What is with the more powerful bots? It only takes one grenade to destroy them. Is it how they are programmed?

I have figured out how to fly without the jetpack! Use the increased speed on the cheat mode (once again it is lockandload on the options menu) jump and then press downwhile your going up and you'll start flying! Depending on the timing you'll jump faster and slower!

With the exception of some special enemies and the bosses, most opponents in the game can be defeated with one shot.

I installed v 1.07 and I can't seem to continue playing a saved game - it says the savegame is corrupt. It was saved with 1.05 on my old 32-bit machine (the new one is 64-bit only). Is there anything I can do to recover it?

Unfortunately, no - not unless you delve into the code. The save games are binary writes, so all the data will written as 32 bits and can't [easily] be loaded into a 64 bit version of the game.

Ok, thanks for the reply. I guess I will have to start from scratch - but the game sure is fun, so no big deal. ;-)

How long has v.1.09 been out?

Hey How Do I Compile This In Ubuntu

um...Steve,
I've noticed that the people asking questions about this game have been using the "Making of Metal Blob Solid" instead of this part of the whole website connetion to this. I've been looking at the comments that they put on and answer the best answer I can give them, most of the ones that I have been answering are ones that I can answer. Although if it's with the program, I can't answer it and I leave it for you or someone who can answer it. So look at it and you can easily answer it. Also, Whats a Debian package?

Hacker07 - You need to have all the appropriate SDL development libraries installed, download the source files for Metal Blob Solid, and then run "make".

the cheat code does'nt seem to work in win xp...

Not at all? You should be entering into the Options screen, not on the title screen like some people have attempted before.

And the translation also doesn't work on Windows...

No, you're right - localization isn't supported on the Windows version.

Hey Steve, Could you try to fly without the Jetpack? If you do it wrong you'll fall faster instead of flying, and depending on the timing you can fly faster and slower.

Sorry, I don't have time to do things like that. Maybe someone else could help you experiment.

Hi, I have installed metal blob solid from Ubuntu's repository. Seems there is something wrong with the color of the game on my configuration. The water is not dark blue like in the screenshots, but it is a light blue raster. Doesn't look great. Is there any way I can fix this?
I tried blobwar -h to see if there are any options you can set up, the game fired up immediately so I guess not options..

Tag - What's the spec of your computer? Sounds like it might be either an issue with SDL or with your video card. Which version of Ubuntu are you on?

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply.
Ubuntu 8.10 and videocard is a pretty cheap Geforce 6200 128 Mb. I also disabled compiz and tried to tweak some nvidia settings. Seems like this game is the only one that has this problem.

Hmmmmm, I have heard of some other people suffering from this, but I'm not sure of the cause just yet. I'll have to do some digging around to see if it's something to do with SDL, because there have never been any issues in past versions and distros.

FYI, I will not be able to test anything on this computer for some time now. I was installing Linux on a computer of a friend of mine. He will take it home today and it can take a while before I see him again.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the effort. It's a great and funny game and made with an eye for detail.

will this work with windows 7
im kinda paranoid and do NOT download anything w/out making sure they work w/ my OS

-Thanks

the cheat code works on xp, but is qwerty, so its "lockqndloqd" instead

Beartwig - I have no idea, but why are you worried about running software on a beta OS? Surely that's the point! If you're that concerned you could always install Linux, either as a dual boot or a virtual system.

Ok Thanks and I will install linux too do you have any suggestions for a linux OS for me to install

Give the latest version of Ubuntu a go. There are a lot of Open Source games and apps on there which you'll probably end up finding quite useful,

http://www.ubuntu.com/

hi with mint 5 and 6 (based on ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10) I succeed to compile and install but when I start the game it complains I don't have a license agreement

have you got a solution for this problem?

Release 3 should fix that issue. It was an error with the build process.

thank you it's working

nice game by the way :)

Awesome game. Very addicting.

I was wondering, can I use the game data files ( images, sounds, music ) in my own games?

