There is no Windows version because we are unable to get one to compile. If you're a Windows expert and have successfully compiled the game, please let us know and we'll gladly host it.

You can order other Blobs by using 7, 8, 9 and 0 on the keyboard.

7 : Follow - Follow you, fight, pick up items
8 : Wait - Stay were you are, fight
9 : Use - Use an item, such as a switch
0 : Retreat - Run to you, follow and don't fight

We need a Windows port!

If you're able to find someone who can build it, then we'll be happy to host it.

I've downloaded and compiled the game; it looks very cool! I do have a problem, however. I'm using a Logitech Dual Action gamepad on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (64-bit), and while it detects the controller fine, it has the third and fourth axis (the right-hand joystick) reversed. This is really a problem for me because it means that I can't control the camera angles in a coherent way. More specifically, starting the axis count at 0, axis 2 should be left and right, and axis 3 should be up and down. In the game, these are reversed. The gamepad functions well in other games, and I'd really love to get it working in Blob and Conquer. Any suggestions? Thanks.

With a Playstation controller plugged in via a USB adapter, the controller axis reported axis 2 and 3 as being the wrong way around. I assumed that this was just an absurdity of either the way SDL was handling it or the way in which joypads reported their axis. Sounds like its the joypads now.

A quick fix is to make a small change to the source code,

In system/CEngine.cpp reverse lines 155 and 159, so that,

axis2X = event.jaxis.value; and axis2Y = event.jaxis.value;

react to the other directions. I'll see if I can find a more long term solution, like a command line parameter.

Thanks! Worked like a charm. Would it be possible to email me if/when a new/fixed version comes out? dmutters @T gmail .DOT com (spam resistant spelling, I hope...). Great game!

Thanks for your effort. Metal blob solid was one of my favourite games.

Best wishes

This doesn't seem to work for - on a AMD64, Ubuntu 7. The source builds without problems, but when I run it, I just get a huge window about twice as big as the actual desktop, and the the xterm I sterted it in shows lines like:

[DEBUG (18176)] SHOW_NARRATIVE (250)
[DEBUG (18188)] WAIT (1500)
[DEBUG (33444)] HIDE_NARRATIVE (1500)
[DEBUG (33460)] WAIT (150)
[DEBUG (34960)] SHOW_NARRATIVE (150)
[DEBUG (34969)] WAIT (1500)
[DEBUG (49960)] HIDE_NARRATIVE (1500)
[DEBUG (49966)] HIDE_IMAGE (1500)
[DEBUG (49975)] WAIT (150)
[DEBUG (51475)] SHOW_IMAGE (150)
[DEBUG (51481)] WAIT (250)
[DEBUG (53984)] SHOW_NARRATIVE (250)
[DEBUG (53990)] WAIT (1500)

A bug is causing the game to default to 1920x1200 instead of 800x600 when the game is first run.

This is an easy thing to fix. It's actually just one line in src/cplusplus/Graphics.cpp,

Line 70 should read: currentScreenResolution = 0;

Either that or edit ~/.parallelrealities/blobAndConquer/config and change resolution to 800x600. The game will reject arbitrary values, so best to put that in rather than something else.

when i try to install the game it finishes but theres no link to it in any of the menus and i cant find the programs folder or files

The menu entries can vary from distro to distro, so it might not always show up. To run the game simply open up a console and type,

blobAndConquer

Hmm, think this could be ported to the Pandora? http://openpandora.org

it is laggy in the 1st level for me, but fine in the training. and in the one room in the training i noticed that if you move the camera out of the walls (i think the first one with the clear walls) it zooms out to a view of the room, outside. it's kind of hard to explain, but is that a bug? it doesn't do that on the second room like that.

No, it's not a bug, it's just the way the game engine works. It's not the best ever, as you could imagine. The first level is slower than training because there are enemies around they are using up processing time.

ok, but will all the levels be slow? and why in the training, when there is enemies, that shoot (at the end) is it not slow?

Hello !!

First, I want to say a huge thanks to the developers for this game !
This is my favorite game and I love it!

Also, I have a problem...
I began the game on a amd64 ubuntu ( I compiled the game) with the version 1.0.
Recently, I changed my computer and I am now on i386 and the game is in version 1.03 (I installed the *.deb).
I copied the folder ~/.parallelrealities on my new laptop.
And what I found is that I can't load my previous saved games !
(the program crashes saying something like segmentation error...
I am so disappointed not to resume my game...
Is there any way that I can load my old saved games ??
Or if someone has got a saved game on level "Flooded Tunnel 2" with the version 1.03, is it possible to send it to me please ? (hcoohb A.T gmail D.O.T com)
Thank you to anyone who can help !

Sorry, no. Save games are not compatible between 32 and 64 bit versions, prior to version 1.02. Before then saves were binary, so they can't be [easily] transferred.

As for the game being slow, it's difficult to say how it will ultimately run because its dependent on your own system.

seems to be a problem where (in a timed level, forgot level number), the game randomly crashes and won't let me leave. Further more, that particular level is unfair in that there is no apparent way out. After pushing boxes, what is supposed to happen?

I guess you're referring to Mission 11 (Biomech Supply Rear Exit). That level was prone to crashes prior to v1.02, so make sure you have the latest version. Also, when pushing the blocks you need to make sure they land on the pressure plates in the water, which is the point of pushing them off. After that the way out will be clear.

Hello,

Thanks parallelrealities for creating a good quality game for linux. You're awesome. But i've a problem.

The game starts in window, not in fullscreen. I've looked at the code but couldn't succeed. Yeah, i know there's a parameter -fullscreen but i need it by default in the code or somewhere. Do you have a suggestion?

For fullscreen you can either press F10 or select it from the Options menu.

The game will use the last screen state it was in when you exited the game.

Hello everyone =)

Well, thanks you very much for that perfect game (Yes, I love it) and now, I have no problems or bugs with the new version 1.0 and I can finish Blob and Conquer with a lot of pleasure.
And, I have found a very "funny" bug : During the fight against the final boss, load the level when you are against the Fire Blob and Ice Blob and... tadam! The final boss is here, with the two other boss and attacks you (only work if you a save of the Bosses Battle against the Fire Blob and Ice Blob).

Sorry for my bad English.

Best wishes !

Man! I loved the first game, Metal Blob Solid! I finished it saving all possible Blobs. Now I discover there is a sequel, I can't wait to play!

cheats don't work!

type in leavebritneyalone an nothing happens

Hey, is it possible to translate this game? I wish start a french traduction of the text of the history mode.
Is the game supporting translates?

Has anyone compiled it for windows?

- Not sure if there are any Windows builds. If so, someone let us know and we'll post it.

- The game supports GNU GetText, so you just need to download the sources and play around with the pot files (which are there, hopefully)

- There's a bug with the cheat code. The game is expecting a character buffer to be completely filled. So, the easier solution now is to just type in the leavebritneyalone and then press a few other random keys on the keyboard... ;) We'll fix that in our next release (no eta for this at the moment, though)

I need help, I can't find the "Service tunnel security Keycard" on the Biomech Tower level 28. Can someone help me with this? I also can't find a place to use the second C4, Can someone
tell me where the second weakend wall is? if so Thank you.

Is there any cheat mode for version 0.96? If so please let me know!

Can you combine the programs beetween the first and second programs?

- I'm not sure what you mean about combining the programs - They are separate games with different design architectures and code bases.

- I don't believe there is a cheat mode in 0.96. It may only have been added in version 1.0

- The second C4 is needed to get to a keycard used to access the roof. The container holding the keycard is located on the upper level of the third floor, by the laser gates.

Very good games, it's very funny to play.

Just a problem in game, where is the blob hacker because i searched and didn't find him.

You'll have to be a little more specific - which level?

Enemy Base 2 Courtyard

You have to destroy each of the four generators in the towers. Once you've destroyed those, the hacker blob will teleport in automatically.

Each tower requires a key carried by one of the enemies, which activates the individual bridges on the upper walk way that is needed to access them.

well, the reason i ask is that there's a makefile.windows in there. but i don't know how to compile it from windows and don't really have much access to anything else.

i did it, but the hacker blob didn't come

Patrick - Just tried it and it should work fine. Try using the RESTART LEVEL option and giving it another go.

Matthew - The Windows makefile was my own attempt to get the game to compile under Cygwin, but it never really reached much fruition. If you're not too familiar with compiling, it might be best to save yourself a world of pain and leave it to someone else to do ;)

What I mean by combining the programs together is taking both programs and setting them up so that after you deal with getting through the first game it sets you up on the second game and being able to save on the first game.

Ooookaay..... i am on the biomech tower perimeter and if you mean the gate after you get by the third checkpoint i've tryed to use the C4 on that gate. If you say to restart the level, I've already tryed that twice. I am on version 0.96 on a version of fedora that is not being supported. Also I have this problem that unless I put the screen resolution up to the highest one or set it to windowed it will stay at that resolution when i quit the game. it acts as if I've zoomed in but cant zoom out. If you say that i have to set my screen resolution to the highest that makes the game less playable. if you can find a different answer for me, please respond!

Hey Patrick to teleport Anderson (the hacker) in after dealing with the shield generators in the corners of the upper level in the enemy base 2 courtyard, watch the cutscene. Do not skip it watch it and Anderson will teleport in. I know it from experience, believe me.

Hello everybody, i have a problem, after defeat the spider blob commander (mission 16) i have not idea what i have to do, nothing happen the back door is locked, someone can help me!!

How many times has this happened? What version of the game are you on? Did you dump the Commander into the lava pits three times?

Blob-Gamer: the C4 is meant to be used in two places - Just outside the observation tower so you can get around the sealed gate and also to access the maintenance tunnel at the very end.

Yeah...But how do I get to the Service tunnel keycard? Could you give me specific instructions on how to get to where to use the second C4 starting from the third checkpoint? and How do you get to the three Spider blobs after the fourth checkpoint?

