Build 30: Epic Changes

[weasel]

It's finally here!

I'm sorry it took so long to get Build 30 out, but I really had no choice. Exactly two weeks ago I put out Build 29, and things started changing so much that the game was relatively unplayable until just recently. I put in a final few touches tonight and I am left with a product I am happy for release.

I also wanted to make it a big one, since I'm turning 30 this year, and 30 is a big round number, and I'm hoping to have the game in a releasable state 30 days from now... It's just a nice convergence of numbers.

Here's the gist of things:

- Complete UI do-over. All the major graphics and art have been updated and replaced. This was the biggest speedbump - I couldn't release a game if you couldn't sign in!
- Replays. Yep, you can now record and playback your victories!
- A lot of gameplay changes - nothing incredibly major, but important nonetheless.
- New website uploaded.
- New forum software installed and re-built. Also hacked to accept user registrations right from the game.

I thought the old graphics were hot, but this new hotness is just... on fire. I love it, I love it to bits. I especially like how it looks sitting pretty in the new website. The notification boxes and level save boxes are all in place now too, and I've implemented handy new features like URL-copying-to-clipboard and other fun stuff. The entire graphical user experience is simply doublegood now.

It's getting pretty late here so I'm going to sign off for now. Updates and new builds should come more frequently now, and the changes will become smaller and smaller in scope as we start ramping up for launch day. Thank you, Alphanauts, for helping us get this far.

Complete changelog below...

[weasel]

There has been so many changes I grouped them into categories. :)

Editor Changes

- UNDO/REDO. I really, really wish I had a big long description for this, more than just those two words. A lot of work went into it (though, in the end, it was easier than I thought).
- If you try to access the editor when you are not logged in, you now get a notification window instead of it silently denying you access.
- You can now delete whole molecules. This completes the trio of super-powers, first introduced in Build 29: SuperMove, SuperCopy, SuperDelete. SuperDelete is activated by holding down CTRL/COMMAND while you are in delete mode.
- Dragging the mouse will now move the editor window (as long as you aren't drawing a part).
- Tracked down the frozen cursor bug affecting Macs, and eradicated it. Turns out it's a bit of a glitch in how Macs draw the cursor in the game world.
- Found a few more places preventing the default gravity from getting set to 13.5. Fixed.
- G now opens the Gravity Menu.
- The 0-9 keys now only work when the gravity menu is open. If you used keyboard shortcuts to select isotopes previously, you could have ruined your gravity setting... You can still use < and > to tweak the gravity with the keyboard, and soon to come: editing gravity in the text boxes.
- Gravity is now limited to +/-20 units of force in either axis.
- Rounded the mouse input a lot more for gravity selection so it's easier to hit even numbers.
- The color ghost when drawing items now turns green when it is a legal placement, and red when not.
- There is now a minimum box size in the editor. This is mainly to prevent drawing a box so small you can't delete it, not to stifle creativity. If you think you need something smaller, let me know - there's no technical reason for the size I picked.
- When you go to test a level out, the Editor now remembers your zoom level and area of focus, and returns you there.
- After saving, there's now a button to copy the Level URL to your clipboard, and the levelURL box won't go away until you specifically close it.
- There is now a "Clear Level" button in the editor menu. It requires you press a confirmation button so you don't accidentally nuke anything.
- There is now a Grid Overlay you can use - Press "L" to toggle it while in the editor. Note that the Grid currently consumes a lot of resources and will make things such as zoom & scroll behave sluggishly.
- There is now a "snap-to" mode that will help you line things up precisely. This will work whether or not the grid is visible - press "K" to toggle it at any time in the editor.
- I made the arena borders thicker, so they are easier to spot behind the new menu graphics (and easier to click on, if you want to move or delete them).
- The editor now centers to the player icon on load.

Gameplay Changes
- Moving Left/Right is still arrow keys, but by popular demand jumping is now "Z". Players will have completely customizable keys in the future, so don't panic if this isn't your cup of tea.
- Sick of haphazardly tossing bricks around, never hitting anything? Try the new Laser Sight! Default keys up/down to aim, and press X to fire! Only a wuss would want to throw lightly, so it's FULL POWER, ALL THE TIME! *slams mountain dew*
- No more slow motion/stop time. It ended up being a neat effect, and I liked having it, but it never affected gameplay and it was more a "toy" than a feature worth keeping.
- Adjusted quite a few player speeds - left/right motion, jump height, etc.. The biggest change was probably acceleration - you should notice a marked increase in responsiveness when moving from a standstill. Bonus side effect: You now climb hills easier.
- Reduced friction while moving and no friction while in the air. This will keep you from rubbing up against a wall and not being able to jump so high.
- You can no longer fire while dead (woops).
- The Protonaut now has a bit of a downward vector when moving on the ground. This helps prevent him from 'hopping down' shallow slopes, making you lose control. I'm going to avoid having major slopes in the Official Levels, but level creators should be aware of what angle the hoppiness starts to happen.
- While playing a level you can no longer control the camera motion/zoom.
- The zoom level while playing is now pulled back a bit from what it used to be, giving you a bit more room to look around.
- New Victory and Gameover screens - victory screen has little fireworks to let you know you won!
- The player now has a seperate animation for being on a wall, giving you a good indication for when a wall-jump is possible.
- The Destabilizor (projectile) no longer interacts with the player.
- Made some slight changes to the physics of the Destabilizor (gun). It should now fire straight when you are moving.