You can, but you need to be aware that the sound effects and music are non-Free. Otherwise, the code, graphics, and data files are under the GPL.

Thank you for making a good game! I played it on a Nokia N810 and now have downloaded the latest version for my daughter to play.

However, there's a small problem with latest versions (tried both 1.09 and 1.10). You can't reassign the 'Jump' key, it is always bound to arrowpad 'Up' key. I tried this on two different machines - one Fedora9 x86_64 and other Fedora 10 i386, and on both I found the same problem.

And another remark: Fedora RPMs includes a couple of patches to blobwars, I have put them here: http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/bw/ - maybe you find them useful, see yourself.

Wow, I thought that bug with the Up Arrow Key binding had been dealt with years (literally) ago! Well, shouldn't be too hard to track down. I'll pop up a new version (1.11) to sort it out in a few days.

Cool, could you also look at this issue too:

http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/img/blobwars-setup.png

For some reason it displays only one letter from every word in the menus.

Does this happen on both version of Fedora (32-bit and 64-bit)?

Yes, I've seen this on at least three machines (one i386, one 2-core and one 4-core CPUs)

I think I know where the problem may lie - in src/widget.cpp, the function drawOptions(Widget *widget, int maxWidth) will separate out the available options for the widget by splitting the string according to the | (pipe).

This works fine on a number of distros I have used, but it seems to be causing issues with your systems. Could you have a play around with the function and then send me a patch? Please try and keep the changes as minimal as possible (i.e. - don't add new classes, headers, etc.) which could break the game for others.

real great game, played through it once on ubuntu
now i want it on my windows computer. only one thing doesn't work: changing the jump-key. i want wasd instead of the arrow keys. when i change the keys, the menu reacts, but ingame i still can only jump with the up key, while i run around with asd...
i remember playing with wasd on linux with an older version... please help me!

by the way: a one-computer two-player (maybe co-op) mode would be real fun.

I've identified the UP button bug, so I'll be able to update it in a few days when I've had time to test it.

Yes, a co-op mode would be fun, but I was never able to get my head around real time networking coding, so the game will have to remain single player, I'm afraid.

What about a co-op mode on one computer?
split screen, player one e.g. arrow keys, return, right ctrl;
player two e.g. wasd, shift, left ctrl

is that possible?

That is possible, yes. But I should point out that I am no longer enhancing or adding new features to Metal Blob Solid, since I feel the game is done. As of this point, I'm only fixing bugs.

Sory for the delay, finally found a bit of free time for it.

I found that the source of problem is that you're misusing the sprintf function a bit. The behavior of sprintf in the cases like:

sprintf(token, "%s%c", token, *c);

is kind of undefined in the standard (I think), but now it is considered to be a mistake and the Fedora hardened libc does additional checks for such cases (and the above doesn't work). Also there were useless calls like:

sprintf (token, "%s", token);

which I have removed. I re-implemented the drawOptions() function to use a more optimal string parsing method. I'm sorry that I have touched perhaps a bit too much, but I hope the function will work now better (and it's now smaller).

I've put the diff here:

http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/bw/blobwars-1.10-options.patch

I'd also recommend to also apply at least the patch:

http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/bw/blobwars-1.09b2-font_error.patch

because it fixes the same problem but elsewhere.

Thanks for the patches. I've added them to the 1.11 update.

Hello, a very nice game. Please write me were i find the Aqua Lung. In Level flooded tunnels 2 or 3? I'dont find it. Thank you for this amazing game. It must be a hard work.

greetz Florian

Just keep playing the game. You won't miss it.

You find the key items during bosses! XD

What's with the text? After any story part (i.e. pre- and post-boss), the text runs offscreen.

This happens on BOTH Ubuntu and Windows. It's very strange.

The font sizes that the game is calculating is probably wrong on your system. The issue is that the fonts are created via point size, which is dependent on the computer screen's DPI.

