Knockabout has been available in varying forms for about 3 months now. I’d received next to no feedback on the game after initially making it available on the ZX Spectrum Next forum back in August. Recently, a new forum opened at Spectrum Computing which I joined. It had a section for letting people know what projects you are currently working on. I posted a topic about Knockabout and within a couple of days got a much better response and some proper feedback.
One of the surprising things with the previous releases was the lack of reported bugs (one of the first versions had a typo in the level data which made it impossible to get past level 4). In software there are usually two reasons for this: 1 – the code is perfect and bug free or 2 – no one is using the code. I’m realistic enough to see the latter as the reason for the lack of bug reports. Maybe it will be the former one day. 🙂
Turns out there were some cosmetic glitches and some right howlers. From a rotating switch not being drawn correctly in a certain situation, player tiles being left behind after moving which would block your progress and the undo mechanism which – apart from working intermittently – would randomly corrupt memory.
I made a number of intermediate builds available on the forum to get to the bottom of the reported issues. After a hiatus of a month or so (I was working on contributions for the upcoming WOOT! ZXMAS 2017 tape magazine but, more on that to come…) I’ve picked up the code again and made a proper new build available.
The following changes have been made in build 107:
- Added levels 83-90.
- Fixed switch graphics glitch when rotating a 2×2 switch anti-clockwise.
- Logic fixes to undo system.
- Undoing a move was corrupting memory.
- Try and stop issue where a ‘stuck tile’ gets left behind on the level after moving.