GraLL - Take The Test (Update: 18th August 2007)

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PolyVox
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Post by PolyVox »

After all that work I accidentally clicked on the 'New Game' button! I think you really need a warning about how it will delete all your progress. Anyway I panicked, alt-tabbed out the application, and killed it by closing the console window. When I came back in I was pleased to see my save games were still there. Phew!

However, it did cause a small problem in that it cleared all my scores. So it looks like I go all the way to level 21 without dying by without accumulating any points. I'm not too worried though - the main thing is I don't have to start again :D
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Post by nikki »

PolyVox wrote:After all that work I accidentally clicked on the 'New Game' button! I think you really need a warning about how it will delete all your progress. Anyway I panicked, alt-tabbed out the application, and killed it by closing the console window. When I came back in I was pleased to see my save games were still there. Phew!

However, it did cause a small problem in that it cleared all my scores. So it looks like I go all the way to level 21 without dying by without accumulating any points. I'm not too worried though - the main thing is I don't have to start again :D
Maybe I'll add a real warning. But I'm quite busy this week, maybe next week. Just be careful until then.
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Post by nikki »

Don't forget to tell your friends (or email them) about GraLL if you like it! :)
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Post by PolyVox »

Actually I showed it to a couple of my house mates last night and they liked it! I said I'd give them a copy. I'm just worried they'll overtake me as they are media students and so have far too much time on their hands!
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Post by nikki »

There's a new trailer! Check it out here. Make sure you give it a high rating, and generate more than one view so that you can give it a headstart making more people see it.
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Post by PolyVox »

That's a good trailer, nice editing with a decent soundtrack (btw, I like the music in GraLL). Only thing is it's maybe a bit long. Had me watching careflly though, trying to identify levels I haven't played yet!
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Post by nikki »

PolyVox wrote:That's a good trailer, nice editing with a decent soundtrack (btw, I like the music in GraLL). Only thing is it's maybe a bit long. Had me watching careflly though, trying to identify levels I haven't played yet!
Ok... Now give it a five-star rating! :twisted:
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Post by PolyVox »

nikki wrote:Ok... Now give it a five-star rating! :twisted:
Ok, done :wink: By the way, I'm now on level 23. Actually I have a question, I've done the bit at the start to get out the initial room, then you have a bit where you must destroy a bomb so that you can free a trapped moving platform. Near this there is a laser fence and a button to toggle it. What is the point of this? I haven't found any reason why it needs to be on or off.

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Post by nikki »

PolyVox wrote:I'm now on level 23. Actually I have a question, I've done the bit at the start to get out the initial room, then you have a bit where you must destroy a bomb so that you can free a trapped moving platform. Near this there is a laser fence and a button to toggle it. What is the point of this? I haven't found any reason why it needs to be on or off.
Also, you might see a lot of bombs moving in a line. There is a gap among the moving bombs. There are four such gaps, but one of them is really big. Keep the laser fence on, and free the moving platform by destroying the green bomb. Now, the moving platform will keep moving to and fro between the laser fence and the wall. When the moving platform comes under a gap, switch off the fence and get onto it. After a while, you'll reach the next part.

Best of luck! :)
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Post by nikki »

But, it's still hard to believe that you completed level 22... I mean... 22 is one helluva tricky level. Congrats on that. :)
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Post by milliams »

Is there any chance of a Linux version of this? I would love to try it but I can't at the moment.
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Post by nikki »

milliams wrote:Is there any chance of a Linux version of this? I would love to try it but I can't at the moment.
I was thinking of that. I'm very new to Linux, I just set up an SuSE installation on my desktop 3 days back, and right now I'm struggling with getting the internet connection working. I might do it in the future, someday. Don't you have a Windows box nearby?
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Post by PolyVox »

nikki wrote:
PolyVox wrote:I'm now on level 23. Actually I have a question, I've done the bit at the start to get out the initial room, then you have a bit where you must destroy a bomb so that you can free a trapped moving platform. Near this there is a laser fence and a button to toggle it. What is the point of this? I haven't found any reason why it needs to be on or off.
Also, you might see a lot of bombs moving in a line. There is a gap among the moving bombs. There are four such gaps, but one of them is really big. Keep the laser fence on, and free the moving platform by destroying the green bomb. Now, the moving platform will keep moving to and fro between the laser fence and the wall. When the moving platform comes under a gap, switch off the fence and get onto it. After a while, you'll reach the next part.