Bug fixes and patches to help with this are welcome.

I love this game. But... I have installed it under Arch Linux, Gentoo, Debian, and Ubuntu, and noticed a slight discrepancy. The Debian derivatives don't have the jump length that Arch does (can't remember about Gentoo for sure, but I think it was the same as Arch). Overall motion is slower and more restricted under Debian/Ubuntu. I suppose it was intended to be this way, because certain tasks which require careful use of objects and timing under Debian are easy in Arch (letting all those helper objects go to waste). Not a big deal; it doesn't interfere with gameplay, but worth knowing. The speed increase is not great -- not as fast as when using the speed cheat.

Building with gcc-4.3 will fail with:
cc1plus: warnings being treated as errors
src/info.cpp: In function 'void doStatusBar()':
src/info.cpp:111: error: suggest parentheses around && within ||

It's because it's forcing -Werror. -pg should be dropped as conflicts with other CFLAGS like -fomit-frame-pointer.

--- makefile~ 2009-02-23 19:37:52.000000000 +0100
+++ makefile 2009-04-04 23:23:33.000000000 +0200
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
CXXFLAGS += `sdl-config --cflags` -DVERSION=$(VERSION) -DRELEASE=$(RELEASE) -DUSEPAK=$(USEPAK)
CXXFLAGS += -DPAKNAME=\"$(PAKNAME)\" -DPAKLOCATION=\"$(DATADIR)\" -DUNIX -DGAMEPLAYMANUAL=\"$(DOCDIR)index.html\" -Wall
CXXFLAGS += -DLOCALEDIR=\"$(LOCALEDIR)\"
-CXXFLAGS += $(CFLAGS) -pg -Werror
+CXXFLAGS += $(CFLAGS)
LIBS = `sdl-config --libs` -lSDL_mixer -lSDL_image -lSDL_ttf -lz

OBJS += CAudio.o

@Steve:
>>"...you need to be aware that the sound effects and music are non-Free."

I don't fully understand what you mean by non-Free. Can you please explain? Thanks.

The sound and music is free, as in beer, but it is not Free, as in speech.

For instance the music is free to distribute, but it is not free to do with as you like.

In 99% of cases, this is of no issue to the end user, but some players will prefer to only play games that are 100% Free. It would mean that the sound and music would need to be totally replaced with GPL-compliant resources.

There has been some discussion in Linux forums about doing so, but as of yet no action has been taken.

If you only want to play the game and enjoy, then go ahead.

The following Wikipedia links may be of interest (or not).

[Gratis versus Libre]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre

[Free Software]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

Is Metal Blob Solid a play on Metal Gear solid, and is it based on Cave story?

Hi,

I am trying to use a generic (2 axis, 10 button) USB gamepad in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (32 bit), but the joystick configuration does not work correctly in Metal Blob Solid. Are there any known bugs with USB gamepad configuration?

@Sud - Not that I know of. Does it recognise that a joypad is plugged in? The joystick configuration option would be inaccessible if it can't see it. What happens when you try and push buttons to assign commands?

Just wanted to say: love the game :)

cool game. Really liked this one

I see some strange artefacts in the place where water should be:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6493/screen50.png

Configuration same as from mine today's blobandconquer comment.

@mkkot - I'm not sure what causes that. It's either the graphics card or SDL. As yet, I've not been able to figure out which one. It is not just the water, but any part of the graphics which is meant to be transparent. I'll see if I can find out from the SDL guys if this is a known bug and if there is a workaround; it worked fine in the past and there have been no major updates to the code base.

After some investigation I've found out something a little annoying.

The issue is being caused by any graphics that has been set to be alpha blended. However, it only happens if you set the value of the blending to 128 (the range is 0 to 255).

128 is an optimized value, so it will produce the best performance. If I set the alpha to anything else (such as 192), the glitches go away.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads as to what I should do, because it sounds like this is an SDL or graphics card issue. I could change the values so that they are no longer at the optimized values, make the problem go away and sacrifice a bit of performance... or I could wait and see if updates to SDL or my graphics drivers fix the problem.

