a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Well, the overheating is coming, I think, from the fact that the thermal model has per-player memory. So I think your "temperature grid" is already warm, and then you take another step on the floor, and it starts from that warm point to recompute.
I'll have a look and see if it makes more sense to recompute from scratch every time.... I did like that the warmth of a fire "stays with you for a while" when you walk away. Maybe the center cell should have memory only...
The thermal model is a bit weird. It's a cellular model of sources, sinks, and insulation around you. That model is run for a bunch of steps, letting heat spread, to determine your current "heat map." The temp at the middle of that map is your temp.
The "hold down the mouse" thing is a different issue, having to do with WHEN the server updates your temp and tells you about it (only when it sends you a player update, which only happens when your move is done).
The original design of the game had a "birth cost" for each baby born, in that it essentially wiped the mother out and required a big meal right afterward.
That further increased the difference between males and females.
I turned this off shortly after launch to make it easier, but I will probably dial it back in over time.
Regarding rivers and other bodies of water, I really have to pick my battles. Getting a river system in place, with boats and such, would require a lot of extra coding.
At some point, I needed to stop adding engine features (feature creep) and just make content with the engine that I have. That engine has TONS of possibilities that are worth exploring. Rivers are not one of those possibilities.
Any time I spent programming rivers would mean weeks without content updates during that time....
Hmm.... that's too bad!
Well, I will work on this some for the next update and we'll see if it helps you.
Next time someone complains about this, please have them email me directly: jasonrohrer AT fastmail DOT fm
I'll have to submit a tech support request with FastSpring to see what's going on.
Thanks, will fix!
Hmm....
Sounds like a bug with the sprite caching.... the game currently waits until all of their sprites are loaded. If just one sprite isn't present, they won't be drawn.
Wondering if, after several hours of playing, your graphics card RAM is getting full of sprites and there simply isn't enough room for more. I'm freeing texture ram constantly, but maybe due to fragmentation or something, it's filing up?
Was the area so crowded that there was absolutely nowhere to drop it?
If so, it is possible for it to "fly off" to find an empty space, I think.
The bumping for 15-30 seconds is a different bug that isn't lag related. It's a bug where the client tells the server that you want to do something but never gets a response telling the client that the action happened. So you bounce forever, waiting for the response.
And no, there are NOT two round-trips when you ask the server to do something. There is simply a USE message that is sent right away, and the player responds with a PU (player update) message telling you what happened.
You already have the map client-side, so your client doesn't need to check what's there before sending a USE action.
Hm... well, this is third-party forum software. Have you thought about posting a bug report to FluxBB? They might appreciate it.
This isn't actually lag, but instead a server-side bug that I'm in the process of tracking down and fixing.
I've been calling it the "bouncing forever" bug. It's a hard one to catch, because it involves some kind of interplay between client and server.
I've recently received some recording files that show this bug in action, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out what's going on.
Wow... that is VERY weird...
Actually, I don't think the code contains those characters. Yes, the characters in a code are:
23456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ-I picked those characters to avoid confusion. No two characters look the same. So a code can be written down without ambiguity.
THUS... I'm guessing you're trying to enter the wrong code? Maybe that's your order number, from FastSpring?
Check your spam folder for another email. Also, your code is shown on your download page, so check there again.
Yeah, dual monitors are problematic for this game right now.
Run it in windowed mode. Sounds like you do not need to build from source. The binary should work. Just run in windowed mode.
Is SF still down? Jeez... what a mess. So glad I moved my main operations for this game to github.
MinGW is a bit of a pain to set up, sadly.
I've never tried building the Windows version from Linux. I always do it on WindowsXP.
At some point, I might post a snapshot of my windows build system.
So... did the NOFRAME patch change the "stretched across both monitors" issue?
I was trying to see if a "fullscreen window" would help you. In order to try this, you need to turn fullscreen off (0) in fullscreen.ini
UseLargestWindow only affects windowed mode. Fullscreen mode is controlled by fullscreen.ini
Yeah, people of any age can trigger so-called "default transitions". That's something reacting to you touching it, like scaring a goose.
This was fixed for the time being by reducing the population cap on the servers.
Well, that's not good...
Is this also true for typing your email address in the login screen?
Can you experiment a bit and see if you can give me more details about this behavior?
Someone else had this problem. We went through a bunch of investigation and never were able to isolate the problem.
It seems to only be happening in fullscreen mode.
Can you try windowed mode?
A "fullscreen window mode" is coming in the future that will hopefully solve this issue.
Fixed in git. Fix will be released on Thursday.
Two problems:
1. The game is installed in a read-only location. Re-extract from the DMG and put it somewhere else. That's why it's crashing.
2. Fullscreen doesn't work very well on some Macs. So that's why you're seeing a black screen. I haven't found a fix for this problem. To fix it, you need to edit the fullscreen.ini file. But the file should NOT be read-only, and TextEdit should be able to open the file.
Yes, you can reset them without worrying about messing them up for other people.
All the home marker stuff is handled client-side (not server-side), so their client will remember where they last created a home marker, even after you take it down or move it.
Placing a home marker just tells the client "Hey, remember this spot."
Also, home markers are in a stack. If YOU take down your own home marker (or set a new one and clear it w/in one screen of where your old marker location is), it is cleared from the stack, and the next location down on the stack becomes current.
So, you can have your home base marked, and also your satellite camp marked for a while. When you're done working at the satellite, you can clear that marker and then find your way home.