Blob-Gamer: The version of the game that you're playing is 8 releases out of date, you need to upgrade to v1.04. Could you download the RPM or Deb file and use that one instead, since lesser versions have issues such as missing items, etc. that you are facing.

Yeah about the missing items... Is the bay checkpoint keycard in the biomech storage facility outskirts supposed to be missing so that its more of a challenge? and in the same level i found a way to get Sylvester without getting the teleporter keycard. You go up the ramp with Teeka press Retreat and jump to the corner of the platform. As soon as teeka gets to the corner press Wait and then jump on teeka and use him to get up.

Yes, that missing keycard is intentional.

Running the game for the first time, I'm getting a segmentation fault when exiting training. The last terminal outputs read:

[DEBUG (352943)] Going to mission 'TITLE_SCREEN'
Segmentation fault

It's happening consistantly at the end of training. Any way to enable more debugging or a known reason for why I'd be getting a segfault?

Which version of the game are you using? Did you compile from source?

I've just tested against 1.04 and there don't appear to be any issues. You could get more information by running it through gdb and seeing where it crashes.

With gdb installed:

> gdb blobAndConquer
> run

when it crashes,

> where

Does it crash when you are playing the actual game too (i.e. - New Game)?

I'm using 1.04, precompiled, from the debian package on your site.

The gdb output from training is:
[DEBUG (126342)] Going to mission 'TITLE_SCREEN'

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb77a28d0 (LWP 11334)]
0xb7ded0b0 in Mix_HaltChannel () from /usr/lib/libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0
(gdb) where
#0 0xb7ded0b0 in Mix_HaltChannel () from /usr/lib/libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0
#1 0x0804c3c9 in Audio::haltChannel ()
#2 0x080856b2 in mainBattleLoop ()
#3 0x08105e03 in main ()

In the game, when Bob dies, I get a segfault if I select "quit" - I have not yet tried playing thru to a level load so I cannot say whether they work. GDB output from quitting after death:
[DEBUG (110974)] addWeapon() - Uzi [128, -639.794617 -1854.561768 -48.968750]
[DEBUG (110974)] Minimum Health = 0.00
[DEBUG (110974)] getAdjustedHealthChance() - 1 (min = 1)
[DEBUG (110974)] Cherry chance: 0
[DEBUG (110974)] addItem() - Cherry [129, -639.794617 -1854.561768 -48.968750]
[DEBUG (110974)] Minimum Health = 0.00
[DEBUG (110974)] getAdjustedHealthChance() - 2 (min = 2)
[DEBUG (110974)] Medipack chance: 0
[DEBUG (110974)] addItem() - Medipack [130, -639.794617 -1854.561768 -48.968750]
[DEBUG (110974)] Not dropping grappling hooks
[DEBUG (110974)] Bob has been killed
[DEBUG (110974)] fireTriggers() - 'Bob' (1)
[DEBUG (110974)] fireTriggers() - No camera in group...

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb777e8d0 (LWP 11310)]
0xb7dc90b0 in Mix_HaltChannel () from /usr/lib/libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0
(gdb) where
#0 0xb7dc90b0 in Mix_HaltChannel () from /usr/lib/libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0
#1 0x0804c3c9 in Audio::haltChannel ()
#2 0x080856b2 in mainBattleLoop ()
#3 0x08105e03 in main ()

Perhap's its an issue with the audio? I'm also not getting any sound, but wasn't as worried about that as the crashing. Sound works in gnome and other apps, lib-sdlmixer-1.2 is at 1.2.8-1ubuntu0.1; libsdl1.2debian-alsa is at 1.2.13-1ubuntu1. The soundcard is just a HDA Intel onboard chipset.

Certainly looks like an SDL sound issue. Do you hear sound and music in the game? It could be that the game is attempting to stop playing a channel that isn't running (although, that's usually never an issue).

Steve, the Download files you were talking about... Are they update files?

If you mean, are they patches, then, no. They are the latest version of the game (v1.04 right now).

Okay thank you Steve and I don't mean patches.

Three things; 1, Is blob and conquer version 1.04 on Fedora 10? 2,Exactly How many levels are there? and what are there names? I know the names of the first through twenty-eighth levels, 1 Cherry Fields*, 2 Inner cave Network Part 5, 3 Biomech Outpost, 4 Biomech Waste disposal, 5 Sewers, 6 Flooded Tunnel 4, 7 Blob home base Outskirts, 8 Boss level 1 Eye droid Commander, 9 Biomech Storage Facility Outskirts, 10 Biomech Storage Facility, 11 Biomech Storage Facility Rear Exit, 12 Boss Level 2 Biotank 3.0 Beta, 13 Enemy Base 2 Outskirts, 14 Enemy Base 2 Courtyard, 15 Enemy Base 2 Interior, 16 Boss Level 3 Spider Blob Commander, 17 Ancient Tomb 5 Outskirts, 18 Ancient Tomb 5, 19 Life crystal shrine, 20 Boss level 4 Galdov 1, 21 unknown, 22 Flooded Tunnel 2, 23 Boss level 5 Galdov 2, 24 Biomech Assimilator Outskirts, 25 Biomech Assimilalator+, 26 Biomech Assimilator Storage Yard, 27 Boss level 6 Frost and Flame?*, 28 Biomech Tower Perimeter, and I'm guessing that level 29 is The Biomech tower Maintenance Tunnel. and 3 Are there any update files to download?

I have no idea if version 1.04 is on Fedora 10, but if not then you have a choice: either download and install the 1.04 RPM or build it from source and install. The game contains 31 missions.

I have the latest version 1.04, i do that several times, and always he's coming out, i bit him 6 or 7 times, i also locked into the lava pit or into the weapon room and nothing, after all the last time just work, so i don't know what's wrong, thanks anyway!! right now I'm in the mission 26!! by the way i have 8.10 ubuntu version.

I have a new problem i'm in the mission 27 i kill Blaze and Froze but when i kill Galdov the game is closed, do you have some idea? that's happening several times!!!

That's a bug - Galdov is not supposed to be there, except in the cutscene!

V1.05 of the game has just been uploaded, which fixes that bug, as well as a few others. However, if you can't go back to the level previous to the Blaze and Frost fight, you'll need to click the "RESTART LEVEL" option, to ensure that Galdov is not involved in the fight.

This is because the save game will persist the level information for restarting and reloading games, but Galdov should have been told not to be persisted. The real time cutscene has always been updated so that it behaves properly. If you can, reload the previous mission and move onto the boss fight that way, to avoid needing to constantly click "RESTART LEVEL".

Wow.......galdov with blaze and frost.....wow
Okay back to the main issue...Steve, I made a mistake... I am version 0.91!!! I just figured it out. so I am 13 (with 1.05 out now 14) releases out of date! and with me being stuck on the biomech tower perimeter, I decided to restart the game and I just got into the sewers. With dying on Cherry Fields; 0, on Inner Cave Network part 5; 3, On the Biomech Outpost: 1, and in the waste disposal: 0. Normally I don't die at all on the cherry fields...but if i am REALLY UNLUCKY, I cannot go through without dying. What about you?

Well, i'm just finishing the game (i almost cried) "GREAT JOB" i love that game, thanks to all of Parallel Realities team, right now i can go back to work (lol) thanks again !!!

Could You make some ebuild-s for all Yours greats Games for Gentoo / Portage too? Thanks in advance.

Can you create Update download files?

Yeah, it really is a great game! I agree on your opinion SeSe!

Steve,
I just read the update description on v. 1.05, The "in game event cutscenes also are no longer skippable" bit... is that from a comment of mine? If so I found a way to get through it with skipping it, for example: On enemy base 2 courtyard Destroy the shield generators (all four of them) and it goes to a cutscene where Anderson comes in. If you press ACTION while he is in the teleport process, he is right in the save point where you start in. So it can be skipped with the thing happening.

Is there a way of getting the reset button to work in options?, i'm running B&C 1.05, PCLinux 2007.
I altered the Auto/manual aim and it just won't reset to to the default settings.

That is my only problem, GREAT game though, did think i had other problems but, when i read the posts, i seen that the engine is not that good, i can live with that.

Respect to the team for a GREAT GAME for Linux.

Well i have got as far as Enemy base 2 courtyard,i've destroyed 3 generators,but i can't get the fourth key,it looks like it is stuck under the ramp on the central block where the lift is,i keep getting knocked out of the way by the plasma guns that are there, any ideas? i've tried restarting from another level thinking it might be different but no chance,tried with/without the cheat still the same, could it be a bug?

Ruffn3ck - To clear an option, click on it and then press BACKSPACE. This will delete the aligned control.

Thanks Steve, Got the other problem sorted,don't know how but it's done.

Could the name be altered so it don't link to my e-mail,made a mistake when doing my first post.

Thank you.

Man, I remember playing metal blob solid 2 years ago, I haven't been able to play since... But I haven't looked at this site since forever so I didn't know now there is a windows version. But this... I'm downloading it and I got my fedora disks ready so welcome back, old times! Uh-huh!

Heya, great game! I really enjoy it.
Problem is that I just don't manage to fight Galdov. I get his life down to about 2/3, but then it'd be up to 100% again for a few times, then it just keeps at 2/3. When I put some C4 on him, his life keeps at 2/3 and this pit thing opens. Also, I did not find a way to get all 3 C4 Packages, because I always need 1 Package to get the next one. Is that meant to be like that?

* At the start grab the C4 directly behind you.

* Shoot Galdov until he is stunned, then set the C4 on him

* After the Mystic Pool opens, shoot the Black Eye Droids so that they fall into the pool. You'll notice that they skid along the ground when they are stunned, so use your manual aim to guide them into the pool.

* Once Galdov has aquired enough energy, the pool will close and Galdov will vanish and re-materialize in the centre. At this point you should move to one of the two jetties that are leading towards some C4 behind a tough glass wall. Galdov will begin charging a beam. As soon as you see the halo and hear the "ting" sound effect, JUMP! Galdov's shot will hit the glass door, shatter it and let you get the C4.

