This site has moved!

Well, I’m happy to announce that I have created and registered a new domain and website specifically for my game projects.

You can now find all the information about Lushington Springs as well as updates and news about other games I’m working on at the following address:

lintfords.net

-John

Nearly there

After a fairly hectic few weeks with Uni and work, I finally managed to get a night off and sit down with Lushington. The aim was of course to correct the bugs that have been in the game for a few versions now.

The biggest one in my opinion (and a few of yours) is that of the ‘End Level’ achievements not being awarded at the end of each level. I did fix this in the past, but as it turns out there was more than one cause, and to be quite honest after looking at the code, I’m surprised anyone of you managed to get an end level award.

It turns out that a few months ago while writing code for a scoring system, I messed up and was incrementing a variable I use to store the current level index. So come the end of the level when I check for some of the achievements, it was checking something stupid like if(_iCurrentLevelIndex== 107622), which is obviously not right. #Fail

Now of course because I only partly implemented the scores (I never got around to getting a server), this bug only really ocurred when you triggered one of a few things that adds a score, so during testing when I use less waves it all seemed fine. (I typically test the levels with waves set to 15)

So the good news is, that’s fixed.

More Units

Kind of. It appears I had also been inadvertently capping the types of units that were appearing on each level. So while there are 13 units in the game, you will have until now only ever seen the first nine! I’ll probably label this as ’4 news units added to the game’ in the update, although it isn’t strictly true. The units are hover-tank, the blimp (really cool unit modelled by VeraShackle from the XNA-UK site), the ‘helos’ (which was replaced by the bomber in v1.4) and a walking star-wars like walking thingie.

Some other changes made:

‘Start Credits’ Perk grants more money at the start of a level:
Lvl 1: 15 + 5
Lvl 2: 15 + 10
Lvl 3: 15 + 20
Lvl 4: 15 + 40
Lvl 5: 15 + 80

This was probably needed as the last level is pretty hardcore (with the multiple map entry points).

The ‘Save Money’ award requirements have all been drastically lowered:

Mr. Money Bags – finish level with 500 credits (+200 AP)
High Flier – Finish level with 1000 credits (+250 AP)
Mile High – Finish level with more than 1500 credits (+300 AP)

The initial 5 waves of the canyon level have been made easier (less units).

Something to note:

A thing to note though, while many of the updates will make the game easier, all the ‘new’ units that have now been added and which were missing from previous versions all belonged to the higher unit tier; i.e. units with A LOT of health, so the ‘end game’ will be slighter harder (Yay! I hear you say); plus I feel I’ve been spoiling you so far with all the tower balancing. Many people have apparently completed the game already, so it is doable.

I’m still testing the XAP, and I’m going to send it off to the XNA UK Site for reviewing, so hopefullly this time any bugs will be found and fixed sooner!

-John

So what got done?

I am happy to say that I got through at least all of the bugs which were listed in the last post, plus a few that weren’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t add all of the new features, but at least I made a new attempt at balancing the game out.

Here a list of the items fixed/amended in the v1.6 update:

1. Fixed ‘start credit’ perk bug (if you had this perk and tombstoned the app, upon restoring you’d gain it again stacking the effect)
2. Fixed: all ‘level won awards (this happened if you started one level immediately after winning/losing a level
3. Fixed ‘selling’ issue on morter teams (you could sell the mortar lvl1 for more than you purchased it).
4. Statistics screen ‘back-button’ added (raised by MS and the reason I had to release v1.6 today)
5. Fixed: RPGs now shoot air units
6. Missiles now have a cool new sound effect
7. Fixed ‘Game Won : Congratulations’ screen appearing on Lushington Springs level even when you lose.
8. Fixed: MG lvl II&III now have sounds

Regarding the balancing:

1. Increase all air tower ranges (plus RPG range).
2. Turret rounds fire at much higher velocity so they hit more often
3. Missile and Lancer damage are much more balanced and are now effective
4. Flamer now has slightly less damage but over a wide area (i.e splash damage)
5. Revised the cost of many towers and especially the tower upgrades

And here are the things which didn’t make it this time. This was mostly a question of time, so I’ll have another look next week:

1. Tower Guide (Added all the code, but still need to do a little write-up for each tower)
2. Difficulty Settings (just not enough time – need to shuffle the menu screens around a little)
3. Email the author link

Hope you enjoy the game after the update is available on the phone.

Thanks

Well – its that time of the week again ..