General Changes
- Keypresses in the login box (and all other menu boxes) no longer affect gameplay (eg: 'R' resetting level)
- More ?levelId= fixes. ?level=xxx should work properly now (again, I hope)
- Blocks are now a solid color - this makes the levels look a whole lot cleaner. Borrowed the effect idea from Fantastic Contraption (and other subsequent games use the same idea - Shape Shape and Incredibots to name a few)
- A whole ton of art changes have been made, including a retooling of most of the colors and dropping of the darker background.
- As there's no longer a background, I've increased the number of floaty bits by quite a bit. In doing so I noticed they had a bunch of positional errors, that I've now fixed.
- Fixed a bug that made a set of floaty things stick around every time you reset/loaded a level, slowly degrading system performance over time.
- Tutorials minorly edited and text updated (as usual). There are now challenges so pro players can have fun on the tutorials too.
- You can only upVote levels you haven't voted on before, and only levels that you've beaten/lost. This will work hand in hand with a new level rating system I'm still working on. Yep, this means no down-voting!
- If you have already voted on something, the option to vote will disappear.
- Removed the tiled graphic for structural bonds (no more graphical glitch at their joining point). I wanted to have tiled graphics, but it turns out it is a real big hit on the framerate.
- The world dimensions have changed - it is now about 10% narrower and 200% taller (more square instead of rectangular). This gives more vertical space for building puzzles.
- You can now save replays! This is temporarily accomplished by pressing "V" on the Victory/Gameover screen. A debug box will give you the URL for playback. (Though playback mode is a bit wonky right now)
- A glitch where the level blocks looked all messed up for the first frame after loading has been cleared.
- Made the game launch into the appropriate mode depending on the command line - for example, if you load a replay, the level will load immediately and the replay will start, without stopping at the main menu first.
- A descriptive level window now pops up to let you know the name, description, and author of each level. I found this pretty annoying myself so you're able to clear it by hitting SPACE. I will probably put a toggle in your user options for this. Right now only shows user number, will switch it to name soon.
- The level menu now shows the current top-15 best-rated levels! Same as going to the default view in the website level browser.
- Rewrote the sound engine to take advantage of the new Sound and Music sliders. These settings are stored in your cookies.
- Rewrote the server communications script to provide more stable comms. I haven't migrated all the old stuff yet, but as I encounter errors I'll replace them all.
- The user options menu now has a bunch more features - volume controls and editor settings for now. The graphics buttons don't do anything yet.

[JayJSE2]

It doesn't matter now

[Nikola Tesla]

I will admit that the old look was better, the new one is just so plain and white, but the old one was nice and colorful.

[Dr. Phil]

looks good weas, I am excited to test out all these new changes!

[OfficiallyHaphazard]

These changes are impressive! Greg and andy--nice job!

[darkeagle]

Agreed. This is awesome! My first replay: http://www.protonaut.net/?replay=9

[weasel]

Agreed. This is awesome! My first replay: http://www.protonaut.net/?replay=9

Nice replay! I've always tried to beat that one and I usually only get it 10% of the time.

[meteoro]

Now that you are going to release the game im becoming active again so i can be one of the veterans

[meteoro]

also the level select is kinda weird because they dont look like clickable links

[JayJSE2]

I'm not sure if this is to do with gravity, but in the tutorials, if you fire straight up it always moves to the right

[weasel]

Yep, the clickable links and the shots-going-right are both on the to-do list for fixes. :) Thanks for reporting them anyway, though!

[Nikola Tesla]

Yay Replay.


http://www.protonaut.net/?replay=14


It has a glitch I use a lot.

[weasel]

Yay Replay.


http://www.protonaut.net/?replay=14


It has a glitch I use a lot.

Lol. thanks, I'll get rid of that.

[Nikola Tesla]

I'll miss that glitch, *cry*