Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Story Continues: Jangaron 0.70

I just promoted version 0.60 to "stable" and uploaded a new "experimental" version 0.70. 0.43 is no longer linked (though still online) and 0.54 is now the "old" version.
Here are the highlights of the new experimental version 0.70:
  • Using soundManager2 for HTML5 sound that works in modern browsers without any plugin and even on iOS (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad)! Well, still quite experimental, but it's a proof of concept... As a fall-back, if available, Flash is still used. Moreover, I had to repair stuff to make it work on iOS again.
  • New controls  In single-player mode, you can now press Shift or Ctrl combined with the arrow keys. What happens is that when you hold down a modifier key, releasing the arrow key will turn your lightcycle again! Using Shift, you turn in the opposite direction, while using Ctrl, you turn in the same direction. Thus, you can do side-steps (Shift + arrow) and U-turns (Ctrl + arrow), and the time between pressing and releasing the arrow key determines the "width" of the move. Be warned that holding down the key for too long will trigger key repeat, and you will most likely crash! Maybe I can fix that...
  • Improved team lightcycle resurrection  When you play in a team with other programs and you crash, you are transferred into another lightcycle of your team. So far, this move was so confusing that usually, you immediately crashed again. Now, the view port changes to the other lightcycle, but it remains controlled by the program until you press the first controlling key. Thus, you can relax and wait for a not-so-close situation until taking over control, or just decide to watch the game continue. I plan to visualize the state in which the program has control over the viewport's lightcycle.
  • More technically, I used the latest Jangaroo compiler to recompile all libraries and the game itself. Should not really make any difference in game play, but leads to cleaner JavaScript code and a better build process. I hope to be able to put all Jangaron source code on github soon.
Please tell me what you think about the new features and whether they work for you!

P.S.: For those of you who are bored with the splash screen and voice, there is a secret switch: Just add ?nosplash to the URL, and you'll be directed to the settings dialog immediately, like this: http://www.jangaron.net/jangaron0.7/jangaron.html?nosplash

4 comments:

  1. Man, it just keeps getting better. AI rewrite soon? With these modifier keys I'll be impossible to kill.

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  2. Thanks!
    My idea is to publish the Jangaron source code on github soon so sombody else can implement an AI that deserves the name! Well, I'll have to provide a more convenient grid API, but then...

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  3. OK, one more thing I want to know. Can you change the key-binding for the modifier keys (since you can change all the others)? To use, let's say, A & S instead of Shift and Control? Or, is there something specific about Shit and Control?

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  4. Well, that's why its experimental ;-)
    In fact, there is something special about Ctrl, Shift and Alt: their state is sent with every key event, so it makes it easier to look for combination of keys.
    I could use completely different keys for left u-turn, right u-turn, left side-step and right side-step, but that would sum up to four new keys instead of two.
    I guess I'll have to track key state with my own code to get it right.

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