My own laptop is running with an nVidia GeForce 8600M GT with the latest Kubuntu Jaunty SDL and nVidia drivers. However, another laptop, running Hardy, doesn't have the glitches.

I guess if this error is affecting lots and lots of people, I could make the changes, though.

@Steve: This error is affecting me and my friend too, so i found a simple solution - use libSDL 1.2.11, not 1.2.13...
I have made a simple script that on my arch linux runs "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=[path to a libsdl 1.11]" and start blobwars.
But i would like much more using SDL 1.2.13 on it.

PS. sorry for my poor english.

Hello, I was wondering if you could provide a 64 bit version for Debian. Also not sure if you can do anything about it but it would be REALLY nice if the Debian package at least had a message when starting "Debian package has no sound. Sound license issues, go to parallelrealities.com to download a verison with sound." or something like that. As it is I spend several hours trying to fix my sound.....

Thanks!

Also I tried compiling but it fails:

make
g++ `sdl-config --cflags` -DVERSION=1.11 -DRELEASE=1 -DUSEPAK=1 -DPAKNAME=\"blobwars.pak\" -DPAKLOCATION=\"/usr/share/games/blobwars/\" -DUNIX -DGAMEPLAYMANUAL=\"/usr/share/doc/blobwars/index.html\" -Wall -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/share/locale/\" -pg -Werror -c src/info.cpp
cc1plus: warnings being treated as errors
src/info.cpp: In function ‘void doStatusBar()’:
src/info.cpp:111: error: suggest parentheses around && within ||
make: *** [info.o] Error 1

Any idea why?

Thanks

I'm unable to compile 64-bit version of any of my projects because I do not run 64-bit. As far as compiling is concerned, it sounds like a newer version of GCC is being a little picky about its warnings - simply solution is to remove -Werror from the make file and then recompile.

I'm not a programmer, I don't know how all this works but in my humble opinion guys from SDL should take care about that bug. Maybe you could report it?

I've just got to keep in mind that it might also be a issue with my nVidia drivers. I'll look into putting in a fix, though. The performance impacts probably won't be noticeable, to be honest.

Great it compiles and works with -Werror removed!

Sound is also working great.

One thing though is there any way to change the resolution? I tried the fullscreen option but it just sticks the tiny screen in the middle of my two monitors.

Thanks!

No, sorry - the resolution is fixed at 640 x 480.

I have an interesting bug. Just compiled version 1.11 with out -Werror in the makefile. Everything works fine. Doesn't lag and so forth. However the default keys are screwed up (they're set at
left == right
down == up
right == left ctrl
fire == left
and so forth)

I set them back to normal but now the left arrow key is both left and up/jump. Despite that up/jump is just the up arrow key in the settings. Also, if I go to the menu (esc) then go out side of the game then back in, my weapon does not work. This appears to be with any weapon.

Hmmmmmmm, that's odd. Maybe the keyboard configuration has become corrupt. Try deleting ~/.parallelrealities/blobWars/keyboard.cfg and see what happens when you restart the game.

Well, what ever the problem was, its gone now. I compiled the newest version (was getting tired of the the screwed up texture with alpha). However the pause screen's alpha textures are still a little screwy.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/theyain/Screenshot-4.png

As stated before: the problem seems to be related to SDL itself or the graphics card. The game worked fine up until a few months ago, when people started to report the issue.

The corruption comes about when you specify an alpha blending value of 128, which is optimised for speed. I've now changed the values that I can find to 130.

But thanks for catching this one. Have you spotted any more?

I haven't spotted any more. You've seemed to of gotten all of them but that one.

And I had a feeling it had to do with my graphics card. Mines complete crap. It doesn't even support OpenGL 2.0

Also, new "bug" to report. This isn't really a bug but more of an issue with placement.

