New Push'Em Demo 98% Finished

I've posted this 98% finished build. I need some feedback outside of my team. So have a play. and tell me what you think needs doing.

Please note that the music is not 100% finished yet and is still being worked on (Title screen track is not our music will be replaced ASAP). And some sounds are being replaced with higher quality versions.

Everything is working including the Editor.

If any 1 has a system with only 4MB VRAM then please tell me if it runs at a good pace... it has been designed to run on 4MB VRAM system or higher. Press Tab to Show Memory usage.

WANNA GET THIS GAME FOR FREE AND YOUR NAME IN THE CREDITS?

Then simply create 3 or more Creative puzzles and send them to me jabawokie@.... Several Blitzers have already done this.. dont worry guys the long wait is almost over ;D.

http://www.jabawokie.ukgamers.net/pushemb/pushem-b.zip (2.1MB)

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downloading now...

Downloaded and played. I can't get the CTRL keys to work!!

[EDIT: just found one of the SHIFT keys works]

Overall a good game, neat graphics and polished music.

Little things I would change:
Allow the user to play the game with the mouse.

Allow the user to use push key (on the keyboard) to click OK buttons etc. Saves moving between keyboard and mouse unnecessarily.

More later.

This is looking great now, much better than before!

I've found a bug:

When the character is idle there are movement issues:

When he taps his foot, his movement is not updated until the animation finishes.

When he blows the bubble and I try to move, he disappears (may just happen when idling in front of a block).

Perturbatio... thanks for the puzzles I'll probably classify them as easy. thats 3 less for me to design.. PHEW.

As to the Idle animation bug.. there does seem to be some issues, the idle animation kicks in when the player has not moved for 5 seconds... When I just tested out the idle animation it would sometime not even play the animation and I waited for almost a minute... then the animtion does play, allthough it does exit the animtion as it should??? I'll need to look closer at that... thanks for pointing it out.

Just found a more serious bug, whilst testing a level I created, I was pushing a block along when it stopped moving (not next to another block and not at the end of a platform), it was just before a teleporter. I could no longer interact with the block.

Found another bug (causes crash of game and memory access violation error).
If I place a teleporter behind a section of ladder then climb up the ladder and press space to activate the teleporter before reaching the top of the ladder, the game crashes.

*EDIT*


screenshot of the setup (teleporter behind the bear), if I move up from here and press space before reaching the same level as the block, it crashes.

*EDIT*
I also seem to be getting memory access violations when when idling (only sometimes)

Perturbatio you are the bug finding master ;D

I've fixed all that you pointed aside from the push bug.. was that reproducable? ive never come across that bug... maybe it was a 1 off was you running something in the background? What did you do just before you push that block? Undo? Teleport?.

I've just updated the download (same url as before) with fixes to all you bugs and improvments across the board.. including a manual.

Ok, I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I was in the middle of editing a puzzle, I had just come out of testing it (after completing the level), when it starting playing the level complete music and told me I had done all the puzzles in the pack, then took me back to the main menu.

Hummm. Didn't happen 4 me. here's what i did.

-Ran the game
-Then on the title screen opened the editor.
-Quickly built a puzzle and clicked on Test puzzle.
-Completed the puzzle and then Clicked on Edit Puzzle.
-It returned me to the editor screen as normal. No puzzle complete music played?

Did the same but loaded a saved puzzle.. again worked ok.

Is this reproducable? I'll take a look at the code.

[Edit]

Had a look at the code.. all seems to be fine, there is just 1 variable that turns on the puzzle complete functions, and its switched off when editing and testing to be sure ive added 2 addition variables in the if.

Does that happen all the time or just that time. did the Editor window (with the buttons) close also?

It hasn't happened every time for me either this is the problem, and it only seemed to happen about 20 seconds after I had been returned to the puzzle edit screen.

Also, during editing, I've noticed another one (you love me really don't ya? :) )
Once, when saving the level, I heard the sliding block noise and another copy of maxter appeared and some new blocks.
When I reloaded the level, some of the blocks were non-editable (restarting the program solves this issue).

That last bug is easy.. i bet it happened when you press U, Undo is also mapped to the U key, That bugs easy to fix :).

And I think I just fixed the other bug. I've also got a timer that starts the puzzle complete function and this function is always on while playing the game.. being turned on when the game is not paused.. how ever when you exit from testing a puzzle i did not switch that variable off.

