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Norway
Joined on 8/8/10
Posted by Maxiecole - February 18th, 2014
Updated the game, the Newgrounds saving method is improved which makes saving much faster and safer. And auto-saving is enabled for both saving methods now.
Dying will no longer reset entirerly your progress, instead, you will lose items in your inventory and power levels will be halfened.
I added a short dynamic tutorial to help players get started. If you have already played the game you might not see this.
Minor big fixes. And minor graphical improvements.
You don't need to re-load the game after saving it, because what you saved is what the player currently sees in the browser. From the programming point of view - you can save the same save file unlimited times in NG API, and it will result in the file overwriting itself with new data, without changing the file ID. You don't need to load it any time other than in the very beginning, when the player presses the button.
You also do not need to delete save files - I have no idea why would you need to delete. NG API should not delete files either. Every player always has only one save file for him.
Yeah I know, I shouldn't need to load after saving. But I experienced strange behaviour if I didn't. But It's all right now.
About the delete thing. I used the delete and save method you showed me. And it worked fine. When you later introduced the better method with the updating function, I couldn't get it to work. And at the moment I was frustrated and tired of working with save data so I just went with the previous method.
Update, the tutorial wasn't working properly. Fixed now.
I wish you didn't fix the bug that lets you refresh and get full health back. It costs WAY too much to get health back it's to the point where I will stop playing. Basically, the cost of health should not rise beyond a certain point (max cost should be 50-100 since it only gives you ~20pts back). I also think it would be a good idea to have an option for full health restore.
Also, the bronze and iron are basically useless and even the steel doesn't do much in terms of increasing stats. Why do willow logs cost so much??? Good game, you just need to adjust prices and returns.
The reason the health potion's price rises is because health should be a challenging factor throughout the whole game. If the max cost is 50-100. Health won't be a factor later on in the game.
If the health potions are so expensive you can't progress, I suppose you haven't upgraded armor enough.
The bronze and iron isn't useless, it can be more efficient than gold if you have done the math. Steel isn't as good as gold? Who would've thought?
Willow logs costs what it does to balance the smithing.
Updated the game once again. Saving is done correctly now. You guys won't notice the difference but Tom Fulp will.
Updated the game again!
I just wanted to update the game to the next version as soon as possible because this version gets rid of unnecessary save files. And the tutorial is improved. Now, you start with 150 coins instead of 10 coal. Making the player have to buy coal in the tutorial.
If you have played Mineral rush runes zero version 1.1 chances are you have a crap ton of unnecessary save files. (+1 save file every time you save).
In the new version, it will delete 9 unnecessary save files every time you load your progress. If you have played 1.1 a lot, you might have 50, or perhaps 100 save files! Who knows? But if you think you have a bunch, please be a good a good citizen of Newgrounds and re-load your progress a bunch of times. Within a week, I will contact those with excessive amount of save files.
@Maxiecole
OR, you can manually delete files! By clicking with your mouse!
Go to the project --> API Tools --> Save Data and browse the save group
You could also write a new Flash app which automatically deletes files from queries except for file#0 of every user
But that is likely not possible, because a user may only delete and save files by that same user. Though users are allowed to load files created by other users.
To test this, you need to change
saveQuery.addCondition(SaveQuery.AUTHOR_NAME,SaveQuery.OPERATOR_EQUAL,API.username);
into
saveQuery.addCondition(SaveQuery.AUTHOR_NAME,SaveQuery.OPERATOR_EQUAL,"kkots");
Where "kkots" is the name of one of the users who played your game. You will then need to check how many files that user has by sending a query and counting how many non-undefined files you received back. I have around 7 files. If the number doesn't decrease, then I think the only choice is to manually wipe out the entire save group and re-create it anew. Or say, not bother with it and use the obtained experience in your next project.
What will be your next project?
Will it be real-time RPG with item-crafting where you have to fight monsters, mine coal from mines and smith weapons (and trade)? (That would be a huge game.)
I think what I will do, is keep the save group for a while. When I see the game is totally deserted and nobody is playing it, I'll delete it. Deleting all the unnecessary one by one takes too long time.
I don't know what I'll do next. Maybe an android version of mineral rush could be fun. "Will it be real-time RPG with item-crafting where you have to fight monsters, mine coal from mines and smith weapons (and trade)?" I tried that, but I failed. I'm not ready yet. I'm too much of a noob!
Have you updated the first mineral rush to have the new dying features? Because if not, you definitely should, or, at the very least, warn the player that dying will result in a loss of all progress. There is absolutely zero warning anywhere in the game or in the description telling you that dying will result in a player losing all his progress (again, the first mineral rush game). I died against Paulous because I figured it wouldn't be a big deal and I wanted to take a risk for a chance to beat him - turns out I lost hours and hours worth of grinding :/
kkots
I'm going to review the updates for all mentioned aspects. In a day.
A few questions I can already ask:
How did you fix the Newgrounds API saving? What was the error? How did you enable auto-saving despite the error that you mentioned? Are those errors caused by the Newgrounds API or by your coding?
Maxiecole
I think the reason people sometimes loaded an old savefile was because Newgrounds took too long to delete the save, and the way "I coded it", the file gets loaded when the save is finished and doesn't care whether the previous save is deleted or not.
I made it so it didn't load after you saved. It magically works fine now, in contrast to what occurred before. I have no idea why. But since I don't need to load the game during gameplay, I can enable auto saving.