Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Great game! But way too short, some kind of endless-game would be great in any further version, but for now i think, the laser-tower is little overpowered, nearly all waves done with 2 towers, when getting enough money building an third of them and all waves are save.
Maybe an "Hard-Mode" would be great, where the spawns have +50% health and maybe +25% movement-speed.
All in all its a wonderful game, sometimes i am getting laggs for ~5 seconds, absolutely random, could not reproduce it... Maybe its some background-action of my phone, who knows :D

BIG THANKS for this game!!!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Not my type of game but I installed it anyway. And I must say I am impressed with one of the smoothest running games on the N900. Well done.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

+1 for an idea of endless mode (something like the original tetris - with each next level, the difficulty rises a little bit - e.g. 110% of enemies from last round, or something like that)

I didn't notice any lags, everything works well @805mhz, great to see such nice looking 3d game on n900 :) did you consider putting it in extras-devel (non-free, as i understand it's not open soruce)? More people would notice it and play this great game :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

I talked with TheBurek about that. He didn't quite figure out how that worked, but said he would be pleased if I could put it in extras-devel.

I did an attempt yesterday, but it failed without a clear error message. Will give it another go soon.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Could u plz put it in extras-devel?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

@vetsin, did you try multiple times? I suspect -O3 flag while compiling is giving me some random instabilities. A friend also told me towers won't construct on his Android like they should, maybe after tapping 10-15 times on the same place. Has anyone else had this?

@skate_boy92, try using the DEB, and as ade said, use sudo apt-get -f install

@Russe89, thank you for your suggestions! I know the game should be longer, and some kind of infinite mode would be awesome, but I didn't have the time to implement it, as it would require a substantial ammount of tweaking and balancing. In the short term, I'll probably make more levels, and I guess some kind of "hard mode" is doable, I'll consider it. I'd also love to make massive epic battles, but such a thing would be prohibitively expensive performance-wise. More enemies and more towers quickly eat up CPU and GPU on mobiles, so there were some painful compromises to make.

Once again, thank you all for your feedback!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Agree with the laser tower part. Also the manual mode feels WAY better then the towers shooting for themselves. I cleared the whole game (except the last level) perfect with only Laser Tower fully upgraded and Magnet tower upgraded.

It kinda feels like the normal towers are dumb when it comes to shooting. What also might be cool is to add resistance. So you don't have to make new creeps.

Example: You can choose to upgrade your towers to bullet penetration or explosive damage. Then you can have creeps that are resistend to these effects so it will be harder.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Hi ade!
I got the deb version and here's the error message:
Rev3D (build Dec 7 2012 17:28:51) Maemo (32 bit)
================================================== =======
Log file "Rev3D.log" opened.
Current mode : 800 x 480 x 16
Going for video mode : 800 x 480 x 32 (fullscreen)
Video mode set
GL Renderer : PowerVR SGX 530
GL Version : OpenGL ES-CM 1.1
GL Vendor : Imagination Technologies
Max HW tex size : 2048
GL Extensions : GL_OES_byte_coordinates GL_OES_fixed_point GL_OES_single_precision GL_OES_matrix_get GL_OES_read_format GL_OES_compressed_paletted_texture GL_OES_point_sprite GL_OES_point_size_array GL_OES_matrix_palette GL_OES_draw_texture GL_OES_query_matrix GL_OES_texture_env_crossbar GL_OES_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_OES_texture_cube_map GL_OES_blend_subtract GL_OES_blend_func_separate GL_OES_blend_equation_separate GL_OES_stencil_wrap GL_OES_extended_matrix_palette GL_OES_framebuffer_object GL_OES_rgb8_rgba8 GL_OES_depth24 GL_OES_stencil8 GL_OES_compressed_ETC1_RGB8_texture GL_OES_mapbuffer GL_OES_EGL_image GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_IMG_read_format GL_IMG_texture_compression_pvrtc GL_IMG_texture_format_BGRA8888 GL_IMG_texture_stream GL_IMG_vertex_program
[RSS-SDLMix] Audio init OK
NetHook disabled
[ERROR] [RSS-SDLMix] Error loading file : #sound/gui/trumpet.ogg
[ERROR] [RSS-SDLMix] Error loading file : #sound/game/defeat.ogg
[ERROR] [RSS-SDLMix] Error loading file : #sound/music/victory.ogg
Segmentation fault

I tried running it without enabling sound and got to complete a level. Haven't tested beyond that.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Maybe you should install the package ogg-support?

Else we need TheBurek from the technical department :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Hi TheBurek,

I tried it multiple times and disabling the sound allows me to play it.
Thanks!


