a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Also, ALL MAC USERS:
You must DL v58b manually. If you try to run your old client, it will break when it tries to install the v60 update.
Several Mac-specific issues have been fixed.
First, a bug that prevented people from clicking to move after typing to speak (particularly if what they typed contained the letter E) has been resolved. This was a strange bug resulting from weird keyboard codes being returned by certain Macs. I'm not sure why the wrong keyboard codes are being generated, but I've implemented a work-around.
Modern Macs have a huge problem with Apple's new Sandboxing scheme. Apps that aren't signed through Apple are run in a random location where they can't find their files. To work around this, the game asks you to find the game folder at first startup if it can't find its data files.
But, on certain macs, even this process wasn't working (apparently, System Events isn't always running like it is supposed to be, so it can't display dialog boxes). I'm now using the Finder to display dialog boxes instead, which should always be running.
Finally, Sandboxing was also interfering with the update process on some Macs. I think that Macs can cache applications somehow, where even if the application is overwritten, an old version of it will keep running. So, after downloading an updated App, the new app wasn't running on re-launch.
The work-around (which will hopefully work) is to give the new App a new name each time... a brand new App bundle. So, instead of them all being called OneLife.app, they are now OneLife_v60.app. When v61 comes out, it will be OneLife_v61.app.
HOWEVER, this work-around has the side-effect of leaving a "vacant" app behind with the old name. Apparently, an App can't fully delete itself. This should be obvious, because the ghost app left behind has no One Life icon. The new one that has been installed will have the correct icon. The old one won't be runnable, and will have 0 size. Just delete it as you see fit.
Also, due to permission issues, getting all of this to work means you need to download the whole bundle for v58 again manually, which I have called v58b for the Mac.
So, it's a bit of a pain, but it must be done. Grab v58b from your original download page. But only Mac folks need to do this.
If you're on a Mac, please let me know if you're still having issues.
Does your screen look stretched out and distorted?
Can you run it in windowed mode as a sanity check?
I'm not sure! I don't know what the true capacity of the sever is. I did some stress testing with bots and set it at 200/server, but that might be too many.
Lag can also happen due to network issue on your end, of course.
You can check the populations here:
http://onehouronelife.com/reflector/ser … ion=report
I think the peak was 61 or something like that, so maybe it was too many for one server? People need to let me know.
Oh, wait, there's another problem.
When the game population grows, you might not even be playing on the same server, due to load balancing.... hmm....
I guess I can just gloss over that for now, though.
Yeah, I will probably add something like this.
It's pretty easy to do it with a setting where people can enter an email address of their preferred mother...
Well, that can be used to grief someone, right? Like people could enter MY email address to always be born to me.
So I guess it needs to be more complicated than that... maybe a password that both people type, baby AND mother?
Yeah, I think fullscreen is borked on some modern MacOS versions, which is why the game ships in windowed mode. I hope to solve this problem someday.... Hey, it works fine on MY mac, but I have a very old one...
In the mean time, you can reset the fullscreen by editing the fullscreen.ini file in the settings folder. You can open it with TextEdit. Put a 0 in that file and save.
Something weird going on there...
Can you send me your log.txt by email? jasonrohrer AT fastmail DOT fm
Years ago, I used to try to maintain translations for my software projects. Over the years, I ran into many problems, however.
The software would change, but the translations would lag behind. I'd have to get in touch with the translators and ask them to update their translation files.
There are HUNDREDS of languages in the world. Keeping track of all those translation files, especially for changing software, and all those authors, is impossible.
So, I decided long ago to stop maintaining translations of my games. I release my games in English, and then let community members manage and share their own translation files.
And for this game, which will be updated weekly with new content (and thus new strings to translate), it's even worse.
I don't know how translators can even keep up with the job of translating this game, nor how they will manage the files. Probably some third-party software will need to be written that pulls updates from a translation server. Anyway, I don't know!
But you're welcome to try, and perhaps post links to your translations here.
It's harder on Windows... you'd need to compile it with MinGW and such.
I will release Windows server binaries someday.
For now, have you considered just buying a Linode? They are $5/month. If you install Ubuntu on it, and then follow the included server instructions from the source bundle (in OneLife/documentation), you will have a server running in no time.
Maybe... it has a lot to do with the protocol and responsiveness, though.
All the protocol stuff is based on submitting a PATH to the server, not a state. So you're not "moving left," but instead "walking to this spot, along this path." That dramatically reduces the number of messages sent to the server---and to other players---when you're walking around.
Furthermore, in more complicated environments, with walls and doors, the pathfinding is MUCH easier to use than WASD. You just click where you want to go, and it goes there, even navigating complicated mazes for you automatically, even if it has to navigate OFF SCREEN in order to get where you want to go.
Finally, even for simple navigation currently, you can click the object that you want to interact with from across the screen, and you will walk there and do it. Your character will walk around stuff along the way, and just get there and do what you want to do.
It really is pretty nice, once you get used to it. You don't micro-manage the character, but instead issue high-level instructions and let the character do the walking for you.
If you need to eat, all you have to do is click a distant berry bush. You will walk there and pick a berry!
