Hello,
Thanks to all the good people that helped having a working Squeak3D plugin for recent VM, I am pleased to announce the release of a game I started in 2005 and then let kind of forgot, a remake of The Sentinel from 1986 (I used to play this one a lot). It is a Wonderland application, and it works in a 5.1 image. Nice:)
So here it is: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/guardians.htm
Still in beta, since I have experimented a fair share of VM crashes, but very much playable. See the above page for instructions.
Stef
I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded guardians.0.82.zip and unzipped it to C:\Apps\Guardians. Double-clicking on Squeak.exe gave me a message and upon opening says "WARNING: This Squeak does not have real 3D support" and "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid access to memory locations). There are no log files.
Platform... C:> ver Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.345]
I had an intuition to experiment with a few security settings but didn't really expect a change and didn't pre-record existing settings, but as best I remember from review the final state... Windows Defender Settings > App & browser control Check apps and files - changed from WARN ==> OFF Exploit protection settings > Control flow guard (CFG) - changed ON by default ==> OFF by default Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - remained Use default (ON) Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) - remained OFF by default Randomise memory allocation (Bottom-up ASLR) - changed from Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default High-entropy ASLR - now disabled "requires Randomise memory allocations" Validate exception chains (SEHOP) - change Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default Validate heap integrity - remained Use default (ON)
Those changes required a reboot, so I did that and when I re-ran Guardian's Squeak.exe a rotating landscape appeared. So probably fixed one of those changes, if not the reboot itself.
cheers -ben
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 08:41, Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net wrote:
Hello,
Thanks to all the good people that helped having a working Squeak3D plugin for recent VM, I am pleased to announce the release of a game I started in 2005 and then let kind of forgot, a remake of The Sentinel from 1986 (I used to play this one a lot). It is a Wonderland application, and it works in a 5.1 image. Nice:)
So here it is: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/guardians.htm
Still in beta, since I have experimented a fair share of VM crashes, but very much playable. See the above page for instructions.
Stef
I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded guardians.0.82.zip and unzipped it to C:\Apps\Guardians. Double-clicking on Squeak.exe gave me a message and upon opening says "WARNING: This Squeak does not have real 3D support" and "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid access to memory locations). There are no log files.
Platform... C:> ver Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.345]
I had an intuition to experiment with a few security settings but didn't really expect a change and didn't pre-record existing settings, but as best I remember from review the final state... Windows Defender Settings > App & browser control Check apps and files - changed from WARN ==> OFF Exploit protection settings > Control flow guard (CFG) - changed ON by default ==> OFF by default Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - remained Use default (ON) Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) - remained OFF by default Randomise memory allocation (Bottom-up ASLR) - changed from Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default High-entropy ASLR - now disabled "requires Randomise memory allocations" Validate exception chains (SEHOP) - change Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default Validate heap integrity - remained Use default (ON)
Those changes required a reboot, so I did that and when I re-ran Guardian's Squeak.exe a rotating landscape appeared. So probably fixed one of those changes, if not the reboot itself.
cheers -ben
Wow. Thanks for the feedback. It's hard to make sense of, though. I am also using Windows Defender (on win 8.1) and has no similar issue. I'll try on other computers/systems...
Best,
Stef
yipee a Smalltalk game
On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 06:14 Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net wrote:
I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded guardians.0.82.zip and unzipped it to C:\Apps\Guardians. Double-clicking on Squeak.exe gave me a message and upon opening says "WARNING: This Squeak does not have real 3D
support"
and "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid access to memory locations). There are no log files.
