Operation: Tank Command [My Indie Game]

[Big C]

What hostility? I'm certainly giving GameMaker a hard time, but that doesn't strike me as hostility.

You were basically calling his choice of engine bad without giving any explanation why instead of providing any detailed feedback.

[edward850]

I would love to, if the engine would give any detailed feedback. What else am I supposed to give him other than "it breaks"? Because that's all it gives me.
The site is a mess, and the engine is generically broken. Not much more information exists beyond that.

[jazzmaster9]

I would love to, if the engine would give any detailed feedback. What else am I supposed to give him other than "it breaks"? Because that's all it gives me.

Well anyway I'll take a look at the issue. most of the OS compatible issues have been fixed during final beta testing but i'll triple check this one.

[edward850]

Actually, even my laptop dies on it, and that's Windows 7, on an Intel. Desktop is AMD. It's neither an OS nor hardware fault.

From the start stopping that I managed, the game itself is a fairly neat proof of concept. My only real issue with the gameplay is that it's basically the old style "screen->next screen" gameplay that honestly makes things too simple (there is surprisingly little incentive to actually move around, as a result).
Everything else is simply engine level: Stretched aspect ratio resolution in fullscreen, somehow there is no close button on the window itself and alt+f4 is both intercepted and ignored, you can't rebind the controls making this impossible to play on a laptop trackpad (a wasd layout is very much non-optimal), and the lack of native code makes issues like mine impossible for you to debug.

[jazzmaster9]

Actually, even my laptop dies on it, and that's Windows 7, on an Intel. Desktop is AMD. It's neither an OS nor hardware fault.

From the start stopping that I managed, the game itself is a fairly neat proof of concept. My only real issue with the gameplay is that it's basically the old style "screen->next screen" gameplay that honestly makes things too simple (there is surprisingly little incentive to actually move around, as a result).
Everything else is simply engine level: Stretched aspect ratio resolution in fullscreen, somehow there is no close button on the window itself and alt+f4 is both intercepted and ignored, you can't rebind the controls making this impossible to play on a laptop trackpad (a wasd layout is very much non-optimal), and the lack of native code makes issues like mine impossible for you to debug.

The game has been tested on multiple machines and OS, from all my testers only PRIMEVAL has been having random issues with it as well, he is using windows 8.1 (I use windows 7 with AMD processor).

The game itself is not meant to be played with a touch pad or tracker ball, this is a mouse centered game.

As with the game play, The sequel will have more elements than just your typical scroll and shoot type gameplay, with weapon loadout, customization and more varied level design.

Again I'll try my darnest to fix the issue.

thanks for the feedback.

[wildweasel]

Are these forums being moderated anymore? Or is this sort of random hostility in vogue these days?

I see nothing inherently hostile, just Edward's typical utter lack of tact. While I won't deny that is and has been a problem, that doesn't mean all six of his posts need to be reported. Just the one would have been seen, as soon as I had finished a rather fitful night of sleep-coughing.

In summary: Edward could stand to be more polite, and everyone else could stand to be more patient.

[Jeimuzu73]

I've had errors like this before with Windows 8 where a lot of Game Maker games simply stop working (They were primarily made with the vanilla 8.0-8.1 version, when Windows 7 was the norm). Most of the time it has something to do with the sound (I tried to play Jazz's Wolfenstein series and my own Rise of the Iron Knights on W8 and they stop working whenever the sound messes up). Running it in W7's compatability mode didn't work either (the sound engine of Windows 8 is incompatible). When I sort of downgraded to W7, the issues evaporated.

But on the game itself, it's a nice fast-paced take on the turn-based artillery shooters (Pocket Tanks) I played when I was a kid, although a top-down perspective like in Battle City would be better for fast-paced tanking.

[phantombeta]

Talking about GM's problems, here's another example.
In Iji, when the music starts or changes, a weird noise can be heard. Seems to happen only in Windows 8/.1. (I dunno if it happens on Vista and 7 though. I tested it on a XP VM and it doesn't happen on it.)
Also, I got an apparently random crash. I think it happened when I died on my last life.

[leileilol]

why does a KNP-tier pixel game need Direct3D 8?

[jazzmaster9]

why does a KNP-tier pixel game need Direct3D 8?

It's game maker that requires it, just simply download the new DirectX and it should be working.

[Enjay]

just simply

The problem is that, being realistic, if a person only needs to grab that download and install it for a simple game that they know that they are only likely to play for a very short space of time, having to do that is likely to be a deal breaker for them. You want people to try your game but the fact that it will need an additional download will mean it's not worth the effort for most people; unless it's something that they really, really want to play.

I'm not trying to be mean and I know that GameMaker requiring the download is out of your control but that's the reality.

[jazzmaster9]

just simply

The problem is that, being realistic, if a person only needs to grab that download and install it for a simple game that they know that they are only likely to play for a very short space of time, having to do that is likely to be a deal breaker for them. You want people to try your game but the fact that it will need an additional download will mean it's not worth the effort for most people; unless it's something that they really, really want to play.

I'm not trying to be mean and I know that GameMaker requiring the download is out of your control but that's the reality.

I completely understand there are something that I can't control about GM.

[leileilol]

I would figure the D3D8 bit would be a huge clue on why it crashes on Windows 8.


also, a huge clue on yoyogames' incompetence of not having any GDI fallbacks

[edward850]

Windows 8, maybe. But that makes me wonder why my Windows 7 laptop exhibits the same issue. Perhaps a specific SDK? Either way, you can't exactly fix that aside from not using GameMaker. If it chooses to be hideously out of date...

[jazzmaster9]

Windows 8, maybe. But that makes me wonder why my Windows 7 laptop exhibits the same issue. Perhaps a specific SDK? Either way, you can't exactly fix that aside from not using GameMaker. If it chooses to be hideously out of date...

Well porting this over to another language is gonna take a while, since I don't have any experience with anything but game maker.