* Galdov will then attack using the vertical laser strikes. Dodge those and then, when he is re-appearing in the middle, attach the C4 to him.

* Repeat for the other wall

Thanks Steve for disabling the link.

Did wonder if Galdov could be killed,now i know, thought i was going to be there till Hell froze over :D :D

mithodin, the second round of lasers that Galdov shoots at you will be somewhere between 5 to 10 shots. This is just a warning.

Is there any option to do Network co-ap? If you're wondering what I mean, The host plays as bob and the person who joined is Teeka. And is there any way to go back to one of the previous levels without having to restart the whole game?

No, there is no co-op or network play of any kind, and there are no plans to implement it either.

I can not run blob and conquer even when using the terminal. I am also having trouble with the graphics running smoothly. It starts out as a still image then jumps to another still about every 4 sec. How do I fix these problems?

Have you got OpenGL enabled? What's the output of commands such as glxinfo? You should see a line saying, Direct Rendering: Yes. If not, then you do not have hardware accelerated OpenGL enabled.

If you already do, then it's possible that something like Compiz or another window manger is interfering with the smooth running of the game.

What's the set up of your computer?

How do I find OpenGL to enable it? I have ubuntu8.04 with a nvdia e-GeForce 7300 GT. I think the bad 3D graphics has to do with not having the right Graphics driver for blob wars but I was not able to get any driver to work before the game stoped running. I have even tried reinstalling it. Thanks for your help.

It should be fairly straight forward to enable the nVidia driver on Ubuntu. The best thing to do is follow the guide here,

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

(and another one, here, http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-nvidia-drivers-in-ubuntu-feisty-or-later-versions.html)

The should help you through the process. Once the driver is installed you'll probably have to reboot for it to become enabled. After that, try running the game again.

great game, helps killing many hours;) a little proposal - when bob is near a wall and you try to position the cam between him and the wall it rotates too fast so i think that cam's angular speed should always remain the same. it looked to me like a bug until i understood why sometimes the cam moves so fast and so close to bob. everything else is just fine! great game.

The camera was always an area of great contention whilst making the game; cameras in 3rd person games always are, even in the commercial endeavour. The camera we've got represents the best we were able to make it, sadly.

At one stage I did consider moving the game to a fixed, top down view point, like in Metal Gear Solid 1. At another point I was going to re-start entirely and make it 2D... but at that point (v0.9) it would have been a great shame to throw away all that hard work.

Any chance of getting a 64-bit deb released? I'm afraid to admit that I'm pretty stupid when it comes to compiling myself, I have a 50/50 shot of actually getting things to work. :)

Hmmm, I'm not too sure what it would require either. I'm guessing it's not as simple as downloading the source on a 64-bit machine and running "make"..?

I love the game, Metal Blob Solid was my favourite game for a few months, though I have bad luck with all Parallel Realities games (they all segfault at one point or another). Blob and Conquer segfaults on the "Supply base -- rear exit" part. I'm downloading v1.05 now, (last version I tried was v0.95, things may have changed, though I'm not hopeful) and I'll create a 64-bit .DEB for you if you like (running Debian Sid, amd64).

Thank you for a series of great games.

Hello. I am downloading Blob and Conquer right now. I saw a few things above that I felt I should respond too. One, if the axes on your joypad are reversed, it is not a problem with SDL or your joypad, or your joypad drivers. There are infinite possible joystick designs, and numbering the axes is generally pretty arbitrary. It is common to start a game, and find that the default axes do not work well with your joystick. This is why it is necessary for every game to provide a method to configure your joystick. Additionally, neither Linux nor SDL has a standard method to globally configure a joystick, and even if they did, it would only be able to do so much.

Also, I noticed you don't have a Windows port, and it was asked for above. I have some experience cross-compiling applications for Windows, including SDL games, so I'll give it a shot if I like the game.

I was only able to get so far with Blob And Conquer cross compiling on Windows. Linking and includes were the major blockers on creating a Windows binary from my own perspective.

If you have better luck then I'll be happy to host the binary.

I would like to compile the game on windows, but the "make" command isn't working. Can you tell me whats going on?

No, the Windows make file does not correctly. I was only able to get so far with the compilation. I provided it in case any one else was able to better tweak it and the code to get the game to compile under Windows.

If you're able, please give it a go.

Hi,

Had to re-install due to distro upgrade, i noticed not for the first time, i seem to get the same thing running when i install there's about 22 lines in "Orange", i don't know about programming so i'll assume a problem, only others can tell me if there is and what i need to do.

So here's everything that shows:-
(The lines after ': are the ones in Orange)

src/cplusplus/CPak.cpp: In member function ‘bool Pak::unpack(const char*, PAK::TYPE)’:
src/cplusplus/CPak.cpp:215: warning: format ‘%p’ expects type ‘void*’, but argument 2 has type ‘SDL_RWops*’

src/cplusplus/CString.cpp: In member function ‘void String::operator=(String*)’:
src/cplusplus/CString.cpp:84: warning: function might be possible candidate for attribute ‘noreturn’
src/cplusplus/CString.cpp: In member function ‘void String::operator=(String)’:
src/cplusplus/CString.cpp:79: warning: function might be possible candidate for attribute ‘noreturn’

src/battle.cpp: In function ‘int mainBattleLoop()’:
src/battle.cpp:392: warning: zero-length printf format string

src/misc/cutscene.cpp: In function ‘void processAnimatedCutscene(List*)’:
src/misc/cutscene.cpp:1155: warning: format not a string literal and no format arguments

src/init.cpp: In function ‘void showLicense()’:
src/init.cpp:64: warning: format not a string literal and no format arguments

src/entities/structures.cpp: In function ‘void addPushBlockSmoke()’:
src/entities/structures.cpp:854: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 1 to ‘static int Math::rrand(int, int)’
src/entities/structures.cpp:854: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 2 to ‘static int Math::rrand(int, int)’
src/entities/structures.cpp:855: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 1 to ‘static int Math::rrand(int, int)’
src/entities/structures.cpp:855: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 2 to ‘static int Math::rrand(int, int)’

src/title.cpp: In function ‘int doTitle()’:
src/title.cpp:150: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 2 to ‘void Graphics::blit(Texture*, int, int, bool)’
src/title.cpp: In function ‘void doIntro()’:
src/title.cpp:278: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 2 to ‘void Graphics::blit(Texture*, int, int, bool)’
src/title.cpp:278: warning: passing ‘float’ for argument 3 to ‘void Graphics::blit(Texture*, int, int, bool)’
src/title.cpp: In function ‘void doCredits()’:
src/title.cpp:351: warning: format not a string literal and no format arguments

I don't know if this is related to the above, if i'm going rapid fire(constant) then i'll get sent back to Desktop and have to restart the level again.

I'm using onboard sound and a nVidia 8500GT graphics card
T.I.A.

I don't recognize the errors and warnings. Must be a new version of GCC. What distro did you upgrade to?

Hi Steve,

I've GCC 4.1.1-4 installed. Distro is PCLinuxOS 2009.1 which is a rolling Distro, so it's always up to date. we do have Metal Bob in the repo's, not bobandconquer, if you don't recognize the faults, possible it might need repackaging for the distro? same as Metal Bob.

Not to worry.

Come across another one for you, just D/L'd the windows version earlier,needs looking at, options menu, the boxes are white some work some don't, can't make out which ones they are as there is no writing in the boxes, sort of guessing where you are so it's a bit random where you click, bob has no features, he's ALL yellow with bulges for eyes, the blood is white when the oppose get shot(maybe through assimilation their blood turned white). :D :D or maybe the shock of going over to windows. ;D ;D ;D Using Vista Ultimate on a Compaq dual core.

Hmmmmmmmmm, well sadly I have no idea about what might be happening with the Windows version. The game was only tested on a couple of laptops running Windows XP. It could be a number of things: the graphics card, DirectX, the way OpenGL is handled. A Windows development expert will be needed to sort that one out, unfortunately.

That's no problem, after all it's only just been done, respect to the the guy who took on the project.

The same Rob from top...

Thanks to whoever made the Windows port. DL'ing and will test later.

Athlon X2 4450e 2.3 GHz
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
3.0GB RAM
WinXP Home SP2
DirectX 9.0c

Should work, right?

But that's the low-profile tower. The laptop will make it lag, as it lagged on Ubuntu.

Intel Celeron M 1.7GHz
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M 256MB
2.0GB RAM
WinXP Home SP2
DirectX 9.0c

Oh, and gamepad issues on the current release (via Ubuntu 8.10). The gamepad, after calibration, makes the camera constantly turn right. Deadzone is normal; sticks are in middle. What's the problem?

Does it still happen if you move the deadzone bar all the way to the right?

my friend tried the windows version and said that "the camera spins non-stop in a clockwise motion".
so, the windows build DOES have a bug. oh, and he said "and when I touch the mouse It stops for a split second and then starts again"

If you have an analogue joystick plugged in then you'll either have to remove it or disable it. That should fix the issue. Either that or move the sticks on the joystick.

Windows at last!

I am using Windows 7 Ultimate Beta and the Game runs without any Errors. The Game also Runs in SLI Mode.

AMD Athlon X2 3600 @ 2,5 Ghz
4 GB Corsair XMS2 RAM
2x GeForce 9600GT
Windows 7 Ultimate
DirectX 11

A great plot, good pace throughout the game and an impressive grand finale.
BaC is a very good game that shows a great dedication and great effort from the author
Thanks for these games

thanks, steve. he said it works now.

Hi!

I'm using linux and have blob and conquer compiled by myself.
I've stucked in 14 Enemy Base 2 Courtyard. Just can't get into enemy's base. i see the field with trees, the lava, i've destroyed cannons and boxes in left room, i've climbed onto three columns, destroyed cannons, what now? i've circled whole map, falled a few times over textures ;) and can't find anything else. When trying to restart level - game crashes with "general protection fault"

Sounds like you're actually on Enemy Base 2 Outskirts. Have you used the C4 in the left room?

yeah i meant Enemy Base 2 Outskirts ;) i was sure i had checked all the walls ;) but luckely i was wrong, thx ;)

I think that the F3 cheat should be in the game, and where are the medical supplies in mission seven?

