Week of April 6, 2008

Giana's Return - World 4 - Progress status

11th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

A new update on gianas-return.de:

Today three full levels of “World 4″ were readjusted/rethemed, unfortunatly 
less than expected, but still better than nothing. Another funky thing… we 
work on a second ingame surprise ;-)

Source: gianas-return.de

Giana's Return - Update…

9th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

A new update on gianas-return.de:

* Operator is working on the music these days
* The GFX artist has delivered a cleaned up world 4
* Levels of world 4 should be adjusted by end of this week
* We are working on a “hidden” ingame surprise

We decided to drop the excessive multi-language idea and will stick 
with “Deutsch”, “English” and “Francaise” only.

Everyone of the team members is somehow having one of those languages as 
mother tongue, that way we can be sure the quality will stay as it is.

No offense to everyone who wanted to help, but it will simplyfy many things 
for us. We suppose many people can handle one of those 3 world languages.

Source: gianas-return.de

dcgnuboy 1.0.4 with zip support

8th April, 2008 Posted by: MetaFox

Fackue has released a build of dcgnuboy, the Gameboy hardware emulator for the Dreamcast, that adds ZIP support in response to a porting request in our forums. This also merges in the changes from the pre-alpha 1.0.4 release of dcgnuboy that fixes a few bugs.

Quzar has been helping Fackue along the way, removed a bunch of code that was unnecessary. Bilinear filtering has also been disabled in this release.

There is a bug in the program in the menu after loading a few roms. It ends up saying "/cd/gb", and then you have to restart.

Source: DCEmulation forums

CryptoCast Episode 9 - Now with Organic Poo!

8th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

DJGeki has posted a new episode of the CrypticAllusion podcast in the CAGames.com forums.

...and you'll have it later tonight. Most everything has been edited, and will 
be posted for your listening pleasure as soon as I've had a chance to upload 
it. Think of it as a late, Easter surprise.

---

Also, I'd like to apologize for the lateness here. We took damn near forever 
to put a new show out. I'm hoping that won't continue to happen, as I really 
enjoy making the shows. 

Show notes will be posted here after the show is up. Keep checking back!

***

Here are the notes for the show:

Let us open iTunes for you here (subscribe and review please!), or get the   
cast directly (for those of us that are too lazy to click the iTunes link) 
from here.
---
Don't forget to Digg the CryptoCast!

Host list
-Roddy
-Pam
-Mike

Intro
We're all indie this week. Hopefully we'll get back into Donk as things pick 
back up. Sorry for the delay in getting you a new cast, everyone. 

Links
Here are the relevant links covering what everyone discussed during this 
CryptoCast (some are more important than others…we’ll leave it up to you to 
decide which is which):

N (for NINJA!) - http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/ 
Jetpack Brontosaurus - http://www.jetpackbrontosaurus.com 
Owl Country – http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1394.0 

Metanet talk about XBLA - http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17960 
iPhone SDK - http://developer.apple.com/iphone/ 
Steamworks - http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

Outro
Digg the CryptoCast!

PM me if you want to have your questions/comments read on the show!

Again, thanks to ViperScorpion for their bumpers! I hope you’re all visiting their site, watching their video podcasts, and learning about what it’s like to be an indie developer.

Source: Cryptic Allusion Forums

Giana's Return: Team health status…

7th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

[thUg] has been sick the past week, he’ll go on with GFX soon.
Our organizer had an accident (read more here: http://pdroms.de/news/9864/)
The rest of the team seems to be fine… ;-)

Source: gianas-return.de

Makaron WIP: Vibration

7th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

Deunan has updated his Makaron blog again.

Okay people, here's what you need to have vibration:
*1) T9/3 or T9/4 Makaron executable
*2) T9/5 or T9/6 MakaronPAD.dll
*3) Maple.ini edited so that MakaronPAD is being loaded instead of MakaronVMU for Slot 1 or Slot 2 on given port
*4) Gamepad capable of vibration
*5) Game with PuruPuru Pack support (you might still need to enable it in game options)

If you can't get T9/4 to run at all with supplied Maple.ini (crashes with an 
error), but it does work if you modify it to have VMU (or nothing) instead of 
MakaronPAD in the Slot1/2, it's a problem with my code not doing the right 
thing with your pad. Another easy way to check is to use Maple.ini (and 
plugins too if nothing else helps) from T9/2.

If it does run but you get no FF effects it could be the game doesn't use it 
or needs to have it enabled first. If you're positive everything is as it 
should be, it's probably my code again. A fast way to test if the plugin is 
loaded as it should be:

HOLLY/Maple: 0x20: Makaron controller (0x00270101 / 0x00540905)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x01: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540904)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x02: Makaron controller (0x00270101 / 0x00540905)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x60: Makaron controller (0x00270101 / 0x00540905)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x41: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540904)
HOLLY/Maple: 0x42: Makaron VMU (0x00030201 / 0x00540904)

See, the 0x02 address of port A is using PAD plugin instead of VMU.
BTW, don't try to be too smart and have 2 VMUs and a PuruPuru Pack together.  
Though it's possible to assign addresses 0x04, 0x08 and 0x10, no real 
Dreamcast device has more then 2 slots and most games will not recognize such 
configuration. You can try your luck with homebrew KOS/Linux/BSD software, 
those usually don't have such limitations.
For those of you who never had a DC controller in their hands - PPP will fit 
in Slot 1 but it's big and will prevent you from using VMU in Slot 2. Not to 
mention only Slot 1 VMU LCD is visible (in Makaron too) so it's best to stick 
PPP into Slot 2.

