Elysian Shadows

Hi all, I've been away from posting here for a long time but still following up on developer videos and forums. I took a long break from programming and deiced to work on finishing something simple instead of something that'll take ages to do.

Pick-o-Mania is a simple color matching game to clear pieces off the board. It's still in alpha stage for now...there's no scoring system and menus aren't in place yet. But most of the interaction is there, and I want to have it tested to see if it works properly (no crashes) with other people. Aside from what I just mentioned, some other game rules would be added, and graphics will surely be different in the final product.

Again, this game was made on my graphics engine which will continue to develop as I learn more from this experience. Some of the features that the game uses from the engine are:
- Incremental loading (3D models are loaded as smaller chunks to keep a consistent framerate in loading screens)
- Entity handling and smooth movements of 3D models
- Per-instance culling (although it's barely used in a game like this)
- Support multiple shader effects
- Color picking system (entities have unique color IDs that get detected when the mouse clicks on them)

Simply click on the pieces that match two or more of the same color to remove them from the board. In the play screen, press "enter" to go back to the starting screen, and load the game again with a different set of pieces.

Download it here: http://www.box.net/shared/2ozqm6rf2m
Screenshot of what it looks now:


DirectX is used to produce the graphics, SDL for input and windowing, and FMOD for sound. You may need to download the VC++ 2008 runtime library, but I didn't include it in order to save download time for those that already have it. Also I'm not sure if an additional runtime is required for DirectX but this is just one of the things I'll find out in letting others test the game first.

Runs fine for me. It's a good start.

That's good to hear. It was a pain to get the entity management done right. It used to be that it won't wipe out all the entity data completely resulting in a crash when another game is started. Hopefully the only problems I will find with this release are missing DLLs.

Next up I am going to add the feature of replacing cleared pieces with new ones on the board, so it will be a continuous puzzle gaming session. But I'm tempted to add other things to make this game unique, and having a hard time coming up with more ideas for now.

So after day of tinkering with the entity manager and numerous crashes, I just figured out how to texture and mesh swap the pieces correctly while keeping all the instances in check. This means I can now replace empty areas with random pieces and make the game more playable. Still don't know of any other ways to make the puzzle game more interesting, though.

Looks great dawg, nice start i think!
I couldn't run it but its probably just the DLL's as you said, although i cant identify which ones are missing heh

CC Ricers wrote:Still don't know of any other ways to make the puzzle game more interesting, though.

Try doing some research of other popular puzzle games, etc

Did you get a message saying something like "The side-by-side configuration is incorrect?" If so, that one's most likely the result of needing the Visual C++ 2008 runtime library. It's a one time install- you won't need to copy it for every program that needs it.

CC Ricers wrote:Did you get a message saying something like "The side-by-side configuration is incorrect?" If so, that one's most likely the result of needing the Visual C++ 2008 runtime library. It's a one time install- you won't need to copy it for every program that needs it.

I got the 'Visual C++ 2008 runtime library' hmm, still not working on my XP/Vista/7 systems. Its still bitchin' about the configuration, no worries though

GroundUpEngine wrote:

CC Ricers wrote:Did you get a message saying something like "The side-by-side configuration is incorrect?" If so, that one's most likely the result of needing the Visual C++ 2008 runtime library. It's a one time install- you won't need to copy it for every program that needs it.

I got the 'Visual C++ 2008 runtime library' hmm, still not working on my XP/Vista/7 systems. Its still bitchin' about the configuration, no worries though

What do you mean "It's still bitching about the configuration", do you mean the library or my program? Every last bit of info will really help so talk like a real games tester I'm wanting to learn how to distribute DirectX programs made on Visual C++ with the most compatibility possible. It's not exactly a very demanding program :P

CC Ricers wrote:

GroundUpEngine wrote:

CC Ricers wrote:Did you get a message saying something like "The side-by-side configuration is incorrect?" If so, that one's most likely the result of needing the Visual C++ 2008 runtime library. It's a one time install- you won't need to copy it for every program that needs it.

I got the 'Visual C++ 2008 runtime library' hmm, still not working on my XP/Vista/7 systems. Its still bitchin' about the configuration, no worries though

What do you mean "It's still bitching about the configuration", do you mean the library or my program? Every last bit of info will really help so talk like a real games tester I'm wanting to learn how to distribute DirectX programs made on Visual C++ with the most compatibility possible. It's not exactly a very demanding program :P

ok bud Well after i check the obvious stuff like missing DLL's and the Visual C++ runtime.. when i run in Vista it just says "Pick-o-Mania.exe has stopped working", and on XP i get "The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem".

Another thing i did before with my engine, (the debug file "stdout.txt" or whatever) make sure you leave it empty when you upload the game.. so if it crashes on start up the tester/gamer doesn't consult the debug output (from your last execution) :P

It worked fine from the start for me. I already had VS installed so I have a feeling that that might be the problem for others.

First I got the error message:

The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

Then I downloaded the DLL and placed it inside the game folder, but got another DLL error.

The program can't start because MSVCP100.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.]

Again downloaded the DLL, set it in the right place and got the same error message, but telling me the MSVCR100.dll was missing. I downloaded it again but got another error, telling me that the entry point could not be located in the MSVCR100.dll(I guess the file is corrupted). So yeah, dlls are the main problem right now.

OBS: I'm using Window 7 Ultimate, and I do have Visual Studio 2008 installed.