[lang_pt-br]Como o Rockbot é um projeto, basicamente de uma pessoa, às vezes eu preciso tirar “férias” dele, para descansar, jogar videogames e relaxar um pouco, principalmente quando o meu trabalho do dia a dia me deixa sem vontade de programar (leia-se, eu estou em um projeto chato). E foi isto que ocorreu nos últimos dois meses, joguei muito Playstation 3, espaireci e agora, aos poucos estou voltando.

Reorganizei bastante a lista de tarefas pela frente, tornando cada versão beta menor e adicionando um sétimo beta à lista. Estas últimas versões tendem a demorar mais pois eu tenho que encarar alguns bugs que vem desde o início do projeto, e apesar de pouco impactantes, tendem a ser muito difíceis de resolver. Enfim, de maneira geral, o que teremos pela frente é:

BETA5 (DONE): lots of bug-fixes, skull castle stage intro with path indicator, move some classes to sub-folders in project, experimental android port, remove threads, fix dynamic background flickering, centewred-weapon can be destroyed, fixed technobot colorcycle affecting menus, fix crash when leaving game, fix turn in NPCs, add in-game config, a beaten stage can have a different tileset and background, NPC with static background, add weapon support in editor and more, .

BETA5 (Ongoing): stages adjustments, replace copyrighted tiles by free or custom ones, break bosses artificial inteligence into new chain system, add option for PSP to change between fullscreen or windowed, fix for transition screen and dynamic backgrounds, gravity-level for NPCs, destroy NPC centered-weapon by using TNT Flash, editor adjustments and code cleaning.

BETA6: better teleporting stop-method by checking first non-blocking tile (from bottom to top), better ending credits, move drawing methods to draw class, bolts and shop, AI jump-up and jump-down, fix max projectile logic for weapons, setup rock and beta differences.

BETA7: fix for 3rd level of tiles on transition screen, remove build warnings in all platforms, implement different frame sizes in game collision, create spawn-npc AI action, NPC death AI, action, NPC hit AI action, optimize memory usage by using game_data directly when a copy is not needed, new/better intro.

RC1: optimization, reduce memory usage

After 1.0: Ports for Dreamcast, XBox, OSX and Wii; more optimization and code checking with cppcheck and coverity

[/lang_pt-br]

[lang_en]As Rockbot is a project, basicaly, made only by one person, sometimes I need to take “vacation” from it to rest, play videogames and relax a bit, mostly when my day-work leaves me with no desire to code (AKA, I am in a boring project). And that was what happened in the last two months, I’ve played a lot of Playstation 3, emptied the mind, and now, slowly, I’m returning.

I reorganized a lot of tasks ahead, making each beta version smaller and adding a 7th beta to the list. Those last versions tend to be really slower because I have to face off some bugs that are still from the project start and are mostly difficult to solve. Anyway, in a general way, what we have ahead is:

BETA5 (DONE): lots of bug-fixes, skull castle stage intro with path indicator, move some classes to sub-folders in project, experimental android port, remove threads, fix dynamic background flickering, centewred-weapon can be destroyed, fixed technobot colorcycle affecting menus, fix crash when leaving game, fix turn in NPCs, add in-game config, a beaten stage can have a different tileset and background, NPC with static background, add weapon support in editor and more, .

BETA5 (Ongoing): stages adjustments, replace copyrighted tiles by free or custom ones, break bosses artificial inteligence into new chain system, add option for PSP to change between fullscreen or windowed, fix for transition screen and dynamic backgrounds, gravity-level for NPCs, destroy NPC centered-weapon by using TNT Flash, editor adjustments and code cleaning.

BETA6: better teleporting stop-method by checking first non-blocking tile (from bottom to top), better ending credits, move drawing methods to draw class, bolts and shop, AI jump-up and jump-down, fix max projectile logic for weapons, setup rock and beta differences.

BETA7: fix for 3rd level of tiles on transition screen, remove build warnings in all platforms, implement different frame sizes in game collision, create spawn-npc AI action, NPC death AI, action, NPC hit AI action, optimize memory usage by using game_data directly when a copy is not needed, new/better intro.

RC1: optimization, reduce memory usage

After 1.0: Ports for Dreamcast, XBox, OSX and Wii; more optimization and code checking with cppcheck and coverity

[/lang_en]

While we prepara for beta3, we are also looking to the future releases to plan witch features will be incorporated in each one, here is a small glimpse of what will be made:

Beta3: bug-fixing, new Artificial Inteligence (A.I.) system, A.I. for all bosses, Jet item, Coil item, better sprite system in editor and game.

Beta 4: bug-fixing, password system, in-game settings, skull-castle stages, better colision system using different sizes for each individual frame, projectiles/weapond editing

Beta5: bug-fixing, large code-optimization, refine editor and disable all non-used fields, key-config setting

Beta 6: better intro, better ending, inter-stage sequences like Ninja Gaiden, start porting (Android, Dreamcast, XBox, PSP)

RC: After that, a series o Release Candidate versions will be released, keeping file-format compatibility and focused only on bug fixing. Versions 1.X will have automatic file-format conversion, so; if you create a game using 1.0, the file should work fine on 1.X editor (and after adjusts to fill the new parts, playable).

Version 1.1: Artificial Inteligence editing, optimization using threads, create multiple NPCs using the same graphic-file with different colormaps

Version 1.2: Implement two simultaneous players

This surely will take a longe time, as this is a one-man project, but having a road map is good to keep us motivated to create a game that people will enjoy and a future engine that people will use to make their own Megaman-like games> Please, keep an eye on us and get reasdy to test beta 3 next need 😉

[lang_pt-br]Adicionada versão de PS2 na página de downloads. Por hora está sem som, não identifiquei a razão ainda pois meu ambiente de desenvolvimento para o PS2 precisa de alguns ajustes que farei durante a semana (preciso comprar mídias de CDROM para gravar o ps2link com as configurações corretas de IP para minha rede atual). Esta versão também NÃO funcionará a partir de um CDROM.

Adquiri mais um novo hardware a ser suportado em breve… aguarde novidades![/lang_pt-br]

[lang_en]Added PS2 version in the downloads page. For now, sound isn’t working and I could not identify the reason, as my dev enviroenment for the PS2 needs adjusts that I’ll make during the week (I need to buy CDROM medias to burn ps2link with the correct IP configurations for my current network). This version also will NOT work from a burnt CDROM.

I bought a new hardware to be supported soon… wait for news![/lang_en]

[lang_pt-br]Adicionado pacote de Open Pandora nos downloads, obrigado ao sigma nl pelo pacote!

Estamos tendo trabalho para compilar o jogo para Playstation 2, e deverá levar um tempo até conseguirmos pois o SDK para este sistema está abandonado por mais de dois anos e ninguém tem o conhecimento necessário para ajudar a resolver o problema com o linker. A boa notícia é que breve teremos um novo hardware portátil a ser suportado oficialmente, se tudo der certo.[/lang_pt-br]

[lang_en]Added Open Pandora package in downloads, thanks to sigma nl for the port!

We are having a hard time to compile the game for Playstation 2, and it shall take a bit long until we sucefully port it as the SDK for this system is not supported for more than two years and no one have the needed knowledge to help us fix the issue with linker. The good news is that a new portable system should soon join the official supported devices, is all goes well.[/lang_en]