Gridrunner Revolution OUT NOW }:-).

[Dehumanizer]

Another suggestion: the GR Rev page doesn't include either a download or a purchase link; they're only in the front page. They should be in the former as well, I think.

[gilesgoat]

Another suggestion: the GR Rev page doesn't include either a download or a purchase link; they're only in the front page. They should be in the former as well, I think.

Working on it.

I am going to add stuff to those pages later.

[gilesgoat]

Main LS website just updated, changed a bit some things and added more things, you should find all you need in there now.

[limb_clock]

I think i'm doing something wrong.

I easilly got to level 31 starting from level 1 on the Trickier difficuly setting. Sure i kept dying, but once i notedthat i could land the spining ship on top of enemies and get more airtime, i was pulling sheepie saves like some ultra-pro gamer.

[Jamesac]

Sure, you can do that. Pay attention to your bonus multiplier, though, and you'll see why that may not be as good as it initially looks. Zero deaths is the difference between 10,000 points on a level and 1,000,000.

James

[bcass]

Finally got a new PC up and running, after wasting an entire week trying to fault find on a dead system that didn't want to boot into BIOS, no matter what component I replaced. Anyway, am really loving this so far. Wasn't too keen on the easier levels, but level 20 onwards and things start to heat-up nicely. Some on the music selection is truely inspired. The graphics are gorgeous too. I really love this new subtle version of Neon. I'd love to see a game where all the game objects are Neon generated objects as opposed to sprites and obvious combinations of geometric shapes. It could be the ultimate organic game.

Now, here are a few observations...

1. I'd agree with what some people have said about the size of the objects - even at the highest resolutions, the screen seems a bit cramped sometimes. Maybe this is intentional to increase the rate of chaos, but I'd prefer if everything was a little smaller with a bit more screen to move about in.

2. Not sure if this is a bug with my audio card, but some of the sound effects seem disproportionately louder than others. Yes, I know you can counter this by turning the sound effects down, but by doing this, most of the sound effects become too quiet. The main offenders are the siren sound when you destroy a Sun, and the sound when all the sheep fly off the screen after lining-up at the end of a level. I haven't got problem with the choice of any of the sounds, it's just that these two sounds are too loud.

3. This is the main thing that I think is a big oversight - no online hi-score tables. This game absolutely demands them. Even freeware games have online hi-score tables these days. We don't need anything as comprehensive as Xbox Live Leaderboards, just a simple process that sends the current hi-score to the server after game over. Server-side, it's just a tiny amount of PHP to do this. You're probably talking about an hours work, including setting up the MySQL tables. I would personally pay extra to have this feature implemented. Posting screen-shots in a high-score thread on a forum is no substitute for online score tables.

[gilesgoat]

It's not really "that simple", first there's not only one score table but 6.

Second, we had no time/resources to try this.

To implement this it means we need first a server somewhere with MySQL running.

Second all the stuff is made in C++, I never used so far ODBC or ADO or such via C++, I agree that in the end
"all you need" is something like :

c = connection.open ( "some url" , "database" );
c.query = " INSERT into SCORES where something , someting and something blah"
connection.close ();

But there is still the - non so trivial - problem of "offline/online", i.e. you do a score when you don't have DB connection
then what you'd like ( of course ) is "next time you are online at some point a synch should happen".

There are various conditions/things to think/test a little, if you think a bit nothing is really "super trivial" and trust me
"there's NO code done in 5 mins" ( that works for real )

About PHP side that's easy, I know how I could make a score table appear.

Anyway "next time maybe", this means we'd also need some other things that needs to be set in place and tested.

I had also a few other "mad ideas" but again they need to be TESTED and such.

As I said "next time".

*IF* things are going to do well with this ( i.e. really, enough sales ) then we could have a bit "more
time to breath" and improve/make things "even nicer", like to add all this stuff, polish things better and such.

As it is, gets a point where you have to say "ok that's it the program is finished", you don't want it to be a DNF

[limb_clock]

Sure, you can do that. Pay attention to your bonus multiplier, though, and you'll see why that may not be as good as it initially looks. Zero deaths is the difference between 10,000 points on a level and 1,000,000.

