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Dec 1 2016, 4:18 PM See Page
All of them? I'm not sure what other games you're referring to. This is the only endless game that I ever finished, and the only other endless game I've made or worked on at all (but didn't finish; it was scrapped really early on) was ITAD S.G.
Nov 18 2016, 2:19 PM See Page
Regarding the sound balance problem, that's only on Windows, and not even all of them. I don't know why, but I guess it must have something to do with the way MIDI files are played on Windows. This is what it sounds like on my system:

https://goblinrefuge.com/mediagoblin/u/onpon4/m/kitten-command-insane-difficulty/

And the Windows system I built the game on is even worse than what you describe; I wasn't able to hear the sound effects at all even with music disabled and the volume maximized. Very strange; none of my other SGE games have this problem.

One theory I have is that whatever is playing MIDI files on Windows is refusing to play MIDI files at a lower volume as requested by the game; the game sets the music volume to 3%. It could be that some Windows systems either refuse to reduce MIDI volume at all, or refuse to reduce it below a certain threshold.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked the game overall. :)
Dec 31 2013, 4:00 AM See Page
Hm... I wanted to do a review of this, but it only runs at 3-4 FPS on my machine in Wine.

I'll be able to play it properly if you publish the source code (assuming it's not corrupted[0]) by making it compatible with ENIGMA and then compiling it. If you release the source code under a free/libre software license,[1] that would also make the game ethical by my standards.

[0] http://forums.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15589
[1] http://forums.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15546
Oct 27 2013, 2:59 PM See Page
No, I understand your position just fine. But it's futile, and controlling someone else's computer, like you are by deliberately keeping everyone else divided and helpless, is unethical.

But I can see you have strong intent to do this unethical thing; you are not a clueless individual, or failing to release the source code out of neglect, but deliberately attacking everyone else's freedom the same way Microsoft, Nintendo, Oracle, et al do. So I'll treat this game like any other proprietary program and simply reject it (and point out that, because this game doesn't work with OpenJDK, it is an epic failure at a very basic level).
Oct 25 2013, 4:28 AM See Page
I've seen a lot more cases of undignified edits to things that their authors tried to restrict than to things that were free software/free culture. In fact, I have seen infinitely more of the former, because I have never seen the latter, probably because not many people do that and those that do only do it to very, very popular games.

Quote
I want it to be a solo effort

What on Earth makes you think that withholding the source code makes all attempts to modify this a "solo effort"?

Anyway, I have no idea what it looks like or even whether or not it worked, since this game doesn't run in OpenJDK 7 (which, of course, means your binary distribution would be worthless to me even if I didn't have an ethical problem with it), but this is a file with a corrupted Mario "standing" image:

http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/5aa3a617

I did that by randomly changing some bytes in "stand" with a hex editor and adding the modified "stand" to the Jar archive.
Oct 23 2013, 6:03 AM See Page
Quote (AirmanAJK on Oct 23 2013, 1:15 AM)
What I really mean is that I would never actually go through the trouble of entering a legal battle. I've experienced court proceedings on the plaintiff side before. They're long and awful, and I certainly wouldn't do so for a game I made as a fun project. That being said, I don't see how my source would be protected. I'm not worried about someone making money off of it. I just don't want the whole thing exposed for modification. The program behaves how I want it to behave, just like a director doesn't want someone editing and re-releasing their movie.

Again, it's not that I wouldn't be able to sue, it's that I never in a million years would. It's not like my secret code is just so valuable; I just selfishly want it to be my program, and not some project I started that other people made good. I appreciate open-source code and use it all the time. If this were an efficient algorithm that I was proud of, I would be much more inclined to release it. As it stands, it's a game that I made as I wanted it to be. I don't see it as a collaborative effort and thus see no reason to expose

So, you think that your code is art that you don't want people to "tamper with"?

Well, sorry, but I'm going to turn that on its head: It's perfectly legal and possible for me to reverse-engineer your program and write a clone that does the exact same thing, then modify that. The only difference from the case where I actually use your code is that a whole lot of effort and time is needlessly wasted. In fact, that's what you did; this is supposed to clone Super Mario Bros.

You're also not "protecting" your game from modification; only you can modify your copy. You're stopping derived works from existing. Sort of.

