Blocks That Matter
Community Levels Featured - Episode 03
Yesterday, we featured 5 new community levels:
http://youtu.be/hE5TKZPsJAk
Tap Dance - by Krypton
Pair of Ices - by FRiZ
Diamond Back - by Dave Phenomus
Obsidian Lock II - by Krypton
At Death's Doors - by FRiZ
And there are now more than 200 levels created by players!
Thank you for keeping us entertained :)
William
Blocks That Matter Demo released!
Today is a great day, since Blocks That Matter gets its demo LIVE on Steam!
The bad news: when you already own the full game, the "Download Demo" button will not work :(
If you uninstall the game, the "Download Demo" button will work... but it will install the FULL game insteand of the Demo :(
The only way to play the Demo on Steam for now is to have an account that didn't own Blocks That Matter.
However, since the demo installs itself in a "blocks that matter demo", you didn't have to fear about save data loss :)
We will see with Steam crew if there is a way to allow you to install this Demo next to the full version, because this demo includes:
- Custom introduction and dialog
- 6 tutorials levels
- 3 levels taken from the full game
- 1 ending level
- 1 bonus level
- 9 of the 17 tracks!
- 4 EXCLUSIVES BTMs to unlock!
For those who already own the full game on Steam and want to play the demo, you can go to our FTP:
http://swingswingsubmarine.com/BTMdemo/
and download one of the following archive file:
- Blocks_That_Matter_Demo_Win_1_0_0_4.zip
- Blocks_That_Matter_Demo_Mac_1_0_0_4.zip
- Blocks_That_Matter_Demo_Linux_1_0_0_4.zip
Thanks for spreading the word!
Have a nice game!
Guillaume
1.0.0.5 Update
Valve just published our last tiny update to fix the annoying sorting bug in the community levels.
Here is the short change list:
CHANGES BROUGHT BY 1.0.0.5:
>> BUG FIXES
- Community levels sorting by date broken
- fix bonus level "Back to the 90s"
- avoid crashing with a level made with a recent version of the game while playing with an old version
- achievements checker fix. For achievements obtained in offline mode: Tetrobot 1.1, Tetrobot 1.2, Shake your Boˆtis, Carinae of Time, Why so Sirius
Thanks again!
Guillaume
Community levels not sorted by date
Just to say that some of you reported us an issue with the community levels sorting.
In the "All" tab, the levels should be stored by release date, so the new levels should be displayed first... but that's not the case right now!
We are working to solve this issue!
We don't know if it will fixable on the server side (no game update required) or if we need to bring a game update.
Thanks for your precious help!
Guillaume
Community Levels Featured - Episode 01 & 02
As you've probably already noticed, we already featured 10 community levels.
You can play these levels by visiting the Community Section - PLAY and choosing the "Feature" tab.
You can discover those levels in motion in two video posted on Youtube:
Episode 01 - http://youtu.be/xlZry5NpYCY
Episode 02 - http://youtu.be/8yfpfIwXdWU
Here are the 10 first Community Levels we featured in Blocks That Matter:
Falling Blocks - by Sendow
High Speed Chase - by Spore
Slime Clock - by Daveyx0
After Fall - by Friz
Survival Minigame - by RocketPony
The Key - by Friz
Survive - by Master Brain 07
Low Gravity Game - by Daveyx0
Icy Climb - by ApocalipsezA
Exploration - by Sendow
Thanks to all players/creators for your creations and your talent!
William
Update 1.0.0.4 live
The update 1.0.0.4 should be live on every Steam client, and with it the fix to the annoying drill bug I introduced in the last version thanks to my dumbness.
Here is the complete changlog for this version:
CHANGES BROUGHT BY 1.0.0.4:
>> BUG FIXES
- bugfix: the robot not correctly upgraded, unable to drill the last material for the current upgrade.
- "Big Mama is Proud of you" achievement not triggered on the right time. So it will be deleted and recreated.
- MacOS Leopard can launch the game without Steam services support (instead of crashing). Prevent for manual config file tweaking.
- Typos
- Upgraders i Community levels: sometimes an autokill was needed in order to display needed material correclty
>> FEATURES
- Dialogs.xml file can be used to write some dialog in an easier way than in editor. See "CreatorHelperDatas/NOTE on Dialogs.xml.txt" for more infos.
- btm.png file can be used to display a custom BTM at the end of a level. See "CreatorHelperDatas/NOTE on btm.png.txt" for more infos. Levels made with this feature will need an approval from us.
Thanks again for your support, patience and time with us!
Guillaume
Manual fix: MacOS Leopard launch issue
If you're a Leopard (10.5.8) user, and you got troubles launching the game, please try the following:
- make sure you got the latest Java Update for your OS:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1359
Then you will to modify (or add) a line in the DisplayOptions.xml config file:
- go to the finder
- press Cmd + Shift + G
- type ~/Library
- then go to Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/blocks that matter/config
- open the DisplayOptions.xml with TextEdit or any text editor
- replace the line < gameApiForceOff value="0" />
- with < gameApiForceOff value="1" />
- if the < gameApiForceOff value="0" /> line doesn't exist yet, you can create it next to the existing ones
- save the file
Restart the game.
