Roanoke Is Finished

[StarLite]

Hi guys, problems, problems. I wish I could get a break. The other tester found still more bugs yesterday. And the thing is these are problems that shouldn't be there. When I tested it on my machine the Professor and Phil were in the Lab. When he played the game the professor was missing but you could hear her talk. The one video is out of sync. What a pain!

I can't get anywhere over at P&C, Zimond is gone into hiding. I hope he's ok. Never did get the help I needed for that ripped up note puzzle so  had to leave it out.

Hubby thinks that my problems could have something to do with my virus scanner. He says that it could be treating P&C  as a virus and trying to clean it up. It just doesn't make sense why script that I know I put in disappears. Another user over at P&C said they had the same problem as me.

Zimond says that before you load up P&C to disable all virus programs which I do. Something on my system is definitely messing around with my script, it has to be, other people made game with this engine and didn't have these problems. I can't help but wonder what's next.

I am definitely going to look into Wintermute. I'm kicking myself that I didn't stick with it in the beginning. I'd probably have knocked off 3 or 4 games by now. I was hoping to be able to release this game over the weekend but it doesn't look like it. I would love to be able to take a break but I've already started working on a demo for Hawk Manor. I was hoping to release it with the game. And of course a sequel to Roanoke has been started called The Roanoke Connection. I've got this weird drive to keep busy, don't want to slow down.

Oh and get this, bad enough all that stuff is happening on my computer. I'm cleaning off the coffee table today and all of a sudden the stereo receiver starts coming on and off by itself. This went on for about 15 minutes then it stopped. Weird!

Well I'm going to go tackle that monster. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.

[Erwin_Br]

Gremlins! 

Seriously, though, I wish you lots of luck with the bug hunting and fixing.

[StarLite]

How many bugs are too much. Since the they started testing, I've corrected 48 bugs. Is this normal for a big game. It's unbelievable, I no sooner get a bunch of bugs fixed there another bunch waiting to pop up. And just when I think I'm alright, there's another, and another. I hope this is normal. I just want to get it over with so I can take the gun away from my temple. Just kidding there. I hope I don't spend another 5 years just correcting bugs.

[Kickaha]

What kind of bugs?  If Roanoke is a big game then 48 bugs may not be a large number.

The bugs to worry about are the bugs you don't know where they came from.  By the sound of things you do have some in that category.

I don't use P&C DK as you do.  You might get problems if say you can be developing, change the game, test, it all works, and then you don't properly save in some fashion.  You might get the built version out of step with the source (if there is source.)

Programming is a discipline, a painful discipline.  Good habits took me a long time to learn.

[NigeC]

I guess when you build a game its fairly black and white how its intended to be played, so when the programmer tests it its usually done in the right sequence, its very hard to do the possible variations Joe public is likely to do
The big pain is something that causes a global event that impacts the game further on, problems with that can cascade through out the game, something Action Script 2 was very good at, then fixing one bug can cause issues else where, thats basiclly why the Lassie AS engine was scrapped, it was proving impossible to fix with out causing a butterfly effect

I wouldn't of thought 40 odd bugs was that bad, considering the size of the game and the years doing it, revisions and what not.. I hope they turn out to be small and easily fixed

[ad7venture]

I'm with Nige.  I don't think 40 is too bad for the size of game. 

[Trumgottist]

During the development of Frasse, I don't think it's unlikely that I found and fixed 40 bugs, too. (Caertainly if you define the term "bug" loosely enough to mean any behaviour that changed due to things the testers found.) But I started using testers long before the game was even close to finished, and that's an approach I can recommend.

[StarLite]

Hmm, bugs, I figure they're things that happen that shouldn't happen or things that should happen doesn't happen.

@Trum, good idea testing before the game is finished I'll have to remember that for my next game.

Well fogfighter managed to get through the game, which I'm glad for that. He had a couple of fixable problems. Now I just have to get through it without any problems. I may take hubby's advice and test it on his machine. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I don't really want to work on it tonight.  I've worked on it all day and I'm really tired, plus I didn't have my after dinner nap. Although I'd like to get it done and out there. I think I'm going to go have a cup of tea. Take care everyone