Worm Wars 9

[Minuous]

The Worm Wars game (http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/#wormwars) is at V8.98, and I am now beginning planning for V9.0.

I would like to hear suggestions from players of the game for rule changes/improvements. The ugly graphics would benefit if some graphician would like to redraw them as I don't have much artistic ability :-) (V8.x only use 16 colours but this could be increased for V9.0).

[daxb]

Samples: If you have them in better quality use them. Maybe change/replace some. Load to fastram if possible to save chipram usage.

Music: Instead of using MEDPlayer.library and some selected meds the user could just start his favourite Mod-/Musicplayer. Maybe an option that sets the full path to a player. So WormWars can start it optional.

[HanSolo]

I created polish catalog files for wormwars if you could add...

[Minuous]

@daxb:

I don't have those particular samples in better quality, but I will see if I can replace at least some them with something else.

I find the concept that games shouldn't have music because the user can play music in the background a bit odd; it is pretty standard for games to have music. Having it under the game's control is better because the music can be changed automatically according to what is happening in the game (eg. changing automatically when a new level is reached), rather than the user having to keep pausing, flipping the music player to the front, choosing a new song, flipping back to the game and unpausing. (What you propose is already supported anyway, there is nothing preventing the user from turning off the Worm Wars music and using a 3rd-party module player in the background.)

@HanSolo:

Thanks, much appreciated.

[Sinphaltimus]

Do you have a sprite sheet with characters and animations? I could take a look. BTW - Nice game. I need to figure out what all the items are so I stop grabbing things that kill me lol.

[Minuous]

I have attached it. For some reason IFF files aren't allowed so I had to put it in a LhA :-(

Each square is 12 pixels in size, but this could be increased if necessary. Current number of colours used is 16 but that could likewise be increased. I am pretty happy with the look of the actual worms, and the game logo, but I think the current objects, creatures and fruits look bad.

The philosophy regarding colour use, until now at least, has been:
* Things that are green, red, blue or yellow relate to the relevant player.
* Items are orange and none of them are harmful.
* Creatures are purple and most of them are harmful.
This could be changed as long as it would not confuse players.

[daxb]

I know what you mean about music. My suggestion was just another option (beside FX, music and nothing) the user could choose. Not a replacement for ingame music. The five meds are lower then 50kb. I think because of chipram usage and don`t make game archive to big. More meds would increase the size. That was in my mind when the music player idea arise. You may know that most Player have an Arexx interface to control it and support playlists. Should work on all supported Systems. No need to change screen or keep pausing. Furthermore you could hold the control over it like you do it currently with music in WormWars. Internal or external via script. If you are interested I could do or help with script stuff.

Items and Creatures are somtimes a bit difficult to recognize. Would be nice if Sinphaltimus could improve them. If more colors/larger size is needed/possible, why not.

Will highscore automatically saved? I entered name in highscore list but it seems it didn`t saved. At least the list is empty. I`m not sure but around that time some MuForce hits happened what might cause it.

[Minuous]

@daxb:

I will definitely look into reducing chip RAM usage for the music and effects.

Not sure what the advantage would be to using a standalone player and controlling it via ARexx, vs. the current system of using a library and controlling it via library calls.

You need to explicitly save before quitting if you want the high scores to be saved. If you attempt to quit without saving first the game pops up a warning requester about it. Note also that there are separate high score tables for each of the 3 difficulty levels, and only the table corresponding to the current difficulty is shown, so if you change difficulty, the high scores will seem to disappear from the screen; however they are still held in memory and in the levelset file.

I haven't been able to get it to cause any Enforcer hits here, more information about exactly what hits were generated would be helpful.

[daxb]

There is no real advantage with music player. Only that the user could choose his favorites.

I didn`t knew that the scores are saved in .lset files. I was already searching for saving scores. About the warning requester, maybe you could add a new button like "save" or "save and quit"?

If I ever get the hit or know how to reproduce it I`ll let you know.

Now after switching from easy to normal mode I die quite soon what results in watching the other worms. Press "T" for turbo mode helps a bit to shorten the wait time but it could be much faster IMO or a break key if possible.

[daxb]

Unfortunately, I got again a hit while save highscore/quit game procedure but can`t reproduce it until now. Only for the record:

