GemChase Alpha

[Huehnerschaender]

Found the bug with menu rendering... I didn't apply the workaround for menu screen, just for advertisement splashscreens and game screen.

@Czar and Robert

Could you please test if you are able see the menu now?

@Savage
I think I added joystick support to the game. Are you able to test it? I don't have a joystick, so it's hard for me to test *hehe*
Support is only in game right now! If you tell me it works I will add it to the menu, too!

EDIT: Added mouse support, too You can control the ship with your mouse now.

http://www.dino-it.de/gemchase_exe.zip

This URL is just the exe, so please overwrite it in the download from first post.

Thank you very much for all your efforts!!

[Robert Kosek]

Woo, finally! I see the menu!

What in the world is wrong with DanJetX that you have to apply a workaround?

[Huehnerschaender]

There is nothing big, just a little bug which uses a too small depthstencilsurface if the rendertarget is bigger than the backbuffer. But Dan is fixing it and he already provided the solution I am using now. Problem is that the behaviour you encountered is driver dependend.... It was not easy to find the problem because most video cards displayed everything correct... only certain drivers caused problems.


And: wooo!!! Yeah! Now I am glad, too

[savage]

Using the mouse makes it easier to play the game so I quite like it, but please add mouse support to the main menu as well. The mouse wheel would allow you to scroll the menus up and down and left click selects the highlighted menu option ( no need for a mouse cursor ). Right click could be used like the ESC key. Therefore you could play the whole game without touching the keyboard. Except for maybe typing in your initials for Highscores, but again you could use the mouse wheel and Left click for that if you had to.

I do have a joystick and as far as I can tell it does not work in this game.

Btw, you should be able to ESC the splash screens as soon as they appear. This is standard across all games. Most people will sit through the splash screens the first time, but when you really want to play the game again, you really don't want to see the splash screens again, so a quick way of getting through them is ideal.

[czar]

@Robert Kosek
The bug is actually to with DirectX rather than danjetx per se - and as Huehnerschaender says there is a workaround and soon a proper fix.

@Huehnerschaender
I agree I hate sitting through intro splash screens after the first time - I sit there banging the return and escape key in the hope I can get past them.

I will replay the game again this evening.

Is it not amazing how much response a project gets when it has a few obvious bugs than when it works without flaws?

There is probably a lesson here - if you want people to notice your game make it really good but with some annoying bugs.

[Huehnerschaender]

*lol*

I did not add the bugs to get attention, I swear!

But most of them should be sorted out now. The splash screens can now be skipped immediately by pressing ESC, the mouse control does not cause audio-problems to thrust sound anymore, everything should be visible now, etc...

I will upload a new version in a an hour or so... just want to add some additional sounds.

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, I uploaded a new Beta version with additional voicefiles and some other little things.

still to do:
- there are situations where 2 voicefiles are played simultanously which is nonsense of course...
- smoke to background
- natural level border damages ship
- menucontrols mouse
- highscore system

I will try to do all that tomorrow. I will also buy a joystick tomorrow to add proper joystick support

http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

Greetings and have fun with the new voicefiles, me and my son had ours! *lol*

[pstudio]

I've just tried the latest release and I must say the game is to easy

You should create some more levels like the last one instead of looping through the levels. Else you could just go on forever until you die of thirst.

[Huehnerschaender]

Cool.... that means everything is working as intended

I know that the "game" in its actual state is too easy. 8 Levels is not much *hihi*

The plan is to find out if there are more bugs. Then design 20-50 levels, getting harder until impossible. Thanks again for testing!

[czar]

Nice one Dirk, all systems go.

Just one major problem! There is no pause button. I was just about to clock the score - the highest score of all time when the phone went - needless to say my ship went down in a screaming heap.

I did have a weird "pause" it lasted about 4 seconds - then the game continued - on resumption is played a sound - not sure if it paused trying to load it or what.

Might just be nothing.