As the Shoebox continues to build, more and more and more comments are incoming! I've literally had more comments to the blog in the past couple of months than I have in the past decade!!

Alan

*imagines 100 Marathon sprinters stopped right at the end of a race, all trying to roll a 6 to win*

-=-=-

RSKGames

Thanks!
Hopefully it stays working!!
Be sure to report any and all issues.



Once you wrangle a modern language down to a specific set of rules, you tend to find that a lot of them are actually really similar.
My main issues with Javascript have been browser compatibility ones, and I'm sure that moving forward, that'll keep cropping up. As HTML rules constantly change, and browsers keep updating, the things that I've coded will no doubt start to break.
I'll need to keep a constant eye on things, but .. Hopefully.. The way I've coded things should allow me to focus on fixing the framework, and leaving the actual games as they are.
This is a HUGE advantage from previous frameworks, where everything's ended up pretty much locked to the language that I've used, even the recent C++ stuff.

But..
Yeah, one little HTML change, and things could go south pretty quickly.
I definitely need to keep up with all these updates, now.



If you're playing the Shoebox on iOS with a "Add to Home Screen" bookmark, it's alarmingly simply to hop in and out, and play the games exactly as though they're a "proper" app.
The worrying thing, right now, is that update delay, where the game refuses to bother to update for hours at a time. So, even if I upload a huge update with a new game (like last night's Flipped Puzzle), the "app" version refuses to update until (seemingly) the next day.

At first I thought it was something on the server-side, but having checked the logs, it seems that iOS isn't even bothering to check the server for updates.
That's a bit annoying..

Having said that, that's only a problem if you know there's an update, and you're wanting to play the update. For most players who don't visit this site, their current version will continue without issue.
And, I guess that's ok.. Right?!


I added a little tiny "link" to the version number on the titlescreen.
If you tap it, it's supposed to open up the Recent Updates list thing, and on desktop it definitely does that.
On iOS, however.. No such luck.. Because I've added it as a Javascript event, it needs permission to occur.

At the same time, however, I've added a link to the Wikipedia entry of Nintendo's Polarium, in the Flipped Puzzle rules page.
If you click THAT link, since it's a "normal" html link, it will open on iOS devices. So, I think that's probably the better way to go.

Add little links inside the rules pages, and probably dump a bunch inside the credits "rules" page, too.



Oooh, I forgot about that button.
Alright, I'll see what I can come up with.. Maybe "Back Button = Open the Quit Menu" or something?



It's a lovely puzzle, and I remember spending ages playing the thing on the DS. I'm not sure why Nintendo haven't done an update, but it seems the developer (Mitchell Corporation) closed their doors back in 2012. Which is a shame



The level generation, written in BlitzMax, was fairly simple to get going.

Method
Start with blank square.
Draw path, counting "flipped" squares as you goes, until you reach a decent number. (more flips = harder level)
Randomly invert the colours on a few of the lines.

That's pretty much it. There's next to no logic to the generator whatsoever, it just checks that there's no duplicates, and that's about it.

Once the generator's made a level, it converts it to a 16 character string, and then bundles all those into a simple javascript file, ready to import into the game.

I've also made it spit out a solutions file, too, so if you ever get completely stuck on a level, let me know!