Robot Wants Kitty Players and Designers...

Raptisoft

Okay, RwK fans...

I have a real problem.  Apple's switch to 64-bit is going to invalidate all the game levels in a way that I can't recover-- the changes are too extensive, and trying to fix them will cause the game to become very unstable.

You guys who have a lot of levels uploaded: Do you have any suggestions for how to mitigate this problem?  A total wipe is horrible and cruel, but I have no real options at this point.

Will it mitigate the pain a little bit if I move the system over to be similar to Hoggy's, with voting, new lists, star granting, etc?

Fomb

At one point we spoke about the possibility of uploading old levels to the new rwk2 and having level designers make the necessary modifications.  Is there no way to save the levels now and have that option when rwk2 comes to life?  That way if RWK has to be wiped, we can still salvage old levels in the future.

MagnumAlpasanREAL

Apple: Destorys Raptisoft
Raptisoft: Fixes itself
Raptisoft is Now Upgraded 18 bit to 64 bit

Raptisoft

FOMB: if you have a way to get the levels onto a PC (with iPhone explorer or something) I might be able to do something.  But straight from iOS, no, some of the sizes of container variables that are embedded into the levels have changed, and they throw everything off.  I can only convert them on a 32-bit environment.

SomeRandomHEFan

Never played RWK, but do you have any means of copying all the uploaded levels to your PC? I'm assuming they're stored on a server of yours, right? Then you could convert them yourself without anyone having to use their iOS devices to download them.

Raptisoft

Well, I could-- but I'd rather be investing my time in working on new products.  Also, there's about 50,000 levels, and I bet only about 2,000-3,000 of them are worth saving.

SomeRandomHEFan

Would a converter require constant input from you? If not, couldn't you just run it in the background?

Raptisoft

It's very likely I'd have to examine each level for error, just in case one thing or another didn't get converted.  Thus my preference that players police their own. 

Fomb

Hmm, I don't know much about how I'd get them off the iphone.  They seem pretty difficult to deal with, but if there is a PC software that someone might suggest that could do it, I'd give it a try.

About "SomeRandomHEFan's" comment of downloading all the levels, 50,000 levels is a crazy task, but is there a way to grab them by level creator?  If so, maybe just a post on the forum saying "if you want your levels saved, send a note" then you'd get anyone who really cares about their levels and can ignore the thousands upon thousands of levels that no one has any concern about...

...like all those levels where the robot starts on the kitty.  I think every person who does that must think they're the first.

How does that sound?

SomeRandomHEFan

Hmm... This is a rather inelegant solution, but how about uploading all the automatically converted levels along with a warning that some things may have gone wrong during conversion and will require editing? Of course, this would only work well if any falsely converted levels can still be opened in the editor. It's less optimal if there's a risk of conversion errors that make levels completely unreadable.

Just thought of another option, though. I understand that it's almost impossible to write a 64-bit iOS application capable of reading the original level format, but would it be any easier to make a level viewer for Windows? Then people could recreate levels in the new format based on previews of their old versions.

kyleseglin

I'd love to be able to continue to play all of fomb and dahlo levels for sure. I would also take an updated version with no current levels available over nothing at all. iOS 11 drops tomorrow!!

fnanfne

Fomb, I've used iFunbox and it works a treat for browsing the iPhone system. I'm sure your RwK levels will be found somewhere on your device

Raptisoft

Would anyone desire a copy of RwK that runs on Windows? 

kyleseglin

Not me personally I don’t use windows. But the value is having it on the iPhone. It’s literally the only game I played.

fnanfne

RwK on Windows? Oh yes most definitely!

Fomb

@fnanfne, thanks!  I'll check into that.

@Raptisoft, I'd love a windows version!  And it that was a solution to save/upload games to the new version, that would be amazing too.  Count me in!

:)

SomeRandomHEFan

Absolutely. PCs are my preferred platform. I will gladly support anything you port to Windows. Would even be willing to beta test it.

Raptisoft

Well, I do all my dev in windows, then I move it over to mobile... so I could compile up the original RwK and make it available.  I'd even be willing to open source it, honestly.  I guess the issue is, with how difficult the ports have been, I want to move forward and do the RwK sequel rather than port RwK to 64-bit.

SomeRandomHEFan

That's interesting to hear. But if even your mobile-only games all have Windows versions, why did you never release any of them? Especially seeing how you were planning to bring the original Hoggy and Solomon's Keep to Windows according to your site.

Also, I'd be happy to see you open-source any of your old games. I love learning about the inner workings of the games I play. And while I'm still in the process of learning how to program, once I have a decent grasp on it, I'd be very interested in examining their source code.