Platform... C:> ver Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.345]
I had an intuition to experiment with a few security settings but didn't really expect a change and didn't pre-record existing settings, but as best I remember from review the final state... Windows Defender Settings > App & browser control Check apps and files - changed from WARN ==> OFF Exploit protection settings > Control flow guard (CFG) - changed ON by default ==> OFF by default Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - remained Use default (ON) Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) - remained OFF by
default
Randomise memory allocation (Bottom-up ASLR) - changed from Usedefault (ON) ==> OFF by default High-entropy ASLR - now disabled "requires Randomise memory
allocations"
Validate exception chains (SEHOP) - change Use default (ON) ==>OFF by default Validate heap integrity - remained Use default (ON)
Those changes required a reboot, so I did that and when I re-ran Guardian's Squeak.exe a rotating landscape appeared. So probably fixed one of those changes, if not the reboot itself.
cheers -ben
Wow. Thanks for the feedback. It's hard to make sense of, though. I am also using Windows Defender (on win 8.1) and has no similar issue. I'll try on other computers/systems...
Best,
Stef
I played and hour and onto my third game (level 29) before a crash. Dump attached. The game is conceptually interesting.
cheers -ben
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 22:06, Ben Coman btc@openinworld.com wrote:
I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded guardians.0.82.zip and unzipped it to C:\Apps\Guardians. Double-clicking on Squeak.exe gave me a message and upon opening says "WARNING: This Squeak does not have real 3D support" and "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid access to memory locations). There are no log files.
Platform... C:> ver Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.345]
I had an intuition to experiment with a few security settings but didn't really expect a change and didn't pre-record existing settings, but as best I remember from review the final state... Windows Defender Settings > App & browser control Check apps and files - changed from WARN ==> OFF Exploit protection settings > Control flow guard (CFG) - changed ON by default ==> OFF by default Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - remained Use default (ON) Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) - remained OFF by default Randomise memory allocation (Bottom-up ASLR) - changed from Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default High-entropy ASLR - now disabled "requires Randomise memory allocations" Validate exception chains (SEHOP) - change Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default Validate heap integrity - remained Use default (ON)
Those changes required a reboot, so I did that and when I re-ran Guardian's Squeak.exe a rotating landscape appeared. So probably fixed one of those changes, if not the reboot itself.
cheers -ben
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 08:41, Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net wrote:
Hello,
Thanks to all the good people that helped having a working Squeak3D plugin for recent VM, I am pleased to announce the release of a game I started in 2005 and then let kind of forgot, a remake of The Sentinel from 1986 (I used to play this one a lot). It is a Wonderland application, and it works in a 5.1 image. Nice:)
So here it is: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/guardians.htm
Still in beta, since I have experimented a fair share of VM crashes, but very much playable. See the above page for instructions.
Stef
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 08:41, Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net
wrote:
Hello,
Thanks to all the good people that helped having a working Squeak3D plugin for recent VM, I am pleased to announce the release of a game I started in 2005 and then let kind of forgot, a remake of The Sentinel from 1986 (I used to play this one a lot). It is a Wonderland application, and it works in a 5.1 image. Nice:)
So here it is: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/guardians.htm
Still in beta, since I have experimented a fair share of VM crashes,
but
very much playable. See the above page for instructions.
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 22:06, Ben Coman btc@openinworld.com wrote:
I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded guardians.0.82.zip and unzipped it to C:\Apps\Guardians. Double-clicking on Squeak.exe gave me a message and upon opening says "WARNING: This Squeak does not have real 3D
support"
and "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid
access to memory locations).
There are no log files.
Platform... C:> ver Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.345]
I had an intuition to experiment with a few security settings but didn't really expect a change and didn't pre-record existing settings, but as best I remember from review the final state... Windows Defender Settings > App & browser control Check apps and files - changed from WARN ==> OFF Exploit protection settings > Control flow guard (CFG) - changed ON by default ==> OFF by default Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - remained Use default (ON) Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) - remained OFF by
default
Randomise memory allocation (Bottom-up ASLR) - changed from
Use default (ON) ==> OFF by default
High-entropy ASLR - now disabled "requires Randomise memory
allocations"
Validate exception chains (SEHOP) - change Use default (ON)
==> OFF by default
Validate heap integrity - remained Use default (ON)Those changes required a reboot, so I did that and when I re-ran Guardian's Squeak.exe a rotating landscape appeared. So probably fixed one of those changes, if not the reboot itself.
