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The Electric Shocktopus v 0.9
(Grab it on Humble)

Changes:
-Lots of minor bug fixes
-Art style changed (woo, tesla coils!)
-Beginning and end animations improved
-Fixed a Linux bug

Known Bugs/Suggestions:
-Game is lagging on Windows (memory is possibly to blame?)
-Memory leak
-TargetFrameRate bug... boo!
-A couple switch marker issues: shocktopus covering it, or level 19
-Magnetic field tiles overlap slightly, also there's an odd pixel break in the current tiles occasionally
-Sprite issues: edge of charges, down arrows,
-Some stars un-gettable
-Didn't save stars after Level 22's detour
-Exit through diagonal
-Quick nav buttons in menu for Acts
-Bug when " marks are used in signs
-Sign text hard to change (UI-wise)

-Add in some analytics so I can improve the game

Last Edit: 5/6

So I've tried 0.9 for a bit, and I'm not sure if this is my perception, but it seems that the new version's animations (and behind the scenes calculations?) are much slower than 0.8's? Since this would be quite major, I've looked closer at this: (the second gif is smaller because of the additional animations in the background.)
Additionally, when 0.9 is running (specifically, right when the Unity splash screen ends and TES starts), most actions (moving windows, maximizing, even scrolling) become extremely slow even in windows that aren't TES. This effect is not noticeable when 0.8 is running instead (but of course, it must still exist since TES must consume some CPU cycles).

Certainly there have been many other changes, but this one seems like there's some underlying issue that needs to be fixed.

Whoa, indeed, that's a strange one. Oddly, 0.9 runs just as smoothly as 0.8 on my Mac, but when I put it on my windows device I noticed the same thing. (And presumably my windows device, being an alienware, should be able to handle more than my macbook. So it seems to certainly be a windows/mac difference.)

Particularly unusual since I mainly changed graphics and not too much else. My theory is some of the new images/textures are pushing me over some memory limit. I'll run through, do some compression, and see what I can do!

Thanks for catching that.

While I'm here, I might as well point out a few *tiny* bugs (which may or may not have been introduced this version):

testtubegames wrote:*I (finally) realize now what to do to stop the game from speeding up -- thought I'd fixed it before but clearly not. I realize there's another loophole that can make the game run at max-speed instead of the standard 30 fps.

http://www.testtubegames.com/forums/vie ... =391#p2958
This still happens, and I believe has done so for the past several versions.
Note that the magnetic tile under Shocktopus is missing the switch marker. Also, when dragging TES in the editor, the markers get "erased" (but all but the one from the tile TES was left on come back when playing the level).

Currents' magnetic fields appear to overlap in some places: While this isn't noticeable with regular magnetic fields, the overlap of the weaker fields increases their opacity which makes it clearly noticeable.

The edges of charges seem to have some weird coloring: See especially: Bottom edges of top half-charges, top/bottom of lowest full charges.
Also the arrows of signs/switches: (While these are quite small, certainly every bit of polish helps when getting more people to play the game!)

Ok, here's a more major one: It appears that some stars are un-gettable (TES passes right through them).
...
...And of course when I try to reproduce it it doesn't work. Well, I saw it happen once with a switch-controlled star, and once in a regular level (level 5, third star) while the game was sped-up.

Edit: Note that in level 19, the switch markers for the charges aren't drawn for 3 of them. (Potentially the background is messing with the draw-routine?)

Edit: Bug: When returning from the secret level of level 22, I lost the star on the left and had to get it again (or rather, hit the spikes while trying).

A Random Player wrote:Ok, here's a more major one: It appears that some stars are un-gettable (TES passes right through them).
...
...And of course when I try to reproduce it it doesn't work. Well, I saw it happen once with a switch-controlled star, and once in a regular level (level 5, third star) while the game was sped-up.

It happened to me, so I got a screenshot. In fact, I saw it happen with all three stars in C05D.

Is this intentional? Pressing down does complete the level.

Edit: So I have quite a few pages in my level editor right now, and it's taking some time to reach the end each time. Could we have some sort of quick navigation bar (at the bottom or somewhere)? Something like
(1) 2 3 4 5
This may help in the main levels too, if someone wants to jump to act 3 (or if more acts are introduced).

Edit: Every time I open and close a level, I get a small increase in memory usage according to task manager; this appears to be similar to the memory problem of earlier versions?

Wow, great finds. And here I was lamenting that the list of things to do on TES was getting too short

I was able to reproduce and track down that stars issue. And I've cut down the memory size a lot (would love to do more), and that seems to help the game run a bit smoother on Windows. Though I'll have to do more testing to make sure.

The framerate issue is aggravating. Definitely a Unity bug... the worst kinds of bugs since I don't have much control over them. Alas. I'll try upgrading my Unity and see if that works.

testtubegames wrote:Wow, great finds. And here I was lamenting that the list of things to do on TES was getting too short

I was able to reproduce and track down that stars issue. And I've cut down the memory size a lot (would love to do more), and that seems to help the game run a bit smoother on Windows. Though I'll have to do more testing to make sure.

The framerate issue is aggravating. Definitely a Unity bug... the worst kinds of bugs since I don't have much control over them. Alas. I'll try upgrading my Unity and see if that works.

Did you see the exit-through-diagonal question above?

NealCruco wrote:Did you see the exit-through-diagonal question above?

Indeed - that was not intentional, and will be duly squashed as a mechanic.

testtubegames wrote:

NealCruco wrote:Did you see the exit-through-diagonal question above?

Indeed - that was not intentional, and will be duly squashed as a mechanic.

Great. Just making sure it didn't fall through the cracks.