I am on level ten with the windows port, but I just noticed a bug. The bombs on the last bomb spot are already there, but arn't in the correct position. I tell Arnold to get to work, but nothing happens. In case of more bugs, I highly recomend that the auto-complete level cheat be added.

@Stuart - What do you mean, they aren't in the correct position? Is the game refusing to acknowledge that the bombs have been placed?

Never mind. I just realized that it wasn't refusing, and that I just missed a bomb spot.

P.S. Their is a bug. When you save, it rearanges the bombs so that they don't apear to be placed, but they still count when you look at the objectives.

How can i compile this game in my ubuntu 8.10 x64?
Thanks

Do you have any experience of compiling software? You need sdl-image, sdl-mixer, sdl-ttf, opengl and glut. If you don't know how to compile software then you'll need to ask on a dedicated web forum I'm afraid.

I created a Blob Wars wiki, but I need your help to get it online. The wiki is found at http://blobwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blob_Wars_Wiki.

I mean: http://blobwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blob_Wars_Wiki .

The blue gem can be found in the water on the right hand side of the tomb entrance. You'll need to swim down to get it.

I am on level 20, but after following the instructions above, I can't seem to kill him.

You must put the F3 cheat into the game. I crying because I can't find the very last teletag in the Bio-mech Assimilator. :-(

@Stuart - Download the sources and enable the cheat if you need it so much then.

Do you mean that it's in the code, but not on the cheat menu? If so, what other cheats are not on the menu?

@Stuart - Yes, that's right. If you're interested to see what else is in the code, then you might want to download the sources and study them.

I'm on the mission called ENEMY BASE COURTYARD 2, I can't find the last MIA...
Where is it??????????????/

hi im running it on windows xp and all it does when i run it is display a screen that says "this game contains scenes of explict violence and gore*" this screen stays for about 5 seconds then closes. nothing else happens.

@BLoB626 - There should be a couple of files in the Blob And Conquer folder: stderr.txt and stdout.txt. They should (with any luck) be able to provide a little more information as to what occurred.

Both stderr and stout are empty

To be honest, I'm not sure. The game was never extensively tested across Windows, so it may be that there are some software / hardware conflicts.

Do you have access to another machine that you could test on..? Either that or you might need to compile the game yourself.

Unfortunately game segfaults when I try to open Training or New game:
[DEBUG (14018)] setupEntities() - Done
[DEBUG (14018)] loadBSPProperties() - Begin
Segmentation fault

Full output using gdb: http://pastebin.com/f592905e8

Linux linux 2.6.29-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 20 07:06:02 UTC 2009 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux, Galaxy GeForce 7300GT.
nvidia 180.51, xorg 1.6.1.901 (10601901), default game configuration.

mkkot, can you provide a backtrace? If there isn't one then you'll need to compile the source to get a binary with the debugging symbols. I don't have a 64 bit CPU to test with.

@Steve
Sure I can, just give me some tip how to do it :]

I thought link I gave you with gdb was good enough. I have compiled sources by myself so just tell me what should I change / type or whatever.

I download the installer for blob wars blob and conquer then try installing it but then it says the download inst completed but it is! Whats Wrong?

nevermind my brother fixed it he found out something was canceling it

oh yeah um on waste disposal how do you tell teeka to use the other switch when you use one?

Use 7, 8, 9, and 0 on the keyboard to give your fellow blobs orders.

Thanks! with that tip I'm already at the 2nd enemy base! but... there's a problem. i got in hacked door to exit but it said i hadn't gotten all enemies! I looked around found no enemies and it still said that so i think its a bug. (P.S. I'm in the courtyard!) Can you tell me something that might help?

I found a bug in the 5th level. When you get to the switch room after crossing the 4 platforms, if you walk in the right place, you fall through the floor. (I was using windows, and as you said, it may be buggy and it will act differently then on different systems)

oh yeah uh how do i replay levels?

If you press escape during gameplay there is an option to restart the level.

WOW last boss HARD! how do I hurt him? (i don't wanna reveal his name to everyone so its still a secret!) I really need help hurting him second and third time! Can you help?

Hello
Steve, great game =D
I have a problem in Flooded tunnel 1: I already got a keycard 1 from a labyrinth. Now I go to the spiral room. I press switch, a crate comes, I put it in a place, and what next??? There is no switches anywhere else (only the "reset puzzle blocks" one).

Steve, what software did you use to create maps and models?

I found a bug in that spiral room i'm talking above: where the spiral connects with floor, walking in a connection can get you stuck (yes, it did :-/ ).

@Marach - The texturing issue might be caused by a lack of available memory on your graphics card. Do you have stuff like Compiz, etc. running?

@Blob Man - You need to C4 Galdov 3 times to defeat him - The first time when you have shot him down and he is smoking, and the other two times when he is re-materializing in the centre plane.

No Compiz Fusion and NVidia 5200 FX with 128 MB RAM should be enough.

What about other issues?

Hmmmmm, not sure what could be causing that, in that case. The only time I ever saw it happen was when I was running all kinds of other OpenGL and 3D stuff that was using up the memory on the card.

Are you missing other textures?

I looked at the movie above and everything other is fine, but in game I have no music or sounds... I checked everything.
What to do in spiral room?

I'm not sure what you mean by "spiral room" - could you give me the name of the level and/or post a screenshot?

I said before it's in level Flooded Tunnel 1, after collecting a first exit keycard.

There are three switches in that room - You need to put a block on one, get Teeka to stand on another, and yourself on the last.

But it's almost impossible to make Teeka jump... Only thing I can do is to kill him and quickly go away until he spawns next to me.

Hello, have you forgotten about my segmentation fault?

@mkkot - When you type "where" in gdb, what do you get? That will help a little more. Also, does this happen when you try and start the game, or only when you try and start the training?

Hi I have the exact same problem as mkkot also on arch linux here.

Here some output from gdb:
Pressing "new game":
(gdb) where
#0 0xb7aea367 in strstr () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x080d8d2b in loadBSPProperties ()
#2 0x080cb6b0 in loadMission ()
#3 0x080fc70b in main ()

Pressing "Training":
(gdb) where
#0 0xb7c75367 in strstr () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x080d8d2b in loadBSPProperties ()
#2 0x080cb6b0 in loadMission ()
#3 0x080fc72d in main ()

Build from source, version 1.05, gcc is version 4.4.0, glxinfo states direct rendering is enabled. The intro sounds play just fine. The crash is when I press either "new game" or "training"..

What architecture are you running on? It looks like the game is segfaulting when it is trying to read a line from the BSP.

Some debugging needs to be added to the loadBSPProperies function in src/io/propertiesLoader.cpp

If you're able, could you add some,

printf("'%s'\n", token);

around lines 36 and 55? (i.e. - at the top of the while loop and after the inner strtok call).

Let me know what the output is, since it may be corrupt.

Hey, sorry for my "laggy answers" but it's hot time of exams here ;]
I will check your solution as soon as I start Arch - my "productive" system is more than year outdated and Arch is the one I'm testing from time to time.

So about your architecture's question - I use normal x86 PC, okay with 64 bit processor, but still 32 bit system installed on it. I hope that's the answer you're looking for.

I inserted the two printf statements, and now this (actually a lot more, but this is the last part) is printed at segfault ("new game"):

'"model" "*21"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*22"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*23"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*24"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*25"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*26"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*27"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*28"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*29"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*30"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*31"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*32"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*33"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*34"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*35"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*36"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*37"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*38"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*39"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*40"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_SUPPLY_CRATE"'
'"model" "*41"'
'}'
'{'
'"classname" "FUNC_ENERGY_BARRIER"'
'"model" "*42"'
'}'
'(null)'
Segmentation fault

Well, my first thoughts is that it is reading a NULL line and trying to do something with that. I'll have a play around with the code later and see what I can come up with. If that's the issue, then [hopefully] it should be an easy fix.

Great, looking forwards to hearing what you come up with!

The following might help, but I'm not sure - the segfault doesn't occur on Kubuntu 9.04.

Download this file,

http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/patches/propertiesLoader.cpp

and replace the current

blobAndConquer/src/io/propertiesLoader.cpp

with it. All it does is add some extra checks for nulls and non-existent tokens.

Let me know how that goes.

Thanks, now the segfault is gone, and I've spend 5 mins playing the game without problems. Thanks for looking into this.

Two questions:

1) How can i reverse the turn right/left and look up/down directions (joystick)

2) How can I make the joystick less sensitive (esp moving arround it is hard to hit the info spots for instance)?

3) Where are the settings for the game saved, I seems to be stuck at 800x600 although I had it running at 1280x768, so I'd like to manually edit those or somehow get them back to default.

4) How non-violent can I make the gameplay, I already turned off blood, are there more?

1) Sorry, but you can't change the directions

2) You can change the joystick's deadzone in the config screen so that it doesn't move unless it receives a certain amount of tilt.

3) ~/.parallelrealities/blobAndConquer

4) Turning off the blood is the least violent you can make the game.

Thanks

BTW: Sorry, I forgot the most obvious: We really enjoyed blobwars, it's by far the linux game that got played the most here. I showed blobAndConquer to my 8 year old (after the sagfault was gone, obviously), and he was totally excited. I'm not gonna let him play openArena and stuff like that but blobAndConquer is exactly right. Thanks a bunch for making such great games, it's great to have something on the linux desktop that can compete with our wii and ps2!

Hi. I love this game, but have found some bugs. Running blobAndConquer 1.05 on an Athon TBird 1.4, 512 MB RAM, Nvidia FX 5200, on Gentoo with 2.6.28 kernel.

On certain levels, the game crashes while restarting the level. I was curious about this, so I ran it through gdb and restarted in "Ancient Tomb 5." The game crashes in src/cplusplus/CEntity.cpp:162. While stepping through, I found that src/io/load.cpp calls Entity::setOwner erroneously, on line 138, when the game->item list has not been initialized.

