The VG Resource

Yesyes, boulders on boulders, I know
Happened to me while coding the tutorial. I just didn't get around to figuring out why. I'll have to see how it happens that the boulder gets thrown upwards - if it even does, maybe it's just the graphic. I looked at this code and that and made tiny changes here and there but it didn't solve it. So I decided to let it there for now and take another look later.
Besides, what would a beta be without some nice bugs?

Bugs are fun things... some of the time, at least

I didn't dare to touch the boulders ingame though. I had died on that level too much already :V

I somehow wasn't able to recreate the boulder bug, yet I cannot remember actually fixing it... I did play around with a few code parts but I didn't think I fixed it in any way. Maybe I did? Or maybe it's magic.



An intro animation (based on the tutorial system) - little Cels digs around and collects gems while waiting for you to push a button and start playing already.

Looks like I'll have to check out the update for myself when I'm not busy with my history essay.

Okay I think I did fix the boulders-on-boulders bug back then, recently I fixed another similar bug which had the same symptoms but only when the boulders or columns were at the very bottom. I also fixed a ton of other bugs and errors and special cases.
Why I come across so many bugs recently? The answer is simple: I am working on puzzles. Lots of puzzles. Not too many yet, but they're coming, but they take time, as they have to be solvable (although I have absolutely no idea if the solution can actually be found) so I have to test them a lot, make parts work the intended way or scrap impossible ideas altogether, try not to have too many unexpected dirtslides (always take care of hollow space below!), give enough tools but not too many, maybe lay a hint or not...

Aside from fixing bugs there isn't too much new. I made some fadein- and fadeout effects for menu navigation and I added an overview option to the pause menu (pause during a puzzle using the menu button, select "Overview" and you will be able to move the viewport around so you can inspect the level without having to move cels everywhere) - I figured it'd be nice if the player could check out the puzzles and look ahead. I also changed the gem count display to not display how many gems you collected, but how many gems are left to collect as that information is much more important!

Yea, that much for now. Thought I'd keep you informed that I'm still working on it

Looks the same as yesterday, sure. But it's a huge change from the other screenshot I showed before.
What I did yesterday was adding tile graphics instead of the old coloured squares since it looks much nicer this way. I also changed a bunch of smaller things and tidbits to make working with it more comfortable (I had already changed a lot since that other shot, though, and not everything here is really new even if it wasn't in back then).

As you can see in the new screenshot, when adding graphics I set the tool icons for toolboxes, so their contents would be more visible without needing to hover over them (which is still necessary for the contained tool count, though), but I also added an option to display them as ominous toolboxes (seen yesterday). There also is an image export option that lets you save the puzzle as a PNG (because I could as I have it at hand anyways). It is also possible to load custom tiles (although the image needs to be of the correct size and tile layout).

Today, I added undo and redo (five steps, could easily be more, but I thought that'd be enough) and replaced the block combobox with block buttons below the puzzle panel. The mouse functionality has also been changed, I settled for left click to set (or floodfill or pick, depending on the setting below), right click will remove (or flood-remove). Control plus left click will pick, just as if the pick setting was used. I think that should be more intuitive than the weird ctrl / shift combos from before and the block buttons are much more comfortable than the box.

Oh right, rocks and dirt checker pattern arrange themselves automatically while placing them (there also is a security net, but you wouldn't notice).

PE looks a lot more polished and usable than the image converter, I tell you.

Progress is awfully slow for several reasons but I'm still trying to get it done sometime :-P

I got some feedback. You can now access the options menu from withing the pause menu, too. Also, the topmost (selected by default) option of the pause menu is now reset instead of resume as I heard players may have to reset puzzles a lot (I had resume there before to prevent accidental resets but I assume it'll be okay as everyone will use the back or menu button to leave the pause menu anyways).
I forgot about all the other tiny fixes.
Oh right, the bottommost blocks of overhangs may now slightly indicate their stability if you look closely. Furthermore, game saves will now go into a subfolder (as every userpuzzle list will get its own), userpuzzles, -graphics and gameboy frames have their own subfolder, too (I think I may probably switch to ~load all puzzle list files from that folder~ instead of ~only load one file with a specific name~ someday in the future. I may have a similar setup for usergraphics, I guess).

I set up a system that allows for distribution of "locked" user puzzles, meaning puzzle list files that can't be opened with the puzzle editor. This way, people won't be able to simply check the puzzles in there or alter them to make them easier ;-)
It isn't a super-secure system, but good enough for the purpose.

I'm loving how this game is progressing so far! I went ahead and played the demo and it's really smooth! The game is really fun, awesome job with everything!

It was a bit of a hassle trying to find it though, maybe you should have Gors change the first post so that it shows the current progress of the game.

Any plans to make this on mobile devices? I'd love to see it on Google Play. ;D

There's a download link at the bottom of the first post - above the "support" icons. I made it bigger so it's more visible. I may add some screenshots there later.

I don't have any plans for posting it, I'll be more than happy enough when the PC version is done. I've put personal projects on halt for this.

