Bouldermouse is released!

[Firlefanz]

Hello everybody.

You are the famous Bouldermouse! Collect all the diamonds in the mine. Avoid monsters and falling rocks. Use dynamite and bombs to blow your way...push rocks and smash monsters with them...

Extremly reduced screenies:
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm1.jpg
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm2.jpg
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm3.jpg
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm4.jpg
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm5.jpg
http://www.magicstorm.de/bilder/boulder/smallbm6.jpg

Here it is:

http://www.magicstorm.de/download/bmsetup.exe

Mirror:

http://www.ericbehme.de/download/bmsetup.exe

Project page with Screens, Download etc:
http://www.magicstorm.de/bouldermouse.html

Comments welcome, I hope you like it!

Firle

[jdarling]

Bug reports from the field:

1) The config screen jumps up between my two screens. Really annoying that I have to move it, please set it to ScreenCenter instead of DesktopCenter :)

2) The book and the read along don't sync at all. In fact, I get to the end of the book almost 1 min before I get to the end of the narrator reading the story :(. I can't say if the narration completes, just that the screen jumps to the graphics loading screen.

3) Even if I don't check full screen the game launches and runs in full screen.

4) The page flip has A LOT of flicker in it, in fact I can see the next page for about 1/3 of a second when the pages flip.

5) If I tab out and tab back while in story mode the game freaks out giving 3 or 4 voices over flips a few pages and then crashs bad.

6) The main menu background is there, and I can see the Boulder Mouse pushing stuff around, but no menu items are displayed. The error log doesn't contain anything useful even if I set it to full mode.

7) I think some blocks are missing in game play. I've noticed clear paths that I can't walk through, of course this is after I clicked around to try and find the play button. So I might not be in the play screen.

Here is whats in errorlog.txt:
[Bouldermouse 2]
End Loadini=
End Formcreate=
Start LoadLanguage=
End Loadlanguage=
Start StartScenemenu=
Start LoadMenuData=
End Startscenemenu=

System specs:
DELL Inspiron 4100
PIII 1 Ghz
769 Mb RAM
XP Pro SP2
ATI Mobility video card (thats all the info I have on it sorry)

Graphics look good, but a lot of debugging on lower end hardware still needs to be done :(.

My guess is that you have a few textures some place that are not power of 2 or are larger then 1024 as I know that these are limits of my card (via trial and error testing for my own stuff).

[Firlefanz]

Please turn on Fullscreen with the Configuration.
Maybe you have it turned off, and you have a resolution set that is as larger or larger than your desktop so it looks like fullscreen.

First time I hear of any bugs lol :)

Tab works for me, also no problem with the intro voice and gfx.

Maybe we found a system too slow?

Please turn on Fullscreen, turn of all shader, turn off anti-aliasing and turn on FPS.

Then maybe it will work better...

but thanks anyway for the feedback, maybe I can fix something with a patch when I got some more!

Firle

[Firlefanz]

PS: I forgot: Reduce resolution to 320x200x16 just to see if it gets better...

[Huehnerschaender]

The most important thing on your machine is to turn off all shaders. Firle provides new shader-features of DanJetX with this game, but the shaders need Pixel Shader V1.4 and I don't think your "old" hardware supports this. I guess a PIII 1 Ghz is also quite slow, even if this is not a Next Gen FPS or RPG, the game still needs DirectX 9.0c and uses the render techniques available in version 9.

[Dan]

The techniques Firlefanz uses in this game require pixel shader 2.0, if the system does not support it the game won't render objects using pixel shader. That is why you may not see many objects in the game.

[Firlefanz]

Yes but also the X files are there and can be loaded, the shaders just have to be turned off...

[WILL]

There is a way to detect the version of the card's supported shaders, no?

Have an autoconfig/detect run the first time you run the game exe. Then once it has done it's (simplified for players) small list of performance tests have a 'Save Settings & Play' button afterwards.

Also include a 'Close/Done' button as well for those that don't care to play just yet.

Or... you can have this functionality at the end of the installer.

If you are concerned about disappointment of quality have a confirmation popup that mentions the issue between having shader support on and off.

[Huehnerschaender]

The techniques Firlefanz uses in this game require pixel shader 2.0, if the system does not support it the game won't render objects using pixel shader. That is why you may not see many objects in the game.

Oh, of course I meant 2.0 and not 1.4... stupid me! :)

[chronozphere]

@Will, there's alway's a way ;)

Call D3DDevice9.GetDeviceCaps and you'll recieve this data structure (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb172513.aspx) which has the
PixelshaderVersion and VertexShaderVersion members.

Then you should do this:

if Caps.PixelShaderVersion < D3DPS_VERSION(2 ,0 );
//return error or use alternative render-method


@Firle: I downloaded bouldermouse too, and it's a great game. Well done ;)

[Firlefanz]

Thanks Chrono :D

[jdarling]

Yep, once you fiddle around enough to get it to run its a great game. Firle, I'd strongly suggest you have a fallback that tests the users system to make sure that they can at least play the game or see something that says that their system isn't configured properly. A mistake like this can cost a project big time if it goes commercial.