@BlockFin - Hmmmmmmmm, could you email me your save file? Address it to,

stephen.sweeney@ymail.com

Thanks
(don't use this address for regular contact - it's my dumping ground for spam and stuff like that!)

You can find the files in ~/.parallelrealities/blobAndConquer by default. Just zip up the directory and attach it to the email.

Heh, I emailed you the "savedata" before looking at your second posting. Do you still want the entire directory, or will just the one file do?

Nm, I went ahead and sent the zipfile.

@BlockFin - Do all the save games crash for you? Is it one particular one? Is it every time or just every now and again? I've loaded all of them and they all do so fine... :|

Ah! I see - it looks like it crashes if you restart a level which holding an item. I'll see what I can do about that. Shouldn't be too difficult to fix (touch wood).

Hello again! I checked your patch and seems it works. This game still needs some polishing (for example you can hear when background music repeats itself in first mission) but all goes in right direction since I tried it last time. Keep on good work and don't forget to give a tip when translators should start their work :]

I'm not actually working on the game any more, so translators can start at any time they want; only doing bug fixes. I've turned my attention to writing books now.

The music looping is an SDL issue, since it doesn't obey the looping preferences in the tracker modules. I didn't write the music either, so I can't do anything about it myself (not a musician, sadly).

Heya,
I got a little problem with blob and conquer on my gentoo 2008 system with kernel 2.6.28 and gcc 4.1.2
Every time I open a door, quit a game to return to main screen or try to load a savepoint from within a running game, it segfaults.
I tried to rebuild with the newest available versions of sdl and sdl-* from the portage tree and the current source (tar.gz), but it still happens. Any suggestions what I can do about it? It started when I finished the first "battle galdov"-level (in the "unknown" area)

Could you run it through gdb and let me know where it segfaults?

never used it... but let me quickly emerge it and try ;-)

It's easy to use. Run as,

gdb blobAndConquer

then, when it crashes, go to the console and type,

where

this'll show you where the crash occurred. Best NOT to run the game in fullscreen mode, since you'll lose control.

(gdb) where
#0 0xb7deddc5 in Mix_HaltChannel () from /usr/lib/libSDL_mixer-1.2.so.0
Cannot access memory at address 0xbfcdaa3

I just found out that the problem just occurs when I mute the music ^^ seems to be a problem in sdl_mixer anyways, huh?

blobAndConquer -noaudio also makes the problem happen...

It seems that SDL throws up problems like this from time to time - either that or something have gone wrong in the code which is impacting SDL.

And the game was running okay up until that point? I don't think there is anything special that happens on that level that wasn't in the previous ones, although it is possible that there might be something.

If you start a brand new game and play through a couple of level (use the cheat codes if you want to get through them quickly), does it still happen?

I'm so stuck now when i defeat galdov outside the temple game crashes but now with the new version it might be fixed

You have some typos in the game:
1. Reparing Ion Cannon...
2. Enemies Killed By Tekka

More will follow, those are only from messages.pot file ;]

Okay, seems I have no idea how to use my translated .po file :>

First I hoped that make will compile messages.po file so I put it under various directories but didn't work. So I compiled it by hand (msgfmt) and put it here:

blobAndConquer-1.05/data/locale/pl/messages.mo
and here:
blobAndConquer-1.05/locale/pl/messages.mo

Then I tried to change messages.mo into blobAndConquer.mo, also no luck.

So last thing I did was:
blobAndConquer-1.05/data/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/blobAndConquer.mo
blobAndConquer-1.05/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/blobAndConquer.mo

Doesn't work. Manual tells about some index file which I can't find. Heeelp :]

You were almost right. The locale messages have to go to,

/usr/share/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/blobAndConquer.mo

Thanks, now works. I hope the rest of text files to translate don't need to be put in some strange places?

Anyway I have same problem as with blobwars: fonts without national chars support: http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/559/screen33.png
Only the one on the top - arial which comes from my pc - shows my testing word in right manner. As you can see in some cases it's impossible even to figure out what is written there so it's a major problem for me and other no ascii users.

If you wish I can look around for some similar fonts on free licenses.

The latest version of Metal Blob Solid should have the correct font support.

Could you email me the .po and .mo files you created, so I can put them into the next version of the game?

I didn't say it has incorrect font support. I said that fonts you have used don't have support for national characters. They must be changed on some which have, or translating this game into any language apart of American English is pointless ;]

I know it might be hard to understand for latin-only alphabet user but look again on my screenshot. We were also switching fonts when translating blobwars.

I will send you all files when they'll be ready but we need to fix those fonts first. I'm going to search for some appropriate ones.

No, I understood what you meant.

The main font, vera.ttf can be replaced with the one from Metal Blob Solid. The other ones might require a little more work to find an appropriate replacement.

Also, I'm British ;)

Yes, I know it because of your co.uk domain ;]

I'm now at the process of acquiring some usable fonts, details will follow when ready.

Anyway I checked very partailly how this translation works and I don't have good news...
1. export LC_ALL=${LANG}.UTF-8 << again this has to be done before running the game on system without default UTF encoding.
2. In translation there are some words missing. For example where are such strings like &#8220;hint&#8221; or &#8220;grenades&#8221;? If we leave them, people will blame me for incomplete translation. But we won't leave them as I'm too much pedantic ;]

Could you make a note of things that are missing for the translation and let me know? There probably will be some things missing as no one has attempted to translate the game yet, so there will still be strings in the code that haven't been marked for localisation.

Don't worry about people complaining about incomplete translations - they will need to be patient. There will be other translations to come, such as French, Spanish, Italian, etc. so there will be updates to include them, once something does the work.

I'm afraid that making a full list of missing strings is not effective task. Just note that all items of menu are not present, all Loading (sth)... is missing, all objective names, weapon names, animated introduction after launching the app... all of those is missing.

I have just finished traning area, now turning off pc and going to swim in real water ;]

Unfortunately, making a list of the strings that need to be translated and adding them to the messages.pot file is really the only way to do it.

Some strings, such as those for the menus, weapons names, etc. live in configuration files and not in the game's source code. This means that they have to be added as they are found.

Well, at least this is how Metal Blob Solid was translated. I never did any of the translation work for that game, I was just sent a load of patches.

I have just learned how to use gettext and added some of the strings (most of the menu right now). You can check how it looks like:
http://rapidshare.com/files/256385836/pots.tar.bz2

Anyway I can't manage to work strings like: An SDL-OpenGL Game, Version %.2f, Presents, Copyright Parallel Realities 2008, and Left (Right) Button name for example "Right Shift" or "Left Alt".

Thanks for this. To get some of the string to be translated I need to add in the function call to gettext, which is basically just _. So, for example, _("Hello").

It's a bit of trial and error at the moment, since I have to look to see where and what needs to be updated.

Okay, so I will intercept myself from changing po and pot files until you finish. Working on cutscenes and info messages right now :]

As far as I can tell, 99% of the strings in the code should be handled (although, maybe some tweaking will still be needed).

I guess you've already seen all the stuff in,

data/locale/en/*

When you're done, email me the files,

stephen (dot) sweeney (at) parallelrealities (dot) co (dot) uk

and I'll take a look and fill in anything I think is missing.

Hi again!

Is there any way to know the sequence of files in blobAndConquer-1.05/data/cutscenes/text/ ?

It would be easier for me to know which file comes next in the game without need to passing levels. Another thing, I guess not all of these files are in use in the game? I haven't seen any messages from ambushStart and ambushEnd in the game.

Maybe I should focus on files in blobAndConquer-1.05/data/locale/ as you asked, won't take long to translate those ;]

The order of the cutscene files are,

intro
wasteStart
grasslands2Start
bossBattle1Start
supplyStart
supplyExit
bossBattle2Start
communicationsStart
bossBattle3Start
ancientTomb1Start
cryptStart
cryptEnd
unknownStart
ambushStart
ambushEnd
assimiliatorStart
bossBattle4Start
biomechTowerStart
innerTowerStart
finalStart
finalEnd

(I might have left one out somewhere there)

As a way to skip levels, to test stuff, is to do the following,

1) get the sources
2) build using "make DEV=1"
3) run the game as normal (./blobAndConquer) and select New Game
4) Press F12 to skip levels

It may crash if you get carried away with skipping too fast, but hopefully should work okay. That'll let you get through the levels and see the start and ending cutscenes to correspond to the level.

Another thing you can do (when build with DEV=1) is to run the game with

./blobAndConquer -mission mission01

You can specify missions from mission01 to mission31.

Hello, thanks for your detailed answer :]
I sent you blobAndConquer-1.05/data/locale/pl files. Of course I'm going to continue my translation.

I made a mistake in the messages.pot file, in line 617 is msgid "Game options" and should be msgid "Game Options".

I found also some typos you made:
1. You need to get to that switch to in order to open the door
2. the Biomech Communcations

Cheers, mate! Good work! Let me know when you're all done and I'll create a new version with the translations in.

Thanks for that. Don't forget to replace vera.ttf with DejaVu Sans Regular: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Download

Unfortunately I had problem with licenses of other sci-fi like fonts I found (even wrote to author for permission but he didn't allow). Well, as for now I didn't even try to translate strings written using other fonts yet. Shall I wait so you can fulfill missing strings in messages.pot or should I try to do it by myself?

I'll see what I can find missing from the messages.pot file. Chances are that I'll miss some, but it's not a major biggy. The missing ones can be added during subsequent updates.

how do you make the skip work?

What do you mean?

you said there was a skip so you can skip custascenes

Press ESCAPE.

what next?

I'm only 10

how do you skip levels on the windows version

You can't.

To be able to do so, you'd have to download the game's source code and recompile it with development features enabled. If you're not familiar with compiling computer software, then I would strongly recommend you do not attempt to do that.

If you want cheats for the game, you can find them on the Blob And Conquer page.

where on the page is it?

