Neb4k

[oNyx]

Ah... found the bug... or let's say I identified it. The reason why Kev and I didn't stumbled upon that bug is because we're using pretty slow hardware. It's a frame rate thing.

Just tab the key as short as possible and it works... if you hold it it doesn't work

Either way... here is a newer version... just a little change for making it sweeter
http://www.kaioa.com/k/d4

[jbanes]

Ah... found the bug... or let's say I identified it. The reason why Kev and I didn't stumbled upon that bug is because we're using pretty slow hardware. It's a frame rate thing.

I have a PIII 733 Desktop and an 800 MHz Mac laptop that gets **** for framerates. I tried the quick-tap on my Mac, but it doesn't solve the problem. I see the same behavior as I did before. :-/

Did you look at the level I uploaded? Does it work correctly for you?

[oNyx]

I have a 500mhz thingy and kev has (iirc) a 700 or so machine. The bug occured never before (I played the level about 20 times), but it happens now (sometimes) and it seems to be related to how long I hold the key...

*test* *test*

If I hold the key it happens 3 out of 10 times... if I just tab it doesn't happen at all... hrm... quite the oddity, but things like this can happen if you just quickly add a feature (the animation) as an aftertought. That's nothing, that can't be solved with yet another hacky flag

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[kevglass]

I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourself!

I'm finally back at my machine so I'll take a look. Should have made the source available, you'd have it fixed for me by now

Kev

[kevglass]

I've just tried the d-bug level provided from JBanes. (I'm going to ignore the wonky optimisation comments )

Unfortunately I can't see the error occuring.. I'm going to try it on a much faster machine.

Kev

PS. Also added tool tips to the editor (anything else useful?)

[kevglass]

Could see the error on my 2GHz machine. Think its solved. New webstart uploaded.. could someone who could see the problem before check it out (please make sure it actually downloads the new version as I'm having lots of irritations with caching).

Right.. of to try you creation and then add multi-level support.. woot!

Oh, if it solves it I can tell you what the error was

Kev

[kevglass]

Yet another post..

That level is great!

Kev

[oNyx]

>I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourself!

Hehe. Well, it's the gamiest 4k game so far. There is even real level design involved. You have tools to guide the player and you can show him unreachable spots (Nyah! come back later!)

So yea, I had quite alot of fun. I always wanted to apply some of my platformer-level-design "knowledge" (that tiny bit... heh ).

>Think its solved.

Ye... seems so. And doors are two-way... mmmh well, I'll try to make another level later (in like... 10 hours), which takes advantage of that

[jbanes]

Ok, I just managed to test the game on a GHz machine. I can see Onyx's problem (which is quite annoying), but that's accompanied by a flash as the screen jumps back and forth between the two points.

The problem I've been experiencing is still there, and is *not* accompanied by any change in the screen. The door acts as if it's not connected to anything.

That makes a total of 3 computers that I've now been able to reproduce the problem on. Yet I'm the only one?

/me screams into the night in frustration

I've just tried the d-bug level provided from JBanes. (I'm going to ignore the wonky optimisation comments )

Erm... sorry. No offense was intended. That was meant to be more along the lines of "what kind of optimizations did you use to keep this game under 4k?" I figure the problem is probably related to reusing variables somewhere. Of course, I could be wrong.

Unfortunately I can't see the error occuring.. I'm going to try it on a much faster machine.

Here are the precise steps I'm using to reproduce the issue. (Not that I don't believe you haven't tried them. *sigh*)

1. Start the game with the d-bug level
2. Go right to the first door
3. Tap up to get to the upper platform
4. Move right to the second door on the platform
5. Press up and watch as the character refuses to use the door

It can then be "fixed" by:

6. Move left to the transporter
7. Hit up, then down to go up and down the transporter
8. Move right to the door
9. Tap up and watch the character use the door just fine

[jbanes]

Just tried the new release Kev. The problem I was having is now fixed!!! Yippee!

/me jumps into the air and clacks heels together
(Yeah, right. As if I could pull that off. ;-))

Good job Kev!!!

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[kevglass]

Phew! You had me worried there for a moment. Just added multi-level support. I'm going to update the designer to allow you export individual levels or save the whole lot to one file.

The Onyx/Banes collaboration level is in webstart now!

