GNOP V.1.21 released! (advanced Pong clone)

[SpiderPumpkin]

V.1.21 is out!

GNOP V.1.21 free version only at this link! Click here to download GNOP V.1.21 for FREE! (http://www.duckattack.de/GNOP%20-%20Pong%20Clone%20V12.zip) (note: GNOP does not kill pop-ups)

NOTE: This game need CNCS232.dll to run! You can download it here:
http://www.duckattack.de/cncs232.dll

Some of you might still remember my release of "GNOP", a Pong clone with an AI and other neat features, a while ago. (several months ago, actually). I promised in that thread that I'd be releasing some new version with additional features & bugfixes. This is V.1.21 of the game! Here's a brief version history:


V.1.21
- Background songs can be listened to in the main menu
- All settings in the main menu are now saved in an INI file

V.1.2
- Added the option to select one of 9 background musics. (no, they weren't made specifically for GNOP, they're some older compositions I found on my hard drive :-P)
- Added a new difficulty level: "Insane". On Insane, the AI always knows where the ball is going to fly and moves accordingly.
- Deactivating ball trails should now actually increase performance :-P (for some reason, I just made the trails invisible in V.1.1 >_>)

V.1.11
- Fixed a bug where the main menu would get screwed up after restarting, thanks to Sokko for pointing it out!

V.1.1
- Added the option to turn the animated star background and ball trails off
- Added a round system. No, that doesn't mean it's round. (that was so very obvious :-P)

V.1.0
- First release of the game. Features paddle color choosing, good physics and an AI with 3 levels of difficutly.

No, there are no screenshots. Just imagine Pong with good graphics and an animated star background. :-P

Pweese report any bugs 'n bombs you find.

[Sokko]

Downloading results in a 0-byte file. The only solution I can think of right now is to get rid of the spaces in the filename and upload it again.

[SpiderPumpkin]

Hmm, I might not have refreshed WS_FTP before uploading, for me, it sometimes does weird things if changes are made to a file on a local drive which have opened in WS_FTP and you don't refresh it after that.
It should work now!

[Sokko]

One step further, but still not there yet. :P "This application has failed to start because CNCS232.dll was not found."

[SpiderPumpkin]

One step further, but still not there yet. :P "This application has failed to start because CNCS232.dll was not found."
Oops, I forgot to mention it needs that, I did mention it in my old thread that got deleted :-P It's on my website:

http://www.duckattack.de/cncs232.dll

[Sokko]

The extra music selections are nice! However, it would be good if selecting the music in the menu actually played it right then, instead of having to enter a game to hear it. The only other major thing I'd like to see would be to have the main menu remember its settings between games, instead of resetting to the defaults each time. If not that, then I'd say get rid of the considerable hiccup that occurs when the music loops, because it throws you off for a second.

I think the fact that I can't find any worse problems than that petty issue points to the high quality of this game, as compared to the others which have passed through this forum. :)

[SpiderPumpkin]

[...]then I'd say get rid of the considerable hiccup that occurs when the music loops, because it throws you off for a second.[...]
That can't be fixed, it happens with all midis, but apparently only on certain systems. For me, it didn't happen when I still had my old (Windows 98 :-P) computer, but since I got the new one, there's a pause whenever a midi resets in any game :-/ That must be the "hiccup" you mean...
I was originally going to have the menu remember all the settings, but I didn't really have the time to put that in (I wanted to release V.1.2 as early as possible). It'll be in the next version (V.1.21 because it's only such a small change), though. The option to listen to midis directly at the main menu shouldn't take that long, so it'll also be in the next version.

[Sokko]

Oh, so that's the problem. Using MIDI directly in a game = bad. Not only because of the hiccup, but because they sound different on every computer. There is a filesize tradeoff, but it's well worth it to allow people to hear your music the way you intended it to sound. Use OGG files if possible, because they have ridiculously good compression rates.

[SpiderPumpkin]

Oh, so that's the problem. Using MIDI directly in a game = bad. Not only because of the hiccup, but because they sound different on every computer. There is a filesize tradeoff, but it's well worth it to allow people to hear your music the way you intended it to sound. Use OGG files if possible, because they have ridiculously good compression rates.
Yeah, I don't like MIDIs in games either, they also sound crappy with my current soundcard. The problem is that my webspace is limited, and I would like to use it for other things than a pong game which is not even on my actual website. I also wanted to keep the game as low in size as possible so that people won't have to download too much just to play pong. Btw, I found WMA files to be much smaller than OGG, but they might not work on every system. I'm actually pretty sure they wouldn't work on non-Windows systems, seeing how they're Windows Media Audio files.

[AtkinsSJ]

Cool. I like!
This is really good, but it'd be nice if, like Sokko said, you heard the music selected in the main menu.

[SpiderPumpkin]

Version 1.21 is out! Just redownload the zip archive. It now includes the option to listen to background musics in the main menu (the normal menu music is stops while another music is playing, then starts again afterwards) and all the setting are saved in an INI file (gnopsettings.ini, I think).
http://www.duckattack.de/GNOP%20-%20Pong%20Clone%20V12.zip

[Code name 47]

Hey this is fun! Keep up the good work

[kidmystik101]

nice!

[SpiderPumpkin]

Does anyone else encounter a bug where, in 2 player mode, the ball stops moving when the paddle at the top moves? :-/ I might have accidently screwed up parts of the normal ball movement code while coding that new CPU player...

[Mr.Onion]

Cool! One problem is that when I change bat colours, play a game and come back to the menu the text says both are white but the pics show what I had before. Also some of the text hangs around after a game.

[CatMystic]

Great game! :)

[pizza]

Did you make those musics all by yourself?

[SpiderPumpkin]

Did you make those musics all by yourself?
Yes, all of them were done using capella 2004. Some of them were supposed to sound like they're from a Mega Man game btw, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which songs those are.