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 23:27, Ben Coman btc@openinworld.com wrote:
I played and hour and onto my third game (level 29) before a crash. Dump attached.
The game is conceptually interesting.
I re-enabled setting... Randomise Memory Allocation (Bottom-up ASLR), and rebooted, and the game crashed on load with the same error "LoadLibrary(C:\Apps\guardians\Squeak3D.dll) (998: Invalid access to memory locations).
After disabling "Randomise memory allocation" and reverting all the other settings I had changed and rebooting the game ran fine.
I've attached the exported-settings files for both scenarios.
fyi Most of my changes where made in this window...
https://zdnet2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2017/11/28/53bd7b00-9542-4ce1-b6a2-3df... from here...
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-says-aslr-behavior-in-windows-10-is-...
I wouldn't be surprised if over the next few years that platforms move to default mandatory ASLR.
cheers -ben
I played and hour and onto my third game (level 29) before a crash. Dump attached.
Thanks. Yes, crashes are expected at the moment. I have had many but still cannot corner their pattern. Note that your progress should not be lost though, the game updates the image on disk for each completed landscape. So you can keep playing :)
After disabling "Randomise memory allocation" and reverting all the other settings I had changed and rebooting the game ran fine.
That's interesting. I have been biten by this actually, with other plugins; I was not aware of this ASLR thingy...
Best,
Stef
I played and hour and onto my third game (level 29) before a crash. Dump attached.
I just uploaded verion 0.83 which seems to be less crash-prone to me (I went to level 251 without a crash). I just bypassed a primitive.
http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/guardians/guardians.0.83.zip
Also there is now a way to keep your progression from one development version of the game to another: in the old game, press L. This will dump a file in the game folder. Then start the new game in the same folder, and press L before you win any level. This will import your previous progression.
This way it should be possible to debug crashes and stuff and not have to start over all the time.
Cheers,
Stef
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 at 08:41, Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net wrote:
Hello,
Thanks to all the good people that helped having a working Squeak3D plugin for recent VM, I am pleased to announce the release of a game I started in 2005 and then let kind of forgot, a remake of The Sentinel from 1986 (I used to play this one a lot). It is a Wonderland application, and it works in a 5.1 image. Nice:)
So here it is: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/guardians.htm
Still in beta, since I have experimented a fair share of VM crashes, but very much playable. See the above page for instructions.
Some feedback on the gameplay.
1. After transfer to a robot the view direction is reversed so you are looking at the robot you just came from to make it quicker to absorb. But it doesn't reverse the height vector, so if you build a high tower of boulders, its annoying and time consuming to arrow down to view the previous robot.
2. It would be nice to see the robot starting position on the rotating level overview. What I find myself doing on a new level is entering a game just to have a look around to determine the staring position, then <Escape> back to the level overview to plan a strategy,
3. The arrow keys are a long way from the other main action keys R, A, B when my right hand is on the mouse. its might be nice to have S, E, F C are the navigation keys. Then my hand won't have to keep jumping around the keyboard.
4. Even better would be looking around using a right-click-drag.
5. A key to look directly at sentinels would be nice. After transferring to a new robot the first thing I want to do is check my visibility to the sentinel. If the transfer was steeply up/down it can be disorientating and time consuming to find the sentinel.
cheers -ben
Some feedback on the gameplay.
Nice!
- After transfer to a robot the view direction is reversed so you are
looking at the robot you just came from to make it quicker to absorb. But it doesn't reverse the height vector, so if you build a high tower of boulders, its annoying and time consuming to arrow down to view the previous robot.
Yes, it is annoying. But this is part of the gameplay. Consider this: at times, what you want from a high-level position on a stack of boulders is a fast view on another high spot (such as, obviously, the sentinel). Once transferred, you just have to press the arrows or U (do not underestimate the importance of a fast u-turn) to get that. If you were looking down, it would be a problem.
