Pingus X-Fi2 v0.9

[jbob182]

Hm, I can not think of why this would be. I will be releasing an update that will remove the large loading time, this should fix your issue. ( The update may not be for a little while, I am having trouble with the basher undoing itself).

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Update released

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Does anyone know why wascrash is always read as nil ( around line 23 in main.lua) on the player?

[CrowdAds]

[jbob182]

We have found a way to allow the game to allow many more penguins, and it should run like there is only 1 present. We are working on the code right now. It uses Memoization and week tables to avoid ram overload. We record the actions of a penguin at a certain x and y, and create a unique key using their position. And we check if a penguin has already been in that area through the unique key and if so, just redo its action. The lag was from the collision engine, so with this setup there will only be 1 penguin using the engine.

In computing, memoization is an optimization technique used primarily to speed up computer programs by having function calls avoid repeating the calculation of results for previously-processed inputs. Memoization has also been used in other contexts (and for purposes other than speed gains), such as in simple mutually-recursive descent parsing[1] in a general top-down parsing algorithm[2][3] that accommodates ambiguity and left recursion in polynomial time and space. Although related to caching, memoization refers to a specific case of this optimization, distinguishing it from forms of caching such as buffering or page replacement. In the context of some logic programming languages, memoization is also known as tabling.[4]

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The player will handle 9 without the slightest lag with this system, before it could only handle 3 without the lag.

[jbob182]

Update Released, maximum number of penguins is 9, no more editing of the Collision system, and various bugs fixed.

[jbob182]

We have finished custom level support, level exporting, importing, the level generator, and several optimizations. We only have to make the climber,bomber,miner,blocker, and builder before the final release.

[Habhome]

Careful with saying "only" Just because you say it there may be complications =P

[jbob182]

Yes, there will probably be a few complications, but at this current point we only have to do those abilities and any bugs that arise from them.

[delirius]

Great to hear that you are progressing so fast. Good job guys.

[jbob182]

We ask that no one tries to update pingus for the next couple of hours, we are restarting our sourceforge setup in order to accompany some new tools such as the installer and the updater.

[jbob182]

All of the tools are being re-written in Java, we have also made a windows installer that will either update or install the java run time environment on your computer along with installing some level sets if you choose to do so. The updater is basically done ( we have created a wrapper this time so that way the updater is updated before running) and the level generator and uploader are in progress.

[Habhome]

Re-written in Java? What were they in before? ^^

[jbob182]

All of the programs were in c# before. After arriving at some problems and seeing how disorderly the code was, we decided to re-write all of it from scratch and in a multi-platform language.

We are also getting some rather interesting stats : 706 downloads, over 50% of which are coming from France, and 80 downloads just this week for pingus.

[Habhome]

True, Java is good for it's multi-platform capabilities. I'd do it in C# though, being much more proficient in that language.

And the reason you get downloads must be because you're actively announcing news of the progress =P

[jbob182]

True, Java is good for it's multi-platform capabilities. I'd do it in C# though, being much more proficient in that language.

True, but we are still able to bring some amazing optimization in java, ie: before the updater took several minutes just to download some levels, our java updater takes a maximum around 1 minutes ( I often get around 30s) to update the whole game.

Also, we are both leaving the zen x-fi2 as soon as we finish this annoying project that is getting way to complex with the climber and builder. We will both be moving to android to work on the same project with some other people who do art and physics engines, so this is like an introduction to java for us.

And the reason you get downloads must be because you're actively announcing news of the progress =P

It could be, but we have not released an update for months on the code since we cant get past the climber yet, it has to basically override our whole collision system, and have its own.

[jbob182]

We have had great luck these past few days, the climber is greatly simplified in code and works amazing, the miner's functionality is done, its just fine tuning left, and the builder is done as well!

[Jolien]

I can't wait to start playing this game. It looks amazing

[lesurvolte]

Excuse me but I don't understand how to download it????

[jbob182]

You can not download this game right now, we had to remove the files for public downloading, because we were experimenting with our new tools such as the up-loader, and that would give you a buggy/unplayable copy of Pingus.

[jbob182]

With further optimizations, it is only up to 25 penguins that the game begins to become unplayable, but it still has a fairly high frame rate considering how many penguins there are, this lag is comparable to 9 penguins on the first version of the third engine. This time, the lag is not from our math or collision file, but rather the drawing and covering up of penguins. So there may be room to remove even more lag. The lua code is mostly done, all that is left is to allow for multiple entrances besides the snow one which cant be finished until we finish the only remaining tool to complete; the generator ( which is also near completion). (All known and theoretical bugs have been fixed)

[jbob182]

Question: We have figured out how to dramatically speed up the miner and bomber along with letting the game self-repair the collision file in case of a crash. However, this will increase the level size to around 7mb. So, would you prefer:

*Self-repairing collision files, and a faster miner and bomber with 7mb levels
OR
*A slower bomber and miner, and you would have to run the updater on your copy of Pingus every time there was a crash during gameplay, however the levels would be around 4mb

[©reative]

Personally I'd prefer larger file sizes with better gameplay and all. Just a thought, you could post a poll for people to vote