Boxy II version 0.3a

[Ghoti]

Hi folks,

due to an very bad error i have made this new edition with only bugfix but that will make it easier to play longer :)

version 0.3a third release
------------
Fixes
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- fixed the next music song bug, no it doesn't crash when a song is ended

greetings Ghoti

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

[sroon]

alrite!
This game is sooo a-DICK-ting!
Good job bro!

[Briggzy11]

ahhh now it works, GREAT GAME...

...Love it loads

[frmariam]

Thanks Ghoti! I meant to post these last night but it was really late... Plus the PS2Dev thread wasn't updated yet... And remember all these happen in 2.0 tiff (some may not happen in other fw or using GTA).

Player bugs (Really a great feature! Loved it in DualTetris!):

*Having no music will crash my PSP when I try to start the game
*Crashes on the end of the music (must rename the "Boxy2" folder to something else)
*Music won't unload after you quit the game. It'll loop in the main menu (the menu animation will lag). If you start a new game it'll play the following music (even if the previous is still playing)
*Lower bitrate musics play way fast (had a 64kb 22khz mp3 I ripped from a flash file)!
*R will make the PSP crash (new in the fix - must rename the "Boxy2" folder to something else)

Ingame bugs:

*Special block filled the screen with marked to delete blocks and made me lose the game... Too quick for a screenshot... Next to the left border
*Droped the first piece (after I started a new game) right next the left border and one of th colors disapeared... Was sweeped right after so no screenshot
*Quick screen blackout sometimes (real quick... a small fraction of a second).

Some suggestions:

*Maybe implement truetype fonts (maybe one for each theme). Some text gfx could be replaced this way... Plus nicer fonts for all the text in the menus. Less files also (I hate the fact the number of files - not the size of them - eats up so much space...). You can get it here (http://dl.qj.net/FLIB-Truetype-Font-Library-PSP-Development/pg/12/fid/6820/catid/202).
*Maybe playlist support and creation (for later release maybe ;) )
*Random and repeat functions (again maybe later)
*Go to previous music pressing L

P.S.: The game can get really big if we have lots of themes... Zip or cab compression could be a way out (sorry to keep pushing :p... it's just that my MS is almost always full and this would shave a couple of MB. CAB here (http://dl.qj.net/RIN-v1.32n1.2-Unofficial-GB-GBC-Emulator-PSP-Emulators/pg/12/fid/531/catid/121) (implement in an unofficial RIN release). Zip here (http://dl.qj.net/UnZip-Library-by-Ruka-(Beta)-PSP-Development/pg/12/fid/319/catid/202).

[Ghoti]

:) everytime i repair some errors new ones come :(
i'll look into them :s It is however very difficult for me since i have no 2.0+ firmware and alot of the crashes people say i don't have so it is hard for me to solve them :(

but i will look into it and thanks for all the feedback i appreciate it very much and it is very helpfull

[Ghoti]

Hi folks,

Alot of users who have problems with crashes and so have stated that using normal names for the game folders correct alot of crashes. It seems that my renaming (which i do only when i release it) causes trouble for some. Out the top of my head the names should be:

Boxy2
Boxy2%

please let me now if this also helps on fw2+

thanks in advance

(if it does help i won't release the game anmore with the renaming)

[frmariam]

I personaly convert all my homebrew to 1.0 format (merge the 2 eboots) so there is only a "Boxy2" folder (no % folder for anything). I'll try renaming the folder and see what happens.

Edit:

That fixed the song end crash and the R (next song crash)! Something related with the path and folder name... The others remain... Updated my previous post to state this.