Does it launch?
WARNING: this operation unable all Steam services, because it appeared that the Java Machine on Leopard couldn't launch the Steam 32bit Library.
Since no 64 bits Library exits, I'm searching a way to bypass this issue.
For now, that's how you can play Blocks That Matter on Leopard!
Thanks
Guillaume
Blocks That Matter 1.0.0.3 Update
Here are the changelogs of 1.0.0.2 and 1.0.0.3 updates :)
Now Mac OS Lion users should be able to launch the game via Steam. Please try this after the update (check that you have the 1.0.0.3 on title screen) and let us know if it works or not.
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CHANGES BROUGHT BY 1.0.0.3:
>> BUG FIXES
- ghost sand block when toggling puzzle mode just after drilling a sand block
- wrong tab content when returning to the level selection in the community section
- level bonus 'hanging garden' fixed
-----------------------
CHANGES BROUGHT BY 1.0.0.2:
>> BUG FIXES
- rating level : up / (down + 1) instead of up / (up + down + 1)
- Shooting star (stars that disappear when you replay without staring again an already stared level)
- auto anim ground blocks not well initialized when opening/editing a map
- [editor] editor lava blocks crash
- actor picking on various autoground always select the regular ground one
- achievement checker at launch to prevent missed ach due to offline mode
- names of custom levels not displayed in pause menu (useful to give hints... or base your puzzle on the name of the level)
- Falling blocks can crash the editor if they fall in an infinite gap (no ground under them)
- crash when skiping tabs in My Creation Section (since there is no tabs in there)
- stronger online code to try avoiding the fact that levels sometimes are not uploaded on SSS server, or uploaded with corrupted files
- Owner of a level shouldn't be able to vote for it's own level
- When level fails to load, erase if it's a Community one!
- some thumbs icons stay displayed if player vote quickly
- bug crate that give a sand block
- crashfix: sometimes game crashes when crates are not filled with 4 or more blocks
- remove (soon) from Gromy games One Eye Adventure (which is available!)
- editor actors params not in good order (now sorted alpha)
- some typos
>> FEATURES
- param NO CAM MODE on PLAYER_SPAWNER to avoid camera mode to be usable
- When level fails to load, erase if it's a Community one!
- Clean Tetrobot params
- Description on tracks for the background musics behaviour
- do not limit the blocks to 4 in a crate
- Skip texts dialog option
- Colorize the already done levels in Community mode (yellow/orange)
Morusque' Blocks That Matter OST available!
Just to say that Morusque (our beloved friend that created all the musics and sounds of the game) has just realease the OST on his Bootcamp page!
Go there and press play!
http://morusque.bandcamp.com/album/blocks-that-matter
Have fun!
Thanks Morusque, thank You!
Guillaume
Blocks That Matter 1.0.0.1 Update
I fear those moments, when you make a massive update to try to solve issues for some players... but in the other hand you make collateral damage by causing some trouble to others...
Here we go, Blocks That Matter has been updated, version is 1.0.0.1 (readable from main menu).
Here is the change log:
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BUG FIXES
- Windows 7 64bits won't launch (hope this will not conflict with other configuration)
- Sounds sometimes don't play in edit mode (there is also a sound bug about mini loop in one of the tracks... but i didn't figured out how to fix yet)
- in community levels: take more that 99 blocks of 1 matter freeze the game
- conflict Y button (et keyboard E) with Join group option in gamepad/keyboard configurations menus
- missing @Packaging folder in Community/MyWorkspace folder, avoiding player to submit levels of their creation (can be fixed manually by creating the folder by yourself)
- community menu: prevent thumbs up/down texts to overlap when more than 99 votes are here
- some issues in drill upgrade in community level and test/play situation (some level are broken because of that, like iron drillabe while the creator was well indicating that the Tetrobot couldn't drill iron)
- Achievement "Be our guest" fixed (auto triggered on next main menu launch)
- Achievement "Big Mama is watching" fixed (auto triggered on next main menu launch)
- Achievement "Acceptable in the 80s" fixed. Player will have to redo it, like in the 80s
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NEED TO BE FIXED
Of course or lot of bugs remain. I won"t enumerate all here. But you certainly know what I mean if you encountered some.
One on my top priority is the OSX Lion launch from Steam issue (see: http://steamcommunity.com/games/blocksthatmatter/announcements/detail/1387327810249335849)
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Thanks again for your support and patience with use. Releasing a Java game based with Steam integration is not an easy thing... but we wanted to bring you the best experience possible, but if you run into trouble, don't hesitate to contact us via:
- my mail: guillaume (at) swingswingsubmarine (dot) com
- our forum: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1196
- or this group page (right here in the comments)!
Thanks you again, awesome community!
Guillaume