Thank you!
Sore subject?
Well, 83 games came out on Steam yesterday, which means that you have to bring your audience to Steam. Your game is successful because it's successful, not just because it's on Steam. Yet they still take 30%, which is a lot.
Also, Steam is troublesome to work with for a multiplayer game that requires an account on the server per-user. I can't get your email address, etc, to make an account for you through Steam. I can't contact you if there's a problem with your account.
And finally, Steam is not so easy to work with for a game like this that will receive weekly updates for YEARS.
When I want to post an update, I type one line on my server and the update goes out to everyone. I've got all sorts of scripts written that pull the latest data from GitHub, bundle it, and post it, and restart the servers, etc.
If I wanted to use Steam's update system, it would be a real headache.
So... "maybe someday," for Steam. But it does take quite a bit of work to get it all working on Steam, and even then, it's not as good as the off-Steam experience (because of the account issue).
That's a good idea. Or some kind of mumbling sound... or "Hey."
Thanks for this...
Sadly, the default stack trace format in MacOS does't give quite enough info.
Any chance you could run it in GDB to try to catch a full trace with line numbers?
Instructions here:
Ukuko, maybe the same advice applies to you. Is your Applications folder read-only?
Oh... okay... hmm...
What does the file binary.txt say inside it?
Cotton, any chance you have the game installed in a read-only location, like Program Files?
The game needs to be able to write into its own folder without admin privileges. Try putting it on the Desktop or Home folder as a sanity check...
Sheesh!
I think I'm going to implement some work-around for the auto-update on Mac....
And did the auto-update work for you on Mac?
Glad you found that terminal work-around...
I wonder what's going on there, though. At first start-up, did it say, "I can't find the game data folder" or something like that, and then walk you through finding it?
If it's crashing on startup, it sounds like it can't find its data due to sandboxing.
Try dragging the App out of its folder, dropping it somewhere, and then dragging it back in.
And what's the deal with the text?
Oh, I get it... it's being blown up HUGE on your screen....
Yeah, sadly, the game is native at 1280x720.
I had to pick a resolution and then scale to fit other screens. All the art is hand-drawn and scanned in, so I can't make it at multiple resolutions.
The text is something that I will think about, however.... but it's really just the login screen, right? I mean, the rest of the game text is hand-drawn (like the chat and tips).
Is it readable, at least? Like, the window is filling most of your screen, but the text is blurry?
Oh man, there's a problem with Sierra and the update system...
It seems like the update is happening, but the sandboxing is blocking it.
Ukuko, how savvy are you about poking around in .app bundles on the Mac and looking for clues?
Can you install v58 fresh, look in the bundle for the date stamp on the EXE (Contents/MacOS/OneLife, I think it's called).
Then run the game, login, and run the update once. When it asks you to restart the game, just quit and don't restart it.
Then look at the modification date of the EXE inside the app bundle again. Has it changed?
If not, then I wonder where the update is being put...
If it IS changed, then MacOS might be caching the old EXE somehow.
Try dragging the App out of the folder and then back in? Or try rebooting?
I may have to implement some kookie work-around (again) for MacOS, where it renames the app bundle or something. Ugg...
There is a chance that you will be born along with your friends, but babies also get spread out randomly. There is no built-in friend feature. That's not really what this game is about... it's about different situations in every life.
And even if I wanted to let you play with a friend, how would it work?
Let's say you join a the same time. That means you're both babies. So are you siblings with the same mother? That's one heck of a burden for that mother, and probably only one of you will survive. Then what? Your friend tries to get born again. Are they born to that same over-burdened mother again? It's a recipe for disaster.
As it stands, there are child-spacing and child distribution algorithms that find the very best-suited mother for each new baby that joins.
I'm still thinking about this issue, and I know that people want to play with friends. If you have any ideas about how it could work, I'm open to them.
I suppose there could be a "likelihood modifier" where you can enter one friend's email address when you login and simply be more likely to be their baby. But you and your friend would have to space out your spawns in time to ensure that your friend grows up first before you try to get born.
Also, if your friend happens to be a male character, you're out of luck.
Finding a nearby mother to "force" your friend to be born near you wouldn't be fair to that other player (the one playing the mother). They would get an extra burden of your friend, even though they don't know you.
Yeah, I've heard other people complain about that. Will fix.
Fail stats are for interactions that people tried which didn't work. A + B that failed (because there is no such recipe). I'm tracking those to see what people are trying to do a lot that isn't working.
There are people online right now! 29 of them, in fact. You can check here:
Well, the game just came out today, so the word is still getting out... I've emailed my mailing list, and so far, only 6000 emails have gone out, with 13,000 more emails to go before I get through the whole list.
100 people have bought the game so far today, and there are currently 23 people playing on the main server.
A bunch more people will likely be playing tonight, when they get home from work, and then this weekend.
It will likely keep growing over time. A few of my previous games have sold 20,000 units.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time balancing this game so that it's interesting to play solo or with low populations. So the size of the player pool really doesn't matter too much.
Things can get crazier and more interesting with loads of people (like wars and such), but there's still a very solid game without that.