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<Dave> School?... I vaguely remember that... big building where old men hit you with sticks... (You think I'm joking?) Anyway, have a good break :) PS. It's midwinter here :( <Dave> (SPOILER) Added speedrun: 467 moves (old: 585). Tidy little level. |
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<mm> Dave, thank you so much for your explanation, I really appreciate it as I didn't get "it" at all! Thanks for ctrl-e as well, that's pretty interesting and you're right, it might be a better indicator for difficulty than actual rating seems to be. There had been a 2009 version for Mac, but it didn't work, I can't remember what exactly had been the problem? I also remember having had a bookmark problem as well, that had been very annoying, but that had been years ago and I thought it had been solved?! I know I'm missing the transporter animation, but I have no clue if there might be anything else that had changed? I don't care about animation, and I'm glad my bookmarks to work smoothly. <Dave> PS. At least I know how to parse an .esx file and create insane levels now! Four years too late, but never mind... <Dave> Have been looking at the source code over the last few days, that's how I discovered ctrl-e. Tried compiling in VS2008 and VS2012, but neither will recognise or convert the project file correctly. Got rid of all the code errors but can't get the linker settings right yet (work in progress). C++ is not my strong suit. I really want to try out noname's fix for the bookmark bug. Does anyone know which version this was originally written in? <Dave> I knew it wouldn't take you long :) I had no idea that there wasn't a new compiled version for MAC. Apart fron the sanity checks, I don't think your missing out anything! Not having to deal with the bookmark bug must be good! It definitely makes difficult levels harder to work with. To explain: Windows is different. The player and level files are not stored in the main program directory but in a hidden directory in the user's account. This is why some deleted levels which come with the download of the game get permanently stuck in triage unless you manually delete that triage directory. (The level is deleted from one Triage directory but not the other but it is moved to Graveyard, so the same level appears in both Triage and Deleted Levels - there are about 30 of these ghost levels). This is nothing to do with Tom's source code, as that is the same whatever the platform, but something to do with the way SDL handles file save operations in different versions of Windows (under normal circumstances this behaviour is correct and desirable, just not in this case). The up to date versions of the player file and level directories have not been saved to the main Escape directory since Windows XP, so just copying it onto another machine will not work (as Mark found out), but the game documentation has not been updated accordingly. Copying a player file into the game directory will still work, but backing up from the same location is pointless. I should really stick this lot on feedback and flag it as a bug report (...again). Manual installs of multiple versions of the game will not cause any problems (I have 3 on this machine: 2005, 2007, 2009), but running the setup utility will overwrite your menu and desktop links rather than add additional ones, not a major problem, just annoying. It does, however, seem to create new versions of level and player data for each version, but I'm not sure if this is 100% safe, so I have erred on the side of caution and avoided downloading level updates in the old versions. Hope this makes some kind of sense... DC <mm> Finally I've got the Modular Thinking levels all done, this feels great! As usual, I had been blind and just didn't see one possibility. The annoying thing is: this happens to me way too often... My solution for 16 is slightly different, but I think it's not worth adding another mod. I've been reading the recent comments here and I just don't get it?! I'm playing the old version (from 2007), as there is no new version for Mac, and I've got multiple copies of the game on my computers, I can open all those copies and play multiple escapes on my iMac without any screwing-up problems. I copy my "main-escape" whenever I think about it, just in case and as a back-up, and all my bookmarks and solutions and ratings will be copied as well. In my "Quarantine: Impossible Levels / Bugs"- folder there are 19 levels, I've solved 15 of those and don't know either if the rest is actually solvable or not? <Dave> Mark, I play on multiple machines. Only one copy of my player file has my personal ratings for a particular level. I ctrl-0 the solutions around and try to maintain one file as the master copy, but personal ratings and interim solutions still tend to get lost in the melee. PS. Of the Bob's levels, I think Bob 3 took me the longest. <mark> (SPOILER) Once again i thank you ,I'd got 6 of Bob's levels done and a few bookmarks halfway but they where getting a bit hard so i was leaving them. Did not spot at all Bob 14 was a chess board,a problem i was set a few years back. Much easier now with the internet, i think i must have set the slow run 323. I solved the first knights with the turks tour,but this did not seem to work for Bob14,unless it was just me. So i pulled up some random picture off google worked first go, and as they say "Bobs your uncle". You should not have to remember which levels you have rated there is 6 coloured squares after the author's name of a level,in directories. The 3 on the far right are global ratings ,and if theres 3 to the left of them they are the user ratings. |
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<mm> (SPOILER) Finally I've got this one, it's great and now I understand that its ancestors had been deleted! |
