Game progress Update #57

Hello world! And welcome to the fifty seventh Dev with Dave game progress update!

After taking some time off from coding the other week, I was feeling super inspired to carry on writing Flappy-vaders.

However all plans went completely out the window when my girlfriend was rushed off to hospital in an ambulance.

She’s better now thankfully, and is back home. However spending time visiting the hospital severely cut down the amount of time I had to spend working on the game.

I did however manage to get some stuff done! So without further ado, let me tell you all about what I’ve done 🙂

News from the Testers

I’ve had some great feedback from the testers regarding the first build of Flappy-vaders.

The video below was sent to me from one of the testers. It shows them racking up a massive high score by using the “No Max Ceiling” exploit.

To fix this, I simply added a line or two to the player movement code to limit the players y position if it tried to go off the top of the screen.

This is what I added just before the player sprite position is updated.

//	A quick ceiling
If playerPosY# < -5
				    	
    playerPosY# = -5
				    	
Endif

I opted to limit the ceiling at -5 rather than 0, because the player sprites origin is set to the top left corner of the sprite. This way the sprite more or less disappears from view, but the player can still see it.

Daily Prizes Scratch Cards

Another thing the testers pointed out was that the list of scratch card prizes in the daily prizes screen was out of order.

So I reordered the list. It now runs from the Biggest 3 fruit prize at the top of the list, down to the smallest two fruit prize at the bottom of the list.

I also fixed the rewarded video ads. Previously the button promised a reward of a hundred coins, but only gave 10 coins. Now both the button text and reward are both 10 coins.

Updated version

The new build with these updates will be available for the test team in the next day or two. I’m hoping I should have time to compile it and upload it later on today. If not I will do it tomorrow (Even though it’s the weekend)

That’s all for now

And that’s it for this update.

I’ll be back in two weeks time. Fingers crossed there will be no more disasters and I’ll be able to concentrate on the game.

Until next time. 🙂

Game Progress Update #56

Hello World! And welcome to the fifty sixth Dev with Dave Game Progress Update.

In App Purchase

I’m sorry if this bit of the update feels a little thin on the ground. I’m not sure how, but I managed to lose my notes from the work I did on Flappy-vaders last week.

I’d already roughed out most of the in app purchase functionality using comment first coding, so it was an easy job to copy the code I had written in a separate project, into the game.

I am aware that there is an issue with the Ad Removal not sticking under certain circumstances. But I think I know what is causing it, and I will get it fixed for the next build.

Graphical Artefacts

I was testing the game and noticed that I was getting graphical errors on the display. This only happened on a mobile device, not on my tablet, so I hadn’t previously noticed it.

As you can see in the image above, there are several artefacts in the top half of the screen. Most noticeable of them all is the one under the A in the logo.

It took me a while to realise where the problem laid. I did eventually work it out however. It was a newly created render surface which hadn’t been cleared.

This was remedied by simply hiding the object until it was required.

Recording footage for promo

I also recorded some of of the game play from Flappy-vaders during any periods where I was testing it. I was considering using it for promotional videos, but I’m not sure.

The videos I recorded are genuine gameplay, and they have on screen debug info in the corner. I think I’d be better off if I created specific scenes in the game. For example, set it to just display pipe zones.

I might have some fun with the footage I have got though. If I get chance.

Releasing the test build

The other big news is that now all of the initial tasks from the Trello have been completed, there was nothing stopping me from starting the testing.

The first email went out to the testers yesterday. If you haven’t received it then be sure to let me know. It contains a link to download the test version if your email address was added to the list of testers.

So far the testing has already revealed a bug I was not aware of, but it has been added to the Trello.

That’s all for now

That’s all I have time for now. I’m currently a couple of hours behind on this blog, and still need to create the social media images.

I’m taking some time off from work the next couple of weeks, so the next Flappy-vaders update won’t be until 31st march 2023. (Says Dave double and triple checking the calendar! lol)

So I’ll see you all then 🙂