Kev

[kevglass]

Oh, for your interest, there were two problems:

- When the character used a door the game didn't skip out of the logic state straight away. This meant other inteactions could play with what was going.

- If you happened to get a 0 milliseconds change between frames (very rare, but still) the door transition could happen twice (i.e. there and back again) in one move.

Both should be fixed now.

Kev

[jbanes]

Now that the doors work, I was finally able to create the most evil level EVER! BWHAHAHAHA!!! See if you can survive... or die trying!!!

http://java.dnsalias.com/4k/d-hard



EDIT: Actually, that's Onyx's level you have on Webstart right now. But thanks for the credit! :-)

[kevglass]

Really going to have to start thinking about optimising like mad soon.

The top of the tower is actually the top of map now btw...

Kev

[oNyx]

>The Onyx/Banes collaboration level is in webstart now!

That one isn't a collaboration level. Well, it was somewhat hard to follow... I made one... jbanes edited it... and edited it again (and again?)... I started another one and edited that 2 times and that's what ended up as d4. Oh and between all that there was also a test level from jbanes. Heh

The level flow is pretty much "on rails". Most bits have a purpose and there aren't many "noise" tiles. There is also only one spot with a rather big penalty for mistakes (after the 2nd door). So it's a rather easy-medium level, which could be put in the middle if there are 3 levels at the end.

[jbanes]

Just to be clear, I think there are now 3 distinct levels that you can use Kev:

http://java.dnsalias.com/4k/d (jbanes)
http://www.kaioa.com/k/d4 (onyx)
http://java.dnsalias.com/4k/d-hard (jbanes)

The above are ordered by date of posting, but actually end up being in order of difficulty as well.

Onyx actually made a few different versions of the d4 one, so you may want to decide whether a few of them are different enough to be considered separate levels:

http://www.kaioa.com/k/d (the one I used as a base)
http://www.kaioa.com/k/d2
http://www.kaioa.com/k/d3

P.S. Has anyone beat my Evil level yet? ;-)

[kevglass]

Thanks for the clarity

New version uploaded, multilevel support in both the game and editor. The new editor allows you to "import" the old style levels and then resave them as a block of levels.

In game I haven't managed to test the "YOU WIN" at the end of the levels since I can't beat the d-hard level .

Back soon... gonna get it.

(I love the way at that one bit you have to look round the tower to see where the bad guy is then go through the door, brilliance!)

Kev

[jbanes]

New version uploaded, multilevel support in both the game and editor. The new editor allows you to "import" the old style levels and then resave them as a block of levels.

Cool, multiple levels!

In game I haven't managed to test the "YOU WIN" at the end of the levels since I can't beat the d-hard level .

I tested it for you, it works. If you want a spoiler "hint" on how to beat it, click the link below:

Spoiler

(I love the way at that one bit you have to look round the tower to see where the bad guy is then go through the door, brilliance!)

Thank you! :-) But that's only one calorie evil. Making the user restart from the first level when they die, now that that is pure evil! ;-)

[oNyx]

>Making the user restart from the first level when they die,
>now that that is pure evil!

Me demands 3 lives!

Heh. Couldn't resist... new from scratch level which is supposed to be hard

http://www.kaioa.com/k/d5

But I think I kinda overdid it... the level editor got some spasms like right click=deleting tiles (wtf) and forgetting the first enemy after another one was added (mh?)... I just changed some things here and there and it worked... and the game itself also showed some oddities. Like beein hit by an enemy while teleporting... then you drop through the floor on the other side... and then you snap back O_O

d4 has clearly the better show-off factor, because it doesn't have that many glitch-"opportunities" (aka enemies).

[kevglass]

Fixed enemie glitches locally. Just trying to cram it down a bit more before posting.

Kev

[jbanes]

Hey Oynx? It's time to upgrade your version. The most recent version of Neb4K places the character on the other side of the tower. Thus you start the game... and fall into the moat. I tried playing with the previous version, but I ran into the door problem. :-( If the newest stuff isn't in the JAR download yet, you can grab the webstart version here:

http://www.cokeandcode.com/games/4k/neb4k/neb4k-ws.jar

Let us know when your level is fixed. I'm itching to play it! :-)

Edit: In the new editor, it seems a simple "import" and "save" does the trick.