First, the tech:
Well, I picked the zoom many years ago, and it's deeply integrated into the game on many levels, including the protocol. I.e., it's not a simple change for me to show you "more tiles." (Also, the bigger the visible area, the larger the map chunks and database pulls, the more load on the servers, the fewer players each server can support, etc.)
Second, the look/feel:
All the art is hand-drawn and scanned at screen resolution, making it all "perfect." Scaling adds blurring or aliasing, depending on which way it is scaled. I spend a lot of time on the artwork, with all those fine pen lines. I want that stuff looking as crisp and as detailed as possible.
The game has a close zoom, with relatively large tiles and characters (128x128 tiles) to give a kind of intimate feeling as opposed to a distant "god's view" of the world.
Regarding motion sickness, I hear you! Scrolling is the worst for motion sickness. You might want to try playing in a smaller window instead of fullscreen on a big monitor.
I'll be updating this guide periodically as common issues arise.
=> Is your game folder installed in a read-only location?
This is a very common problem on Windows. The game now detects this problem and warns you.
Known-to-be-safe locations include the Desktop and Downloads folder.
If you think your problems are related to write permission, you MUST reinstall the game from scratch in a new location.
NOTE:
A bug was discovered in v65 that is causing "read only" error messages incorrectly. If you're struggling with this problem, try downloading v65b for Windows and installing from scratch.
=> Trouble connecting
If your game is getting Login Failed errors or generally not able to connect, you should verify that you are not behind a firewall or web proxy that might be blocking the game's attempts to connect out. The game connects out on ports 80 and 8005.
If connections are being blocked on Windows, you can find evidence of this in stdout.txt. The various network requests are logged in there, and you can see that they are hanging or failing.
=> Mac issues
Sadly, the Mac platform has become a real headache in recent years.
Unsigned applications, like One Hour One Life, are sandboxed or blocked from running entirely. If you have a modern Mac, you are probably aware of the work-arounds to launch unsigned applications (right-click and then Open as opposed to double-click, maybe).
Furthermore, Apple does some kind of strange caching of applications that prevents updates from being applied. Even after the application is updated with a new version, the old version will still run sometimes.
To work around this issue, I need to make a NEW application after every update. This is called OneLife_vN, where N is the latest version number---for example, OneLife_v60. After the update, you must run this new application instead of the old one. In fact, the old one is no longer runnable. I try to delete it entirely, but MacOS seems to prevent this from happening. So a "ghost" application is left behind. This is very confusing, but I can't find a better solution to this problem.
This is an application that updates itself. MacOS seems to make this difficult.
=> Stuck in fullscreen (Mac)
Fullscreen doesn't work for some reason on some Macs. It works on my Mac, so I've been unable to track down this problem and find a solution (Mac developers, if you figure it out, let me know please).
Anyway, the game ships in Windowed mode on Mac for this reason.
If you switch it into Fullscreen mode, it might work. But if it doesn't work, you'll be unable to get back to the Settings screen.
To fix it, go in your settings folder. Open fullscreen.ini with TextEdit, and put a 0 in that file.
=> VSYNC issues
You can skip this warning by pressing Y on startup, and you should be okay. The graphics will be slightly less smooth, but still playable.
If you want it to be visually perfect, you need to figure out how to turn vsync on for your graphics card. Usually there is some kind of control panel or icon in your system tray that lets you access settings. The same place where you would change the screen resolution and so on. Once you've found the graphics card control panel, there should be "3D settings" or something like that, and in there there should be a list of settings. Anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and that kind of thing. Somewhere on that list, you should see something called Vsync or Vertical Sync. There are usually multiple options (On, Off, Adaptive). You should set it to On or maybe Always On.
After that, the game should stop showing that warning. Note that if you've already pressed Y to bypass the warning in the past, you can go into SETTINGS from the login screen in the game and RE-DETECT to take advantage of your new vsync settings.
After a pretty insane launch week, I'm trying to get my life back on track. I do have a family (spouse and three kids). And as you all probably know, I am a one-person team.
SO...
My usual work hours are 8am - 2pm PST Monday through Friday. Yes, I only work 6 hours a day, but that is 6 hours of 100% productivity. I'm not surfing the web during that time or reading Reddit. I get up at 7am every day, so I really do start working at 8am.
Going forward, I will break up my time as follows:
8am - Noon (4 hours) Content creation
Noon - 1pm (1 hour) Programming
1pm - 2pm (1 hour) Community interaction (tech support, forums, email, Discord)
There haven't been too many tech support emails so far, but each one takes quite a bit of time. Rest assured that I will get to yours as soon as possible, usually within a day or two.
But I will NOT be working on the weekends, at all. If you need tech support on the weekend, your request will have to wait until Monday.
There are also a lot of smart and friendly people in the forums and on Discord who may be able to help you when I'm not around.
Weekly content updates will be pushed by the end of my work day every Thursday. You can keep track of what I'm working on in the live-dev-changes channel on Discord. But keep in mind that those changes aren't live in the game until I push them out.
Well, you can't mouse over someone in real life to learn their name.
I think it's cool that people are naming their babies. And those babies can tell other people their name upon meeting.
Also, if mothers can "officially" name babies, some babies will be named dickhead just for lols.
Signs of some kind are coming in the future, as are grave stones.
But like in real life, if a grave isn't marked by someone who witnessed the death, then it remains an unknown grave.