A word from the other guy behind R...

[temporarysanity]

So, um... nobody knows me here probably, unless he has been playing Soldat since really early versions, and was registered on the first Soldat board I was administrating.

Anyway, I was once known by the nickname dolny (sounds like 'dolly' for english people I guess, lol).

At first I decided not to say anything, but after reading some of the posts I felt that I need to clarify some things about a bizzare game named 'R'.

One day MM msged me, saying that he has made a really plain and simple platform game that will probably work on some mobile phones (besides Windows). It was even more basic than the unfinished 'final' version you guys have seen. No special plot, just jump'n'run game (which was even more boring imho - yeah, it's hard to believe ).

But... I thought that the character with the umbrella could be a good start for a psychedelic-mindf*cking-platform-logic-game inspired by my sick mind, Monty Python, old Amiga game 'Benefactor' and all kinds of different stuff (and remember, "Winners don't use drugs!" ). I contacted Mateusz Drabik (Mr Plant) - who created some of the gfx contents like Strangler (the big green monster) or Joseph itself, and we started discussing the game with Michal (who agreed to change the original game into something much bigger, with plot and stuff). We had millions of great ideas, for the plot, characters and hidden areas. There were references to writers, movies, books, cartoons, old games and a lot of different stuff. We planned some philosophical conversations with characters in game, you were supposed to meet the most annoying character in computer game history and so on. I also planned a character that was supposed to make the player feel down and depressed ("So, you're playing this game now, not thinking that your parents can die soon, you may have cancer, your girlfriend will probably dump you soon, and instead of spending time with her you're playing a retro pixel-art crappy game? Man, you suck") The game was to become something totally different, but unfortunately it ended up as a boring, unfinished, empty game that is nothing special. But, maybe someone will decide to compile it for Linux, Mac OS maybe, then try to develop it further. I would be happy to continue developing R, making this game interesting, bizzare and really original. So, if somebody has the needed skills and is interested, please email me.

I'm sure somebody will find this game interesting, because we had some really great ideas (like the baloon man, hidden room with dancing... and stuff).

If not, well, we had some great time inventing things for the game. Even though animating pixel-art is a real pain in the ass (some of the animations took like one day to be done properly - ask Mr Plant )

All in all, I'm perfectly happy with like 5 people enjoying this game, besides Michal, Mateusz and me I guess it's a game for the people who liked Alice in Wonderland

Peace.

PS. I know something about Michal, he collects pink elephant figures. 

[Ender]

Heh i love your _{(and michal's)} humour

But yeah, the game just doesn't play natural, plus it starts hella slow and it keeps crashing on controlling the mole in level 20 so i can't even finish it. Too bad, maybe another programmer could work on it but i doubt he would have the same sense of humour and that's really the best thing about the project.

Still, a fun christmas gift

[temporarysanity]

Yeah, the great thing was that Michal, Mateusz and I - we all like the same type of humour, but still - I hope somebody will decide to develop this game further.

[n0b-]

Thank you for creating this game, I hope it will get what it deserves and will go on in its development.


@Ender: find a way to sneak without being noticed. The Guard won't bother you,

[Keron Cyst]

Dolny!

Translate your chat with MM in the Zorth computer terminal!

[Michal Marcinkowski]

I think we created something unique and that is awesome. Although it's not finished we showed that there can be a different approach to platform games and maybe we'll spark some creativity in other minds.

PS. I know something about Michal, he collects pink elephant figures. 

Just don't tell them about the crabs!

[Anna]

Yeah, the great thing was that Michal, Mateusz and I - we all like the same type of humour, but still - I hope somebody will decide to develop this game further.

Out of curiosity, why was development stopped?

[cooz]

they thought it will be even more special if it won't be finished

[temporarysanity]

Nice one cooz

Well, to be honest I don't remember. I think it was because our gfx artist was offline for a couple of months or even longer. It was really hard to cooperate - 3 people from three different towns, plus one of them had problems with getting online. And, another reason may be that pixel-art was very time consuming - especially the animations and Mateusz (Matt) had other things to work on - for his art school.

