Voting time - 8-bit Wars game comp - Jan 25th to Mar 31st 2019

[Xerra]

yep - it was very late in the week when I was testing gravitus and everyone seemed to have it running ok, so I thought it was just me - in that i't very much 'my bad' and I humbly apologise. I was going to bring up the Macos Compress thing as a side note after the comp, so it would help anyone with a mac

There is some kind of issue for some people involving zipped GMS 2 games built from the compiler but it seems random. I discovered it the other day when I went to see my nephew and was downloading my own game for him to have a look at. It came up with the same error message about not finding the game that someone posted the other day about Gravitus. I found the solution was to just move the game to another directory for three of the four games but one just wanted to constantly shove it in the trash.

IT'S NOT THAT BAD!!!! :-(

Anyway, this is something that needs a bit of investigating because these games get such low visibility apart from mostly us guys judging them that we might never know. If someone downloads a game and has a problem then usually they'll just dump it and play something else. That's why I like making games through these compo's - at least we get a chance at some feedback.

Was anyone else not able to play Damnation Alley?

[Derron]

Check if your GMS somehow things to set the "write protected" flag on folders in which you want to store config files. Maybe it crashes for this reason?

@ damnation
Worked here as did the other entries. (sorry, you want to read about people not being able to run it - so "yes it works" doesn't help that much but... as I was posting anyways...)


bye
Ron

[iWasAdam]

Damnation Alley played just fine - it was Gravitus with the issue

[3DzForMe]

What problem did you have with Gravitus?

Didn't work on two different W7 32 bit laptops.  [edit] added screen grabs of pop-ups

Worked on my son's 64-bit W10 desktop that had an uber graphics card.

Suspect it might only be 64-bit - great game by the way 

On my 32-bit machines it crashed at the start of first mission with some error blah in a pop-up. Only difference between 32-but and 64-bit is I opted for the .rar file intead of the installer - the installer borked on the 32-bit machine at the vc_redist.exe bit - near the end. So navigated to find the gravitus.exe file and ran it that way.

[DaiHard]

Hi Folks,

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to try out the games before the deadline - partly because I've been rather unwell (nothing serious, just a cold that has laid me out!), and partly work - but I'll try to take a look over the next week or so. From following the worklogs, it looks like there are some tremendous efforts there. In a way, I'm glad "Merlin's Beard" never got far...

Best wishes,

D

[Derron]

You can still vote till today's midnight. ;-)

Bye
Ron

[Morpheus]

Yep gravitus crashed out for me too 
On macos the package was completely damaged, so the Os would run it - possibly a packing/zip issue. my suggestion here is always to use "compress" from finder on the .app - as Macos has all that inbuilt
On windows the program runs and the intro and menus looked and sounded great until the game itself - when it crashed!

The problem with MacOS is its inbuilt security; Apple are pushing to make all software certified by them so that dodgy software becomes a thing of the past. I think it's a bit draconian; but what Apple wants usually happens. Currently its pretty easy to bypass the app is corrupt messages. This was posted on the forums a while back.

From a terminal:

sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine Gravitus.app

As for windows I am still trying to get to the bottom of the issue: Its pointing towards a driver/graphic card/DirectX issue. All the suggested solutions haven't worked, as far as I can tell. What makes it harder is that all my Windows computers it works perfectly on. Currently 3 of them ranging from 10+ year old to a very modern gaming laptop. So Frustrating 

Cheers,

Aaron

[Morpheus]

Check if your GMS somehow things to set the "write protected" flag on folders in which you want to store config files. Maybe it crashes for this reason?

GMS only allows you to write to these areas in Windows:
%localappdata%\<Game Name>
or
%appdata%\<Game Name>

We have no options for 32bit or 64bit installations; I would assume it's the latter? But saying that Gravitus runs on my very old laptop which is running Vista 32bit... Very annoying!

Cheers,

Aaron

[iWasAdam]

So Frustrating

Yep I know exactly what you mean there. Windows (and it's different versions) was always a pain in the butt, but recently Apple are starting to go the same way...

