Luxor nodded his reluctant acceptance of the truth and their talk turned to Midnight

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Rorthron

With the re-release of Doomdark’s Revenge and The Lords of Midnight that concludes the last few fraught years of bringing Midnight back from the mobile graveyard caused by Marmalade getting out of the SDK game.

I won’t deny that it’s been a painful process and not one I really want to go through again… and yet… The release is not without it’s problems. I’m not convinced that there isn’t memory crash bug still there caused by the current Cocos2dx SDK. Thanks to all the testers that have helped out over the last few months, I think I have reduced the frequency but can’t be sure. It might just be down to the length of time you play and the size of device that you have.

But, I think the only way to solve the issue is to change the SDK – and I just don’t have that in me.

So, what next.

First, I need to upload new versions of the Lords of Midnight to bring its engine up to date with Doomdark’s Revenge. There are a few small changes that were added during that release that could do with being released into LoM – just having a few Apple issues at the moment with the upload.

Here’s what will be in that release…

Version 2.0.2 (42)

[desktop] Added cursor sizes (small/medium/large)

Version 2.0.2 (41)

fix crash caused by too many armies at a location
panel_think – adjust page indicator size dependent on number of pages

Version 2.0.2 (39)

Return graffiti easter egg
Add confirm night option
panel_look – Add drag down gesture to moves
panel_look – Add drag up gesture for map
[desktop] Add mouse cursor images
[desktop] Consolidate ESC key across all screens
[desktop] Tidy shortcut keys across all screens
[Android] panel_mainmenu Hardware back button now performs Exit
[mobile] Tweak scale of buttons

Version 2.0.2 (38)

Fixed: panel_think – adjust UI on phone
Fixed: potential memory leaks that could be causing crashes

After that I will take a break from this code base. There are a couple of small things that I would like to put back that are missing but that I didn’t feel were critical for the release. I may well add them over time here and there when I find myself in the mood, but I won’t guaranty anything.

[mobile] Pinch and Zoom on the map
Compass Gadget
[desktop] scrolling indicators on popup pages
[desktop] arrow indicators for scrolling on think pages
[desktop] Next/Previous buttons on scrolling pages
[mobile] Vibrate
Review the guide

There are three things that I will be focusing on from hereon in.

Rewrite the engine under c# – this is a long term project in order to make the engine more robust for the future and to make more options available to me. The first is to just straight take the engine to Unity but the other is to also take it online for multi-player. More details to follow in future posts.
Use the current engine to research and develop the new Landscaping needed for The Citadel. The Citadel needs water. I was playing with this technique a few years back but it wasn’t quite gelling. It works fine in a flip screen environment but not so good when the panorama is moving. However, I think with the changes made in order to release using Cocos2dx I’m keen to get back to it.
The Citadel Novel/Game research. Drew’s roadmap currently has The Citadel slated as a 2023 release so we are going to need to get together to work on the details a little more than we did on LoM and DDR. There is going to need to be far more game research which is needed for the book but also for any release that I intend. For one thing the map needs a lot of filling out with details that were sadly missing in the original release.

The Bloodmarch - Northwest corner — The Bloodmarch – Northwest corner

How many times had he pictured in her mind its winding paths and gentle glades?

Posted on October 27, 2018 by Rorthron

When Drew and I were thinking about the cover for the novel, we already had a picture in mind. However, as with most novels, the responsibility of the cover sits with the publisher. Very few authors have much say on what the final cover will look like, it is after all, generally a marketing decision.

In this case, things changed. Due to events outside the scope of this post, and generally not of real importance, Drew and I found ourselves having to think about the cover. What it would look like, and who would create it. The who was a no brainer – Jure my long time collaborator on all things Midnight was the perfect fit, and we had an image of his that both Drew and I loved and had used already in promoting the book.

There were just two issues with the picture though. One, we had used it already, and two its focus is the wrong way around. If you fold the above image in half the Lord would be on the back and the Citadel on the front. It’s not a huge problem, but it doesn’t feel right.

I also had an image that I used in the game for the main menu. The image shows a group of Lords marching out from the Citadel, albeit this one juxtaposes new and old art work. And that was the idea I liked.

So I created a mockup by flipping the image and sticking on a cutout of the citadel and the lords. This I sent to Jure and asked for something like that.

Within a day or so, Jure sent me his draft sketch. Which Drew and I discussed. Needless to say we loved it. There was only one thing that we wanted to change and that was to incorporate ‘dawn’ a little more. We both liked the way that the sun pops up from behind the mountains and sprays across the lake on the original image. So I asked Jure if he could adapt the sketch to take that into account.

Jure sent a new image, but he felt that the switch of the sun made the right side of the image, and therefore the front cover, too dark. We agreed with him and so asked him to create the final artwork based on his sketch. To be honest, I could have just gone with the sketch! 🙂

A couple of days later, I received the final artwork from Jure, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone involved with the production of the book were overwhelmed with how great it looked. It’s another one of Jure’s perfect Midnight inspired images.

I now look forward to what Doomdark’s Revenge cover might look like. This time however, we might give Jure more time!

Above, the towering clouds simply melted away and the bright stars gleamed in the sky once more.

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Rorthron

After having a conversation with Drew a couple of weeks back about the future of the novels, I came to a stark realisation that I was now unable to build the special version of Doomdark’s Revenge that he would need to allow him to freely wander the Icemark as part of his research. This was something that I did for him with The Lords of Midnight and it helped greatly.

However, the problems that I have had with the building of the games because of the loss of the Marmalade SDK are still plaguing me. I was slowly coming to the acceptance that I would soon be removing the games from the Apple app store as each new release of iOS and new devices makes the game unobtainable. This will likely follow through to Android and Windows.

All this has been compounded that my general motivation has been through the floor for a number of years now.

The upshot of this post is that this week I had a self imposed break from work and I’ve been working on the game and have made great progress already. The main menu and surrounding screens are all working. The main view is mostly done bar a few niceties and features that I don’t yet need to give Drew the functionality he needs. Today I’m working on the Think screen, but the main missing screens are the Select and Map screen.

Main Menu
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