Beta 0.418 Released (Solitaire Mode, 5 Story Cutscenes, A Dozen More Levels)

[x4000]

Full release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Tidalis_-_0.418_Beta_Release

The story is coming along well, the new levels are some of the best we've had yet, and the networking continues to progress although there is nothing visible to show for that yet (networking is kind of an all or nothing thing as far as visibility to players go).  We also added one new game mode, two new special blocks, three new items, and made a number of revisions and bugfixes.

As I'd hoped, the networking isn't causing a halt on all other code-related updates being released, so that's great news.  The networking is partially implemented in this release, but it's so isolated that it doesn't affect the game or our ability to do updates.  That's a nice change of pace from the multi-well play, well scaling, and various of those other "big gap causing" updates.

Enjoy!

[BajaBoojum]

Hi- great game!

I just bought the pre-release, but I'm a little confused.  The download gives me v0.408, but the forum comments say this is an open beta and announces new releases.  What's up?

Also, please see my bug report in the Development Discussion.

Thanks!

[x4000]

Hi there,

I just responded in the other thread, but it's basically the same issue.  What you were seeing as a bug in the other forum wasn't actually a bug, but rather it (somewhat cryptically) telling you that it can't contact the update server to look for any more updates to the game.  We update the installer itself comparably rarely, so you have to use the in-game updater to get the latest versions in a convenient fashion.  You can also download and unpack the zip files for the updates manually, but that would be a real pain, and I wouldn't recommend it if you have any other choice!

Thanks for your support, and glad you're enjoying the game!

[BajaBoojum]

Thanks!

As you were replying I went online with my MiniNote and got the auto updates.  Offline I still get the connect message, though.

I don't know how many other people play offline, but for us an auto-updater on/off option in settings would be nice, or kill the message.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work!

[x4000]

Thanks, we'll definitely look at that -- glad it worked out for the updates, at any rate!

[BajaBoojum]

I did get a short error message during the update, but it otherwise went fine.  See my post in the Development Discussion.

Thanks!

[Tankor Smash]

Hey There!

Long time no see! Not a huge fan of the genre, though I guess I do own Tetris, Hexic, Bejewelled and Puzzle Quest... Anyways, bought this game as soon as I could spare the change, if for no other reason than just to support ya! Heh, anyways, I haven't done much 'sides check the wiki link you provided but is there a DDL anywhere around for the latest patch ala AI War?

For some reason this game won't run on my XP Desktop unless I rightclick the icon on my desktop and use the Run As.. option, even without changing anything. This is fine, but I suspect it's the same thing that's messing with the autoupdater. Trying to autoupdate from the demo to the latest 9 patches and I think the last time it crashed on the fourth update.

Very very innovative game, got the demo on my laptop which works great as I couldn't get it working for a bit on my desktop and I think I got stuck on the 10th level or so. Pretty neat though, I'm excited to see where you're going to take this.

Thanks for the support,
Tankor Smash

EDIT: Just tried two more times, the first time it got through the last three updates lightning quick and the when to the menu and immediately crashed, then the second time went really slow through the first half of update 4 and I looked away, then looked back about 20 seconds later and it CTD again.

[x4000]

Hey, good to hear from you!  If you're having frequent crashes of the game during update, or of the updater itself... that's new.  Sounds like something in windows is having some issues, but I have no idea what that might be, this is the first such report we've had.

The direct downloads for the updates can be found this way, though:

http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/410.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/411.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/412.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/413.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/414.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/415.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/416.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/417.zip
http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/418.zip

You can get the list of the updates history at any time from this xml file (ignore the B's in front and you have the list): http://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/TidalisUpdates2.xml 

If a version number is missing, you don't need it (such as with 409).  For all of these, they are just raw zip files; simply unpack them into your Tidalis folder in the correct order; they are not cumulative, so you need to do each one individually.  Hence the updater.  There are also deletelist.txt files in some of these, which the updater uses to delete old files that have been renamed or whatever; you don't need to do that, but you'll have some extra unused files hanging around unless you do, and in a few cases some extra levels that seem duplicative, etc.  This is really meant to be run via the automatic updater, which has been really reliably so far, so I'm not sure what the deal is.  If you have all the updates successfully installed on your laptop, you can just copy that to your desktop if you want, there's nothing in the registry...

[rubikscube]

Last beta is gonna be 4.120 I suppose? (4 weeks to your expected release date)

[x4000]

I highly doubt 0.420 would be the last one, more likely the pace of these is really going to step up nearer to the end.  At the moment the release notes for 0.419 are getting pretty hefty, it's just a matter of time and the networking stuff, etc, that I haven't done a release there.  I will definitely be doing one before too long, though.

[RCIX]

Oh, yea, i just bought my copy.

[x4000]

Thanks for your support!

[x4000]

New version, at long last! http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,5783.msg42714.html#msg42714