Here, on the level "Ancient Tomb #1", where you can push the stones down to get to the MIAs or into one of the two teleporters, if you were to go into the teleporter right after the stone was pushed through, you'll get stuck. Unless you have either the laser cannon or grenades, you can not move the stone. You guys already have some what of a fix in place (the two teleporters) however people will still get stuck because there is no indication which teleport you should push the stone through and which one you should go through. I have a better solution. Instead of having two teleporters, have one. When a something goes through, instead of having it teleported right to the ground, have it teleported in the air. That way if Bob goes through right after one of the stones, he will land on *top* of it and not /in/ it.

Here is a screenshot of where I am talking about.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/theyain/here.png

And that screeshot brings up an interesting bug. My pause screen only has the corrupted alpha texture IF I don't have the pistol.

Thanks for the alpha blending report.

As far as the other bit is concerned: that's not a bug. It's actually a redundant puzzle - The idea was that you had to push the block into the middle of the gap and then hop onto it to reach the MIAs.

However, since many people complained that Bob moved too slowly, I sped him up a bit and thus he was able to clear the jump much easier and didn't need the block. The teleporters were there to let the player escape if they got trapped on either side of the block.

There's probably a few other instances of such redundant puzzles, but I am no longer making active changes to the game, other than fixing critical bugs, such as the alpha blending.

Thanks for releasing 1.12. I would suggest you to apply two patches for the next release:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=183664 -> this is for replacing ";" with ":" as it fits better in spanish translation
http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=187546 -> this is for not using -pg (for debugging purposes) and -Werror by default (http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2009/02/25/future-proof-your-code-dont-use-werror)

Thanks a lot

Sorry for making this a private chatroom but...

Hello Pacho! ;]

Year ago I was disturbing you with some localization related things. Are you going to translate also second part of the game (blobandconquer)? I'm preparing myself for it as I will have again more time during summer vacation.

I don't know if this is intenional or a really odd bug, but it seems that after I've either played a level through, exit from it, or if I've played just for a while the only weapons that appear from then on are the machine gun and the laser gun/cannon (when picked up, it says laser gun, when used, says laser cannon), and very rarely the pistol. It doesn't matter if I turn the game off then back on, the problem is still there. The only way I've been able to 'fix' (temporarily) the problem is by shutting off my entire system. But it comes back after playing through a level or so on.

This is annoying as I absolutely need to use the grenades in some levels.

Looks like the random number generator messes up after a while. I'll have a look into fixing it.

Have you noticed any other bugs at all?

Thanks Steve for comitting remaining stuff :-D

mkkot: well, it wasn't in my plans because I haven't played anything to blobandconquer :-/ (I have less time now for playing), then, I am unsure about translating it also :-(

Best regards

Steve: None that I can think of. What file is your number generator in? I would like to have a look at it myself.

I've actually managed to fix it now, by using a better function. Just need to find the time to upload the new version. I'm going to hold off for a moment, so that I'm not uploading new versions every other day.

Glad you fixed and glad you haven't uploaded any new versions. Found a new bug. the cursor doesn't move on the map if I press my up key.

Thanks for that. That'll be in the next update. Any more?

Hi Steve,

This is a follow up to a post that I had posted it April.

It appears to be a gamepad driver issue in linux. The same gamepad works fine in MBS windows version, and I am able to get a different gamepad working in linux version.

Thanks a lot. It's a fantastic game, and my 2 young nephews love it too!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve
April 28th, 2009 at 08:06
@Sud - Not that I know of. Does it recognise that a joypad is plugged in? The joystick configuration option would be inaccessible if it can't see it. What happens when you try and push buttons to assign commands?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sud
April 27th, 2009 at 18:40
Hi,

I am trying to use a generic (2 axis, 10 button) USB gamepad in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (32 bit), but the joystick configuration does not work correctly in Metal Blob Solid. Are there any known bugs with USB gamepad configuration?