Noticed a new thing though:

*When a music ends at the same time that the theme changes, the music will loop and play for 1-2 seconds, and after the next music will start to play. Happened with a 2:58 music that happened to be the first to play

[frmariam]

Ghoti wanna see another one of my strange findings :p

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3562/ss4or.png (http://imageshack.us)

That one envolved a special block making a large area be selected for deletion but then this happed... This was while the line was sweeping that area I guess

[Ghoti]

once again very much thanks for your feedback, but i also saw this one i if i am not mistaken it is corrected. Version 0.4 is almost done and has a chaos game mode in it :) (no sound effect though, don't know yet how to implement it)

[frmariam]

once again very much thanks for your feedback, but i also saw this one i if i am not mistaken it is corrected. Version 0.4 is almost done and has a chaos game mode in it :) (no sound effect though, don't know yet how to implement it)

Great! Sounds real good! can't wait till the next version!

Have you also seen that one in which the screen will fill with marked to delet blocks and make you lose (I posted this one here in a previous post). I've been able to reproduce it but al I remember is that it involved a special block above some others, droping after a marked to delete beneath it was erased, forming a that giant amount of marked to delete blocks after the drop... kind of confusing even for me who have seen it before to explain :p ).

Edit:

Well anyway the bug I described before the "Edit" seems to be caused in part by the same thing as the one bellow. When a pieces slides rigth near another while dropping, it seems that for a fraction of a second it is marked for deletion (and I've actually seen this since in some busier moments the game may lag a little)... In this case it turned a special block into anormal one...

While piece drops:

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/9963/slicepart17zo.png (http://imageshack.us)

After sweep (took me a while to realise and grab my camera... had the screenshot because I was trying to cause the "screen full of marked to delete blocks" bug and that seemed like it would cause it...):

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3209/slidepart23tc.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Played for quite a while! first time I reached level 17 without a crash! I had about 17xxxx points! I lose almost all my games crashing and sometimes the highscores become corrupt because of that... Blasted random crashes!

[cheesyzombie]

theres a few problems that i found. There's random crashing, the full screen blackout (lasts for like a millisiceond but throws me off) and music. If there was an option to disable music that would be good. Also, if you could make it compatible wit mp3pro. I use nero to convert all my mp3's to mp3pro, but the game plays them at double speed. This is really annoying and all the voices are high pitched. Still about music, would be nice if the tracks could be randomised. Everytime I start the game, it plays the same tracks in the same order. Fixing these glitches/bugs would really inprove my boxy II gaming experience!
cheesyzombie

[Ghoti]

Hi thanks for the feedback,

first of all, i'm busy making the mp3player random(almost done now) i also got sick of the not randomness of the musicplayer :S

As for the blackscreen thing, I still don't know what is causing this, has to do something with behaviour of the psp functions/refreshrate but i am not sure (guess i do to much in one cycle so it can't refresh and then it will be black but i am not sure.)

As for the mp3, i have also some mp3's that have these high voices, the problem however is that i have not made the mp3 playing sound, it is very difficult for me to understand :S but however i will look into it since it will teach me alot.

Also i have made an option to turn off the music and turn the music to random or normal

with the normal music mode you can also go back a song with the L button :)

frmariam i see what you mean i and think i know what is wrong, thank you for the screens

EDIT: I have reached some very far level also :) i have made the leveling difficult a bit more quicker so that you notice the speed change also in the next release

for the random crashes :S i still don't know whats causing them... it is also very hard to debug them on a psp because for some reason a crash debug register code doesn't work for me so i can't really do anything besides just debug some text in the functions and hope to see whats wrong but when you reach level 17 and no crash has occured it means that you play for 51 minutes or more before the error occurs so debugging goes very slow... sorry for that

[xiringu]

this is my favorite homebrew game on the psp (random crashes suck though)

thanks for your hard work.

maybe one day i'll be able to play past level 3 without crashes (usually it's level 1)

until that day comes, i'll keep playing and practicing :)

i'll post anything i find to help fixing the crashes, but for the moment, they just seem ... random :(

[dtothabreezy]

this games great only if it didnt crash so much:mad:

[frmariam]

Great news on the mp3 player :)

Just hope you eventualy find the cause of the random crashes... It seems like there may be memory leaks (only reached 17 once since most time it'll crash way before that...). Once this one is out the game will be way more fun :D

