Version 1.5 makes a couple of potentially project breaking changes, but they are quite minor;
The tutorial code is now available right up to and including adding the high scores.
The tutorials are underway and the very first one exposed some omissions from the framework. First of all there was no way to work with individual X and Y values for a sprite without accessing their fields directly. Not that there’s too much wrong in that, but I’d prefer it wasn’t necessary anywhere in the framework code. Once users are happy using fields directly it can cause chaos when they begin accessing those they shouldn’t. (For non Blitzmax readers; while Blitzmax handles OOP, Polymorphism and Inheritance it is rather lacking in the Public / Private department).
Another thing missing was a simple way to handle lots of sprite objects. I always use a list of free sprites that I create at start up, then take one from it everytime I need one and put it in a list of live sprites. The live sprites are drawn, updated and used for collision detection etc. When one of those live sprites is finished with, I take it out of the live list, and put it back in the free list so it can be recycled. Simple enough.
Except, I’ve added a SpriteList type to the framework to handle this for you. I’ve also updated the first tutorial to use this new type.
Today I killed my website.
It’s easy done. I have two mySql databases; one for this site and one for messing around with. I decided to delete the ‘play’ database to create another for different reasons. Except I didn’t. I deleted the database this whole site revolves around.
Step 1. Panic! Thankfully I’ve not had the feeling of a massive-irreversible-f–k up for quite some time. I remember it well.
Step 2. Look for ‘undo’, ‘undelete’ or ‘restore’ options. Nothing.
Step 3. Go to www.dataflame.co.uk and log onto the support chat. I got an operator (William) in about 20 seconds. He had a look, but I couldn’t tell him my log in password so there was nothing he could do. He told me to submit a support request.
Step 4. Submit support request and begin chewing nails nervously. Just how long would a support request take to be picked up? Same day? Next day? Who knows.
Step 5. Check emails impatiently for 5 minutes. Nothing.
Step 6. Check the site to see if by some miracle the last 10 minutes has all been a bad dream. Amazingly it’s back! A minute later I get an email from dataflame support (William again, I assume it’s the same guy). Telling me it’s fixed and to check it and report any further problems.
Step 7. Breath again.
There we go. From the time of my dumb ass mistake to Dataflame support picking up the pieces and sending me on my way again was little more than 10 minutes. I’ve used their support several times before and it’s always been very good but that was for really minor issues compared to this.
Really good job Dataflame guys. I know where my hosting is staying for the foreseeable future. I always recommended you before but now I’m on a crusade to put the entire internet in your hands! Sort of. Well here’s a banner ad anyway…
Thanks Dataflame!
I’ve added some new parameters to the particle system to allow more emitter types. You can now;
Not big news, but not being able to do this was a bit of a glaring omission. I’ve also tweaked the editor to run at 60FPS from the original 20.
The particle editor comes with render source code so it can be used seperately (and freely) from the mbmFramework.
I’ve brought the framework release up to the latest version (V1.2). That can be found in the usual Downloads section. I’ll also try and keep the Changelog viewable online too, along with the documentation.
Happy coding!
There’s a new version of Gem Smasher available today in the Download section (V0.52). I don’t send this out for beta testing so please comment or email if you have any issues with it!
Work continues on the framework, which is the reason for the updated game release. I’ve greatly improved the timing system and it now defaults to vsync on for a smoother experience that stresses the CPU much less too. I’ve also added a simple profiler to allow you to track where your code is spending its time.
A full release of the latest framework will come in the next few days.