http://dark.am/files/dxt.rar
Opinions please!
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DXT: LaTe (Lame Tetris) v.1.0
Release January 15, 2006, 4:10AM
README
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(man I love game development if only for writing that sweet readme in the end!)
Contents:
1. About
2. Help
3. Technical
4. Troubleshooting
5. What's next
6. Credits
1. About
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The program is written basically in 12 hours during 2 days, 1st day spent on programming the gameplay and 2nd day spent on adding the sounds/brushing the game look and code up. This is basically my first ever DirectX project completely written by me, so forgive if it's a bit scratchy. This is mainly for educating (and slightly showing off) myself, and doesn't have any commercial or other aim. Get the game at
http://dark.am/files/dxt.rar. That's the only source that I guarantee does not have any viruses or other crap.
2. Help
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Well, first of all here are the controls you need to know in order to play:
Left: Move the piece left
Right: Move the piece right
Up: Rotate the piece
Down, Space: Drop the piece
A: Orbit the camera left
D: Orbit the camera right
Gray +: Zoom the camera in
Gray -: Zoom the camera out
And last but not least, Alt+F4: Quit the game
The gameplay of tetris is fairly simple - you need to fill rows by moving and rotating the pieces. A complete row is eliminated. For each new piece you get a score of 100. For each eliminated row, you get additional 500. Every 5000 points you proceed to the next level, which merely means that the blocks fall faster. The goal of the game is to score higher than you can. And no, the game doesn't keep a highscore table. Sorry.
3. Technical
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Boo-hoo, DirectX 9! Yeh it may run slow on your PC because of antialiasing and some other things, but why would I bother for your P133 if I got a P4 HT 3Ghz?
Anyway, the game runs pretty smoothly on my other PII with NVidia Vanta, so you shouldn't run into any performance problems (unless you're living in 80'ies)
Sound uses DirectSound, user input uses DirectInput, and that seems to be all. The app is developed on VS.Net'03, Adobe Photoshop used only for picking the right colors for the blocks (no textures used in the game), and Minesweeper used during the short breaks between coding the game classes.
Talking about the input, I feel like it's acting lousy especially on slower machines, so if you ever get to experience it - don't hesitate to contact me describing what exactly do you mean by 'lousy'
4. Troubleshooting
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The game has been tested on a P4 Radeon5800 WinXP, Celeron Vanta Win2000 and bytecoder's Linux Wine. Wine reported some problems with the way the cubes looked and also didn't play any sounds. XP and 2000 at my home ran fine.
Conclusion - if you're having a problem, you are most likely using Linux.
Under Windows, if running the game you get an error message saying something about creating a Direct3D Device, you probably just do not have hardware acceleration or the DirectX 9 runtime, both of which are absolutely necessary for the game to run. Any other problems please report to me and I'll add your name in the credits, of course fixing the stupid bug. And no, the DirectX runtime does NOT ship with the archive, don't even search.
5. What's next
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I don't know! I'd like to make some better-looking and slightly more complicated game, so it's either gonna be a LaTe v.2 or something entirely different. What about I get a team? But there's gonna be something for sure, seriously!
6. Credits
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Programming: Me,
Choosing sounds: Me,
Any design involved: Me.
MAN I'M PRETTY!!
Huge credit goes to #gamedev on irc.afternet.org and all the great folks around there. Guys you rule, if only there'd be more of you (I mean come on, breed!)
Yeh, Hett (hett.mett at gmail - com) helped me in some DirectX aspects. Chicks, send him a mail - he's cool, cute and he won't mind!
Of course if you wanna find me for any other reason than beating me down, send a message to sssilver at gmail - com, and if you also add 're DXT' in the subject line without the quotes, my Gmail filter will recognize your message and that will be all magic and stuff!
Cheers and good luck to you and me!