[lang_pt-br]Levou um longo tempo, mas o primeiro lançamento da versão 1.0 chegou.

Antes de pular para o link de downloads, é importante saber algumas coisas sobre esta versão. Se o jogo for comparado com a versão pre da 0.1, parecerá um pouco pior, com mais defeitos e menos funcionalidades, a razão disto é que o código do jogo foi completamente reescrito em C++, o que facilita bastante a adição de novas funcionalidades, mas exige que muitas coisas que funcionavam bem tenham que ser refeitas do zero. Assim, as maiores novidades ficam por conta do editor, que agora salva todo o jogo em apenas um arquivo, o que simplificará a distribuição dos mesmos por parte dos usuários, e possui uma interface nova, mais organizada e com muito mais opções e items. Algumas funcionalidades no jogo incluem escorregão, escudo e tiro carregado.

OK, agora que você está ciente das novidades, faça o download do aplicativo, teste e nos dê retorno sobre o que achou dele!

[/lang_pt-br][lang_en]It took a good while, but the first release of the 1.0 version is here.

before jumping into the download link, it is important to know some facts about this version. If the game is to be compared with the 0.1 release candidate, it will seem to be a bit worse, with more bugs and less functionality; and the reason is that the code was fully rewritten in C++, that makes much easier to add new features but needs that a lot of parts that worked well before have to be redone from ground. Thus, biggest news are in the editor part, that now saves the game into a single file, that will simplify distribution for users, and have a new interface, more organized and with more options and items. Some features in the game include sliding, shielding and charged shot.

OK, now that you are aware about those news, download the game, test it, and tell us what you think about it!

[/lang_en]

Starting the new year with lots of coding and new stuff in Rockbot. Check out in the following video!

Hello all, sorry for the lack of news lately.

People following the project are probally asking, what is happening, is it still alive? The answer for the second question is yes, and for the first one, a long one.

First of all, I need to tell how the porting to C++ is going. Most of the basic engine code (colision, players, npcs, sound, graphics) is already ported and working, but as this code is the oldest one, there are lots of room for improvement, even the already ported code have parts that will need to be rewritten in the future, as the code is ugly, full of hacks and hardcoded parts. It is important to remember that the project was started with a much smaller scope than the current one, so, having a code that was well written for future support was not an important matter – sorry for that. So, because of that, some parts as jump and gravity – that now uses acceleration and speed meaning a much better behavior – were completely redone, and with that, a lot of old and new bugs appeared.

This moves us to where we are now. I am dividing my time between fixing bugs and porting code such as the weapons menu, that by being much newer, are better modularized, and can be ported without any drastic chances, and much faster. I have no idea when the porting will be completed to get the same level of maturity and functionality from version 0.1 RC1, but I hope to create a beta release by the end of this month (november/2011).

Talking about released, another improvement we want, and need to make, is how we build the project for different platforms. Sadly, out prefered development IDE (Qt Creator) still have a very limited support for multiple toolkits, so we are probably going to use Code Blocks IDE for that. This is a must, as compiling in C++ uses much more objects and a single script or makefile is not enough in most cases.

As vezes o C++ cria alguns problemas chatos. A idéia de uma linguagem com orientação a objetos é que cade peçado (classe/objeto) é uma entidade independente, mas que pode conter outras entidades. O problema começa quando você tem dois tipos de entidades diferentes, como NPCs e Players,q eu tem que fazer cálculos levando em conta a outra entidade, que ela no conhece. No caso do Rockbot, a classe game, possui duas listas, uma de players e outra de npcs, e cada uma destas, contém uma lista de projéteis, o problema é que cada elemento da lista precisa acessar a lista do outro tipo de elemento, para fazer verificações de colisão e proximidade. Vou ter que pensar muito bem em uma solução.

[lang_pt-br]Aproveitando a oportunidade oferecida pela reescrita do formato de arquivos, vamos reescrever o Rockbot praticamente do zero em C++. A decisão já vinha sendo amadurecida faz tempo e basicamente se deve a:

• confusão de manter um código organizado em ANSI C
• bom suporte de compiladores C++ para as plataformas que queremos portar o jogo
• simplicidade da programação graças a herança, hash tables e vectors

Vai levar um tempo para tudo ficar pronto novamente, mas temos certeza que isso irá acelerar o desenvolvimento enormemente daqui para a frente.[/lang_pt-br]

[lang_en]Taking the opportunity given by the file-format chances, we are starting the complete rewrite of Rockbot in C++. This decision was being matured a long time ago, and basically, is because:

• confusion in keeping a ANSWI C code organized
• good support for C++ in our chosen platforms to port
• coding simplicity thanks to heritage, hash tables and vectors

It will take a time to adapt all again, but we are sure that this will lead to much faster development from now on.[/lang_en]