Phew... i think that all but the non interactive block bug... which in over 4 months and 3 re-writes ive never come across... still i have about 30-40 puzzles to design soon so if it pops up then i should be able to fix it.

I think ill put you down as a beta tester also. ;)

I'm uploading a fixed demo on 56k so it will take about 30mins should be done 30mins after this post.

Keep them bugs comming.

I've designed a couple more levels if you want them (one of which I think is fairly hard)

Sure send em my way.....;)

Just got another access violation whilst quitting the game (not with latest version which I assume you are still uploading).
This one however is consistent: I was editing a level (messing around), and put same coloured blocks around the outer edge of the screen then tested the game (so that the block instantly disappear on game start), then quit the game.

New D\L is up... try and fins bugs now ;P

Underhanded was a little tricky i'll put that as easy, cus i solved it first time.

Schemer on the other hand has me stupped, i dont know where to start. thats going in the hard puzzle pack.

Thanks again. sign me up 4 a beta tester if you ever need 1.

WooHoo! I did one that is actually hard!

That bug is a toughy... no error message given still any 1 stupid enough to try that deserve for it to crash... not sure why it crashes on exit though and not during play? I dont think its major bug (as it doesnt crash the game) but I'll see what i can do.

Could you give a me a clue on how to complete that puzzle which side to start with?

The way I solved it:

The first thing I did was arrange it so that the two yellows could be next to each other (I did this by moving one yellow to the bottom right and cycling the others until the two were in sequence as it were).

It's relatively easy after that.

*EDIT*

It does require a lot of block stacking

regarding that bug, are you freeing all media on exit?

If so, it may be trying to free more than was used? (maybe)

*EDIT*

Suggested alterations to the manual:

Push'em website link does not have a URL (I'm assuming this is deliberate for the moment).

Raymond Zachariasse's website does not appear to be there
(http://www.mufflesonline.com/)

there are links to jump to the top at the right of each section, they currently say "Top to top", but should say somehting like "Jump to top".

Game Features:


should read:

Integrated point'n'click editor to create and share your very own puzzles.


Selecting a puzzle to play:

a few words are captialised when they should not be:


The ones I can spot are: Puzzle (except in Puzzle Pack), Several, Left

Also, Maxster should be capitalized throughout the docs (since it's a name). (I first noticed this in the section Controlling Maxter) (a simple search and replace should solve this one).


Game objective:



shouldn't it be "same coloured block"?

Building a Puzzle:


should be:

As soon as the editor pops up you can start building. There are 11 large buttons at the bottom, these are the tiles that you use to build puzzles with. Moving the mouse over each one will tell you what they do.




should be:

Once you have built a puzzle, you should test it to make sure it can be solved and everything is in the right place. To the right of the tile buttons is a button called Test Puzzle, press that, you can now play your puzzle.
The controls are the same as in the regular game, when you're done press the Edit Puzzle button (where Test Puzzle used to be). This will return you to the Editor so you can make changes if needed.




should be:

When you are happy with your puzzle you can save it and load it later if you decide to change something.

Download more puzzles:


Should be:

player made puzzles

here's a screenshot of the first stage in solving that level:

The idle bug is still partially there, when idling at the top of a ladder, if you climb down the ladder, it doesn't update until you press left or right.

Damn it... ;P
At least its easy to fix. thanks again for pointing it out.

Update: The Outer Edge access violation.

This only seems to happen when the blocks are placed around the outer edge, if I place the same number of blocks in the middle of the screen (but still set up to all disappear on start), the game quits normally.

geez Perturbatio, remind me to come to you when I finally get a game to the stage where it's ready to test :) I'll take a look at the game later when I get home..

Maybe I should be a professional Beta Tester? :)

I love the music in this game!!!

Perturbatio - Professional Beta tester and proof reader.

Music done by Thomas at www.interimnation.com (he did all the music bar the title theme).

Coffeedotbean, just dll'ing now..

Thought I'd just tell ya though - a friend of mine is just gagging to play your version of the game in your sig.

Let's just say.. he works for a certain games company.. starting with T ending in 7. ;)

HaHa! Alphabreed is on hold at the moment, it was too much too soon, tell your friend that I wanna play AlienBreed on the GBA.
There was demo floating about a while back, i cant seem to find it any where though :(.