Best of luck! :)
Ah, right, but you misunderstand. Actually I'm already past that point, but I did it without toggling the laser fence. I didn't even realise the laser fence was there until I was replaying that puzzle later. So given that the fence wasn't important I didn't know what it was for. But now I see it can be used to block the moving platform and that will make that puzzle easier :)
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Post by nikki »

PolyVox wrote:
nikki wrote:
PolyVox wrote:I'm now on level 23. Actually I have a question, I've done the bit at the start to get out the initial room, then you have a bit where you must destroy a bomb so that you can free a trapped moving platform. Near this there is a laser fence and a button to toggle it. What is the point of this? I haven't found any reason why it needs to be on or off.
Also, you might see a lot of bombs moving in a line. There is a gap among the moving bombs. There are four such gaps, but one of them is really big. Keep the laser fence on, and free the moving platform by destroying the green bomb. Now, the moving platform will keep moving to and fro between the laser fence and the wall. When the moving platform comes under a gap, switch off the fence and get onto it. After a while, you'll reach the next part.

Best of luck! :)
Ah, right, but you misunderstand. Actually I'm already past that point, but I did it without toggling the laser fence. I didn't even realise the laser fence was there until I was replaying that puzzle later. So given that the fence wasn't important I didn't know what it was for. But now I see it can be used to block the moving platform and that will make that puzzle easier :)
I knew that it can be done without the fence, but that makes it a little tougher. I myself kept get irritated during testing, so I added the fence. Also, I wanted to ask you, since you have reached quite a high level, how was your general experience while playing GraLL? Was it fun? What motivated you to keep trying when you failed?

To everyone:
Also, I've been thinking, now that GraLL is done, what next? Sure I'll popularise it, but I'm talking about a project. GraLL was my main project until now. I've been thinking of making a robot (a real one, with motors and all, I've got lots of old toys I can use), or writing a neural network, or learning more about 3d modelling and 3d animation.

Suggestions?
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Post by milliams »

nikki wrote:I was thinking of that. I'm very new to Linux, I just set up an SuSE installation on my desktop 3 days back, and right now I'm struggling with getting the internet connection working. I might do it in the future, someday. Don't you have a Windows box nearby?
Well, yes I do. I may have to use it to play this game. I'd just rather play in Linux, that's all :D. I too am using openSUSE so if there's anything I can do to help, I'd be more than willing.
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Post by nikki »

milliams wrote:
nikki wrote:I was thinking of that. I'm very new to Linux, I just set up an SuSE installation on my desktop 3 days back, and right now I'm struggling with getting the internet connection working. I might do it in the future, someday. Don't you have a Windows box nearby?
Well, yes I do. I may have to use it to play this game. I'd just rather play in Linux, that's all :D. I too am using openSUSE so if there's anything I can do to help, I'd be more than willing.
Sure, I'll ask you if I need anything. Thanks for volunteering! :)
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Post by PolyVox »

nikki wrote:Also, I wanted to ask you, since you have reached quite a high level, how was your general experience while playing GraLL? Was it fun? What motivated you to keep trying when you failed?
Yes, I've enjoyed it a lot and recommended it to people (including milliams and some of my flatmates). The thing that kept me playing is that usually I can see what I'm supposed to do and it's my own fault when I die. This creates a 'I'll get it next time' mentality. I also love the puzzles (more than the skill bits) as logic challenges are good fun.

As for complaints I would have two. Firstly, the collisions detection/physics still often feels buggy. It often doesn't respond quite as expected, and this can be frustrating when it leads to your death. For example it seems to easy to accidentally nudge a block you weren't supposed to, meaning you have to start again. Secondly, the ice/fans combinations are too hard. There's too much luck involved and it's very hard to know where to start and what direction to point. It's just trial and error.

