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Socoder -> Question of the Day -> QOTD : Taking Ages

Mon, 04 Aug 2008, 13:15
Jayenkai
Today I started to add File Selection to JNKPlatDS-08.
It should've been a simple case of Scan directory, list files, count level, done..

Instead, I spent about 3 hours completely redoing the titlescreen because the list wouldn't fit nicely enough!

..
And I hadn't yet done the actual file listing!

So, QOTD, what "really simple" thing actually ended up taking you ages to do.

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''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 04 Aug 2008, 13:47
mike_g
trying to get PHP cookies to work on the loopback. IDK what went wrong, but after 3hrs of faffing about I just wrote the content to JS on the page.
Mon, 04 Aug 2008, 13:54
blanko1324
Parallax scrolling. I actually never successfully got it smoothly working in C++/HGE.

Also, the dishes.

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My Twitter
Mon, 04 Aug 2008, 17:38
JL235
Getting out of bed. Should take a few seconds but often takes hours.
Mon, 04 Aug 2008, 22:16
Stealth
Well...

Coding. I plan a 2 week project, it ends up taking 2 years.

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Quit posting and try Google.
Tue, 05 Aug 2008, 09:52
mindstorm8191
I once had a map editor that built levels using squares, and another map editor that was great for building large-scale levels. Because the square-based map editor created alot of extra polygons, I decided to make a simple app to reduce the polygons.

It was simple; find all polygons with the same normals and adjacent to each other, and combine them into a 'point list'. Then with the point list, create a new model that traces out proper triangles for each point list.

Trouble was, it didn't work. First it didn't generate any map at all, then it had trouble deciding when a triangle should be made, keeping the triangle within the polygon. So what should have been a day's worth of work, turned into a week of headaches, and it never worked anyway. So much for simple, right?

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Vesuvius web game
Tue, 05 Aug 2008, 11:20
Forklift_Fred
The quick 5 minute jobs always take 3 times as long. It's new Health And Safety At Work Regulations from the EU

Following the recent Black & White Workshop challenge, I decided to dig out the old Spectrum tape that had the original game that I found myself loosely remaking (by chance really, I thought "Oh, this is like 'Postie', that game we typed in from a magazine 20+ years ago!" but I couldn't actually remember it!!)

I have a Spectrum emulator that will load games from a WAV file so it should have been a simple task to play the tape into my PC and tweak it a bit to clean it up and I'd be away... It failed miserably because the tape refused to move after the initial header section!

Different tape decks had different results but even when it was playing it was all wobbly. I did some reading up and it turns out that a bit of wobble is alright because the audio recorded is designed to allow for hardware variation in the first place... I also read that people used to hold the stop button while pressing play to release the pinch rollers and allow the tape to play quickly... Now, I'd played with that as a kid but never on a Spectrum tape... They say it works just fine and you could load games in half the time! So that's what I tried next...

It played into my PC and sounded quite reasonable but still I had no luck loading it into the Emulator even after slowing it down and filtering it.

Simple job, took all evening, still failed

I may dig out the real Speccy and see if that will load it... shouldn't make any difference but you never know........

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Come rain or shine...
Tue, 05 Aug 2008, 15:06
Jayenkai
Yeay! Tape Loading Errors! Wooot!!

No way you could find the original typein anywhere? I'm sure these online archives collect typeins.. I know the CPC one's do.

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''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 05 Aug 2008, 15:54
Forklift_Fred
I tried searching for the code... I thought I found it a couple of times then downloaded the file they had with it and it was completely different (either that or it's nothing like I remember it )

There's one site with a dozen magazines listed and each has a list of the games that had been printed. Some of them had files some didn't. Problem now is I have no idea where we got it from

I'm not beaten... but I have better things to do! I'll either find it or get it working and it'll just be crap and not even close to what I have in my head

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Come rain or shine...