In fact, absorbing the previous robot is important, but not always possible. At times you are just running away as far and fast as you can, and leave behind an old shell (and some boulders, also) that you can absorb later, or in the form of new trees.
- It would be nice to see the robot starting position on the rotating
level overview. What I find myself doing on a new level is entering a game just to have a look around to determine the staring position, then <Escape> back to the level overview to plan a strategy,
Yes, this is also what I do. In the original game, once the landscape was entered, you had no more overview. And the landscape was shown from a single frontal perspective, with only the sentinel and sentries displayed (no trees). Not to mention a player camera with a much narrower angle of view, making it much more difficult to understand where things are.
- The arrow keys are a long way from the other main action keys R, A,
B when my right hand is on the mouse. its might be nice to have S, E, F C are the navigation keys. Then my hand won't have to keep jumping around the keyboard.
Ah, ok. I will implement a way to remap the keys, just as I did with my "Saucers!" game.
- Even better would be looking around using a right-click-drag.
Hmm. As for points 1, 2, and 5, this is about the gameplay. The Sentinel (the original game) is both a fast and a slow game: things do not go fast, but time is always short. It is critical that the player is not too agile (I have seen other remakes where this is the case), so that he feels some pain in moving around, and has to struggle a bit to make sense of his position. The landscape must be somewhat overwhelming.
But still, you are right that using the mouse to see around should be possible. It was in the original game, in a very (and typical) clunky way: by leaving the cursor on one side of the display, the view would slowly and incrementally rotate. I will do something akin.
- A key to look directly at sentinels would be nice.
After transferring to a new robot the first thing I want to do is check my visibility to the sentinel. If the transfer was steeply up/down it can be disorientating and time consuming to find the sentinel.
This is definitely intended. Every action from the player has to be expensive to some extent. And no help for automatic orientation should be provided.
In short, I have attempted to recreate a game that I know well and that I played a lot in my youth. I believe I succeeded in the sense that the feeling and atmosphere I get from Guardians is very close to what I got from The Sentinel (with a different balance of features and performance though). So I would say give it a chance and let it grow on you. It is a very peculiar game.
Now overall do you enjoy the game, or are those annoying parts actually, well, annoying?
Cheers,
Stef
On Fri, 9 Nov 2018 at 17:39, Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net wrote:
Some feedback on the gameplay.
Nice!
- After transfer to a robot the view direction is reversed so you are
looking at the robot you just came from to make it quicker to absorb. But it doesn't reverse the height vector, so if you build a high tower of boulders, its annoying and time consuming to arrow down to view the previous robot.
Yes, it is annoying. But this is part of the gameplay. Consider this: at times, what you want from a high-level position on a stack of boulders is a fast view on another high spot (such as, obviously, the sentinel). Once transferred, you just have to press the arrows or U (do not underestimate the importance of a fast u-turn) to get that. If you were looking down, it would be a problem.
Okay. I udnerstand.
Actually I've since discovered that I don't need to be look up directly at the target robot, I can keep looking at the base where I was looking when laying down the first boulders. With that its reasonable.
- A key to look directly at sentinels would be nice.
After transferring to a new robot the first thing I want to do is check my visibility to the sentinel. If the transfer was steeply up/down it can be disorientating and time consuming to find the sentinel.
This is definitely intended. Every action from the player has to be expensive to some extent. And no help for automatic orientation should be provided.
okay.
In short, I have attempted to recreate a game that I know well and that
I played a lot in my youth. I believe I succeeded in the sense that the feeling and atmosphere I get from Guardians is very close to what I got from The Sentinel (with a different balance of features and performance though). So I would say give it a chance and let it grow on you. It is a very peculiar game.
Now overall do you enjoy the game, or are those annoying parts actually, well, annoying?
By way of answer I'll just say that I've cracked level 400. I'd say the most annoying thing about it is that is very distracting. I did need a break from some heavy reading I'm doing, but not that much.
Well done with the game. cheers -ben
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