Directly above, in the section that says cheats.

Mac OS X version ? :-(

Someone needs to create a port, mate. I don't own a Mac, so I can't do it. Sorry.

In some files like bossBattle4Start there are shorter text lines. Do I need to follow this? I was not aware before so I would need to check rest of the files if those shortened lines are necessary.

BTW more heat means I'm more lazy (darn, must get a beer), however I should finish all files before end of the week.

You mean like this,

[Galdov 1]
Going somewhere, Bob?

The words between the square brackets should be ignored - they come up in the small box when someone is speaking, to identify who it is. The rest of the lines need to be translated.

Naah, I know that :]

I mean if I can ignore length of the line and sth looking like this:

I have to hand it to you - Your determination
is certainly something to be admired. But
determination doesn't always lead to victory.

put in such way:

I have to hand it to you - Your determination is certainly something to be admired. But determination doesn't always lead to victory.

Yes, you can do that. The game should automatically wrap the lines around itself.

Okay, all messages were translated, files sent on your e-mail. Also new strings and fixes were added to messages.pot template. However, we have a major problem. In the archive locale.tar.bz2 there is a file called missing. It contains strings which are available in pot template (added by myself mostly), they were translated in blobAndConquer.po but in the game they are still presented in English. Most significant untranslatable positions:

Complete combat training (and all other main objectives)
Open door to lava passage (and all other additional objectives)
Small pistol (and probably all weapon names)

Those can enlarge pot size twice!

Of course I haven't look forward in levels to add other objectives to the template (I added only those from Training level) because it's pointless right now since they can't be translated.

I hope you will find a way to add those in some automatic manner to the template and how to make them visible.

Please don't publish this translation until I review cutscenes (next few days), as I'm sending it only so you can deal with the problems mentioned above.

Ah, okay. These can be translated, but the strings will need to live in the pot file. Yeah, it's going to make it a little larger, unfortunately.

The current version of Blob And Conquer isn't translating these just yet, because I hadn't passed the objective description text to the gettext function.

The descriptions live in data/missions/ and are in the files mission{x} and training. So, for example,

Objective {

id = 1;
priority = OBJ_PRIORITY_PRIMARY;
description = Escape from the ambush area;
status = OBJ_INCOMPLETE;
active = 1;

};

The text of "description" is what needs to be updated. I could build a new version of the game and upload, to make it a little easy to do the translating, if you want?

@Steve "The text of "description" is what needs to be updated. I could build a new version of the game and upload, to make it a little easy to do the translating, if you want?"

What kind of question is that? Of course you should do it, I wonder why it's still not finished :P

Please think also about those jpgs with static text on them. You could also give an option to remove this stupid blood warning every startup.

Thanks!

The cutscene text has been dealt with, so should work... although there will still be tweaks to come, I expect.

I'm not planning on removing the blood warning, since I still get requests and complaints about the blood being in there in the first place(!) I will, however, make the warning skippable (by pressing ESCAPE).

Cutscene text? AFAIK there was no problem with cutscenes. There is however problem with pictures with English text on them.

About blood, Esc is a good solution, I was thinking at first about some commmand line parameter or option in the menu.

Well, waiting for the next version.

how do you see all the cutscenes wihtout doing all the levels?

You can't. If you wanted to do this, you'd have to download the source code and edit it.

In phase Biomech afueras Supply Base, has a part that I do not know what to do to open a door. That is: there are four cannons that touches the wall. Side has a gate. Only to open the gate, you have to destroy the cannon, and that is the problem. I can not destroy it.
If someone could give me threw a hint or talk you have to do?

@Fernando - You're not meant to go in the main gate, you go in via the underwater passage. You need to take Sparkplug into the small building on the opposite side of the base, and order him to use the switch.

Thanks Steve. The business was down on my nose and I touched. But thanks.
I am not American, much less speak English. I used Google translator.

Hi again,
sorry for delay but I'm having some unpredicted obstacles in the home. Please expect revised cutscenes in next few days.
Greetings ;]

Sent, finally. Now waiting for updated .po file.

What is the security code on the Courtyard stage Enemy Base 2?
I do not understand. I tried several combinations and failed.

I can't tell you the exact combination, because it's random.

You need to guess what colour combination the orbs need to be in, in order to activate the switch. Click on each other orbs to change their colour and then click the question mark to guess. You will then be told how many orbs are correct.

The goal is to enter the correct combination, based on the previous results.

The combination doesn't change if you fail, so you can just retry.

So how will I know which is correct?

That's what you need to figure out. Here's one way to do it

On your first go just set all the colours at random. On your next go set them as in your previous go but change one of the balls to a different colour. If the number goes up then you know that the ball you changed is correct. If it goes down then the original ball was correct. If it doesn't change then neither colour was correct so try another one.

e.g.

Red Red Yellow Blue Green = 0
Red Red Green Blue Green = 1

Based on this you know that the colour in slot number 3 must be a green ball.

You can read more about this game on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_%28board_game%29

damn! i've not the skills enough to compile a windows installer.

1.05 was a little buggy for me (error loading, etc) and this 1.06 should fix those problems.

i hope in someone skills to set up an installer for windows.

byee

From time Biomech Dispatch Sector Assimilator the game is very slow. Why?

Hi, good work! I like this game, it's a good second part.

I'm playing the game using a Dual Shock under Debian Lenny (I compiled game) and from time to time the game crashes (in different levels). The first time it happened to me I was using the keyboard, when my desktop appeared my mouse was locked. The rest of the times (with the Dual Shock) the game just crashes and I'm looking again my wallpaper. If I keep saving the game frequently, I can play a random time from crash to crash (from 5 to 30 minutes).

PD: Sorry if my English is bad.

@Fernando - The levels are just a lot more complicated - there are more enemies, items and things like that, that need to be handled.

@Nick - Does it crash on any levels in particular or does it happen any time?

Cheats wont work at windows version! plz answer this and tell me how to cheat in win

@woross - The cheats are currently broken in the Windows version. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to compile a working Windows build, so I cannot fix it right now. Keep checking back, though.

Nice game. Like to see intro of first person shooter view - like Doom II, AND skip of introduction.

The game hasn't been designed to be played from a first person point of view; it would be near impossible to play correctly.

This game crashes all the time! I'm running it on Kubuntu 9.04, on a 3-year-old Alienware machine, and half the time I can't play through a level! Also, many levels seem to be named "Font_Error" (save games keep the last good level name). One of these is the level after "Enemy Base 2 Interior" -- with the Spider Overlord or whatever. (And that boss doesn't just look buggy either -- I've seen it (1) get wedged during one of it's web-grapples (2) after getting pounded a bit, it miraculously recovered all health and shield before resuming. Something similar happened to "rescue" it when I managed to trap it under a lava door (which certainly should be a win!) -- I only found out because I eventually fell into the lava and could look around while dying.

Oh yes -- I'm currently running BaC 1.05 from the Kubuntu dist, but I also tried 1.07, and that didn't work either. Oh yeah, no sound with either version.

Did you compile the game yourself or use a deb install?

Another bit of info: Running it from a terminal indicated that the crashes are mostly segmentation fault.

I'd been using deb installs, but just now I compiled V1.08 from the tarball. (1) The intro and titling are weirdly slow and chunky. (2) The gameplay isn't, but the game segfaulted on my third attempt at the level. Also, that uber-spider still magically recovered all shields after being beaten flat, starting to smoke, and also being pelted with grenades. And again falling into a lava pit....

Could you run it through gdb and see where it says the game is crashing?

I've been told about the intro bit being slow and jitty, but that only happened to me when I have KDE 4's compositing switched on. Otherwise I've not been able to pinpoint what the cause might be.

As far as the Spider Blob Commander is concerned: you need to shoot him under his shield comes off, then lead him over one of the lava pits. Bomb him when he's standing on it and then open the pit when he's fallen over. Repeat that twice more and you'll beat him.

None of the bosses in the game can be beaten from just being shot alone.

In fact, I just figured out the strategy... If I can play that long without segfaulting! :-(

OK, I did the GDB thing, here's the last stuff I got.

DEBUG (170166)] blobReappear()

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb725c710 (LWP 6369)]
0xb6381b4e in ?? () from /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so

Also, the crashed process wedged my X display until I went to another terminal and killed the process.

I thought of running the GDB from the other terminal, and was able to get a backtrace of sorts:

#0 0x00000001 in ?? ()
#1 0x080870c4 in doGameObjects ()
#2 0x080883f5 in mainBattleLoop ()
#3 0x0811019d in main ()

Then I had to restart X to get my desktop unwedged...

Hmm. Hoping to improve the above, I recompiled with debug information. I've now been playing that version for a couple of hours, and hasn't crashed once. (And yeah, I did beat Lord Spider.)

OK, it crashed. The GDB output from that was 93 lines, so I submitted it to your Feedback form. I actually wrapped the gdb in a "script" -- if you want, I can mail you the (4 megs of) debugging trace.

Thanks for this, David. This is being caused by an instance memory corruption.. er... somewhere.

The reason I say it like that is because the last time I had these issues, it was due to dangling pointers or double frees in the code. I thought that I had nailed them all down the last time this happened, back in 1.02.

This isn't going to be easy to fix, unfortunately. What will be needed to do is to try and find a consistent, duplicable point where the game crashes, so I can go about investigating it over here.

Does the game crash on the first mission?

One thing you can do, with the source code is to build it like this,

make clean
make DEV=1
./blobAndConquer

which will let you see lots of debug.

You can also do this,

./blobAndConquer -mission mission<#>

where # is a number between 01 and 31 (two digits). This might help you to pin point a location easier. You can also pass in,

-nomonsters

which will empty of the levels of any enemies.

some files are missing in .pak file since 1.07. eg violenceWarning.jpg

Using the Deb or the RPM?

"Consistent, duplicable point" might be a problem, IIRC it's been pretty irregular. I will try poking around the first mission with the debug version. Do you have an E-mail address where I can send long debug logs?