And by that I mean ‘update time’ I’m afraid. This time I’m going to do it a little differently and attempt to define up front what I’d like to change for the 1.6 update.

I aim to submit the update on Saturday evening, and spend as much of Saturday as I can working on Lushington and the short comings of late.

So, if you have any additions or concerns about the the following list, please leave a comment and let me know what you’d change. I’ll obviously be working towards fixing any bugs first, then balancing and then any new ‘features’, in that order. So requests for pinch&zoom and the like will only happen if I sort everything else out first. (I mention pinch&zoom because I do actually have code working for it – but it messes the tower placement up a bit; I don’t want to do anything too risky).

Of course, I’ll also have a little testing period on Saturday evening before submission.

Heres whats on the agenda so far:

Bugs:
1. Game Won Screen appears on ‘Lushington Springs’ level even when you lose.
2. Level won awards are not always awarded (need to confirm how to reproduce this first)
3. RPGs to actually shoot aircraft this time
4. Selling price of ******** – sells for more than purchase cost. Funny how no one pointed this one out before yesterday
5. Start credits perk issue (you somehow start with more than the perk would suggest

Balancing
1. Missiles are useless;

I will add Helos again to the first level – fast and very weak. Missiles will sort these out

2. Lancers are useless;

These will replace flak for heavier aircraft (bomber+)

3. Flamer area damage needs improve
4. To revise upgraded tower’s damage/price stats for many of the towers.

‘Features’
1. Tower Guide
2. Email the author link in the options page (keep markplace free of bug reports)
3. Difficulty Settings; Normal / Hard (I don’t do easy)

This will likely come in the form of a money-for-kills coeffient. Hard will be as it is now, and easy will reward, say 1.2x as much

It would be pretty hollow if I promised to get all these completed in one day, so I’d just like to finish off saying that this is a guide and I’ll try my best to work through everything.

Please let me know any other things which you think will improve the game for the better, and remember, the game is supposed to be difficult, so this will not necessarily make it alot easier, just more balanced.

V1.5 will be released today (I hope)

So here is the lastest on the Lushingon, it looks like the v1.5 update has finially passed the certification process – after a full week.  This will fix the problem of the bombers which are impossible to kill – which is by far the biggest issue at the minute.  The submission status is currtenly set on ‘Ready for Signing’, which should take a few hours.

This update does not however contain the ‘back button’ fix that is required by microsoft (I am required to fix this within two weeks)  so this will be come out in yet another future update.  The next things on my list of todos are:

• Awards at the end of the levels (this has worked so far in all my testing, but I’ll have another look)
• RPGs don’t shoot air units
• Set flak to ‘attack weakest’ and they don’t attack anything

I think once these 3 things are sorted, the game should be alot more enjoyable.

V1.5 is delayed

Thats right, just as  I rendered the game impossible to complete due to the bomber bug in v1.4 – the v1.5 update has been rejected after 1 week in the certification phase!

Why? because one of the more obscure menu screens (the level won screen – come on, how often do you see this?) doesn’t react to the HW back button.  Okay, so this is clearly my own fault – but that the difference in v1.4 to v1.5 is a variable change in one of the content files, I would have thought I’d have had some response before a full week has passed. (I literally removed a trailing zero from the bomber health in the ‘bomber.xml’ file).

So, I’ve added the back button to the end level screen, and now I just have to wait for the APP Hub application status to show ‘rejected’ before I can re-upload the next version.

V1.4

This update was to fix:

• Fixed end game screen
• Increased tower damage (slightly easier)
• Changed level waves (slightly easier)
• RPGs shoot both ground and air

But as you will have undoubtedly noticed, instead of making the game easier, unfortunately I introduced yet another bug in that the bombers are nigh on impossible to kill.  *sigh*.

The game should be difficult, not impossible.  I’m sorry for this error and I will release another patch asap.

Lushington Springs 1.3 released

In this release:

• Fixed level progress saves
• Fixed award points saving
• Added unit guide
• Increased turret round(bullet) velocity

Lushington Springs Released!

Lushington springs has been released – actually for a full week now!

I’ve been following some of the comments on Zune, which requires me to consantly change the location of my pc in the control panel to see each ‘market’ country.  Genrally it has been recieved very well, with the bigest problem so far being the difficultly level.

 

The game does have a trial mode of the first map with NO time limit, so why not pop on over to the Zune marketplace and give it a try?

Screenshots

Here are some screen shots that I took when looking for the Marketplace shots.