Copper Swapper Version 0.50 released

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Thu May 12, 2005 6:50 pm

http://www.atani-software.net/index.cgi/software-cs

mankrip · Post by **mankrip** » Fri May 13, 2005 12:07 am

I'd like to see some screenshots.

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Fri May 13, 2005 5:55 am

Great work man! Ill try it out asap!

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:07 pm

Copper Swapper version 0.51 was posted yesterday.

Snayperskaya · Post by **Snayperskaya** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:54 pm

where are the sshots?

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:18 pm

Snayperskaya wrote:where are the sshots?

Well, I would have some but I have no easy way to capture them other than a digital camera and my TV is crap and VGA does not work as well for pics..

If I can get the serial stuff working properly on my linux machine I will get some screenshots transfered over the cable and get them posted.

Mike

Skynet · Post by **Skynet** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:44 pm

How about Chankast? If it works on chankast, just use screen capture.

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sun May 15, 2005 12:47 am

Skynet wrote:How about Chankast? If it works on chankast, just use screen capture.

Chankast is only for windows last I checked... And I do not have a windows machine at all here...

Skynet · Post by **Skynet** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:01 am

Oh sorry

Snayperskaya · Post by **Snayperskaya** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:52 am

i see. sorry for beign inconvenient.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Sun May 15, 2005 8:48 am

I tried getting it to run via dcload-serial and my screen just stays blank.

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sun May 15, 2005 10:13 am

did dc-tool crash immediately after transfering the binary? If so, try sending it with the "-p" argument.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Sun May 15, 2005 11:26 am

ATani wrote:did dc-tool crash immediately after transfering the binary? If so, try sending it with the "-p" argument.

This is what happens..

.. and it stops there and my TV goes blank.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Sun May 15, 2005 11:43 am

and what tha means?

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Sun May 15, 2005 1:01 pm

Hey, this really cool. I'll need to get more CDRs for sure now. I've been waiting and hoping that someone would do a Bejeweled/Zookeeper clone on the Dreamcast. It's really one of the best puzzle game concepts there is. I can't wait to try it.

...word is bondage...

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sun May 15, 2005 2:35 pm

Sweater Fish wrote:I've been waiting and hoping that someone would do a Bejeweled/Zookeeper clone on the Dreamcast.

Then you will also love Chain Reaction when I get it working right... It was the original goal of CS but for the goat comp we decided to do a different variant on it from bejeweled/zoo. In CS you rotate 4 tiles to create alignments which are then removed (like normal). I am going to get a few screenshots up soon just need to get the console stuff working and then I can do it.

Mike

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:56 pm

In CS you rotate 4 tiles to create alignments which are then removed (like normal).

Ah. Sounds something like the Z-groove in Super Puzzle Fighter 2 X For Matching Service.

I was owndering what the difference between Copper Swapper and Chain reaction was. Any idea when Chain Reaction will see release?

...word is bondage...

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Sun May 15, 2005 8:25 pm

Sweater Fish wrote:I was owndering what the difference between Copper Swapper and Chain reaction was. Any idea when Chain Reaction will see release?

Yeah, there is a slight difference between the two currently. The biggest is that CR is using the standard bejeweled style engine of single tile select.

I expect to have a runable build sometime this month, but no release until next month at the earliest. I am missing a few graphic elements (title screen, menus, etc) but the in game stuff is good so far. I need to contact Kron for the remaining graphics, he is arranging all media needed for the game.

CR is going to be a much larger and involved project than CS is. CR also has a lot more game play in it. Currently CS is a bit limited but I am going to be working on a timed mode as well as a few other twists to the engine, but these are currently taking backseat to CR.

Also, for the hang/crash of CS when uploading, I did reproduce this today, I need to dig into it a bit more but it is likely due to dcload being disabled in non-debug builds. You can modify copperswapper.cpp (near the top) to enable dcload if needed. I will fix this for 0.52 (or whatever the next one is).

Also planned for 0.52 is a new BZ2Texture class to replace the custom plx and tsu code which is currently in CS. This will remove the last bits of KOS "owned" code from CS. In addition there are a lot of memory leaks which need to be tracked down and fixed in CS, mostly these are centralized in the ingame.cpp module (main game code) and to fix these it will likely require a bit of code rewrite.

Mike

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:00 pm

Copper Swapper 0.51 also doesn't load from Dream Hakker (or DemoMenu). I wonder if this could be related to the hang when trying to load it with dcload? Dream Hakker often seems to act pretty much like dcload, but getting the binary from disc instead of over a serial cable or BBA. When trying to load the game with Dream Hakker, the Copper Swapper logo appears on the VMU and also all the connected VMUs seem to get accessed very briefly and then nothing but a black screen on the TV.

Can any one say whether it works with Dream Inducer?

Well...looking forward to 0.52. And Chain Reaction.

...word is bondage...

ATani · Post by **ATani** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:22 pm

Odd... Let me try things with Dream Hakker on my system and see what happens. If you have the ability to compile from sources you can go in and change the init stuff to remove the "INIT_NODCLOAD" from the init options... I have removed this from the 0.52 which is nearly ready. I have also cleaned up the code a bit and rearranged the directory structure some. There is now a lot less stability issues with the new version, but there are a lot of memory leaks in the oggvorbisplay library it appears. Just getting to the title screen which plays a single ogg (approx 30 seconds long, looped) around 375kb gets leaked, all inside the ogg libs...

But on the brighter side, I will have a few more things in the 0.52 release..

Currently slated for 0.52:
-- new intro, pre title screen (50% Done)
-- "press start" now fades in/out on title screen (100% Done)
-- removed custom plx/tsu code, now exclusively using BZ2Texture (100% Done)
-- Removing usage of STL (not started yet)

Something for the future versions:
-- Implement game modes: Timed, Move Limited
-- High score name entry

Known Bugs in 0.51/0.52:
-- VMU code is not working right, need to debug
-- when going between menus occasionally there is a random texture showing on the screen, related to font loading i think.