Please test Sheeplings universal binary

Time again to flaunt my little sheep game! For the ones who have tried it previously: I've made a pretty big update called 1.1, and I'm making a soft release to see that I haven't messed things up. In particular, I'm worried about the Mac version. Through strange black magic I've made a universal binary that seems to work fine, but I really don't have enough Macs to test it on. So I'd really appreciate a quick "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" from both Intel and PPC Mac users:

http://www.sheeplings.com/files/SheeplingsDemo.dmg

(And for Windows)
http://www.sheeplings.com/files/SheeplingsDemoInstall.exe

For those who haven't heard of the game, here's some info:

Screenshots
http://www.sheeplings.com/screenshots/ss5.jpg
http://www.sheeplings.com/screenshots/ss8.jpg

Description
Wolves, eagles, bandits - everyone is after your cute little friends! Protect and guide the sheep through more than 80 wool-raising levels in this thrilling arcade game, until you finally reach your goal: the sheep-jumping competition in Woollyville.

Assume the role of Windsor the sheepdog as you encounter logic puzzles, stubborn sheep that need to be moved, hidden powerups, hungry eagles, bothersome bandits, and much much more in this non-linear adventure.

Thanks in advance!

Looks interesting.

Did you ever play that Sheepdog game on the Spectrum years ago?

I was actually more of a C64/Amiga person... But I'm sure that I've played some similar game at some time. It feels like a generic enough idea. :)

wow that's was a lot of fun! Almost exactly a game I had envisioned a year ago that I never got around to making :P

Works here obviously, 2003-vintage PowerBook G4. I can test it on a months old MacPro too later.

Looks very nice.

Probably will test this over the weekend on my new intel mac.

I think it's cool that you can make universal binaries so you only have one file that works on `all macs`. However I do have a bit of a peeve with that, in that it means your exe file is TWICE the size and half of it is wasted on all machines. Someone with an intel cpu ONLY needs the intel binary, not the PPC one, and vice versa. It's sort of a nice idea but a two-edged sword. I'd prefer the option of universal binary and also separate cpu-specific binaries. I think people would mostly know what kind of CPU they have and whether they have an intel machine. Any thoughts on this?

The loading screen took long time in my Mac PPC, so long that I thought that it got frozen, you should put a progress bar, I also found something that seems to be a bug in level 13, it happened when the tree on the right side exploded, this tree contains a bonus item and there was a sheep on the tree and me near to the fence, in some way the explotion threw me and stuck me in the fence.
The dog stuck in the fence and I couldn't get out the there, kept on barking and and the sprite was just moving in the same place, it could not get out of the fence, I had to wait till the end of the time to play again.
the game seems to be funny, there are some things you can change to do it better.

Even if they know they have a PPC, what if they download the installer, burn it to a disc, and upgrade to Intel 6 months later?

with a universal binary their backed up game will 'just work' on their new computer, vs. being completely useless.

I gave it a quick test on my PPC Mac and it ran fine. I agree with BlackSp1der about the loading screen (took about 10 seconds for my oldish system).

One minor thing in case it helps: in windowed mode the game is identified as "sheep" (both on menu bar itself and under it as "Quit sheep") rather than as "Sheeplings".

Good-looking game!

Thanks a lot for testing the game! Phew - it seems to be -working- at least! But then there's that 10 second delay... The problem is that I'm not really doing something strange - I'm just initializing an OpenGL Graphics object, so I don't know what I could do to speed up the process...

I totally agree that there should be a loading bar, but when I tried to add one it looked awful. Given the single-threaded nature of BlitzMax I had to update it after a complete file is loaded - it jerked around and looked ridiculous. Hm. I wonder if other people have a better solution... (I'll put that on my todo list as well.)

Ouch, dang.. I'll look into those things, BlackSp1der - didn't notice them myself when playing.

And I'll check that "Quit sheep" thing as well - I probably forgot to change the old project name to the real name.

Either way: thanks a whole bunch to all of you for giving it a try!

Here's one by Beaker that he posted to the forums quite some time ago.

