30 July 2015

Windows 10 and Project Plasma

So Windows 10 is finally upon us and I never knew that an operating system could create so much hype on the internet. Wow.

So anyway, I have currently been developing games using Windows 7 Professional (formerly Home Premium) and have always focused on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (and 8.1 which is basically just Windows 8 Service Pack 1, same OS pretty much) as well as the Android mobile operating system.

Anyway Microsoft has been developing Windows 10 for a while as I'm sure many of you are aware of by now but up until now it has been a mere preview of the OS, as such, I have never been given it much attention although Project Plasma should still work on there. I have not had chance to test the game on Windows 10 as I don't have the OS yet (still on 7 but I'm downloading the upgrade as I type this but the internet round here doesn't exactly set the tarmac ablaze) and I was only able to test on Windows 8 (and 8.1) due to the fact that my old college had Windows 8 installed. Project Plasma was still in development back then so I had the chance to test it out on that system. That is how I found out about the audio bug that caused the game to crash.

What I'm trying to say is, I do not know how Project Plasma will run on Windows 10 at this moment in time as like I said I've not been given the chance yet to test it out on this operating system since I have not used the technical preview of Windows 10 so obviously I haven't tested Project Plasma on Windows 10. I'm fairly confident that it will work, but not certain. I shall attach an update to the bottom of this blog post tomorrow once I've done testing it out on Windows 10 and let you know how things pan out.

Alternatively if anyone here already has Windows 10 and has played Project Plasma on that operating system, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or through a comment below to tell me how it ran (if it did,) this would be much appreciated.

UPDATE: I have just finished testing Project Plasma on Windows 10 (brilliant OS by the way, Microsoft really learnt from their Windows 8 fuckup) and I encountered no issues. It may tell you to install something called DirectPlay but once this is installed Project Plasma will run with no issues. (Tested with PP v1.0.3)

28 July 2015

Project Plasma v1.0.3 Changelog

So here's PP v1.0.3, I am aware that it is overdue (the to-do list I posted stated this would be out on 5th July) but development of CHAOS 3 hasn't been going as smoothly as I had hoped (PPM v1.1 will also be delayed.) I'll be going into more detail on that in a future blog post but for now, here's PP v1.0.3.

This update is exclusively for the full version of the game and will not be ported to the demo version (so the free demo will remain on v1.0.2.)
  • Save files now have their own file extension and go under a different file name.
    • The save file for most levels is now called "pp1save.PLSV" (previously called playersave)
    • The save file for level X is now called pp1Xsave.PLSV (previously called playersaveX)
  • The long thin lasers fired by the bosses Dynast and Crystalline now deal 25 damage. (Up from 20)
  • The thin shots fired in Crystalline's final phase now travel at a higher speed. (13 speed up from 10, re-fire rate has not been changed.)
  • Health packs now heal the player by 20%. (Down from 30%)
Also from this point on, all PP updates will be uploaded as .7z archives (they were formerly .zip archives) to keep the uploaded file size down. This means faster uploads for me and faster downloads for you although it will mean you'll need to download some external third-party software to open the files. I personally suggest using 7-zip as its free and doesn't nag the shit out of you for not buying it like WinRAR does.

7-zip can be downloaded here
Project Plasma can be purchased/downloaded here
Project Plasma Mobile (prototype) can be downloaded for Android devices here