I fixed a funny bug that involved ghost boulders.
Basically, two boulders could roll onto the same spot at the same time, which would leave one intact, but make the other a ghost boulder that wouldn't fall and wasn't solid any more.

Added removing ladders/ropes while climbing, the preview box for placing ladders or ropes now is at the position where the new one will be placed.

Also, as the two screenshots there show, I changed the user puzzle implementation. Instead of recognising one single file (which would require the user to swap this file to swap the user puzzle list), you can now drop all your funky user puzzle lists into the /ext/ folder, as all puzzle list files within that folder will be listed to choose from (*.pzl, *.pzc). I figured this would be more convenient.

Save data files now are named not only after the puzzle list, but get a suffix number that is some kind of hash value. This is to reduce the probability of two different user puzzle lists using the same save data, which would mess things up badly! (Mine always have the same name because I'm too lazy to change it (I use the user puzzle list system for debug test puzzles))
I also added some simple save data hacking prevention because I could (not that I'd expect anyone to bother).
I may make a similar "choose your file" thing for user graphics at some point. (I already made it so user graphic lists do not need to include all graphics, but only changed ones, as the game will just use the built-in ones if one isn't found).

Yea, I didn't pay any attention when we discussed the database homework solutions. Happens~

alright I just wanted to stop by and say Previous you sexy beast



I remember when this idea was... well, just that. An idea. A concept made of ASCII art. A simple little thing which probably wouldn't get finished like many other game projects started up on tSR. I especially remember this project (along with Super Arisa World) because I remember a lot of activity cropping up when I first joined the forums.

Forgetting to check back here to see what's been going on, I notice the topic in the recent post list and return to be surprised by quite a few posts by Previous of the game's engine... and, what's this, a playable demo! Surprised, I decide to download it and dive right in... and I must say, I am INCREDIBLY impressed. The engine runs very smoothly without any noticeable bugs, the game's "rules" are clearly defined and don't break no matter which way I position my ladders and ropes, and the levels are wonderfully designed, leaving the player begging for more. I'm also blown back by the music (and slightly saddened by the lack of external music files); did Gors make these tunes himself/herself/wartortle?

((Minor EDIT: I also liked how "Press A" actually made sense for once, as the default key literally starts bound to the A key. Bahaha!))

I only have one main gripe, and it's the shovel sound effect. All the other sound effects have a soft little -thud- or -click- or -tinktink- to them, but the sound effect played when digging is SO DARN LOUD. I'd appreciate if the volume for this one specific sound was reduced so it's not so grating, especially playing this with headphones on.

I also have a couple questions: is any version of the Puzzle Editor available for download or is that still under development? Also, I can't immediately tell what you used to make the game. Was it made from scratch through something like C++ or Oracle? Did you use a "ready-to-go" engine like Game Maker or Multimedia Fusion? Was it something in-between? Working on a project of my own, I'm interested in little technical stuff like this.

Anyway, great work! I now have high hopes for this project, and I feel that you are more than capable of meeting them.

See, this isn't just one of those game projects started on tSR. It's a game project driven by Previous. Previous usually sees things through after he started them, even if it should cost his life (as proof, tTSp is still running, albeit almost frozen in time).

The rules break at some specific points thanks to weird bugs. Just yesterday, I fixed another one that would make rocks fully stable when located above a ladder when ladders actually don't support rocks above (contrary to their description in the intial design, but I figured they shouldn't be usable as columns).
Personally I'm not a huge fan of the beta puzzles, though they were mainly designed for general debugging purposes. I've got a bunch of puzzle candidates for the final version here, but I've got to re-check them and make sure they're solvable and not too hard.
The music is composed by Gors in FamiTracker. The files are stored within the EXE as mp3s and could be exported with certain programs, but I figured a seperate soundtrack release (with probably higher quality files) would be nicer, though I think that decision should be up to Gors! I could probably allow "user music", too, so everyone could drop their own music files (or higher quality ones) somewhere and the game would use those instead, though I'm not sure if there is any demand!

The sound effects will all be reworked at some point! I've planned to do so for a while, but never got around to it. The shovel sound is one of my first sound effects ever, I just kept it because it had such perfect timing.

Like everything, the Puzzle Editor is still being developed, although it probably is the most finished part of the project. It will be released along with the final version of the game or shortly afterwards. Personally, I think the user content could be the best part.

The game and utilities are programmed using the old Delphi 6 IDE. Andorra2D is used for graphics displaying (it wraps OpenGL somehow), BASS.DLL for music, pngimage 1.56 or something for loading and saving PNG data (used for exporting puzzles as images and for the game graphics - yea, the graphic list files basically store a bunch of PNGs with some additional information).
It's not quite C++, but Delphi Pascal is what I'm most used to. The only Oracle thing I ever worked with was Oracle SQL and I'm not sure if I'd ever want to use that for anything ((I'm not counting Java as an Oracle thing because Oracle just made it worse)).

Summing up, DIG is slowly crawling towards the finish line. It shouldn't take another year.


Speaking of recent progress, unstable dirt ceilings now have a little "dirt falls down" animation. Yes, I'm trying to make sure falling dirt won't be too much of a surprise.