James

i kept getting the boost factor over to 10,000 and finishing korma level 40 with like 357,xxx,xxx ammount of points. I'm far too good at it

[gravy]

Took me a week to put it into GR++ mac and write the server code having never done anything like that at all in the past.

I think Kor took even less time adding it to Ballzup

Fair enough if you don't want to do it but don't make it out to be more work than it is.

[RiK]

Yeah, there are even loads of games on the Blitz forums with online score tables. Piece of piss these days.

[gilesgoat]

Took me a week to put it into GR++ mac and write the server code having never done anything like that at all in the past.

I think Kor took even less time adding it to Ballzup

Fair enough if you don't want to do it but don't make it out to be more work than it is.

I don't say "it's a lot of super work" but yet "it's extra time needed".

In the future, maybe, we can always do an "upgrade" with some extra features and give it FOR FREE to people that
already have it.

But just for example think about this, you need also to make people install drivers for the DB access, MySQL stuff for example
don't come "with Windows" or such, Ballzup "of course, you have all the Apple framework in place" .. even on XBLA "you
have all in there".

But you know it does not work "so simply" on the PC, you have to set up things all in some way and do it in a way the
user possibly has "nothing to do".

You see despite all the testing we had you always have then "some glitches" when the things gets out in the wild and then
you have to spend even extra time to find out what the problems are and fix them up.

I am saying "I am not going to do it now", but it could be done in the future.

I repeat :

I am saying "I am not going to do it now", but it could be done in the future.

[korruptor]

I think the only tricky thing is getting a DB on the webside, but they're 10 a penny really. Mysql is really simple.

I had a quick swizz at stealing Gaz's but ended up rolling my own; all I did was wrap three params (score, name, build-type) in an XML-RPC call and wrote a 10 line script on the server to validate the game mode and insert the score into the correct DB table. There's bucket loads of XML-RPC code out there and it's a trivial thing to use.

Admittedly, I should extend what I did to make sure there's only one entry per player, but tbh I've left it as is so it looks like more people are playing it

It quite happily handles different score tables for the iPhone and (unreleased) Mac version. You should have a look at something similar as it's a pretty good value add, especially given all the score chasing we got up to with SG.

[korruptor]

[
But just for example think about this, you need also to make people install drivers for the DB access, MySQL stuff for example
don't come "with Windows" or such, Ballzup "of course, you have all the Apple framework in place" .. even on XBLA "you
have all in there".

Eh?

You put the DB on the web server. Send data to the server, the client doesn't need anything other than an internet connection.

[bcass]

To implement this it means we need first a server somewhere with MySQL running.

Don't you already have a server for the GR++ Mac score table? How about hosting the scores on the same server as the forum? That will already likely have MySQL up and running on it.

Second all the stuff is made in C++, I never used so far ODBC or ADO or such via C++, I agree that in the end
"all you need" is something like :

c = connection.open ( "some url" , "database" );
c.query = " INSERT into SCORES where something , someting and something blah"
connection.close ();

Yep, it really is that simple, regardless of what programming language you're using. Maybe do a check first to see if the currently entered score for the entered name (and registered email address) is higher than the last score they entered and only upload a score when they improve their score, or if it's their first ever score. That way each player only has one entry on each score table.

But there is still the - non so trivial - problem of "offline/online", i.e. you do a score when you don't have DB connection
then what you'd like ( of course ) is "next time you are online at some point a synch should happen".

Just do what most PC indie games do - only upload a current score if the player is online.

I know it's not 'super-trivial'. I work in development so I know that even small things need to be carefully considered, but this seems so fundamental to a game like this, I think everyone would consider it a great addition.

[gilesgoat]

[
But just for example think about this, you need also to make people install drivers for the DB access, MySQL stuff for example
don't come "with Windows" or such, Ballzup "of course, you have all the Apple framework in place" .. even on XBLA "you
have all in there".

Eh?

You put the DB on the web server. Send data to the server, the client doesn't need anything other than an internet connection.

Say have you ever done DB connections in WINDOWS ? And with what ? You need drivers to open a connection to a DB and
the drivers must also match the kind of DB server you are using.