Incidentally, could a Windows version of RWK still read the old 32-bit level format? If so, wouldn't that be an acceptable solution to the level format dilemma? Of course, some people would still prefer to play the old levels on their phones, but as long as a way to properly read them continues to exist, people could port or manually recreate popular levels in the new format.

Raptisoft

SomeRandom... I never released them because they're all in 480x320 windows.... not great for Windows play! :)  You CAN enlarge them, but they just stretch (and get blurry).

If I decide not to port RwK, I will open source it.  I'll open source both the client and the server stuff, so that people can set up their own servers and rule over them with an iron fist!

Yes, the Windows version is completely capable of reading the old levels... Windows is very flexible and has incredible backwards compatibility. 

SomeRandomHEFan

I see. That does sound rather unfortunate. I'm assuming increasing the resolution of these games would take a fair amount of work, wouldn't it? Would still be nice to have them, though. But shouldn't Solomon's Keep (and probably soon Boneyard as well) have a higher resolution than that since its latest update?

If you end up releasing RWK's Windows version, will it have access to your server with the 50.000 old levels?

Also, are there any other old mobile games not worth porting whose Windows versions you could release? I'm talking about:

Hoggy: Think you recently said it may be best to phase it out so that people stop confusing it with Hoggy 2.

Four Letter Words: Sales were borderline nonexistent.

Mahjong Blitz, Get Lucky: Apparently completely free and therefore monetarily worthless.

Boonka Snap: Has been discontinued long ago.

kyleseglin

Man. I’m bummed it sounds like rwk won’t make it! It was the only game I played regularly. I do hope you can either update it without porting any levels over and/or make the sequel.

fnanfne

I'd like to know if RwK is totally broke/inaccessible on iOS 11, has anyone updated yet, perhaps by accident?

Raptisoft

It must be-- it's completely 32-bit, and Apple promises to destroy all those across the board.

Kyle: I'm really leaning toward sequel right now.  It won't take too long if I decide to do that, the main issue is I have to make a choice between 2017 = Chuzzle2 or 2017 = RwK2.  Chuzzle 2 is definitely where the money is and is well suited for mobile audiences, RwK2 would be more fun.  This is the quandary.  Of course, if things really REALLY went well, I'd go for both.

Random: I have win versions of Hoggy, Four Letter Words, Mahjong Blitz.  Mahjong Blitz is actually ported like SK was-- it was my 'test' port because the codebase is so small-- but when I submitted it, Apple started getting nitpicky about it missing some stuff they wanted all apps to have.  So it might appear again if I decide one day to just do the work to put it out there.  I just haven't because MBlitz is one of my very very low earners. 

Get Lucky and Boonka Snap... I have no idea what happened to them and where they've gone!  They're not in my source archive at all.  Aliens...

SomeRandomHEFan

Sad to hear that you seem to have lost the source code for Get Lucky and Boonka Snap. Do you have any backup storage devices you haven't searched yet? And do you still have compiled versions of them?

If not, it should be possible to obtain Get Lucky at least, seeing how it's apparently still available for download. In order to avoid losing it completely, perhaps someone could download it with a jailbroken pre-iOS11 iDevice and dump it? Boonka Snap is a different story, though. Think that one got discontinued even before the closure of its publisher, Sandlot Games, in 2012. There probably aren't many iDevices in existence that still have it installed.

Raptisoft

No, the loss of Get Lucky and Snap is a great mystery here.  It's possible burned on some CD stored away in some ancient box in my basement, but it's VERY odd that they're not in my archive, since everything else is, even stuff that's older than those.

I can only conclude that the Illuminati knew that the gameplay in Get Lucky would expand human consciousness and there was a very real risk that the people would rise up, throw up their chains, and usher in a golden age, so they sent in agents to clean away that code.

OzBoy

I would love a 64 bit version of RWK on the iPhone. If you open source it, I might be able to help. I've held off upgrading to IOS 11 for RWK alone!
I sometimes visit the old levels (3.5 stars and above).

kyleseglin

I don’t know what Chuzzle is, but I certainly love
Rwk very much. I think I’m having withdrawals? Anyway, clearly my vote is for rwk2!

kyleseglin

I would gladly donate to a go fund me or Kickstarter type situation to aid in the production of rwk2 or transfer of rwk1

SomeRandomHEFan

Have you tried searching your entire PC for them? Maybe you stored them somewhere else because they were your first iOS games.

fnanfne

Ditto OzBoy and kyleseglin!

Bummer, I was hoping to make use of the new screen recording feature in iOS 11, would've made my video making so much easier, alas