I spent a a whole day trying to move from the PALib library to libnds to make Vampire Castle future proof, unfortunately this proved to be more time consuming than I hoped and backed out the changes (two key problems arose - I can't use anim gifs, and I couldn't alter screen brightness without a lot of faff*). I also didn't fancy rescripting lots of PAGfx ini files to Grit scripts (i.e. the graphics resources). Perhaps further down the line I can do this conversion, but for the moment I don't want to kill programming momentum by getting stuck in the minutae.
After the roll back I added rumble pack support and some new sound effects, this has added to the realism greatly, especially when the fruit reels stop and you feel physical "ker-chunks" and "dunk" sound effects.
Hitting the bonus 4 points now also starts the feature stopper mode that will get you to the top board, although the stopper doesn't yet stop :)
I'm expecting to release either a demo or the full version within the next month or so, source code and revised releases will follow (at the very least a new youtube video will be available soon). One thing I am toying with is displaying cut scenes for collecting your winnings and so on - this is dependent on me having time.
Oh and I briefly looked at LocateMe 1.0.1 beta to help a (potential) user adding in some minor bug fixes - this code hasn't been released and probably won't be as I intend to do some refactoring to better support phone integrated GPS.
* Wintermute on #dsdev mentioned the next version of libnds will have a brightness function I can use - thanks :)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
How to Remove Opendisc ® from Windows
As somebody who recently used an Opendisc® CD on my computer and found it not to be showing CD audio ".cda" files but a list of Windows files and folders (including an "autorun.exe") I suspected I'd inadvertently installed some DRM from the CD that wasn't allowing me to see the audio content.
After further investigation (Google was practically useless) and viewing the Opendisc® FAQ and Tech Notes pages contacting Opendisc® about their Opendisc® product I ended up even more frustrated because it states:
So basically they won't say exactly what that file is, I thought "lest I try and remove it" - I suspected it had the potential to be doing something nasty to my machine. So I emailed Opendisc® support about their Opendisc® product and how to remove the small "file".
Opendisc® support got back to me today and specified exactly what the file was and how to remove it (quoted with typos):
You can follow these instructions to remove it, but it will be a bit pointless, next time you (auto) run the CD the data will just get added back to the registry, which (admittedly from memory) looked like info about the CD for the enhanced content, no personal info.
The catch is this - the CD is formatted to be a "mixed-mode" CD which is perfectly above board and a standard CD format, i.e. no breaking standards, no CD formatted not to read on a computer etc. The Opendisc® website actually says:
This is a good thing - the format is also known as an "Enhanced CD", "CD Extra" or "CD Plus". Basically it's a disc with one part CD player compatible format (the type that on a computer would just show as small ".cda" files) and the other part formatted using a standard computer readable file format, which may contain different content, the "enhanced" content. When Windows reads the disc it has two choices, it can show the .cda files (which are practically useless in Windows Explorer) or show the content it (and other operating systems) was designed to do, i.e. the files that included the "autorun.exe" that I saw. This will also affect most software that plays audio from both compact discs and filesystems, since it will make the same decision as to which part of the CD to read.
So in short, for now Opendisc® appears to be completely safe (at least the Opendisc® versions I've seen such as on the CD "The Script"). If you need to get at the "raw" CD sound files on a mixed mode CD a decent "ripper" application will do that (I do not advocate any form of piracy) and will ignore the "Windows compatible" formatted part.
Disclaimers:
- Did I mention Opendisc® was a registered trademark (yes it bugs me ;) )?
- "Windows compatible" and so forth is not strictly the correct terminology, but used here for ease of understanding for non technical readers.
- I am in no way associated or funded by Opendisc® or its associates/affiliates, just relieved to see that this appears to be all above board stuff and I thought I'd pass on the news :)
After further investigation (Google was practically useless) and viewing the Opendisc® FAQ and Tech Notes pages contacting Opendisc® about their Opendisc® product I ended up even more frustrated because it states:
Do I need to install additional software onto my computer to use Opendisc®?
No, Opendisc® does not require additional software installation.
A small file will be stored in your user preferences so that you need not fill in the form at each visit to the artist's private web site.
So basically they won't say exactly what that file is, I thought "lest I try and remove it" - I suspected it had the potential to be doing something nasty to my machine. So I emailed Opendisc® support about their Opendisc® product and how to remove the small "file".
Opendisc® support got back to me today and specified exactly what the file was and how to remove it (quoted with typos):
Dear Sir,
You can cancel and redo your registration by following attentively this method:
- Close the Opendisc application.
- In Windows, go to "Start" and then "Run".
- Enter the command "regedit".
- Search for the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Opendisc" in the left pannel.
- Select this key and delete it.
- Close the Regedit tool
- Start Opendisc
- Make your subscription to Opendisc again.
Sincerely.
The Opendisc® Support Team.
You can follow these instructions to remove it, but it will be a bit pointless, next time you (auto) run the CD the data will just get added back to the registry, which (admittedly from memory) looked like info about the CD for the enhanced content, no personal info.
The catch is this - the CD is formatted to be a "mixed-mode" CD which is perfectly above board and a standard CD format, i.e. no breaking standards, no CD formatted not to read on a computer etc. The Opendisc® website actually says:
The Opendisc® technology respects the Blue Book specifications
This is a good thing - the format is also known as an "Enhanced CD", "CD Extra" or "CD Plus". Basically it's a disc with one part CD player compatible format (the type that on a computer would just show as small ".cda" files) and the other part formatted using a standard computer readable file format, which may contain different content, the "enhanced" content. When Windows reads the disc it has two choices, it can show the .cda files (which are practically useless in Windows Explorer) or show the content it (and other operating systems) was designed to do, i.e. the files that included the "autorun.exe" that I saw. This will also affect most software that plays audio from both compact discs and filesystems, since it will make the same decision as to which part of the CD to read.
So in short, for now Opendisc® appears to be completely safe (at least the Opendisc® versions I've seen such as on the CD "The Script"). If you need to get at the "raw" CD sound files on a mixed mode CD a decent "ripper" application will do that (I do not advocate any form of piracy) and will ignore the "Windows compatible" formatted part.
Disclaimers:
- Did I mention Opendisc® was a registered trademark (yes it bugs me ;) )?
- "Windows compatible" and so forth is not strictly the correct terminology, but used here for ease of understanding for non technical readers.
- I am in no way associated or funded by Opendisc® or its associates/affiliates, just relieved to see that this appears to be all above board stuff and I thought I'd pass on the news :)
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Rumble Pack Support in Vampire Castle
Luckily nobody from the NDS scene has caught onto this project yet which is quite nice because I can spend more time on QA and less dropping alpha versions out of the door. A good example of QA is work I've done today, whilst not largely progressing the development I have looked at adding rumble pack support (useful for simulating money falling into the fruit machine tray amongst other things) and cosmetic changes, such as "Click to play" becoming "Tap to play".
The end deliverables will be
- The Fruit Machine - Vampire Castle game.
- The Fruit Machine API - a framework for developing other fruit machines easily (although in C++, nothing high level I'm afraid).
- Fully documented source code.
- All of the source code, graphics and sound, including all content not used.
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