Michal started his new project - Crimson Skies and it just fade away...

[VijchtiDoodah]

Michal started his new project - Crimson Skies and it just fade away...

As much as I'd like to see Crimson Glory, I'd also like to see much more of R.  Let's hope you guys can get back together to finish this game up once CG is out.

[mxyzptlk]

wait, you meant it to be a mind-fuck? I thought that was just me.

[Keron Cyst]

Hm, that's it??

I think you could find a willing pixel-graphics artist over here to work with while you're waiting for CG. There are plenty of Soldat modders who create their images in even Paint.

[Decessus]

well, I've always wanted to work on a mind-f**k game, I absolutly love the genre. I will have a look at the source code, and see if I can be of any assistance there, I also do graphics and music if is needed too.

[Jerr]

Hmm, cool. Compiliing for Linux, eh?
Maybe someone could rewrite the code (seeing as how MM said it is a pain to work with) in Python or Perl.

[mar77a]

No need, c++ is linux compatible and sdl works with opengl, so it shouldn't be hard to compile this game with a linux compiler. This stuff does often require changes in the source code however.

[sqweek]

The source changes required for linux are trivial. I'm not sure what library itoa() comes from but it doesn't appear to be standard - I changed all occurences to use snprintf().
The other problem was the "pick" variable being defined as an int then set to 99923909011, which isn't guarenteed to fit in an int (and which gcc won't accept as a literal int). long is only 32-bits here aswell so I changed pick to int64_t which is defined in <inttypes.h> - probably best to double check whether that's portable back to windows.
Oh yeah, the code isn't clean enough to compile with gcc4 and I'm not particularly interested in making it so so I used gcc34. The following patch contains a Makefile which you'll need to edit some paths in.

diff -u source code/game-AI.cpp ./game-AI.cpp
--- source code/game-AI.cpp   2006-12-16 20:55:34.000000000 +0900
+++ ./game-AI.cpp   2006-12-31 16:51:59.000000000 +0900
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 #include "preheader.h"
 #include "game.h"
 
-
 void CGame::LudensAI(int num)
 {
     Ludens[num].state = 0;
@@ -1172,12 +1171,12 @@
                         if (Engine.key_0)
                         {
                             Dialog.SetDialog("10", DIALOG_HERO_X, DIALOG_HERO_Y, 20, sceneTimer);
-                            pick = 99923909011;
+                            pick = 99923909011LL;
                         }
                     }
 
                     static char buffer[10];
-                    itoa(pick, buffer, 10);
+                    snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", pick);
 
                     if ((sceneTimer == Dialog.lastTime + Dialog.duration)&&(Dialog.count == 9))
                         Dialog.SetDialog(buffer, DIALOG_RIDDLER_X, DIALOG_RIDDLER_Y, 25, sceneTimer);
Only in .: game-AI.o
diff -u source code/game.cpp ./game.cpp
--- source code/game.cpp   2006-12-22 13:45:36.000000000 +0900
+++ ./game.cpp   2006-12-31 16:56:01.000000000 +0900
@@ -869,7 +869,7 @@
         drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 60, SCREEN_HEIGHT-40, editLudensName);
 
       drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, SCREEN_WIDTH-160, SCREEN_HEIGHT-40, "Sprite Num: ");
-        itoa(editLudensNum,buffer,10);
+   snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", editLudensNum);
       drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, SCREEN_WIDTH-80, SCREEN_HEIGHT-40, buffer);
 
         // debug
@@ -898,31 +898,31 @@
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 0, Engine.LastVideoError);
           
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 20, "XY");
-            itoa(Ludens[myLudens].posX >> FIX, buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", Ludens[myLudens].posX >> FIX);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 20, buffer);
-            itoa(Ludens[myLudens].posY >> FIX, buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", Ludens[myLudens].posY >> FIX);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 80, 20, buffer);
 