Let me make a visual example. Your fear of people tampering with this game, applied to visual art, is like some artist in Nintendo fearing that someone will destroy their creation by editing a Mario sprite. For example, this edit of Mario as a caveman:

http://www.mfgg.net/index.php?act=resdb¶m=02&c=1&id=29312

The only difference between you being worried about this game being modified and the author of the SMB3 Mario sprites being worried about edits like that one is that there is no technical measure you can use to prevent edits of graphics. Well, actually, that's a lie; the technical measure you are using doesn't actually stop changes from being made. There's reverse-engineering, as I mentioned already, and there's the fact that any binary can be changed; that's what cheating devices do, for example (the "codes" you enter indicate what part of the ROM to change and what value to change it to). All I need to do to modify this game is go in and corrupt what you compiled in such a way that it will still execute. The difference from actually editing the source code is it's more likely a crappy or broken edit if the actual source code wasn't used. In your effort to keep me from drawing mustaches on copies of your painting, you haven't prevented me from turning a part of the picture into garbage.

A real-world application: surely you know of ROM hacks? There are ROM hacks that do some, shall we say, very undignified edits to games like Super Mario Bros 3. No source code was ever needed for this to happen.

I also disagree with the idea that code is art (unless you're talking about the Obfuscated C Contest, for example), but I really don't care what you think is art. The truth, whether you think code is art or not, is that you have an irrational fear of a "problem" that nobody in their right mind tries to solve (because it is impossible to do so) and that, incidentally, is not as big of a deal as you make it out to be.
Oct 22 2013, 5:53 PM See Page
Quote (AirmanAJK on Oct 22 2013, 12:48 AM)
People are "forbidden"? Don't you really just mean they aren't supposed to? The GNU police don't exist. It seems to me that it's strictly the honor system. It's not like I would take legal action as I don't own the rights to Mario anyway.

No, I mean forbidden. The GNU GPL isn't a request, it's a legal document. Violating the license would be copyright infringement, just like with any other software license.[1] Your code doesn't cease to be copyrighted just because you are distributing other copyrighted works with it that you probably aren't allowed to use.

If you're worried about it not holding up in court because you're infringing copyright yourself, you can always segregate the software from the Mario assets; distribute the source code without the assets that include copyright infringement on your part, and have the infringing assets as a separate download with instructions to combine it with your source code. I don't know if this is necessary for a lawsuit from you to someone infringing your copyright to hold up (I don't think it is), but in any case, it will make it certain that you have the full ability to sue anyone who violates the GNU GPL (and win).

Just to be clear, this isn't just theoretical. People have been successfully sued violators of the GNU GPL in the past, and courts have explicitly mentioned that the GPL is indeed legally enforceable.[2]

If you feel that you just wouldn't be able to sue, that's why the Software Freedom Law Center[3] exists; they provide legal services "pro bono" to not-for-profit developers of free software. In the past, they have (successfully) taken legal action on behalf of the BusyBox developers. The Software Freedom Conservancy[4] has also helped ensure GPL compliance for some projects. In short, you're not alone. What this means in practice is that no one is stupid enough to violate the GNU GPL in the first place; if someone does so by accident, a simple request corrects it.

[1] Actually, the world of software licenses is a little bit more complicated, because proprietary software developers often make their "licenses" (which they call "EULAs", or "End-User License Agreements") legally "contracts", so that they can add restrictions that don't exist within the normal scope of copyright (forbidding reverse-engineering, for example), so technically violating many proprietary software "licenses" is breach of contract rather than copyright infringement. However, this is only a technical difference; you can sue for copyright infringement as well. You just can't arbitrarily forbid things that copyright doesn't normally forbid (such as reverse-engineering or "fair use" exceptions to copyright).

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Freedom_Law_Center

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Freedom_Conservancy
Oct 18 2013, 5:47 PM See Page
Hi there,

I just want to say that I would still be very interested in this if you released the source code under a free software license, such as the GNU GPL.

Make no mistake: if you release the source code under a copyleft license such as the GNU GPL, you don't "lose" or "give away" this game; people are forbidden from publishing a program under the GNU GPL without providing the source code (either with the program or on request), so you will always get this source code back from anyone who modifies your source code. At the same time, you are under no obligation to include anyone else's changes into your version; if someone changes Mario to Pikachu, your version will still have Mario (unless you decide you like that change, that is).

