Yay, finished game #13!

When the testers start nit-picking with your EXE icon, you know you're done. :)

Spent a couple of weeks fixing bugs and stuff, also changed the name to avoid any confusion. Got it all working 100% in Vista, and has been tested right down to Win98SE, and with WinXP on a P2-833MHz CPU with 256Mb RAM, and 8mb shared graphics - specification lower than I was ever really aiming for.

All working nicely, anyway.

Some screenshots, if you will. Posted most of these before, but anyhoo:

[edit] see below.

Game was planned for release on April 16th but I've kinda hit a snag. I'm not prepared to ship it without it being protected to some extent. Current circumstances mean I can't afford any software to do this just now so its kinda regrettable but I'm gonna just have to sit on this one for a while.

Currently don't know when I'll be able to release it. Bit disappointed cos I've worked my a**e off to get this done. Hopefully things will change in the next couple of months but for now, a few screenshots are all I can show of it.

Personally.. I hate the breadcrumb garbage that demo/full combo versions leave around.

Ever thought of shipping a "protected" version which just has a couple levels of the game?

Or maybe the portals don't care for you to go that route.

You'd think they wouldn't mind it though. It's marginally harder to pirate a full version AND a license code rather than pirating by just passing around a license code.

Congratz man. :)

Ship a demo version with no "E"'s ;)

Well done

I won't expect to see it on RealArcade then, I guess. :o)

Great job!!!
Like I said before, I can't wait to try it...
That's too bad you can't start making $ right now though :(

Congrats GFK! The screenies look really nice. How much does decent protection software run these days?

Yeah. Problem with that is I'd be making people download twice. With a copy protection system such as Armadillo, switching from trial to full version is done via a licence key. Much easier for the end user.

If I'm shipping a full version to customers after they've played the trial version, it wouldn't have a licence key, and is therefore easy for the dumbest of criminals to pass around.

Armadillo (for compatibility with BMTMicro) is $300.

Open to suggestions as always. I'm not happy being stuck with a finished game I can't sell, but what's the alternative?

Congrats, its a nice feeling to get something finished :))

Looks really nice, ill download and have a go later when i get home :)

Hey Spelling Bee, good name esp. for the Americans. Sorry to hear about Armadillo, wish I could help but I'm way too busy, plus it would be dodgy (from a licence point of view) unless I actually published the game too.

So in the end you used OpenAL and the sound was fine in Win98 yes? Also for Vista you used all the special folder stuff to store ini and highscores yes?

Well good luck with this!

Congratulations!

Can't wait for a demo ;)

Hi Dave, that's really nice. Well done, someone finishes a game :)

Is this an update to one of your old games? I swear I've seen this before.

Nice one GfK, very polished looking game.

I was thinking about this very subject today.

Product protection could make for a very interesting and good community project.

Sound was fine on Vista, XP and Win98 (basically everything it was tested on).

The only snag is that I had a problem on my own PC with a hardware sound channel limitation, so had to use OpenAL's software mixer, which obviously caused a bit of system overhead. Not a problem on standard/faster PCs, but on minimum spec stuff, it was causing a few problems with MaxMod's streaming audio.

I wrote a bit of code to determine the OS, and my game now defaults to OpenAL on Windows Vista, FreeAudio on everything else.

That stuff's tucked away in my 'advanced settings' screen, so the end-user will be largely unaware of any of this.

What I've heard is that a program can create and make changes to files that are in its own folder. I've yet to put my game in an installer and give it a thorough testing, though.

Nope. I've only done three 2D games before; Hole in One and Double Top, and Blox.

Been working on getting my site in order today. Progress so far:

All the pages are dynamically created using PHP which I've never really done much with before. Struggling in a few areas but I'm getting there.

The reason I mentioned Win98 was because I've heard of multiple instances of dodgy BMax sound, and heard it with my own ears, with FreeAudio in Win98. So if I end up using OpenAL I might default it to on for Win98 too, that is if the channel limit problem can be resolved as likely a Win98 PC has a poor spec and is thus not good for dynamic channel mixing ... maybe.

Yeah but it's not "official", so you are relying on the "legacy" software support that Vista has built in. I'm making sure my new games do it properly as some portals/distributors have demanded it like Oberon and someone else maybe Trymedia I can't remember. The others will follow suit too soon.

The website looks the business, appropriate for the game. Bit of colour psychology for you: green = safe and is thus a good colour for download and buy buttons although the purple fits with your other colours obviously. Just don't use red ;-)

Congratulations!

You could have a small demo with some data of the full version that is not present, then when someone gets a license key the game could automatically download a patcher (no, I do not know how to make those) which turns the demo into the full version.
That would avoid downloading the same thing twice, while keeping it protected :)
I guess there still is the problem of sitting there waiting, though.

Hehehe... bees.
Your game looks really good (and I like the idea)! Good luck with the final steps (and with selling it).

Congrats. Didn't play it yet, but I wanted to mention: the webpage is looking great. (as well as the game of course)

Sorry to bump an old thread. Actually no I'm not, cos then I wouldn't be doing it. ;)

My game will be on portals in the coming weeks, once it passed their QA testing. I've been discussing the title with them and they agree - Bizzy's Spelling Bee isn't a particularly appealing title to more mature players. Therefore, despite the existence of a similarly titled word game with bees in it, its now called Buzzword, as it was throughout development. As it should always have been.

Website/product page is in my sig. Or here for those who have sigs turned off. Feature-limited demo is available. Will be packaged with DRM software I suppose when its released on the portals.

name change? Well I am flat out not interested anymore.

lol, I thought it was another one for a second there! :)

The thought that crossed my mind was "christ, that was quick!"

Wise move IMO! ;)

Dabz

"Buzzword" is cool. Good luck with it !

Buzzword is a way better name.

what was that other game called?