Oooh, nebulous! thumbs up
is full of empty space (0’s)
It’s not. Well ingame it is all empty space, but the file is filled with trash (I looked at it with a hex editor, because the bad compression was quite the surprise).
are you finding the the end block actually lets you win?
Yea… “you won”… and it changes rather quickly to press start yadda yadda.
I’ll make the wait longer… that “d” file is surprising… brilliant tho!
Kev
and once again…very nice! Runs well here.
win2k, ATI all in wonder 9600
java 1.5
etc…
M
Hmm… I think I figured out the doors. It seems that only the first door link in the level works. Any other doors you add seem to fail silently. (i.e. you pop in and out of the same door) Perhaps none of the door links beyond the first one gets loaded?
Also, 7Zip is able to compress the d1 (mine), d2 (Onyx’s), and N.class down to 3,990 bytes. The key to getting that sort of compression is to make sure that you always run 7Zip from the command line. This is very important since the 7Zip GUI doesn’t seem to work the same as the command line tool.
Here’s the command line string I used:
7z a -tzip -mx=9 neb4k.zip d1 d2 N.class
Translated, that means “7Zip, Add to a Zip file (-tzip) with Maximum Compression (-mx=9), and call it ‘neb4k.zip’. The files to add are ‘d1’, ‘d2’, and ‘N.class’.”
I agree, this one is really good 
Gotta try that level editor…
It seems that only the first door link in the level works. Any
other doors you add seem to fail silently. (i.e. you pop in
and out of the same door) Perhaps none of the door links
beyond the first one gets loaded?
Nah… they work, but they are one-way. That means the linking order is important.
first click=from
second click=to
d3 has 2 door pairs and they work. Really 
[quote]Nah… they work, but they are one-way. That means the linking order is important.
first click=from
second click=to
[/quote]
Yes, I understand that. I’ve done several tests with doors, and only one set works.
[quote]d3 has 2 door pairs and they work. Really
[/quote]
No, they don’t. I can do the first door that drops you back to the bottom, but the door at the top of the level doesn’t work. Maybe it’s a bug in the version of Neb4K that comes with the editor? I’ll try downloading the self-contained version and see if that works.
Edit: Nope, same problem with the JAR download. Am I the only one seeing this problem? 
I can do the first door that drops you back to the bottom,
but the door at the top of the level doesn’t work.
They are linked like this:
http://www.kaioa.com/k/doorlink.png
oh I see… you dropped down to that exit door… I should have made that impossible
Maybe it’s a bug in the version of Neb4K that comes with
the editor?
No. The classes are byte-identical (hex editor compare files exact match).
[quote]They are linked like this:
http://www.kaioa.com/k/doorlink.png
[/quote]
Onyx, you’re not listening. I UNDERSTAND HOW TO CREATE DOORS. THEY DO NOT WORK RIGHT.
However, I figured out the problem. Doors are actually TWO WAY! (How about that, eh?) However, the set of doors that work and the direction that works sort of gets “stuck” once you use a door. Reseting the door can be accomplished by using a teleporter. I’ve created a small test level to demonstrate:
http://java.dnsalias.com/4k/d-bug
Use one of the doors to go to the top, then try to use the other door. Note how the other door fails, but you can still jump off and use the first door. However, if you use the teleporter, BOTH doors at the top will work!
I’m not quite sure what is causing this bug, though, because it doesn’t always seem to hold true. At certain times, it seems you can go back through given doors even though you used another one.
EDIT: Very interesting. In the test file I have, you can always go up, but can only go down after using the teleporter. That’s really odd, because the doors on the right are linked to go from the top to the bottom, not the other way around. I’m starting to wonder if the doors don’t get confused by teleporters being at the same level as they are. But that doesn’t entirely make sense, since I made a level with only doors, and only the first set worked. What kind of wonky optimizations did you put in there Kev! :o
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
[quote]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.
[/quote]
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?
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
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
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?)
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
Yet another post…
That level is great!
Kev
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
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 :’(
[quote]I’ve just tried the d-bug level provided from JBanes. (I’m going to ignore the wonky optimisation comments ;))
[/quote]
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.
[quote]Unfortunately I can’t see the error occuring… I’m going to try it on a much faster machine.
[/quote]
Here are the precise steps I’m using to reproduce the issue. (Not that I don’t believe you haven’t tried them. sigh)
- Start the game with the d-bug level
- Go right to the first door
- Tap up to get to the upper platform
- Move right to the second door on the platform
- Press up and watch as the character refuses to use the door
It can then be “fixed” by:
- Move left to the transporter
- Hit up, then down to go up and down the transporter
- Move right to the door
- Tap up and watch the character use the door just fine
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!!!