 21 ice blocks near the second well. I don't know what my energy level was, but i know i did have enough energy to keep shooting at the hydra. :razz:

I used the FIRST person view for aiming. :)

I destroyed all its heads for 2/3 times but they kept respawning, i have also also tried to destroy its engine but i didn't see any progress.

I often jumped to dodge the fireballs, but aiming when jumping is not easy and i often missed. :cry:

maybe i'll try it again this week. 8)
looking forward to level 3 :D

//sorry... i ment First persion view.. not third person
:oops:

[aidave]

trick is, if it has all 3 heads, the body wont take damage.
blow off any or all the heads,
then aim at its body (the square or circle in the middle),
the pontoons on the sides dont take damage,
the engine can be blown off separate.

third person is my favorite way to aim at it too 8)

if you manage to blow up all the heads at once,
then pour fireballs straight into the circular pad,
using third person
it should die before any heads regenerate

:batman:

ps. level 3 is the coolest level IMO

[aidave]

im curious...

has anybody won the game?

http://www.subtutious.com/forum/images/smiles/icon_ninja.gif

[chronozphere]

I think i have found a few bugs in Blocked!!!

1. First of all when you fight the final end-boss, the mouse is locked (mouse position is set, multiple times a second), even when you alt-tab to windows. So when i want to leave the final end-boss alone for a moment, i cant use my mouse. I think this can be fixed easily (but im not sure) :D

2: Ok?©... let me explain this one. 8)

Normaly.. when you shoot at something with a fireball, the fireball dissapears when it hits its target (or something else).
But when i was fighting the final boss, the bullets didn't dissapear, they just shrunk, like they where fired into eternal space. So what i am trying to say is, it looks like my bullets go RIGHT THROUGH the endboss. In this case you could not defeat him. You should definitly take a look at this.

Fortunatly... when i noticed this, i remebered the screenshot button (F2). I tried to take as much good foto's as possible. This is one of the best. :D

http://www.techzine.nl/f/g/36261php6yadBb.jpg

{this picture might be removed later... because i will not leave it on my webspace for eternity}

happy bug-hunting. 8)

[Robert Kosek]

im curious...

has anybody won the game?

http://www.subtutious.com/forum/images/smiles/icon_ninja.gifYeah but I had to cheat to do so. :( Too hard.

And actually he's just really far away or something. Aim 1.5 "sections" ahead and you'll hit him.

[chronozphere]

Ohw... maybe its an idea to make visible explosions when a bullet hits the boss. I was shooting like a mad-man but it realy didn't make any difference. :(

[idee_fixe]

I've got bad news for you chronozphere - those fireballs are actually shrinking into the distance - the size of the cloudipede is deceiving - it is huge and quite far away, making aiming tricky (why would we make it easy, he is the BIG BOSS afterall :wink: ). For something fun, try jumping off the island onto the clouds below - you can get really close to the boss this way. Also, don't shoot the head first! Aim for the tail and work your way back up.

And remember to heal yourself at your well (just bump into it), because you'll need all the lives you can get when the secret weapon comes out.

[chronozphere]

Owh.. yeah your right.. when i was killed, i took a birdview screenshot from the boss, and indeed, the island looked very small, compared to the boss. :D

well.. just take a look at the first bug i mentioned. 8)

[aidave]

Cool, you are at the final boss! 8)

Good idea about having visible damage, having some damage meters would be great as well.
Of course I dont feel right to add new features at this point, bug fixes are one thing, but not adding content.
After the judging we will add new stuff like that.
There is a "clank" sound when your bullets hit the boss,
also Roberts advice about shooting the segments is on the money.

I highly recommend jumping on the Cloudipede to get a true sense of its size! :rambo:
While on top you can attack it too!

Youre right about the ALT-TAB issue! One way to avoid that, is to pop up the menu first. Thanks for bringing that up, I fixed (http://www.blocked.ca/files/BLOCKED-0712-Patch.zip) it ;)
(this latest patch 0712 also smooths out the physics of the ice cubes and debris)

[WILL]

I just realized something...

