Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpcvra.cv.hp.com!everett
From: everett@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Everett Kaser)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Snarf Bugs Me
Message-ID: <40790001@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.>
Date: 19 Feb 91 17:35:31 GMT
References: <1991Feb17.044600.2296@tygra.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 62

>   Well, I'm deleting Snarf, there are just too many bugs in this game
>for me to actually pay cold cash for it.  I hope this bug report finds
>its way back to Everett Kaser.

Yes, it did, and thanks.

>   The game has crashed twice with the following error messages:
>SYSERR: invalid LASTDIR 256 CLASS 5 INSTANCE 2
>SYSERR: unknown x=259 MOVETYPE 259 CLASS 5 INSTANCE 7
>Nice cryptic error messages, those.  The first time, I had to reboot.

Yes, they are cryptic, because they would never be seen by the user UNLESS
there was a bug in the program or a corrupted "level" file.  I put them there
as disaster checks, to help find problems should bugs like this occur.  The
information may help me track down the problem, and I appreciate your recording
and relaying it to me.  The problem, in this case, is that you're running a
level that is "corrupted" (by the level editor), and Snarfs are roaming out
beyond "boundaries" of the maze (the CLASS and x= in the above error messages
tell me this).

>   The other bugs have been more subtle.  When designing levels, the
>saved level will get corrupted.  The `hero's' starting position would be
>randomly changed, and some items on the level would get rearranged in
>inexplicable fashion (e.g. a key would be somewhere other than where I
>had put it).  Once, some crowns from *a different level* appeared on
>another level I was designing.

Yes, I'm aware of this problem and am working on it.  Your described work-
around is the only work-around at this point (clearing the level and starting
fresh).

>   (An aside - the editor will let you place two items in the same place,
>e.g. a ring inside a wall.  Oops.  Also, you don't go to the location set
>as the destination of a teleporter, but one space beyond in whatever 
>direction you were moving when you entered the teleporter.)

The editor was not intended to be as "fool" proof as the main game, because
I figured that people who tried to design their own levels would be a little
more like a programmer and wouldn't do "silly" things like placing objects on
top of each other, or placing teleports in such a way that the "hero" came out
into a wall, etc.  I realize that this was not good "figuring", and I'll be
putting in some additional checks to try to keep most of these things from
being allowed.  However, there IS a bug in the editor that sometimes trashes
the levels, and that's my first priority at this point.

The only bug that has shown up in the actual running of the game so far is:

If, as you exit the right side of a level, you continue to bang on the
MOVE-RIGHT key (usually the right cursor), then the next level will be
displayed and then immediately terminated as if you had exited the right side.
This has been fixed in version 2.03 along with a minor cosmetic problem in the
level editor.

>   So, Everett, if you want my money, you'll have to do better!
>David R. Conrad                 | The floating point exception hits.--More--
>tygra!dave@sharkey.cc.umich.edu | You die...--More--

Thanks, David.  I'm working on it.

Everett Kaser                   Hewlett-Packard Company
...hplabs!hp-pcd!everett        work: (503) 750-3569   Corvallis, Oregon
everett%hpcvra@hplabs.hp.com    home: (503) 928-5259   Albany, Oregon