Emergency testing needed for the project "Microbian: Fighter", Skyhawk gone mad

[Dr. Light]

I need someone to try a test version of the game "Microbian: Fighter"; specifically someone with a 733 MHz G4 tower. Skyhawk is thinking about ditching the entire project after 7-8 months of work! Help ASAP!

contact:
skyhawk@hkasoftware.com

[skyhawk]

I need someone to try a test version of the game "Microbian: Fighter"; specifically someone with a 733 MHz G4 tower. Skyhawk is thinking about ditching the entire project after 7-8 months of work! Help ASAP!

contact:
skyhawk@hkasoftware.com
screw that, just download this: http://www.hkasoftware.com/skyhawk/microbfighter/Microbian%20Fighter.zip
and post framerates on level 4, 6, 12, and 18

do everything you can to slow it down(which isn't much at this moment)

[Sohta]

respectively:

30 , 23 , 30 , 27

( those are the lowest values I got )

on a 833 G4 quicksilver

HTH

[Jake]

What's the current status, are you going to release it soon? Those framerates seem a little slow, but 2D games are much more forgiving then 3D games. (Go play Quake 3 a 8 FPS and then Escape at 8 FPS)

Skyhawk : Why are you thinking about ditching it if its that close to being done?

[skyhawk]

What's the current status, are you going to release it soon?

planned on releasing august 20th.... no way to meet that release date.

Those framerates seem a little slow, but 2D games are much more forgiving then 3D games. (Go play Quake 3 a 8 FPS and then Escape at 8 FPS)

those framerates are fine. especially since I cap it at 30

Skyhawk : Why are you thinking about ditching it if its that close to being done?
todo list:
implement quad tree to get mandatory speedup to hit target platform (733MHz G4)
finish pencilling in story.
finish drawing art for story
finish up razclaw AI

if I can't get that mandatory speedup... tears the whole project apart cause asking for more than 733MHz for this kind of game, no matter how insanely cool some stuff in it is, is too much.

[DaFalcon]

I just have to say that I love the title of this thread :-) And I look forward to seeing Microbian : Fighter when it is done ;-)

[ThemsAllTook]

those framerates are fine. especially since I cap it at 30

Ugh, why? Framerates should never be capped until at least 60, if not 120. The difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS is huge...

Alex Diener

[skyhawk]

Ugh, why?
because it was a decision I made.

[Jake]

Ugh, why? Framerates should never be capped until at least 60, if not 120. The difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS is huge...

Alex Diener

It depends on what, for a FPS or even a 3rd person 3D game it is VERY important, but for many 2D games 30 is OK.

What I meant by the FPS being low is that on a worse system that will drop, you were testing on a 867MHZ machine.

Anyways, don't give up now when you are 90% done!

[Dr. Light]

screw that, just download this: http://www.hkasoftware.com/skyhawk/microbfighter/Microbian%20Fighter.zip
and post framerates on level 4, 6, 12, and 18

do everything you can to slow it down(which isn't much at this moment)

Well, maybe he is feeling a little better. He is back to his tactful self. :rolleyes:

[applekid]

4: 8 at worst, 58 at best, usually around 30
6: 11 at worst, 58 at best, usually 14
12: 9 at worst, 30 at best, usually 12
18: 12 at worst, 24 at best, usually 20

800 MHz G4 iMac

I see your turned off all of the collision detection and everything is invincible. I wanted to blow some stuff up... The game is looking professional though. Nice work.

[skyhawk]

4: 8 at worst, 58 at best, usually around 30
6: 11 at worst, 58 at best, usually 14
12: 9 at worst, 30 at best, usually 12
18: 12 at worst, 24 at best, usually 20

800 MHz G4 iMac

I see your turned off all of the collision detection and everything is invincible. I wanted to blow some stuff up... The game is looking professional though. Nice work.
send me an email to be an official beta tester... I need 3 more people for beta testing.
looking for people in this demographics:
500MHz G4 - 1.4GHz G4
graphics card of 32MB or up
someone who has X.2 would be a good test for backwards compatibility
needs to be able to fill out a form I give them for all the stuff I need tested.


also, thank you everyone for your kind words... I have been receiving many.... insults about my game... I am better now... I have a quad tree implemented... things seem alright... but it is hard to tell on my computer...
I need thorough testing that I have time to do, but not entirely the patience.

[Jake]

You will ALWAYS get bad reviews, no matter what game you make, I got reviewed on perversiontracker for GL Golf, but I sent them an email thanking them for the extra downloads :) and telling them how good it is doing.

[Joseph Duchesne]

G4 733/OS X 10.2.8 gets around 30 on level 4, down to 20 every now and then and up to 36. Level 6 gets about 32 and drops to an insane 8 (thats as long as I could last) Level 12 gets around 18 FPS variance of about 8. Level 18 ...
The difference between us and the nasty reviewers is that we're in the trenches and they're not. I would like to see everyone at pvt make a game half as good as the ones they review. Especially GL golf. They honestly think they're doing ANYONE a favor? If and when we ever have our first iDG expo (:P) I think we should give the PVT croud free trip, all expenses paid. except the hospital bills. :)

[funkboy]

especially when you're developing it, there will always be someone to say "do this better." I think i've done it a few times for you, skyhawk :)

keep up the good work, it's looking good.

[applekid]

send me an email to be an official beta tester... I need 3 more people for beta testing.
looking for people in this demographics:
500MHz G4 - 1.4GHz G4
graphics card of 32MB or up
someone who has X.2 would be a good test for backwards compatibility
needs to be able to fill out a form I give them for all the stuff I need tested.

E-mailed you. I hope the beta testing won't take too long.

[skyhawk]

do yall think it is perfectly acceptable to offer a demo showing the first 4 levels (with perfectly ok framerates) and for the full version, I have these 4 levels that have less than acceptable framerates on middle end computers (high end (1GHz G4 and up, there is little problems) middle end 700MHz - 1GHz G4)?

I REALLY want to keep the specti swarm in there since they are possibly one of the neatest things in the game (they can expand, traverse paths, destroy barriers, and just be downright terrifying swarm), but Lee suggests that if we can't hit the 733 mark, we take them out, and rewrite part of the story and redo those 4 levels.

what do you guys think?

[applekid]

I dunno. It's sorta like false-advertising.

There should be a way to cut-back on the size of the swarms, I think.

[skyhawk]

I dunno. It's sorta like false-advertising.

There should be a way to cut-back on the size of the swarms, I think.
you would think, but if I cut back on it's size, then it doesn't work. I preferred it at 1000, cause then it was more versatile, but I cut it back down to 600 for lee. at 600 it could still do stuff, but it wasn't as much. seriously, it CAN NOT be cut back.

[Dr. Light]

And you are quite sure we cannot replace sheer volume with hitting power and/or reproduction speed(more per frame)?

[skyhawk]

And you are quite sure we cannot replace sheer volume with hitting power
that would decrease movability and would cause them not to be able to do anything really

and/or reproduction speed(more per frame)?
this would make things slower....