Regarding Linux, SuSE is a good choice, as is (k)ubuntu. be aware though that it's generally difficult to just provide binaries for Linux - everyones system is different so building from source is usually the best option. Alternatively, you could build RPMs for different distributions.
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Post by ppClarity »

PolyVox wrote:Regarding Linux, SuSE is a good choice, as is (k)ubuntu. be aware though that it's generally difficult to just provide binaries for Linux - everyones system is different so building from source is usually the best option.
While I agree that creating binaries that will work on a wide selection of Linux distributions is challenging, I (rather strenuously) disagree that making the end user compile from source is the answer. Very often this requires getting my development system to mirror the developers' environment. In many cases this can be quite challenging and time consuming. Back in my Slackware days that was fun, these days, not so much. I'm not likely to build something from source unless it offers something else that I might need. For instance, I've evaluated several modules from the Worldforge project. But for a simple diversion, I'm much less inclined.

Of course, by making the source available, somebody who is still amused by building their own binaries may take the next step and provide packages for their favorite distribution(s).

Assuming that the source is not available there are certain techniques to employ to make a binary cross-distro friendly. First, do not use a distro that's on the bleeding edge as your development system. While newer distros are backwards compatible, older ones tend not to deal well with forward compatibility. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support) is getting a bit long in the tooth, but it's serviceable enough.

The next thing to do is to bundle all the non-libc .so's (dll's) along with your app. Note that Linux (and Unix) do not look in the current directory for .so's by default, but that can be worked around with a little bit of shell wizardry.
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Post by milliams »

I have an account on the openSUSE Build Service (http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service) so I should be able to build binaries for Fedora, SuSE and Mandriva. With a bit of work, maybe even Ubuntu and Debian too.
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Post by nikki »

Thanks for the information guys. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to Linux, and I've got to first spend some time getting used to it. I'm still thinking about whether or not I should install SuSE on my laptop (which is my main computer right now, I just couldn't get back to the desktop after using the laptop).

I'm using a version of SuSE that came with a book I bought. The book has some excellent information regarding Linux. I have SuSE 10.0.

In fact, before I started working on GraLL, I was thinking of using Linux to do the entire thing. Unfortunately, I couldn't get internet to work (funny, considering the fact that most internet servers run Linux), and this fact irritated me to the extent that I did it on Windows. Also, I had to get used to GIMP, so I started making some textures in GIMP. The Crate texture you see in the game was made in GIMP. I think its one of the best textures in the game. There was also a stone texture I did in GIMP, but it wasn't put in the game.

Also, I would like to repeat this question:
nikki (me (the greatest guy ever)) wrote:Also, I've been thinking, now that GraLL is done, what next? Sure I'll popularise it, but I'm talking about a main project. GraLL was my main project until now. I've been thinking of making a robot (a real one, with motors and all, I've got lots of old toys I can use), or writing a neural network, or learning more about 3d modelling and 3d animation.
Now answer! :twisted:
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Post by nikki »

Ok guys, I've decided that I'll release NGF (nikki's Game Framework, used in GraLL) sometime this week. I'm writing the documentation currently. But, I have a question:

I wanted to release it under the LGPL, but NGF does not compile into a dll. It is not even a static library. Its just a single header file that you have to include in your project, and then you can immediately start using it. Does the LGPL allow this (it doesn't allow static libs)? If not, which license should I release it under?
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Post by CABAListic »

LGPL does allow this, but you would have to release your source code (or object code) to allow others to relink the app against a different version of your framework.

I suspect your goal is rather to allow usage in any way, just that changes to your framework itself be released back to the public? In that case, GPL with runtime exception is the better option, but you'll have to explain it to your users, since the term GPL tends to drive people away (me too, when I first heard the term) ;)
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Post by nikki »

NGF is just a single header file. No static linking, no dynamic linking. Also, I want that any modifications made to NGF itself must be released to the public (along with the source code). Which license is good for this?
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Post by CABAListic »

That's static linking, in a way. Yeah, GPL with runtime exception should work for this.
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Post by nikki »

Thanks. But, I'll take a look at some other licenses too.
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