The downsize is that since it needs to do a bunch more work to load the file(s), it will take slightly longer to complete the loading... But at least you have a visual indication of what's happening. Play around with the 'chunk' size until you find one that is fast and looks good. The second param is the approximate filesize.

' Nibbler, by Beaker
' Home page: <a href="http://www.playerfactory.co.uk" target="_blank">http://www.playerfactory.co.uk</a> 
' Country: UK 

' Increase chunksize for faster loading / less frequent progressbar updates

SuperStrict

Type Nibble
	Field FileStream	:TStream
	Field Bank		:TBank
	Field BankStream	:TBankStream
	Field chunkSize		:Int
	Field ready		:Int
	Field estimatedFileSize	:Int
	
	Function Create:Nibble(file$,chunkSize:Int=20,estimatedFileSize:Int=4000)
		Local nib:Nibble = New Nibble
		nib.FileStream = OpenStream(file, True,False)
		If nib.FileStream = Null Then Return Null
		nib.chunksize = chunkSize
		nib.estimatedFileSize = estimatedFileSize
		Return nib
	End Function
	
	Method New()
		Bank = CreateBank()
		BankStream = CreateBankStream(Bank)
	End Method	
	
	Method Delete()
		CloseStream(BankStream)
		CloseStream(FileStream)
		Bank=Null
	End Method
	
	Method result:TBankStream()
		SeekStream(BankStream, 0)
		Return BankStream
	End Method
		
	Method Nibble:Float()
		If Eof(FileStream) Return 1.0

		Local nibbleSize:Int = StreamSize(FileStream)*(Float(chunkSize)/100.0)
		If StreamPos(FileStream) = -1 Then nibbleSize = chunkSize
		For Local f:Int = 0 To nibbleSize
			If Eof(FileStream)
				ready = True
				Exit
			EndIf
			WriteByte BankStream,ReadByte(FileStream)
		Next
		If StreamPos(FileStream) = -1 Then
			Return Float(BankSize(Bank) Mod estimatedFileSize) / Float(estimatedFileSize)
		EndIf
		Return Float(StreamPos(FileStream))/Float(StreamSize(FileStream))
	End Method

	Method Progress:Float()
		Return Float(StreamPos(FileStream))/Float(StreamSize(FileStream))
	End Method

	Method Status:Int()
		Return ready
	End Method
End Type


Graphics 800,600,0

'Local mynibble:Nibble = Nibble.Create("zombie.jpg",5)
Local mynibble:Nibble = Nibble.Create("http::www.blitzbasic.com/img/brllogo-thin.png",500,4000)


Local progress:Float = 0
While mynibble.ready = False
	Cls
	DrawRect 50,50,progress*200.0,20
	DrawText Int(progress*100.0),5,5
	progress = mynibble.Nibble()	
	Flip
Wend

Global myImage:TImage = LoadImage(myNibble.result())

myNibble = Null

While Not KeyDown(KEY_ESCAPE)
	DrawImage myImage, MouseX(), MouseY()
	Flip
	Cls
Wend
End

Well, 10 seconds isn't long to wait (and it's probably significantly less on a more-modern Mac), it's just that nothing is going on during that time. Just little dots appearing or updating text (remember "reticulating splines"? <g>) or anything, really, would help. Not essential - a player probably won't even notice it after the first time - but that would prevent the "is it locked up?" issue on the first run.

It works perfectly fine here on my Intel iMac.

Works great on my Intel MacBook Pro. :)

Thanks a lot, xlsior! I'll definitely have a look at that code. And thanks for testing the game on Intel Macs, AngelDaniel and ChromeFly!

WendellM: Well, the problem is that the only thing I do during those 10 seconds is to set up the Graphics object, and load the background + the "Loading..." image. Then it's supposed to show the loading screen immediately - but apparently there's a 10 second blank screen before that. *Sigh* I'll have a look to see if I might have done something strange...or maybe I can just print a little "pre-loading" text before the initial loading for the loading screen is done. :)

Works fine on MacBook Intel.
Are you compiling on just Intel or do you have both Intel & PPC macs?

I do get the loading screen right off the bat - but it then just sits there for about 10 seconds.

Windows version works well, has kept my 5 year old daughter intrigued, she says breaking the fences is fun.