And another thing - you'd be suprised how broken gamepad drivers can be. I've 
got two and each had it's nasty suprises (and I've yet to try PS2 Dualshock 
USB interface). Also, force feedback features can vary from very basic  
"rumble" ones to a real force working against your moves. It's not that simple 
to get those more complicated gamepads to do simple vibration it seems...

Source: dknute.livejournal.com

Vampire Savior: Makai Revolution

7th April, 2008 Posted by: Maturion

the7k has released pictures of his new BOR-Mod, called "Vampire Savior: Makai Revolution", over at LavaLit. He said that he'd been working on it since over a year.

It looks very promising:

I suppose I should declare this module. I started working on it over a year 
ago, but went on a very long hiatus. Now I wanna continue it, so here I am. 
I'll try to limit the graphic usage to just the Darkstalker series and Jojo's 
Bizarre Adventure. (Keep the style consistent.) I intend for this to be a very 
fast paced mod that will attempt to capture the feel of the Darkstalker series.

Playable Characters: Felicia, Morrigan, Lei Lei/Hsienko, Lilith, Donovan,  
Gallon/J.Talbain.

Minor Enemies: QBee, Phobos/Huitzil, Sasquatch, Star Platinum (and various  
other stands and characters.)

Bosses/Mid-bosses: Zabel Zarock/L.Raptor, Bulleta/B.B.Hood, Victor, Bishamon, 
Aulbath/Rikuo, Anakaris, Demetri, Pyron, Jedah.

Felicia, Morrigan, and Lilith are practically finished, Donovan is mostly 
done, but Hsienko and Talbain (and most everything else) still have a lot of 
work. I've still gotta figure out a suitable level order. 

The story takes place after the events of Vampire Savior. The only thing 
keeping the Makai from descending into total chaos was the Three Great Noble's 
Power. With the defeat of Jedah, the Makai has become a place of great 
turmoil, but a mysterious and charismatic leader has emerged from the chaos to 
invade the Human Realm. Darkhunters have been trusted with the protection of 
the Human Realm, targeting those with 'impure' blood indiscriminately. Six 
heroes are caught in the crossfire of a war between the Human and Demon Realms.

While I already have an idea for the final boss, any suggestions you wanna 
throw my way I'll take a gander at. In fact, any suggestions at all will be 
welcome. Thanks!

Source: LavaLit.com

Stealth Quake 1.2 released

Posted by Darc 13:42, 6 April 2008 (CDT)

Tyne has reported in this thread in our forums that Stealth Quake 1.2 has been released.

Version 1.2 of Stealth Quake has been released, this is more than
likely the final release and is a major upgrade from previous
versions which are no longer available; the changelog is below.

- Image flashes no longer occur on non-lovecraftian creatures
- Updated findradius(); to searchradius(); in several instances allowing the 
WinQuake and Darkplaces version to behave more alike
- Jump button no longer respawns player, only fire as told in death description
- Self-talk only occurs during idle time
- Proper death animation is now played when rock is selected
- Additional sound ques properly cleared on death
- More frags now indicate who died the most, or betrayed the team most (team kills)
- Sneaking speed is less framerate dependant
- Fixed restarting of a level even if a player is still alive
- Players entering a game with 0 lives left are now made observers instead of players
- Rare instance of player allowed to throw rocks / shoot the pistol while in camera mode fixed
- Camera is improved
- Players who are targetted by an enemy can no longer stealth kill that monster, 
yet another player still can (thus allowing another player to save a friend) this also
mean you're not able to perform a running stealth kill (considered a minor exploit)
- Stealth kill 'vision' widened, you must hit their back a bit more accurately now
- Brand new roaming AI, based on some of The Ascension of Vigil code as well as general AI improvements
- More sounds added to help the atmosphere
- Balance tweaks that help prevent speed running, as well as making more logical gameplay sense
- Fixed FOV not being reset when falling out of a Shamblers vision in certain circumstances
- The death music track now plays for observers
- Observers can now restart the round by pressing fire when everyone is dead and out of lives
- Wall tucking properly narrows a monsters vision cone making it even more effective than sneaking
- Fixed a bug where if a monster killed a player, they'd always move towards the player unless distracted
- Kill command works, doesn't take away from the lives pool
- Crosshair turns off when walltucking and renables when not
- Upgraded models for the pistol and bullets
- If the player is killed by certain attacks they're now gibbed
- DP Only: Client side prediction is turned on when not sneaking, helps running away / lag

Source: DCEmulation forums