@ade,
i already have that package installed... thanks anyway. :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

@vetsin, either you lack OGG support, or the game can't write into its directory. If permissions are the problem (and they shouldn't be if you installed the DEB), you'll need to chown the game directory, so it can write into it. Sound requires some temporary files written there. Also, your setting probably aren't being saved this way. Or, more probably, you lack OGG decoder, so install ogg-support with sudo apt-get install ogg-support libvorbisidec1

@Wreck, I actually added a damage bonus to the manual mode, to encourage its use. Seems the laser tower is a major problem now, I'll probably remove the burst fire mode and maybe lower the damage a bit alltogether. New damage types and resistances aren't likely to happen, too complex to do these things now. (I'd be happy to make a sequel some day, though) But, as mentioned earlier, some more balancing and a "hard mode" might do the trick for this current major iteration of the game. Also, thanks for the comment and rate at Google Play :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

looks good. will check it. and also liked your facebook page.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

I already have ogg-support and when I tried to install libvorbisidec1 it says that I already have the newest version. I'll enable extras-devel and try again. :) thanks.

EDIT: installed version is still latest even with devel and testing enabled. will restart phone and try again. will report back tomorrow. :) time for bed. hehe

EDIT2: Already tried again after reboot. Still the same.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Not sure how to help you... can't think of anything else at the moment :(

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

vetsin,

Maybe you are missing some libvorbisfile, of some of the files is not correct.

You could try if:
is of any help.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Hi ade,
Some extra details on my problem... Other sounds load and play ok. Game just crashes when I press Next Wave probably because it tries to play the trumpet sound which was not successfully loaded. I'll just try reinstalling the deb first. Thanks again!

@TheBurek
It's fine. :D I can still play without the sounds. hehe

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Most sound are "wav". A few sounds are "ogg", like the trumpet sound, and there is goes wrong in your case. Can you successfully play ogg files in the mediaplayer?

And try to reinstall the packages I mentioned please.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

I just reinstalled said files and game still crashes with same error. I don't have ogg files but will check and get back to you later. Thanks.

EDIT: ogg files play ok on my phone. I'm beginning to wonder... am I the only one having this problem?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Here's a workaround for you: WAV replacements. Extract them to MyDocs or somewhere handy, and do:
Since the extensions are ignored, and filenames are hardcoded, this switcheroo should work. This prompted me to check and fix sound loading and playing code, as the game shouldn't crash even with missing sounds, so that's a fix that will be included in the next release, just in case. Not sure this was all worh the effort, though, the sound design isn't really that spectacular... :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

That fixed it. Thanks! I'll just test it again when I got time.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

It found it's way to the extras-devel repos at the end.

But it has resulted in a bit of messy outcome :o Really sorry for that.

The long story:
On one hand, I tried to upload the deb file to non-free extra devel, but it took a very long time before I actually found some confirmation that it had succeeded in uploading.

Meanwhile, I did several attempts to upload it to the builder, but that failed without error messages. By coincidence I found out uppercase and underscores are not allowed there in the package name.

Once I had that corrected and uploaded, I found out the non-free deb file was actually succesfully uploaded.

So we have ended with Defense Gear in the repos two times :
Fremantle Extras-devel non-free armel defense-gear 1.1.0-0
This is the exact same version as you can download in the opening post.

Fremantle Extras-devel free armel defense-gear 1.1.0-4
This is the one through the autobuilder, but the still the exact same version.

There is one relevant difference though: defense-gear: 1.1.0-0 is named "Defense_Gear", and defense-gear 1.1.0-4 has the corrected "defense-gear" name. But that's makes it two separate packages :(

I tried to make made "defense-gear" (1.1.0-4) conflict with "Defense_Gear (1.0.0-0) to prevent them from installing both at the same time, but the name Defense_Gear is again not accepted. Getting 1.0.0-0 removed from the repos could be hard given the current admin situation surrounding the repos.


What does it mean for you?
You already have the deb file installed? Nothing will happen, as you already have 1.1.0-0 "Defense_Gear" installed.

You want to install it (first time) from the repo:
Please choose to install 1.1.0-4 "defense-gear", as I hope to continue this version with possible updates from TheBurek.

Murphy's law kicks in too much for me lately, giving me headaches:)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

To be 100% "politically correct", you should upload a new version to extras-devel non-free which doesn't conflict, but "replaces" the package you uploaded to extras-devel free and you should maintain and update only the version in the non-free version in the future. Uploading non-free (free meaning source is available) software to free repositories is a violation of Debian reposiory naming scheme (see 2.1 of http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html ).

Edit: Anyway, it's great you succeeded! :D I don't want to sound like I'm complaining or something ;)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Wow, that's awesome - thanks, ade! I've been mostly resting from game development last few days (road up to the release was intense), but there will be updates. I'm patching a few things here and there, trying to make an apropriate PC version (Windows, GNU/Linux) with keyboard and mouse controls. The plan is also to make difficulty levels, as suggested here, for this next release, and probably a few more maps. I'll keep you all posted :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Wow! A new Maemo game nearly 3 years after N900's release and long after Nokia lost interest. Thanks TheBurek!