Is there any chance of you folks producing properly GPL'ed sound files for your games, and feeding them back into the Debian & Ubuntu distributions? I'm using Intrepid, and losing sound for some of my favorite games is very annoying!

Maybe you'd like to do it, David?

How should I use the dynamite pack? Iáve found a switch that requires a dynamite pack, I've found several packs, but could not figure out how to move them...
Thx

@Doc - All you need to do is pick up the dynamite and then stand on the switch. You don't need to do anything special. Which level are you playing?

i just started playing game

@joe - Enjoy.

I think that it would be great if we had an iphone/ipod touch version.

Nothing stopping you from doing so, Stuart. The source code is available, after all.

Love this game, since a long time. Too bad the joypad/stick configuration is useless without support for axis (only buttons), It would have been fun playing it again with my new joypad :-/

this game is boss... couldnt stop playing it... id love to see anouther 2d version like this... the 3d one is dope... but this is soo classic

I love this game. Every time I start playing it again, I can't stop for hours.
People who say there aren't any good games for Linux obviously haven't played any of your games. Keep doing awesome game development!

I love this game. It's awesome!!
I just wish I could download the new Blob Wars game, the 3D one, but I have dialup.

This game is great, a lot better than other games I played for Ubuntu.
Keep up the good work guys/gals!!!!!

From a comment a while back:
> What's with the text? After any story part (i.e. pre- and post-boss), the text runs offscreen.

I've been able to reproduce this in the mission info screens[1] as well. I'd like to help to debug this, but I really have no idea where to start. Any pointers?

[1] http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s128/antiaircraft/blobwars_offscreen.png

I'm not sure, Theo, I've never seen this issue before.

But I'm also not actually maintaining the game any more, since the main development is finished and the only bug fixes that are generally needed occur when things such as SDL or other libraries are updated.

How can I fix the resolution in Metal Blob Solid?

I have it for Ubuntu, and when it's fullscreen, about a inch of the game screen on the right hand side is cut off, off the screen.

I don't know what the resolution of the game is set to when it's fullscreen, but is there a way to fix it? I want to see the whole game, I don't want the right hand side off screen.

The game runs in 640x480, windowed and fullscreen.

If you're getting an inch cut off when in fullscreen, then you might want to check your X server config.

Nice game. The game doesnot run in my PC(don't know why) so, i have to go to friend to play. :-(

What exactly happens when you try to run it?

What happens when he tries to run it is not having a brain... i mean seriously, come on.

And have you fixed that one bug where you get stuck on a wall while jumping yet?

@Stuart - Download it and see. But keep in mind that I no longer maintain this game.

There is no music when I try to play the game. Otherwise, it is an awesome game!

@Luiji - How did you install the game? From a repository? The sound and music has been removed from the Linux versions in distributions, because of some copyright concerns.

Download the Deb, RPM or sources from here instead.

Blob Wars : Metal Blob Solid 1.15 now allows players to win in-game medals. Check out:

http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/medals/

for details.

I have installed it at Ubuntu 9.10 (Russian). I have strange symbols in the program. The first strange entry is when the "downloading" status bar is being shown. I have strange cyrillic symbol set.
During the the gameplay I have to watch strange cyrillyc symbols too. It did not happen when I installed the game from repository, but I had no sound that time))

I am seeing: "Blob Wars: à-àÏàÈàÇàÎàÄ 1" instead of "Blob Wars: Ýïèçîä 1".
that means ISO-8859-5 → UTF-8
That means that two-byte-lengthe UTF-8 Letter is shown as two ISO-8859-5 letters.
I have not found that in any other program in my system (including the repository version) and it seems to be a feature of the 1.17) I am searching for the ways to install the english version, because the menu entries are in English and are being shown correctly. But I have not still found how to make dpkg to install the English version((
But it is playable and with sound)))

If I set LANG=us_US.UTF-8 I can play the english version correctly.