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Archive for November, 2006

15
Nov

pocketSand v0.8.3

Well, i finally managed to have some time to work on pocketSand and i’m releasing a couple of fixes.

  • Under some circumstances pocketSand won’t startup.
  • Added pixel-doubling feature in order to gain more speed, primarily on VGA devices where the higher resolution involve too much calculations: the switch is also available for QVGA devices as well. That feature is *enabled by default* on VGA devices!
  • A screen-clearing icon (trashcan) has been added.
  • The main application icon has been added.
  • Credits moved.

Also, all versions are available for win32-desktop too (GDI only), but i never released them, i just thought you already had one ;)
So, i really hope Shane H. and Crayfish will be able to play with this new version, let me know!

v0.8.3
( ppc setup | ppc cab | win32-zip )

11
Nov

Time of update!

This version should run slightly faster than the previous one and hopefully rather good on most of the VGA devices: also it should work on WM5 devices too.
Thank you all for feedback and reports, always appreciated!

– Switched VGA approach: it will be handled only by using RawFrameBufferInfo information.

- It appears the WM5-platform runtime library implements the “rand()” function differently than on the WM2003/SE one, and also noticeably slower. This has been substituted with a “Mersenne Twister” random number generator (ref. “M. Matsumoto and T. Nishimura, ‘Mersenne Twister: A 623-Dimensionally Equidistributed Uniform Pseudo-Random Number Generator’, ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 1998, pp 3-30.”).

v0.8.2 (WM2003/SE/2005)
( exe | cab )

3
Nov

pocketSand v0.8 released

pocketSandI’m happy to say that [tag]pocketSand[/tag] is now available for download!

This build is still a development version, so you could expect some bugs coming up: also, you are encouraged to report any malfunction.
The installer is a Windows-desktop one: once launched, the usual “Add/Remove” programs window of the WindowsCE manager will appear and you should just follow the on-screen instructions.

Download pocketSand v0.8dev
Download pocketsand_v0.8dev (.cab)
(WM2003/2003SE/2005 only)
NOTE
If you are having any problems running it, please contact me at _manuel_.bua@bit-fire.com (be sure to remove the underscores thing) attaching the game-generated logfile called aqua_log.txt in the game’s folder.

2006/11/07 UPDATE
With the help of some helpful people i’m trying to address a VGA issue that exhibits a severe stylus misalignment (Dell Axim x50v/x51v are the most reported devices): stay tuned for updates.

2006/11/08 UPDATE
A .cab file has been provided.
Also, VGA and misalignment issues should be resolved in the next version.

2
Nov

pocketSand on the way

pocketSandThere is a simple yet addicting little game out there called Falling Sand Game: there are no rules or goals, but you have to be sure the imagination is your only one limit: rather than a game, i would call it simulation btw.
The first version i ever seen around was at the DOFI blog and since then, there have been other numerous variations on that theme such as this, this or this one too.
There is a fan-site too here and they have other numerous variations and add-ons to the original version, including a link to an SDL-based one, that’s a C++ port using the well-known SDL library: also, someone told me that there is a PalmOS version too.
pocketSand
At this point i was really expecting to see a [tag]PocketPC[/tag] version of that game, just because of the nature of the game itself: the game mechanics is coupled with the lowest human interaction i would expect to see in a game due to the fact that particles’ physics and properties do the rest, and this interaction is perfectly suited to a PocketPC’s stylus.
I ported the SDL-based version to the PocketPC platform, by using the cross-platform framework i’m currently developing: the screenshot on the right come from a win32-desktop build of pocketSand.
I plan to release it really soon, just the time to give it some tweaks and optimizations, mainly for the PPC build, and i really would love to have some feedback about it, such as how it performs on your device and/or if you are having problems just running it.

If you want to give pocketSand a try, stay tuned for updates!