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<Dave> Looking forward to level004... :) |
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<Dave> Actually in some ways ctrl-e (if you allow for upload date) is probably a more realistic difficulty sort than ctrl-d. It definitely highlights a few levels which I found harder than the ratings suggested: Three-quartered Arena, Almost nothing but hard, Compression 2, etc. Also nice to see Flows up there, never a d=9 level admittedly, but definitely in my all time favourites list. Slightly puzzled by Bob14 though! (or to put it another way Knight's Tour so deviously modded that it has exactly the same solution!) I'm going to have to try and remember which ones I haven't rated and do so (easier said than done). Been trying to work on some new level ideas but keep getting interrupted by work, rebuilding the bathroom, etc.. I had loads under development a couple of years back but lost them in a hard-drive crash, the prototype of Seven Bots was all that I recovered. PS. Utterly failed to find a version of escape older than version 200510120, and that's only thanks to radiant's link. Also, pieguy's site is still a no-go zone, only a few pages (e.g. pgpatch) are accessible, and I haven't been able to track down a copy of pi^2 anywhere else. PPS. Good night. |
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<Jim> (SPOILER) Nice level Adriano. |
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<Dave> It's Single file. I'm fairly confident Jumps is impossible. <mark> (SPOILER) Ive got 6 from 10 so at a guess you have either done jumps or single file. i have not got them 2 versions from triage yet. I got 4 of radiants levels in old version but i have not solved brokoban 1 in triage . the other i did not get was the face full of bots level.(think ive played a similar level but can not remember it name) Ctrl = e got me about 10 easy levels to play from the bottom of the list.Solved by many but rated higher than they should be. Ctrl + e and devin's new scheme has pushed triage count past 1650. <Dave> The oldest version I've found so far is Oct 2005. Many of the quarantine levels, including The Dalek Question predate this by about 6 months. Of the 10 which pass the sanity test in the current version, I've only got solves for 7, not including The Dalek Question. No idea if the other 3 are actually solvable or not but I haven't managed to do it. |
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<Dave> (SPOILER) Added speedrun: 763 moves (old: 771). Cheers Mark. |
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<mark> (SPOILER) As feared i did have to lose my levels folder but the only levels i need i can just take them back from escape directories. What happened was i could see extra levels in the quarantine folder so i copied them into my levels only to find out i copied the graveyard by mistake. For some reason though my latest mod was not named on a file so i had uploaded from within the game. I,d spent over half an hour copying speedrun and bookmarking it till i got bored and had not solved it.(thats might be why it was not showing as a file) so i had to quickly solve and upload. I had got a much better ending to add to it from original level.(not as fast as speedrun) Great information once again Dave ,got the old game and i've had a tinker on them. Is the dalek question possible in this version or is there an earlier version out there some place? Ps great speedrun on 3 i love the way instead of uploading my solution just make a mod and you show me how its done the right way. seems you put all the hard work into that solve it can be done 4 quicker. last 2 G down not up.I think you should claim it. Off now to start reclaiming my levels back. <Dave> Playing the 2005 version is interesting when you are used to the current one! Just trying to dig a bit deeper into quarantine. |
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<Dave> (SPOILER) Added speedrun: 771 moves (old: 871). I definitely didn't do it that way. |
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<Jim> (SPOILER) I like doing them all over again from scratch, enough time has passed that they are almost like new levels. I get stuck in all the same spots as I did the first time around. Mark's ending was still trickier than the original, fun stuff. |
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<Dave> First time I've used the 'i' function in a while! |
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<Dave> (SPOILER) Added speedrun: 1528 moves (old: 1684). The original endgame was a bit easy compared to what had preceded it. Loading the penultimate room that was always the tough bit. |
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<Dave> Hi Mark Easiest way to play the Malformed levels (credit to radiant): Go to "tinyurl.com\escape2007". Your are on Windows. An install of the old version will screw with your current one, so download the ZIP version, not the install file. Download, unzip, and run it from wherever you unzip it to. Create a new player, level update quarantine only, and away you go. PS. Only briefly looked your 'new', Revenge. No idea as yet, I did it the intended way. <mark> (SPOILER) Was not going to upload my latest mod just yet i wanted to clean up the solution first. But i have a feeling i might lose my levels folder,been messing around trying to get missing levels to look at and ended up with all deleted levels in the folder. I know how to sort it i think but i might lose some of my levels in the process. My solution is as about as tight as it gets till the last room.(taken from Dave's speedrun). I think this mod does add a bit of difficulty but who am i to judge. Have fun back soon. Ps 4Gf four grey first |
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