Jamul
03-24-2001, 11:00 AM
The mysterious invincibility bug was not fixed by the changes I made before I have discovered. First, let me describe the bug:
"LIFE AFTER DEATH" BUG
Sometimes - under circumstances I cannot possibly figure out, and I have never seen, no matter how many crazy things I try! - when you die, rather than ending your game and reloading your last saved game, you become invincible and unable to pick up any items or anything. You know it's happened if you are walking around with zero hearts in your life meter (and you're invincible, unable to get items, and all that).
There's good news and bad news:
BAD NEWS:
If you have already bought your copy of Loonyland, it will have the bug in it, and I'm not issuing a patch (because of good news below, and because the idea of having to patch games makes me very unhappy, not that buggy games are so good either). Same if you already downloaded the demo. However, I've uploaded a new version of the demo that is fixed. If you want to know if you have a fixed or broken copy, fixed is version 1.1 on the title screen, broken is 1.0. But I wouldn't worry about it because of the good news.
GOOD NEWS:
The bug does not really matter, provided you know it exists! Because if it happens to you, you should've died. So if it happens, simply load your last save yourself, because that's what would've happened anyway. You ARE NOT losing anything as a result of this bug, as it only kicks in if you were supposed to die. It also seems to be exceptionally rare since I've never encountered it, none of the testers ever did, and only 2 players have that I'm aware of.
My humble apologies to you all, I feel really bad about this and I really hope this is the last one!!!! I fully expect to provide high quality, fully functional games, and it's very frustrating when I can't provide that. Big rant and such follows, you may ignore it if you aren't interested in hearing what's wrong with PC games and how bad I feel about this situation occurring:
My #1 goal here is to beat out the big guys with perfect bug-free games, perfect support for them, and cheap prices. I know the PC game market is intimidating and unpleasant for the average consumer because the game they buy at the store is at best half-working, and the average person doesn't ever even KNOW that they need to go online and download 100MB of patches to get the game working right, and when they do find out, it's just a pain. Companies should always be expected to ship perfect products, and should be accountable when they don't. It disgusts me that the standard in this industry is to EXPECT the user to have to download patches for their games. In fact, most PC games say when they are installed "before you play, go check our website to see if there are any patches you need to install". It really hurts me to end up in roughly the same position. I am very glad that as yet we haven't had any fatal issues in Loonyland, and that this bug is just a minor nuisance once it's understood. I'm awfully upset about those few little crash bugs in Dr. Lunatic though. Those are terrible, and all the junk I said above applies to Dr. Lunatic as well. So I am very sorry that I can't seem to hold my head above the crowd of trash that is consistently unleashed on the gaming public like I am trying to do. That will always be my goal however, and one of the nice features of being a little guy is that, like in this case, when I DO fix such a problem, I modify the product I'm shipping to incorporate the fix, so there is a fixed version going out to all the new customers.
Rest assured I am completely committed to the Hamumu philosophy that the customer should expect and demand that their games are perfect, and I will continue to provide complete support for any problems you have until they are either fixed or you have your money back.
Mike Hommel
Marshmallow Head, Hamumu Software
http://www.hamumu.com
jamul@hamumu.com
"LIFE AFTER DEATH" BUG
Sometimes - under circumstances I cannot possibly figure out, and I have never seen, no matter how many crazy things I try! - when you die, rather than ending your game and reloading your last saved game, you become invincible and unable to pick up any items or anything. You know it's happened if you are walking around with zero hearts in your life meter (and you're invincible, unable to get items, and all that).
There's good news and bad news:
BAD NEWS:
If you have already bought your copy of Loonyland, it will have the bug in it, and I'm not issuing a patch (because of good news below, and because the idea of having to patch games makes me very unhappy, not that buggy games are so good either). Same if you already downloaded the demo. However, I've uploaded a new version of the demo that is fixed. If you want to know if you have a fixed or broken copy, fixed is version 1.1 on the title screen, broken is 1.0. But I wouldn't worry about it because of the good news.
GOOD NEWS:
The bug does not really matter, provided you know it exists! Because if it happens to you, you should've died. So if it happens, simply load your last save yourself, because that's what would've happened anyway. You ARE NOT losing anything as a result of this bug, as it only kicks in if you were supposed to die. It also seems to be exceptionally rare since I've never encountered it, none of the testers ever did, and only 2 players have that I'm aware of.
My humble apologies to you all, I feel really bad about this and I really hope this is the last one!!!! I fully expect to provide high quality, fully functional games, and it's very frustrating when I can't provide that. Big rant and such follows, you may ignore it if you aren't interested in hearing what's wrong with PC games and how bad I feel about this situation occurring:
My #1 goal here is to beat out the big guys with perfect bug-free games, perfect support for them, and cheap prices. I know the PC game market is intimidating and unpleasant for the average consumer because the game they buy at the store is at best half-working, and the average person doesn't ever even KNOW that they need to go online and download 100MB of patches to get the game working right, and when they do find out, it's just a pain. Companies should always be expected to ship perfect products, and should be accountable when they don't. It disgusts me that the standard in this industry is to EXPECT the user to have to download patches for their games. In fact, most PC games say when they are installed "before you play, go check our website to see if there are any patches you need to install". It really hurts me to end up in roughly the same position. I am very glad that as yet we haven't had any fatal issues in Loonyland, and that this bug is just a minor nuisance once it's understood. I'm awfully upset about those few little crash bugs in Dr. Lunatic though. Those are terrible, and all the junk I said above applies to Dr. Lunatic as well. So I am very sorry that I can't seem to hold my head above the crowd of trash that is consistently unleashed on the gaming public like I am trying to do. That will always be my goal however, and one of the nice features of being a little guy is that, like in this case, when I DO fix such a problem, I modify the product I'm shipping to incorporate the fix, so there is a fixed version going out to all the new customers.
Rest assured I am completely committed to the Hamumu philosophy that the customer should expect and demand that their games are perfect, and I will continue to provide complete support for any problems you have until they are either fixed or you have your money back.
Mike Hommel
Marshmallow Head, Hamumu Software
http://www.hamumu.com
jamul@hamumu.com