[cheesyzombie]

Yeehaa! that's great work! Excellent! If only I could code.. The best i can do is a bit of VB for my computing coursework....
Anyways keep going, this homebrew is :Unreal Tournament voice: "Wicked Sick!" :End Unreal Tournament voice:
lol

[Ghoti]

Hi folks,

first of all i have made some tweaks regarding the special block so with my gameplay i get much less random crashes but 1 still remains and it always is there right before alot of blocks have to be deleted. so i am close to the solution (wasn't it that sometimes i play for like an half an hour and still i haven't gotten the error :S

as for the memory leaks, when i display my free memory on my psp during the game it is always constant and does not change during play and there is enough so i guess there isn't a memory loop, what i think that can be the problem is that i have somewhere a increment variable integer which in this case exceeds the maximum for an integer resulting in a crash but i am not sure.

greets ghoti

[cheesyzombie]

ooh about the music, the problem i have about ot playing at double speed and high pitch also happens with fileassistant and used to happen in pspradio. I dont know how, but it seems they fixed it in pspradio. btw this doesn't happen with my normal, uncompressed mp3's. Maybe it's to do with the sampling frequency? With the compressed ones it says they are 22.050 KHz compared with 44.100 KHz in a normal mp3. I don't know, but if it isn't that, then it may be bit rate? Because the highest in mp3 pro is 96Kbps. MP3Pro is supposed to be twice as good as the said bit rate. I.e. 96 Kbps would be as good as the same at 192 Kbps.
Just trying to help!
cheesyzombie

[dtothabreezy]

can you make it so we can make themes i think you already can but i want you to say its ok before i start changin your stuff around

[Ghoti]

Hi,

you can make and are allowed to make themes (it is the whole fun of it :) )Just let the names of the images be the same and the directory has to be a number that follows the last in the themes directory (or you can just overwrite mine)

please note however that changes can be made by me (like in the next build i have added 2 images with the themes)(not with your themes but with the game i can make changes)

but extra themes are welcome, it was the whole fun of it, i also mentioned it during the release of my first build but then the people didn't reply on that so i thought that there were no people wwho wanted to make themes therefor i didn't included the describing of the theme making in my releases after that.

I'll hope there will be more people :)

greetings Ghoti

[xiringu]

I'm on 2.5 (GTA).

I found a bug, that I can recreate :)

1-Start the game on classic
2-Drop pieces until you loose.
3-on Scores screen, press Start to go back to main menu

repeat steps 3 times, it won't start a 4th time...the PSP hangs and reboots



I've done it 5 times to check and it happens everytime



PS i have an in-game crashing bug located, but i have still to recreate it to make sure it is what i think

[Ghoti]

Hi,

yes i have found that out also. I have looked at it but do not know whaat is causing this at the moment. I have posted this question at ps2dev.org a while ago and recieved some help but they didn't know what it was also but i have some feedback that i have not tried yet so i hope it will work with that feedback.

I hope you can recreate the error you found, it will help alot

greets Ghoti and thanks

[dtothabreezy]

ghoti you get my pm:confused:

[cheesyzombie]

YAAAYYY!!! 0.4a is out!!! Thank youuussss!!!! :)

[Tweed]

Hey Ghoti

first i like your game very much and so i want to play it, buuuuut, when version 0.3 came out i had the problem that the game frezzed when i started a new game.
Now with version 0.4 when i try to start your great homebrew with eloader 0.97 it wont load at all, black psp screen and than shut off.
im on 2.01, i would be happy if you can fix this;)

your fan tweed;)

[Ghoti]

Hiya,

uhm first try to delete the three text files located in the directory boxy2
and copy the attached files to that directory and let me know if that helped the problem of freezing

the problem that it crashes with mp3playing can be solved by disabling the sound in the menu now added in version 0.4

but let me know if the above helped or not

[Tweed]

no it didnt help. still same problem, i select the game than psp goes black an shuts off.