Hmm, this may be worse than you thought. I recompiled as you noted (also with debug info). I now have a typescript from starting the program up, letting it go into "attract mode" (interestingly, no intro) and immediately hitting the "close window" button. Excerpt:

*** glibc detected *** ./blobAndConquer: double free or corruption (!prev): 0x09e40140 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6[0xb7c28604]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(cfree+0x96)[0xb7c2a5b6]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0(SDL_DestroyMutex+0x2e)[0xb7f31bce]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0[0xb7edc8fc]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0(SDL_VideoQuit+0x26)[0xb7f01d36]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0(SDL_QuitSubSystem+0x55)[0xb7ed6485]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0(SDL_Quit+0x1e)[0xb7ed650e]
/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0[0xb7ed6d9f]
[0xb8087400]

It then goes on to the memory map, which oddly cuts off midline with "Aborted". All this without gdb, mind you. The whole log is 1500 lines -- where should I send it?

Hi David,

You can send the log files to steve@parallelrealities.co.uk

Yes, debugging this is going to be fun, sadly :(

OK, sent that plus a new GDB session -- crashed on Ancient Tomb 5, DEV=1 and debug.

@David Harmon

Those intro slowdowns were fixed yesterday by Steve so I hope we will have soon a new release ;]

@David - Could you check the email address you sent those too? I never received them... :|

Hmm, I C&P'ed the address to begin with, and it looks OK. The zipped logs are about 107K, which really shouldn't be a problem these days. I'll resend, if this doesn't work we can try another address.

I am running version 1.05 in Ubuntu and when I type in 'leavebritneyalone' for the cheats, it exits me from the game. Also, is there any way to put to camera view on automatic? I am playing off a laptop, so multitasking with a mouse and key short cuts is hard. Thanks

For the cheat, download and use the latest version (1.08) instead.

I'm not sure what you mean by "automatic" for the camera.

Well, I just handed him a pointer(*) to a rather more serious bug -- as in, mid-game crash-to-desktop. So we'll see how long it takes to sort that out. (I did get the crash dumps to him on the second try.)

* Heh -- it does look suspiciously like a memory bash, and certainly involves pointers in some way.

It certainly does look like it. I used to get these when there used to a lot of dangling pointers, due to cutscenes, but not any more. I've played a number of levels recently and haven't received any crashes at all, which is rather annoying. I will keep looking. In the meanwhile I'm uploaded v1.09.

First crash with 1.09, no debug data. I'll start escalating.

@David - Can you provide me with any other specifics? I've actually hit the limit of what I can test here to cause the game to crash.

It was facing Galdov at the Life Crystal shrine again; I think this time I managed to get past putting the second C4 on Galdov. I've recompiled with DEV=1 (and now I see that invokes debug info itself), and will do a typescript on that before I start in with GDB again (because GDB does tend to crash my desktop.

It's not at all certain that the crashes are associated with a specific event in-game, but then I can't keep track of Teela while I'm dodging Galdov. (So "Teela trying to respawn while I'm on the C4 dock" is still a possibility.) As I noted before, my inclination as a former programmer (kinda rusty) would be to think that something in memory is getting scribbled on, rather than a straight logic bug. Do you have provisions to recompile with a memory guard?

Also, I'm still not getting any sound, even from the downloaded-and-compiled source package. I have SDL "with all options" installed, and I do get sound with the downloaded "blobwars" -- that is, Metal Blob Solid -- package. (Incidentally, the Ubuntu package, besides lacking sound, has an odd artifact visible in the lake in the intro sequence.)

Also, I'm frequently having trouble commenting here: "An error occurred whilst attempting to add your comment,/ * An error occurred - Please try again.", and I've got scripts fully enabled on this page.

Also, with DEV=1, I just got another aborted memory dump from closing the game window duing the attract sequence. Do you want me to send you that? (I already sent you one from 1.08.) This seems sufficiently wrong to be worth investigating on its own, even though it technically doesn't effect gameplay.

Email them both, sure: steve@parallelrealities.co.uk

GDB shouldn't crash your desktop. Are you playing fullscreen? Because that'd lock up your X server.

No idea about compiling with memory guards.

The sound issue I'm not sure about. Do you notice any SDL errors about starting sound?

The Ubuntu package of MBS has an SDL bug in it and is out of date.

Actually, I think the Ubuntu package was supposed to have pulled the sounds entirely, because of the sourcing/license issue.

While I'm at it, I was trying Enemy Base 2, and I got Bob stuck in the side of one of those shallow channels between the towers. (Hmm... you know what you need for those situations? A debugging-activated hotkey to dump the program's memory state to a file, so I could send *that* to you.) Also, restarting the game seems to dump several of the current "power-ups" in front of Bob, rather than "inside" him.

With GDB, the problem is that after the crash, my desktop is unresponsive (and the BAC window is dark). running GDB from a different terminal, killing the process didn't help, but then restarting the game did. I infer that the crashed game is leaving X in some dubious state.

Unfortunately sending me a memory dump will not help, since I don't have to expertise or the know-how of how to analyse something like that.

The only thing I can actually comment on is that you're running on an ATI card. This might explain why the game doesn't crash for me, since I'm on an nVidia driver.

If there is memory trashing going on then it looks like it's directly affecting the ATI driver. Are you at all able to test the game out on an nVidia card.

Right now I'm clutching at straws, because I have no idea. I've played several missions, loading, saving, quit, restarting... Done the Galdov fight, done the huge battle towards the end with loads of good blobs rampaging around, and I can't provoke a crash.

No sound related errors visible -- some of the textures weren't found "using Metal instead". Poking around Base 2 Outskirts, I haven't crashed yet, including some cases where I was hanging out on the lava paths while Teeka got killed. He duly waited to respawn until I was on "solid ground".

(BTW, on this level, if you go exploring the walls around the courtyard, it's very easy for Bob to get trapped in the channels behind them.)

(Also, no I'm not playing fullscreen. Most of your games have trouble handling fullscreen on a 14:9 display like mine -- their resolutions assume 4:3 aspect ratio.)

It's a great game. I like it :-)

But how can I order Teeka to do something? Which key? Is there any configuration on the config window? On Mission 4, I guess, I need order Teeka to press a button in the same moment that me (team work), but I don't know how do it.

Sorry by bad English :-)

You can order Teeka to do things by using 7, 8, 9 and 0 on the keyboard.

7: Follow - Follow you, fight, pick up items
8: Wait - Stay were you are, fight
9: Use - Use an item, such as a switch
0: Retreat - Run to you, follow and don't fight

Bah. I had to reinstall my system (now running Ubuntu 9.10), and it's broken altogether -- on startup, Bob is initially visible in "starry space", and when his environment does appear, viewpoint change (mouse motion) result in occasional disconnected changes of perspective, with no apparent relation to the actual scrolling. At one point, Bob apparently got stuck on his side. (The rain does move more-or-less normally.)

This is both installing the .deb and compiling from source. The text messages suggest that meanwhile, enemies (including "ambush") are falling off things and occasionally drowning.

Sigh. OK, installed new ATI driver, now the display generally works, except fullscreen. Expanding the resolution to 1680 x 1050 goes to fullscreen, but mouse clicks stop working. Clicking the "Fullscreen" checkbox gives a blank screen (frozen).

I wouldn't really recommend running this game at the highest resolution that you can. I originally wanted to only offer the game in 800x600, but I relented after players whined too much.

Also: the mouse (trackball) camera movement runs into "walls" -- that is, fails to wrap.

In "Options", Brightness doesn't work (the default is way too dark), volume works at first but then reverts to overloud.

OK, sorry about the config complaints -- the problems with volume,, and mouse "pinning" have gone away after a restart. I'm still wondering why they were there at all. The brightness issue is more interesting -- that went away when I disabled Ubuntu's "Visual Effects" (set to "None", in the tab within the System... Appearance tool.

What do you mean that the camera goes into the walls? You mean, literally it's moving into the walls and obscuring your view? It's not being clipped?

SDL_SetGamma is what is used to control the brightness, so it should work okay. Not sure why it's giving you problems.

How do you capture game while playing? I wanna show you some bug I found but none of the tools I tested can capture gameplay (xvidcap, recordmydesktop).

You might want to give yukon a go. In the meanwhile, do you know exactly what it was that the bug was doing? Can you reproduce it consistently?

Yes, I can. I don't see yukon in Arch's repository, well I will try to gain it anyway ;]
This bug is 100% reproducible stuck in the beggining of Flooded Tunnel but I will send you whole list when I will finally pass this game.

OK, having worked my way back to the Life Crystal shrine, a collection of bugs:

(0) The mousing issue (which went away) wasn't about the in-game walls (which often *do* obscure the view, but that's another gripe entirely ;-) ). The view would spin around as usual -- and then it wouldn't go any further in that direction, as if it reached a max/min value and failed to "wrap-around".

(1) On further examination, the volume problem has *not* gone away -- I set the music volume to, say, 10% of the bar, and it may or may not change at the moment, but when I resume play, it's shortly back to blasting at full volume.

(2) In the Ancient Tomb Entrance level, the purple gem was initially "untouchable" that is, it was visible, I could move over it, but I couldn't pick it up. This went away when I "tried" the matching lock and was told "need purple gem" -- after than, I went back and picked up the gem as normal.

(3) In the Life Crystal Shrine: No more row of Uzi ammo? Awww. Also no weapon for Teeka, but ISTR that Teeka always has that weapon by now anyway.

(4) A couple of times, notably in the Enemy Courtyard (with the tanks), "Restart Level" didn't recover a destroyed shield belt.

(5) Crash roundup: Often, the last output before the segfault will be blobReappear() or blobDisappear(). A couple of other notable crashes in Enemy Courtyard: (a) the last patched tank and the big tank were both stuck in one of the ramp sets, such that they couldn't fire at each other., then crash. (b) Twice on this same level, "Restart Level", then Escape to cut off the intro, resulted in a crash. (Also, if loading the game at the start of this level, Teeka starts on the far side of the initial C4 wall. What's up with that?)