-            itoa(mapNum,buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", mapNum);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 40, "map:");
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 40, buffer);
 
-            itoa(sceneTimer,buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", sceneTimer);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 60, "timer:");
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 60, buffer);
 
-            itoa(fps,buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", fps);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 80, "fps:");
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 80, buffer);
 
-            itoa(Ludens[1].counter,buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", Ludens[1].counter);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 100, "c:");
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 100, buffer);
 
             if (useMusicCheck)
             {
                 int k = FSOUND_GetCurrentPosition(Engine.Sound.SpecialChannel);
-                itoa(k,buffer,10);
+      snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", k);
                 drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 0, 120, "mlen:");
                 drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.font, 40, 120, buffer);
             }
@@ -2468,7 +2468,7 @@
 
     SaveGame();
 
-    itoa (mapNum, num, 10);
+    snprintf(num, sizeof(num), "%d", mapNum);
     map = new char[2+strlen(mapName)+strlen(num)+4+1];
     strcpy(map, "m/");
     strcat(map, mapName);
@@ -2907,7 +2907,7 @@
         drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.menufont, MENU_STARTX, MENU_STARTY + 0*MENU_SPACE, "Back");
         for (i=0; i<level+1; i++)
         {
-            itoa(i,buffer,10);
+       snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", i);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.menufont, MENU_STARTX, MENU_STARTY + (i+1)*MENU_SPACE, buffer);
             drawString(Engine.Screen, Engine.menufont, MENU_STARTX + 30, MENU_STARTY + (i+1)*MENU_SPACE, Levels);
         }
diff -u source code/game.h ./game.h
--- source code/game.h   2006-12-22 13:36:42.000000000 +0900
+++ ./game.h   2006-12-31 16:51:45.000000000 +0900
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 #include "ludens.h"
 #include "part.h"
 #include "cutscenes.h"
+#include <inttypes.h>
 
 static char *Levels[] =
     { "R intro",
@@ -151,7 +152,7 @@
     int oldSecretX, oldSecretY;
     int sceneLudens[2];
     int oldT;
-    int pick;
+    int64_t pick;
 
    int bagsPicked;
diff -Nu source\ code/Makefile ./Makefile
--- source code/Makefile   1970-01-01 08:00:00.000000000 +0800
+++ ./Makefile   2006-12-31 17:01:31.000000000 +0900
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+OBJS=cutscenes.o engine.o filters.o font.o game-action.o game-AI.o game.o game-physics.o game-terminals.o game-tick.o ludens.o part.o r.o sound.o sprite.o tilemap.o
+
+#point this to your C++ compiler, gcc4 or later probably won't work
+CXX=/opt/gcc34/bin/g++
+#You'll have to change the fmod path to where you have it installed, of course <http://www.fmod.org/>
+CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/include/SDL -I/home/sqweek/pkg/fmodapi375linux/api/inc
+LDFLAGS=-L/home/sqweek/pkg/fmodapi375linux/api
+LDLIBS=-lSDL -lfmod-3.75
+
+all: r
+
+r: $(OBJS)
+   $(LINK.cc) $^ $(LDLIBS) -o $@

[temporarysanity]

I'm an idiot when it comes to applying patches in Linux if it isn't described really idiot-friendly. I don't get it o_O

[Michal Marcinkowski]

There is no such thing as idiot-friendly in linux haha!

[M.rSnow]

nope its no idea creating some thing idiot friendly to Linux u gotta buy (or read on the net) a book to get threw Linux. really hard. So that code or something is enough. (If it works)

[miketh2005]

Heh i love your _{(and michal's)} humour

But yeah, the game just doesn't play natural, plus it starts hella slow and it keeps crashing on controlling the mole in level 20 so i can't even finish it. Too bad, maybe another programmer could work on it but i doubt he would have the same sense of humour and that's really the best thing about the project.

Still, a fun christmas gift

Wow, you missed the best part, which was the ending. The mole level was hard. You have to jump over the predator's head just as he turns around.