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SHIT!
I just had a crash playing Gold 2.
Luckily I “recorded” the session (level 23x). I can reproduce the crash using any of my 3 currently available vectrex.
I can NOT reproduce the crash in Vide however – so I don’t know what goes wrong :-(.
Happy weekend everybody…
Chris
Although not directly reproduceable – the save game feature is a heavenly thing for debugging.
How can one live without it?
I think I found it.
It seems, when doing a scenario change from the “normal” game to a “sequence”, I did not always correctly reset the
player shot structure.Since the shot collision detection is “prepared” during the first set of stars printing, said structure could be references there.
The player shot structure however CAN be overwritten under circumstances, when it necessary to save “scoopy” information.
(entering a minestorm is such an occasion, since scoopies are not used within a minestorm… but afterwards they should be available again).Soooo…
IF the game is “left behind”…
IF there are Scoopies, and these are saved,
IF stars are still printed,
IF shot 9 or 10 were “active” shots (out of 10),
IF the scoopies were at a certain position,Than the shot preparation could access data from the scoopies instead of an “active” shot.
IF that was the case and the scoopies were at a certain location on screen, than the scoopy position would lead with a “$dxxx”.
Than a “random” register of the VIA could be addressed instead of a “normal” memory location by the shot preparation routine.(Probably some timer)
IF that location (timer?) had a specific value….THAN a result could be:a) an endless loop
b) if the emulation was not 100% exact, than that endless loop does not happen in the emulator
I will not try to be that exact with emulation.
Cheers
PS
I doubt that I will ever find out if I really fixed that bug, but I will keep playing!
(With the save feature enabled!)Vectorblade is a quite complex game and as we all know there might be some glitches in the final version. This is o.k. as long as the likely hood of these glitches is low. If I see the many conditions for this bug that you have listed, Chris, it seems that probability of this bug is very low so it will occur only in very rare cases. Still it’s a bug and good that you experienced this bug and could track it down right away.
Perhaps it’s a good idea to have another gold version and then start final testing round #2 with a fixed time frame and final date (e.g. a after week). In this time frame as much beta testers as possible should try to track down crashes and severe bugs and sure enough report these- nothing else. If no bug is found within the time frame the gold edition could be final. (When thinking about it I guess that this is not a new idea but much what you’ve tried to do).
Vectorblade_Gold_03.bin – 9th August 2020
and VecFever version:
Vectorblade_Gold_03.V4E – 9th August 2020Fixed the bug.
Tested a game to level 299.
Tomorrow I’ll get my “main” test Vectrex back…
Next “fixed” time frame – end of week (Friday night).
Chris
Thanks for fixing the last bug so quickly (which frankly wasn’t easy to find).
->VB Gold 03 VF on test!
@Chris: Just something which could be improved for the final version: the “Game Over” sequence of a loaded game is very very short; normal or not?
“Game Over” appears and disappears instantly; IMHO it would be nicer if it is longer; i send you a video.
Vectorblade_Gold_04.bin – 12th August 2020
and VecFever version:
Vectorblade_Gold_04.V4E – 12th August 2020 when buying “greater” shotsBug fix:
– fixed game save/load high score savingChanges:
– “game over” longer on saved game
– shop: removed reduction of number of shots in airNext “fixed” time frame – end of week (Friday night).
Chris
Hi,
About the new VB Gold 04 VF version ->
Several little problems for me playing the easy/hardcore mode:
– The most annyoning: after more than 30 levels i remarked that my shots were slower and slower; the game became unplayable.
@Chris: i send you the video
– No access to the shop (normal?)
– When i got the blaster for the 1st time i did not get the message about this achievement (possible reason: i got the missing letter of EXTRA at the very last moment playing the level)
There are no (known?) bugs with the stuff you report.
On hardcore you can not access the shop, and you also do not get money.
If you tend to collect slowdowns – well the shots get slower… so DON’T!Achievements for shot types are only rewarded AFTER a level.
If you catch the last letter after the level – than the achievement will be given after the next level – UNLESS you lose the weapon before the end of the level – than you miss out on the achievement.These were design decisions, which will not change.
I’ll try to play some hardcore games… but I already did in the last days and I did not find anything that wasn’t like I expected…
Cheers
PS
Looking at your video, I wonder whether that should give some achievment of its own 🙂
Yes, no worries finally. I do not know what happened exactly, but i suspect that i was in an “unusual configuration” trying to play the game in different ways. 😊
Hi folks!
Thx again for the hard work you all put into Vectorblade!
Today I did a final compile and produced a 1.00 version. I hope this is majorly bugfree! I changed some small stuff from the last versions. Mainly in relation to my “crooked” vectrex. Straightening “shots” etc.
I found 1 or two small bugs (again) and corrected them. I played a lot amongst others a good game which lasted about 250 level and was totally bugfree – so I have high hopes, that VB can now be played :-).
I “produced” (see blog) my first 10 complete games (box, “literature”, overlay etc…). Nice to see the final shape of things.
I’ll continue to produce about 10 per day for the rest of August – and then go on sending them away…if people can afford the postage…
Thx again!
Cheers
Chris
My sincere congratulations! Nice picture of the boxes 🙂
You probably won’t have the time to answer, but out of curiosity:
– Is the limit of 100 orders already reached?
– What are the crooked things of your crooked Vectrex? Is there some way/utility to assert the crookedness of ones own Vectrex?
– Did you get more insight on the taxation aspect of selling Vectorblade?Many Cheers from Munich,
PeerHi!
- current order count 190
- behaviour of VIA under certain conditions – I never wrote a program for it tot test really, but basically stuff I wrote in my blog about: http://vide.malban.de/30th-of-january-vectrex-variances
These differences show in various places. E.g. one thing I added for a Zero-Reference befor the alien shots are drawn, because the “first” alien shot became increasingly unstable the further to the negative Y-coordinate it was printed. - Some… still not completely certain how I’ll handle it legally…
@Peer, George, Vince, Nico Helmut, VTK:
Can you please send me your current addresses for double check via Mail?
Somehow I have to distribute the first 10 Vectorblades :-).Cheers – have a nice rest holiday!
Malban
Congratulations on finishing Vectorblade and first 10 versions! After this long journey it’s good that this comes to an end or let’s rather say to a start! As written in a PM perhaps Vectorblade could become part of the yearly Vector War. Let’s see.
Chris, with Vectorblade you did very well and again. Thank you very much for giving us beta testers the opportunity to influence development by considering and implementing many of our suggestions. Thank you for this, Chris!
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