Weird shift problem

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Weird shift problem
« on: October 05, 2009, 05:46:27 »
Hi everyone.

I'm working on a level, and I've played it many many times, to fix all problems etc. I finished it just now and went for the final play, when a problem I had never encountered before occured.

At some point there is a shift, leading to a cutscene, and which activates a flag. It is quite far in the game. So, when I reached it, I got instead a white screen, and a message saying that the game tried to load an inexistent level (something like that). And that was it. There was no 'back' option, I had to close the game and try again. I didn't try to reach it once more from the start (it would take a very long time), but when I go there directly from the level editor, it works perfectly. The flag, the cutscene, everything works.

The only thing that comes to mind which could mess things up is that while playing the level from the beginning, I had the level editor open and making minor changes (i.e. in background etc.) while progressing, and saving it meanwhile. But I didn't change anything that affects the particular shift, it was further down the game.

Has anyone encountered anything like that before? I will try it again before uploading the level, but any beforehand advice can be very handy...

Cheers!

Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2009, 05:55:16 »
Did you change anything regarding the cutscene path?
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Offline Bored2death

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Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2009, 05:58:01 »
Also, could you post this level so we can take a look for ourselves?
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Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2009, 06:27:00 »
No, PP, I didn't change anything on the cutscene path... At least not after I started to play... And the weird thing is that it's working perfectly through the level editor...

Well, now that I think of it, look at this: the first image of this particular cutscene was somehow the default info screen. I changed that of course, since I didn't want something irrelevant in the beginning. But I can't see how this could affect it.

Bored2death, thanks for the offer to check it out. My problem is that I'm a freaking perfectionist, so I don't feel good uploading something that's not 100% ready - at least as far as I can take it. I'll have a look at it tomorrow though, and if the problem appears again, I'll upload it for the expert advice, yes... Thanks..

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Offline AA

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Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2009, 09:30:41 »
The only thing that comes to mind which could mess things up is that while playing the level from the beginning, I had the level editor open and making minor changes (i.e. in background etc.) while progressing, and saving it meanwhile. But I didn't change anything that affects the particular shift, it was further down the game.

That could be a problem regardless of which part was modified: every time you edit a level and save it, a new Map.bin file is created and the previous one is backed up. It could be that, when triggering a cutscene, the Map.bin file is closed and then reopened, so if you edit the level during play, the game has trouble finding the file.

Note that all this is just my supposition, and the cutscene should have played fine in that case, so i'm not sure. Anyhow, you could just try the whole level from the start once more, without making edits on the run, and see if the problem manifests itself again.
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Offline LPChip

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Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2009, 16:04:18 »
Can you use the level editor to add a shift near the beginning of the level to get you near this shift with the cutscene, then launch the game normally and trigger it?

I have the feeling this was a one-time only thingy.
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Re: Weird shift problem
« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2009, 20:13:07 »
I tried it again today and it worked perfectly, so I guess it was a one-time thingy as well. I'll now iron out some details and upload it in a couple of days. I hope noone comes across this, it sucks to have your game cut in the middle...

Thanks for the help, guys!