Incidentally, isn't a burek one of those delicious pastries from your region? I ate a lot of those when I was cycle touring through there!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Really amazing game ! the graphics are good and everything is perfect :)
i hope to see more levels ;)
thanks

./Sifo

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Indeed it is :D Depending on where you ate it, it could have been several different things. In Bosnia, it's called burek only if it's filled with meat (meat pie), but in Serbia or Croatia it's a more general term, so you have "burek with cheese", etc. And that's a minor annoyance for us from Bosnia, when we order a burek somewhere, and they ask "with what?" - thinking to ourselves "it's with meat, dammit!" :D So yeah... that was waay off topic.

Thank you both, Xagoln and sifo. There will be updates for this one, and possibly even more games. We haven't yet decided what our next project is going to be, but if we don't make too much of a leap and still use my so-called engine that compiles and runs on Maemo, it will be released here. As I said somewhere earlier, I don't use my N900 as my primary phone anymore or tinker with it as much as I used to, but I still keep it around and it has a special place in my heart, so I'll try to support it as long as it reasonably possible :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Hopefully waiting, man where have you been in the coding competition ? :p i would have voted for you ;)
i will tell my Android friends about your game :)
( by the way im playing it now :D )
thanks

./Sifo

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Forgot to say, if you want, i can provide Arabic translation :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Thank you for your offer, but it isn't likely to happen. It's a technical issue, font texture and rendering. I've had questions about more translations before. Without too much extra work, I could do a few more latin alphabet based languages, at least until I use up all the free spaces in my texture with additional glyphs, and there aren't many left. I'd also need to implement right-to-left output, but that wouldn't be as big a deal as a completely new bitmap font. It is probably a bit short-sighted on my part, but that's the way I'm doing things now, and that way isn't suited for languages such as Arabic. If it were just a simple decision, I'd love to include as many languages as possible and make the game accessible for as many people as possible, but it's just too impractical for now, so, sorry :(

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

It is ok dude and no need to be sorry i just felt to offer what i can do :)

./SIfo

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

this game is great! thanks for the work put in :)

my only one request is to be able to zoom out more, I like seeing the whole view with defense tower games

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

For people complaining about shortness:

/opt/DefGear-maemo/rbase/common/levels has everything you need to make the game longer. Wave definitions (*.dat) are in human readable form. Number of waves can also be tweaked from defense*.ini. Share your killer levels with others who finished here

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Yeah, I kinda-sorta wanted to make custom levels a bit better supported :) They are quite human-readable. Even the map files are simple (a tilemap and a vector field), but you'd need tools to efficiently edit these. Level names and level count are hard-coded, but I think I'll make a "custom levels" directory where additional levels could be dynamically detected and loaded. If I'll have time to spare, I could maybe tidy-up and release my own map editing tools.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

That would be absolutely awesome, i will try to make first levels little harder :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

First levels are supposed to be easy :) But if you just want to make it harder, then edit the text files, that's the way I made waves and tower and creep data. Tools were used for editing maps, "geography".

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Okay, for now i found out:
money and max. towers i can de/increase, but changing wave-count=3 to maybe 5 or 6, nothing happens for me... also i did not find out how to edit health points till now, but i will search on :D

/edit: ah, these are saved in the defense*-w*.dat... Great :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Or you could've just asked me... :D Wave count directly relates to how many wave DAT files there are (like "defense2-w1.dat"), if you just increase the number and there are no more files, you aren't going to get more waves. And the wave files are a sequence of [internel creep name], [spawn point ID], [delay to next spawn in frames] (1 second = 60 frames), each in a new line. For creep and tower data, look into common/data directory. Happy modding :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

trying to run it on n9, using libs from http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...63&postcount=5
can this be fixed ?
oh, yeah, "open /dev/sequencer or /dev/snd/seq: No such file or directory" before <0.490 | [RSS-SDLMix] Audio init OK> in ssh output
p.s. no sound is ok for me, but maybe there is a way to fix video problem ( black screen with log posted above, tapping screen is work(or produce more texture loading errors)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

Not sure what is causing that. I'll go and check what format are those textures in, there are several different ones, maybe only some are problematic. ETC compression is supported, as far as GL extension list says. Does the game run in spite of those errors? Have you made it to gameplay? Try to go in-game and build a tower, if possible, release a wave of creeps, and than send me that log. Also, some screenshots could be helpful. I hope we'll sort this out, it would be really cool running the game properly on N9.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Defense Gear - a 3D tower defense game
 

black screen... always... not matter what i push on screen