(6) There are a few spelling errors scattered through the intro texts -- notably, "molton lava". You may want to just run the sources for those through a spell-checker.

OK, this one's a doozie. After escaping the Flooded Tunnel, Bob exits to a courtyard where he faces off against Galdov and his clones. After getting killed there, he restarts in one of the tunnels at the edge. But Galdov and his clones appear to have materialized outside the walls of the tunnel -- and to be thereby trapped outside the play space! Their attacks don't seem to affect Bob, but do throw a few sparks into his realm, emerging from walls or floor. Weirdly, they do seem to be taking occasional damage, presumably from friendly fire. One of the clones briefly reappeared, apparently got killed by Teeka (while I was caught off guard), but then respawned -- back in the walls.

two people + opengl, incredible!

@Harmon - Hmmmmm, this one's going to take a while to fix, since I no longer have GTK radiant installed on my system, and that's what's needed to fix the bug.

Amendment to the purple gem bug:: the fix may actually have been using the other gems, rather than hitting the purple lock. I say this because a similar problem happened with several different keycards in the Assimilator level. and what fixed it there was using one of the keycards I had already. When I had two un-collectable keycards, using one of my keys let me pick up (only) one of the bugged cards.

Also, with a compiled-from-source distribution, I've now had two crashes that took down my system completely -- not only couldn't I switch to another terminal, I couldn't even "ssh" into the machine from another box on my local net!

@David - It sounds like the problem is that you're trying to carry more items than you can actually hold (4). I'm very puzzled by your crashes. This simply doesn't happen to me. I suspect it might be related to your ATI driver, though.

Doh, I give up! Where is 4th bomb spot in BioMech Supply Base?
Thanks in advance.

Steve: Funny, there's no four-item limit in general! In particular, I was carrying six of the gems in the "purple-gem" bug scenario. I could believe a limit of four *keycards*, but even that I'm a little dubious about -- ISTR it happening when I had only one or two other cards.

Two more bugs: (1) In at least some of those "Objective" screens that use percentages, the % signs are doubled. (2) A long-standing one: On the "Sewers" level, in the room with the second C4 (not counting the "bonus room"), Teeka and/or Bob can get stuck under the base of the rusty ramp, unable to move. Teeka is almost invisible in this condition, Bob isn't, but is just as stuck.

Re: the crashes, I haven't gotten much into the few other 3D games available for Linux, though I did poke at some of them, and none of them crashed like that. The thing is, (1) Linux is supposed to have process separation and such, and (2) there are frequently messages to the effect of the program's libraries spotting corrupted double-linked lists. Since it also happens with the precompiled versions, my current suspicion is that there's some subtle library dependency, where your code is assuming some element is, say, 4 bytes long, but depending on the library or system, it may be 2 or 8. (Possibly assuming the size of a "standard" type, or copying the definition of a standard struct?, whose packing can change non-obviously?)

@mkkot - Um... that largely depends on which other three you've found already???

@David - Sorry, I meant that there is a 5-item limit. It's not individual items; for example, you can carry 4 grappling hooks and 9 teletags, but rather uniquely named items. That explains why you can't carry all the gems on the Ancient Tomb level.

Version 1.11 is now available.

Watching the videos for the first time just makes me smile. :)

Have a problem with 1.11, that didn't happen with one of the previous version. When I enter that yellow circles displaying some information and press Action button screen goes black. It seems the dialog box got shown but I don't see a thing. I can press the button again and game goes back to normal.

Still, the only way for me to read these messages is to check the console output :/

ps. why does the game always goes back to save point's language settings? i played in polish and started the game in english - after loading the game I'm back in polish language version? (it didn't happen in blob metal solid as far as I remember)

ps2. I sent you an e-mail about these black screens, no reply.

I'm not sure, Alzen, but I'm not supporting or maintaining this game any more. I'll soon be looking for other people to support and maintain Starfighter, Metal Blob Solid and Blob And Conquer. So if you know any one, please let me know.

Wait a second! Where is the windows version!?! :( :( :(

I could never get a Windows version to compile, so there isn't one.

Still, I think that you could list an older version at least, and get ahold of the last guy who compiled the windows version.

Staurt - Sadly, we don't have an older version. If you're able to compile one then let me know. Otherwise you could always just play it on Linux.

the cheat code instructions to open the cheat menu is not explained well i mean where do you type in "leavebritneyalone"?

Sam - As it says in the instruction, you need to go to the options screen to type in the code.

So: [Main Menu] > [Options]

where??

Sam, if you're expecting a box to type in to, there isn't one.

You simply type in leavebritneyalone whilst on the options screen.

Sorry, but I really can't make it any clearer than that!

oh thanks

who made this game?Steve,because i don't want to use you as complete"information box"

Sam - I wrote the game.

oh

Steve-my game keeps shutting down every time i try to load a game,any suggestions?

Did you compile your own version? Or did you use an binary (Deb / RPM) file?

You can try compiling your own version, using,

make DEV=1

to compile the game into development mode. This'll give you some debugging information about what's happening when the game is playing.

thanks

Steve i am having trouble getting past the assimilator i can't find 100 teletags, i have been in the storage rooms everywhere but i can't find more than 36, so could you please give me a hint?

Steve?

Hi, this windows version of the game had not already here, why now

@Sam - You can find most of the teletags in the storage rooms near the start of the level - just destroy the crates. One set is being held by an enemy in the prison, where all the blobs are, and the last three sets can be found in crates in a building close by.

Hope that helps.

@ZÜLFİKAR - There is no Windows version, because no one has provided one.

thanks Steve

P.S i know where the storage rooms are, i have been in then

Steve i have finished the game!
are you going to make a new one? i loved the episode II!

@sam - At some point in the future, there probably will be. However, I don't have any plans right now, so I can't so when it will turn up. All I can say is that it'll be a 2D game like the first episode.

ok... well i found a page on this site on how to make blob wars 2 levels but i can't seem to find the page again, could you tell me where it is

@sam - The page you're probably looking for is here:

http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/manuals/blobAndConquer/pages/levelBuilding.html

Be warned, though, that level building is very complicated and most of the work (about 75%) was actually done by hand.

where can i download the GTK?

@Sam - You'll need to Google around for it. It's hard to find 1.4 now, since it's been replaced with 1.5. But you might be able to find it in a few obscure places. Sadly, GTKRadient has been removed from id's servers.

id's servers? what is that?

and i meant what page can you find the GTK download on?

@Sam - id is id Software. They make Doom, Quake, etc. They co-created GTKRadiant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GtkRadiant

You can find GTKRadiant here:

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/qeradiant/GtkRadiant/GtkRadiant-1_4/Linux/linux-radiant-1.4.0.run

@Sam - I should add that creating levels is by no means a simple task. If you've never tried making a level for Doom or Quake, then you should be prepared for a very steep nearly curve.

You should Google around for GTKRadiant tutorials, as well as Quake level design. Note, however, that Blob And Conquer only supports very basic levels, so anything complex will either be ignored or might even fail to load.

ok thanks for the information. i already have a good idea

...for a game

boy the loading is slow..

of the GTK page

@rolandixor, the cheats do work, there is nowhere to type them in you just type them in on the main options screen. also it takes a few seconds for the cheat link to show up. and if you type leavebritneyalone(no spaces)and you wait and it still dose not show then quit options go back to it and try again. (please tell me if dose is wrong i seemed to forget how to spell it)

sam

@Sam - Oh, that's a download to the actual GTK download. It's a hybrid shell script / binary, so you'll need to right click and download it, then chmod +x it, and then finally run it.

WHAT?!?

ummm the GTK link or whatever it is takes like, FOREVER to load or whatever

@sam - Right click on the click, choose "Save As", download it to where you want, then chmod +x the file, then run it.

well the GTK page is nothing more than if1$ is2$>>blablabla and lots of other symbols

THERE IS NOTHING THAT SAYS "SAVE AS"OR WHATEVER, IT IS ALL LIKE SYMBOLS AND BLABLABLA 1$>>>SOMETHING IT IS JUST NOT WORKING.

@sam - Here's a link to a GTKRadiant tutorial. I suggest you read it thoroughly, before plunging on into attempting to create levels.

http://clankiller.com/games/quake/gtkradianttut/

um steve... i haven't even downloaded the gtk

steve?

I Loved Metal Blob Solid and I might Like Blob And Conquer even more!!!!!!!!

We want a Windows port. Also, could you change the comments line to a paged format?

As I've said before, I cannot provide a Windows port since I cannot cross-compile the game, and no one has provided a build.

are you able to get a map for the level you are on? and
in the waste desposal level, where is the sewer system? i can't find it :(

@Charlotte - I'm afraid there isn't a map available.

To find the sewer system - from the start, go out the door and then take the door on the right. Then take the slope up on the right. However, you'll have to do several things on that level before you are able to use the lift that takes you down to the sewer level.

Can the game be actually compiled for Windows? I found the "makefile.windows" in the tarball, but it says that it doesn't work. Is it possible to get the game working once the errors are sorted out, and if so, can you do so or at least tell us how to do that? (Yup, I'm a n00b.)

Steve can you help? I've tried to compile it for Windows.

I got all the libraries linked it (SDL, SDL Image, SDL Mixer, SDL TTF, ZLib, OpenGL)

It keeps asking for random libraries like "libintl.h". I think its part of the gettext. If I comment it out I get 1003 errors.... But gettext is apparently hardly beta and unstable... I downloaded it but I have no idea what to do with it. Its messy ugly and comes with no instructions.

Please help me I want to compile a Windows version.

libintl.h is part of gettext, yes, so you'll be needing that.

I can't help you compile a Windows version, as I was unable to compile on myself. I don't have Windows: I'm a Linux users, myself. Maybe try some free game development forums and check with some of the Windows developers there..?

Compiled it from source on a Slackware machine with a 256mb ATI Radeon 9600, keeps complaining about GARTSize at startup and refuses to load.
Any idea how I can fix this?