Comments on: A Room With a View…of the Courtyard

By: Quirken

Quirken — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 10:00:25 +0000

(as-is; I don’t think I’d need to set it to 0. I don’t mind the sound, I just don’t like the reaction it gets :D )

By: Quirken

Quirken — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 09:59:46 +0000

I haven’t played with it yet, but that sounds perfect :)

By: checker

checker — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:42:32 +0000

At first I muted it completely, and it felt kinda wrong, so now I just make it really quiet so it doesn’t wake the loved ones, but you can still hear it and get the reaction, and it’s better. It’s actually in the prop file, so you can set it all the way to 0 if you really want it to mute.

By: Quirken

Quirken — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:33:55 +0000

I haven’t played SpyParty in a while, but I was rather pleased to read the progress in the email (and new maps!)

And I was tickled that you added an option to mute the screaming! Thank you!

By: checker

checker — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:17:16 +0000

I have an out-of-process exception handler installed, so the buffers are not written out at the point when the program crashes, at least in my earlier tests. I used to grab the log file and dmp when the exception happened, but now I set a flag in the helper process and wait until the main process exists, so the system buffers might have been flushed by then, but these aren’t just system buffers, I think the standard library is free to buffer as well, so who knows what state the writes will be in. Doing logging through the pipe just eliminates all the questions, and the helper app is in control of the dmp and log.

By: DavidR

DavidR — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:26:18 +0000

“I used commit mode so if the game crashed, the log file would contain the most up-to-date log entries”

^ Is commit mode actually necessary for this purpose? I was under the impression that provided you flush the buffers correctly with fflush() et al, the rest of the work (buffers->disk) took care of itself, irrespective of whether the process exited suddenly or not (because surely the buffer->disk half is an OS wide thing associated with write caching etc.?)

By: checker

checker — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:02:00 +0000

Yeah, on some maps there are only a few modes, which would allow me to narrow down the choices, but on a significant number of games that’s not true, sadly. Maybe I’ll try to upconvert the old records that are saveable.

By: Scallii

Scallii — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 04:15:24 +0000

Ulbgh. Want.
I’m exorbitantly looking forward to beta access, rather far forward, as my left brain won’t stop reminding me, but that hasn’t kept Buckswaggle III out of my dreams. With that said, make a SpyParty map that requires using and understanding mirrors. Or reflections in still water or something. Or music. Or shadows. Or don’t. It’s fun imagining these variants regardless. It really, really is. And no medium of any sort has ever had that power over me. (Least of all a video game that’s likely to have its movie rights sold before it’s actually released.) So for that, I thank you. Thank you, Chris Hecker, you socially mature genius.

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:25:04 +0000

In light of practicing SpyParty, i would like to make the following observation about your picture. You are giving up one conversation circle and physically seeing two statues (only matters with swap), and only a tiny tiny bit of window spots. Other than that you know everything.

General / Clarice ( blue dress ) / Danger P Jackson ( black, orange suit ), are all in the hidden conversation circle.

Virginia (fat orange), is on the right statue ( she either is picking up the statue or putting down. Start counting or stop counting, either or. )

Everyone else is clearly visible for your observational needs.

If BB goes off exactly now, immediately exclude Flawn ( blue suit ), Sue ( chick at left statue ), and Virginia (right statue). Highlight Cybil ( red dress ), and Pembrookeberton ( yellow jacket, green pants ).

All in all, i’d give that particular spot a 9/10. You know whenever anyone picks up a statue, you see 3 conversation circles, and if time gets added you know a butt load of people it’s not.

I’m more of a conversation watcher myself so i’d be in favor of dropping a view of one of the statues and seeing the 4th conversation circle instead.

Also, isn’t there only an ‘Any 3 of 4′? There is no ‘Any 2 of 4′ or ‘any 1 of 4′, so shouldn’t ‘any ? of 4′ = 3 of 4?

A huge portion of any ? of 5 is most likely any 4 of 5. I know a few people who play a butt load of a4/5 on the courtyard.

Awesome stats though, interesting to see the balance. p3/4 is 46%! That’s pretty darn close to 50. 78 games isn’t a terrible sample, not the best but not bad.

By: Quirken

Quirken — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:21:12 +0000

hah, statue of Alan Turing. How gosh-darn appropriate!