@ macOS. Hmm.
I followed the instructions xattr, etc and it worked - which is great
My thoughts on this are - you should not have to do this or anything like it to get it running. It would sorta point to a setting in (whichever) language you are using. something that needs to be set - a compiler option?
If not, I would suggest checking the forums/support for said language and notify them that MacOS compile does not work correctly and what would they suggest

Yep - I know it's a real faff trying to get it sorted

[Morpheus]

@ macOS. Hmm.
I followed the instructions xattr, etc and it worked - which is great
My thoughts on this are - you should not have to do this or anything like it to get it running. It would sorta point to a setting in (whichever) language you are using. something that needs to be set - a compiler option?
If not, I would suggest checking the forums/support for said language and notify them that MacOS compile does not work correctly and what would they suggest

I agree you shouldn't have to do the xattr thing! I am pretty sure Apple are trying to stop piracy and apps that try to do things that are not Apple compliant. Which is obviously a good thing, as Apple always wants everything to work and work well on their machines. Also by making all software go via their vetting service it also stops viruses and or other threats BUT this is a pain for us developers! It's also very hard to know if the apps are going to work on other machines because as a licensed Apple developer you don't get the errors appearing on your apps because you have 'profiles' installed to allow you to develop and test without going via the vetting route.

All of this wasn't an issue before macOS Mojave.So I can only imagine its going to get worse now that Apple are pushing the Macs are for gaming route. Apple arcade or whatever they are going to call it? 

Cheers,

Aaron

[Derron]

Genus Prime compiled on Yosemite with an ancient XCode runs on Xerras pre-Mojave-Mac (10.13) and of course on my Yosemite one. It does not run on Qube's nor IWasAdams Mac.
The build of IWasAdam (running Mojave 10.14.4) at least works on his computer and in my Yosemite - but still fails on Qube's Mac (10.14.3).

So I do not know what might be the reason for crashes in our games on Macs....


bye
Ron

[iWasAdam]

As far as I am aware Vivamortis works on all macs - including Qubes (i've not had a note saying it wasn't working).
There was an issue with retina stuff, but again that seemed to be solved.

I am NOT a certified developer, so it's definitely something in the compiler used. I do think the fact that GenusPrime did run, but not on Qubes Mac is very interesting as the compiler (XCode) is the same one. But I was using MX2 for vivamortis and NG for genusprime compiles. so maybe there is something different going on?

[Morpheus]

Genus Prime compiled on Yosemite with an ancient XCode runs on Xerras pre-Mojave-Mac (10.13) and of course on my Yosemite one. It does not run on Qube's nor IWasAdams Mac.
The build of IWasAdam (running Mojave 10.14.4) at least works on his computer and in my Yosemite - but still fails on Qube's Mac (10.14.3).

So I do not know what might be the reason for crashes in our games on Macs....

It worked on my Mac Mini (the new model) 10.14.4 no problem. It also worked on my older iMac (Late 2013) running 10.14.4.

As for why these apps fail who knows; GMS can build via Xcode or via its own runner, I have not had issues with either. Perhaps in the future I will put out the alternatives for people to try. I have always gone for the Xcode compiled route as you would think is the 'most' compatible way to build with Macs?

Cheers,

Aaron

[Derron]

So _my_ builds worked on your Macs - or the ".mt.app"-build by IWasAdam (don't think so - looking at its download counts and the fact that the Downloadlink was incorrect until weekend when Qube replied to my "check the .mt.app-build please" request).

That is so ... hmppf odd. Especially as the same source code and NG basis builds then on IWasAdam's Mac. Qube is no NG user and did not like to install it - but I would wonder if it would not run then when doing his own compilation/build. Asked Brucey for help but he seems to be a bit busy the last weeks. Hope we get it fixed until next compo :p


bye
Ron

[Morpheus]

So _my_ builds worked on your Macs - or the ".mt.app"-build by IWasAdam (don't think so - looking at its download counts and the fact that the Downloadlink was incorrect until weekend when Qube replied to my "check the .mt.app-build please" request).

That is so ... hmppf odd. Especially as the same source code and NG basis builds then on IWasAdam's Mac. Qube is no NG user and did not like to install it - but I would wonder if it would not run then when doing his own compilation/build. Asked Brucey for help but he seems to be a bit busy the last weeks. Hope we get it fixed until next compo :p

Not sure what build I have; I assume it would be the one that was in the feed.

Attached a screenshot of the folder, if that helps?

Cheers,

Aaron