Pentium4, 3.0ghz, 1G RAM recommended

Holy crap! :P a 3 GHz P4 w/ 1GB of RAM? :shock: I've got a Celeron M 1.6GHz w/ 512MB of RAM and it runs just fine. No slowdonws. What merits all that extra power requirements? Or was that just a guess?

[aidave]

Those are the average judges specs (almost), plus my own dev computer ;)

I've noticed that it only runs at 50% max CPU tho. So if I can figure out a way for the game to use more CPU it should go alot faster (something to do with TTimer?)

[compsci]

Check you don't have HyperThreading enabled - If you have one thread dominating the processor (even at 100% real usage), it would show up on the Task Manager as 50%, because it's using 100% of 50% of your 'processors'.

[aidave]

Yes i do have hyperthreading enabled!
Now to figure out how to turn it off... :?

edit: it was a bios setting, now im getting 100% cpu :) thanx

[aidave]

A new multiplayer addon to Blocked is available for alpha testing!

On the current map, there are two teams: Blue and Red.
Each team has a well to protect.
The first team wins when they:

1) Capture both wells
or
2) Score 7 points

To get a goal, shoot the white "puck" into the enemy well.

You can download the latest version (http://www.blocked.ca) from blocked.ca.

There are many issues to be solved, but it is playable and the major features are there!! Hope to see u online.

:)

cheers
dave
8)

[aidave]

need more players!

there are now three PVP maps online.

(+a new installer)

:rambo:

[aidave]

hmm ... not a single person tried yet :?

[Huehnerschaender]

I will try.... but I am horror busy right now... Job kills me atm!

Greets,
Dirk

[aidave]

:)

im not sure how the connection will be from around the world
but should be interesting to find out!

[idee_fixe]

Well, we know the connection works fine across mountains! Good job on the continued development - it's too bad the contest wasn't a month longer - who else has Single player, multiplayer Head-to-Head, and Co-op modes?! ;)

I like the new installer too, and the health bars look good; they work exactly like I thought they should!

[aidave]

More players logged on last night :) I was asleep tho!

The networked code was alot harder to work out than I expected!
However it has progressed from a choppy uncontrollable mess into a smooth playable experience. 8)
Dont know how well it runs with high ping or lots of player yet.

It should be alot of fun with 4 or more players PVP.
The co-op works but, the traffic of all the AI is too much, plus the bosses arent created right and put out way too much traffic (especially the final boss).

Its true no other games have network modes but, we added them after the deadline, so they dont count :wink:

[aidave]

need more players on TreeHouse!!!

:toothy:

[aidave]

some photos taken while online:

http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire1.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire2_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire2.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire4_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/fire4.jpg)
standing on a cloud above lava not a good idea

http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/cannons1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/cannons1.jpg)
cannon sniping

http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/rotors1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/rotors1.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/rotors2_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/rotors2.jpg)
co-op battles

http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/three1_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/three1.jpg) http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/three2_small.jpg (http://www.blocked.ca/images/screenshots03/three2.jpg)
three people at once! the current record!


8)

[NecroDOME]

Cool! I'm wondering how you send the physics over the network? is it just the server that calculates the physics?

[aidave]

The server calculates and keeps the true state.

Each client gets updates from the server, and then calculates in-between physics until the next server update, to make it appear flowing.

When players move characters forward, it moves forward on the client, and sends to the server too (the keypress/action), then the server sends back the true state of your character, and client takes the average, smoothing it out. The result looks and feels pretty smooth altho not as nice as single player! ;)

[kakarotv5]

Download Blocked at our site (http://www.blocked.ca/)


The link is break :( :( :(.

[savage]

A quick search on Google for Blocked should bring up the correct links.

[kakarotv5]

[quote="savage"]A quick search on Google for Blocked should bring up the correct ]

I have already tried that, but I do not obtain good results.

EDIT: This? (http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=15306-3)