Great feedback, Misha and robly
And robly, that video was really helpful. The problem definitely does *not* have to do with refreshing the page (thanks for bearing with me and my 'did your restart your computer?' IT helpdesk stuff
)
I had this very problem happen when I tried the game on my old laptop last week. It was strange, since this problem affected the game on one computer, and not the other. Thought I had fixed it, but I guess it's still lingering there.
Edit: What version of Flash are people using? I'm trying to reproduce the problem, and having a dickens of a time. On my old laptop, the problem got fixed when I updated flash. Couldn't figure out why, but I just shrugged it off at the time. Now I'm downloading old versions of flash to see if I can bring the problem back -- so far no such luck.
Edit 2: Oooh-oooh-oooh -- after a few hours of uninstalling and reloading flash -- and punching a couple holes in the wall -- I was able to reproduce the bugs you guys have been talking about by playing the game in Chrome (instead of Firefox, as I normally do). Have no idea why that would lead to such specific bugs, but at least now I have a lead!
Edit 3: I "figured it out." Or, at least, I think things should be working with the magnetic fields. Whatever is going on seems to be pretty clearly a bug in flash - though it's the strangest thing. It only affects certain versions of flash running in certain browsers. And there was no real rhyme or reason to it -- I just kept changing things, and used process of elimination to figure out what lines of code to 'fix'. Which is unsettling, since who knows when something similar might crop up. Anyway, you'll know you're running the new version if Shocktopus is festive for the holidays. If the fields still don't work for you, let me know (and the browser/version of flash would be helpful). ....what a long day hunting for that bug... now I can finally start working on the other feedback!