11-Jun-17   17:13:50
LONG READ from 44002800                        PC: 015B292E
USP : 01D88550 SR: 0000  (U0)(-)(-)  TCB: 01D80648
Data: 00000000 019484B8 00000042 00000000 00000005 00008000 0000001B 00200000
Addr: 0196228C 01A38C0A 00000000 44002800 019CE4D8 019297E8 010A4A04 010826EC
Stck: 02103A42 00200000 01929804 01113998 02101932 000000CD 00000000 00000005
Stck: 00000000 00000000 000001BE 00000000 01948594 01D885E8 011E6908 00000054
Stck: 6F6E3A00 65726967 6B656974 3A000004 00000000 01948594 021A8E16 01080CB0
Stck: 00000004 02107C00 000001C8 00000004 01948594 01D885E8 00000008 020FCF9E
Stck: 00000000 00000000 000001BE 011E6908 020FCE14 0100003A 0000000F 0000000F
Stck: 00040006 00000001 000A0000 000F0000 000F0004 0001000C 0001000C 00040001
----> 015B292E - "System:C/MCP"  Hunk 0001 Offset 0001106E
----> 02103A42 - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0000A712
----> 02101932 - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0000 Offset 00008602
----> 021A8E16 - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0003 Offset 0002BCF6
----> 02107C00 - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0000E8D0
----> 020FCF9E - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0000 Offset 00003C6E
----> 020FCE14 - "Games:Action/WormWars/WormWars"  Hunk 0000 Offset 00003AE4
PC-8: 0149015C 9BBE4A39 015ADA70 67000570 52B9015A DA58B7FC 00000000 6700055A
PC *: 4A936700 05544AAB 00046700 054CB3FC 00000000 67000542 48E77FFE 2A7AB118
015b290e :  0149 015c                  movep.l $15c(a1),d0
015b2912 :  9bbe                       sub.l d5,?? ;illegal opcode
015b2914 :  4a39 015a da70             tst.b $15ada70
015b291a :  6700 0570                  beq $15b2e8c
015b291e :  52b9 015a da58             addq.l #$1,$15ada58
015b2924 :  b7fc 0000 0000             cmpa.l #$0,a3
015b292a :  6700 055a                  beq $15b2e86
015b292e : *4a93                       tst.l (a3)
015b2930 :  6700 0554                  beq $15b2e86
015b2934 :  4aab 0004                  tst.l $4(a3)
015b2938 :  6700 054c                  beq $15b2e86
015b293c :  b3fc 0000 0000             cmpa.l #$0,a1
015b2942 :  6700 0542                  beq $15b2e86
015b2946 :  48e7 7ffe                  movem.l d1-a6,-(a7)
015b294a :  2a7a b118                  movea.l $15ada64(pc),a5
Name: "WormWars"

[Minuous]

@daxb:

Can I send you a special version to isolate the exact point where it is failing for you?

[daxb]

Yes but you need to give a download link because email doesn`t work here or put it in TheZone.

Is the german translater still active? There are some translation/spelling errors for items that could be improved.

[daxb]

After I can reproduce the hit now I could investigate it. What always is LONG READ from illegal address "015b2996 : *4a93 tst.l (a3)". I need to play until highscore has changed. Then press ESC. Now the WormWars highscore has changed warning requester appear with the hit. Each time the requester pop up the hit happens.

Without MCP running = no hit. So I tried to find the MCP function/patch that is responsible. After some time I found the strange behaviour. MCP patch AssignWedge and Automount need to be disabled = no hit. If one of the both is active = hit. Because this is strange (at least to me) I started SnoopDOS. The only thing happens when the reqeuster pop up is this:

Count Process Name   Action     Target Name           Options  Res.
----- ------------   ------     -----------           -------  ----
1     WormWars       FindPort   ReqAttack Warp Core            Fail

I have no ReqAttack running/installed and the fail should be harmless. However, normaly I don`t get hits when reqeuster appear. So you maybe have a look into WormWars source if there is something that can conflict with mcp.

[Minuous]

@daxb:

Thanks, I was about to upload an instrumented version for you, but you seem to have pinpointed the problem anyway. :-) No wonder I could not reproduce it, as I don't run MCP...

I'll investigate and try to determine whether it is the game or MCP at fault, and devise a fix/workaround.

>Is the german translater still active? There are some translation/spelling errors for items that could be improved.

Yes, the German translator is the same man that builds the MorphOS ports. I don't think he would mind though if you wanted to make some corrections.

[daxb]

Changed german catalog and .ct file in TheZone.

[Minuous]

OK, grabbed it. Thanks.

[Minuous]

It seems to be a bug in MCP. I have double-checked the code again and it is just a very straightforward call to EasyRequest(). Worm Wars does not have any code relating to ReqAttack, and never calls FindPort() for any reason.

MCP seems to be SetFunction()ing the EasyRequest() call and then running some other code, in Worm Wars's context. Something in that MCP code is causing hits on your system, and a complete hang of the game on my system.

(I don't know what version of MCP you use, I installed http://aminet.net/util/cdity/MCP130.lha . It appears to have a lot of bugs. Eg. my system kept guruing while booting until I removed it from startup-sequence.)

I can add a workaround so that Worm Wars looks for MCP and doesn't show the requester if it's running. I would suggest sending a bug report to the coder of MCP, but given that it is 20 years old it is probably abandonware. Mid-'90s utilities which patch AmigaOS system functions are unlikely to work properly on OS3.5/3.9.

[daxb]

I`m using V1.48 (from 2014) http://mcp.a1k.org/files/mcp1_48.lha what should be the latest. Rumors say there was a special update by Dieter this year. V1.30 is 20 years old. Hundreds of bufixes are done until V1.48 and some new introduced. If you want to test this version you should start mcp from WB/CLI and MCPPrefs to disable everything and must save the prefs (prefs has changed since V1.30). You can enable/disable MCP by simple lauch it in a shell. No need to lauch it from S-S. Test if MCP (everything disabled) make problems with WormWars. Then try the patches AssignWedge and Automount. MCPPrefs has a "Test" button that works. So no need to use save or use while testing. PatchControl or SaferPatchs should be or must run.

[Minuous]

Worm Wars 9.0 has been released and is available from http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/

Thanks to all who helped out...

[Sinphaltimus]

Oh geeze, just got back from being out of town - so busy lately. I'll get to the fruits soon I hope. I've set a constant reminder now.