[kevglass]

Uh, the new version doesn't start at the other side of the tower, you still start at 0,0. However, you'll get odd results if you try and "load" an old level into the editor rather than "import".

Time to set up the Neb4k community site ;P

Kev

[jbanes]

That was a lot of fun. And danged hard to figure out where to jump off of. Nice use of Robots, BTW. :-)

[nonnus29]

This game is brilliant, great job!

[luisoft]

really good work kev! There is also another Java implementation of it on http://www.javaonthebrain.com/java/cross/

[oNyx]

Yea... I uploaded it in single-level format like the others where. I did that to avoid confusion... heh...

>That was a lot of fun.

Thanks. Building was also fun

>And danged hard to figure out where to jump off of.

Spoiler ahead!

[size=1]Yes, but I also used some hinting here and there. For example at one point I show the general direction with a coin... and some steps down I indicate a direction change with anther coin. I also added spots which look like a dead end, but are infact just a tool to let the player jump into the unknown void on the other side... haha... but infact the regular path continues there. Since the player won't assume such things usually, he'll be a bit confused and disorientated [/size]

>Nice use of Robots, BTW.

Thanks

---

Regarding the editor... the blank tile has the "cyan barrier" tooltip and the cyan barrier doesn't have one at all. And *please* add drawn doorlinks eg as green lines (drawn first). I had to virtually go through the level countless times, because I lost track of the doorlinks.

Hm. I think it will get hard to squish 3 levels into it... the last class (multilevel support and enemy glitch still there) together with a 3 level compilation (d, d4 and d5) is 4118 bytes (kzip)...

However, if I use an additional pack200/unpack200 step I end up with a class with has the same size (7303), but compresses better than the original. Resulting in 4080 bytes! (The levelname was "tri" instead of "d" btw).

pack200 --no-gzip --modification-time=latest n.jar.pack n.jar
unpack200 n.jar.pack n_p200.jar

(If it doesn't work right away you can just copy both exes from the bin directory)

That's a difference of 38 bytes. With 7zip the difference was only 10 bytes.

[kevglass]

3 Levels in Neb4k? Pah, I say.. pah! If you check your webstart you'll find the wonderous 4 level adventure! Be warned the level file format has changed a bit to support this so you'll need a new nebed to create the bulk file. I've left import/export format the same so we can continue getting your levels. Hopefully included is a fix for enemy irritation bugs, a removal of the 10 enemy limit on the level and a few colour changes.

I still haven't complete jbanes level, let alone the new onyx creation. I would like to thank you guys for creating them for me, very kind..

It all comes in at 4087 bytes so minor mods to the existing levels may well be possible.

Thanks again,

Kev

PS. On, to the next 4k game..

[Danskeren]

I have never seen a game like this before !! Very nice graphics effect man !!!

I would concider this game as one of the best 4k games yet because it is so different from all the others !

I vote on Neb4k !!

[oNyx]

>If you check your webstart you'll find the wonderous 4
>level adventure!



>Be warned the level file format has changed a bit[...]

What did you change on the format? Using variable level sizes? Fipped x and y?

>I still haven't complete jbanes level

Heh. Well, <spoil>he kinda abused the odd telepad behaviour, which occurs when there are more than 2 pads in a column.</spoil>

>I would like to thank you guys for creating them for me,
>very kind..

As I said... it was pretty interesting and fun to do. I wasn't aware that I had a burning desire to make platformer levels. Hehe. The level building process was pretty much like a game itself

>It all comes in at 4087 bytes so minor mods to the
>existing levels may well be possible.

The only thing I would change is the position of the text stuff. It's not properbly centered right now.

[jbanes]

4 Levels! Great job Kev!!! My only request is, could you restart the player at the current level when he dies? It's kind of annoying to have to start all over.

>I still haven't complete jbanes level

Heh. Well, <spoil>he kinda abused the odd telepad behaviour, which occurs when there are more than 2 pads in a column.</spoil>

Hey, now. I didn't abuse anything. Teleporters can go both up and down. I just threw the player for a loop, and used a lot of indirection to try to get him killed. Actually, I think the coins right as you come out of the door is a far more evil trap. I keep trying to go for those coins myself, and I made the level!