In short, you will not be hurt at all if you release the program as free software, and neither will the program. On the contrary, releasing a program as free software is the only way you can make said program immortal; proprietary code is bound to get lost at some point, but free software code is rarely lost, especially if every copy of the binary also comes with a copy of the source. As an example, Super Mario War's development ceased years ago, and its original author is dead, but the code is still not lost. In fact, I have a copy of Super Mario War's source code sitting on my hard drive.

I hope you will consider releasing this as free software. If you do, I look forward to trying it out at that time. :)
Aug 18 2013, 10:13 PM See Page
Quote (AirmanAJK on Aug 18 2013, 2:56 PM)
I'm reluctant to release the source. First, because while I'm proud of its organization and documentation, I could do some more refactoring.

That's fine. Sloppy source is better than no source. The source code to Star Control II was originally horribly sloppy with almost no comments, and much of the current effort of The Ur-Quan Masters project is cleaning that up. It was still a great contribution to free software nonetheless.

Quote (AirmanAJK on Aug 18 2013, 2:56 PM)
Also, this might sound lame, but this game is like my baby, and I'm not quite ready to let it slip away.

It doesn't go away when you release the source code. On the contrary, using a copyleft license like the GNU GPL will ensure that any derivatives which are published can be taken straight back; others can never keep that source code from you unless they never publish their derivative at all. At the same time, if someone does this, your work will grow.

Quote (AirmanAJK on Aug 18 2013, 2:56 PM)
I'm surprised you don't use any proprietary software. I understand releasing libraries as open source, but the links you sent make private software seem selfish, unless I'm misunderstanding. Maybe I'll do open source, but not just yet. Thanks for your interest.

Private software isn't selfish, but if I don't control the software running on my computer, I don't control my own computing. If I run a proprietary program, the developer of that proprietary program controls my computing through it; proprietary software is an instrument of unjust power over the users.

I hope you change your mind about releasing the source code.
Aug 18 2013, 2:17 PM See Page
Looks like my comment was missed in that. For what it's worth, people generally don't express that they value good quality; you have to learn to deal with the fact that there will always be nitpicks overshadowing the good parts. Also, lashing back at any criticism makes you look like the bad guy. It sounds harsh, but you need to just grow a thick skin and not take anything as a personal insult.

Airman, could you release the source code to this under a free software[1] license, such as the GNU General Public License? As I said before, I like the look of this, but I refuse to use any proprietary software[2] I can avoid, no matter how small. There is no downside to releasing the source code under a free license, and it would even immortalize this tool/game in a sense (no program is truly dead if other people have the ability to pick it up again and resume development).

[1] http://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
Aug 17 2013, 11:11 PM See Page
Cool, Java.

Any chance I could convince you to release the source code under a free/libre/open-source license, like the GNU GPL? I'm a free software[1] advocate and refuse to run proprietary software on my computer,[2] but I'm interested in this game and would play it if it were free. Releasing the source does no harm to you, and it immortalizes the game in a sense.

[1] http://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[2] If you want to know why, you can read the pages at http://gnu.org/philosophy/
Jun 11 2013, 1:31 PM See Page
I don't necessarily want to read every single bit of code that I run, but I want to have the freedom to do so, and I want to have the freedom to then be able to redistribute verbatim or modified copies. I consider this freedom to be essential for sovereignty in my computing.

There are multiple reasons. On a basic level, as I said, it's just unethical for others to take control of my or anyone else's computing. In addition, though, proprietary software often contains malicious features: spyware, which reports my activity to someone else without my consent; DRM, Digital Restrictions Management, which is the function of refusing to function; and backdoors, which allow someone else to change my computer without my consent. It is impossible to know for sure if proprietary software contains these malicious features, so my only defense against them is to have the freedom to view the source code of any program which I run.

Yes, I don't use Windows or OS X. I dual-boot Fedora with Freed-ora installed (which I use most of the time) and Trisquel GNU/Linux (which I use for some games and to view videos that are only available in patented formats).
Jun 11 2013, 3:52 AM See Page
I'm a free software advocate. It's a different philosophy than open source, though the definitions of what is free software and what is open source software are almost identical. Basically, proprietary software prevents one from controlling his/her own computing; if you run a proprietary program, you have no control over what it does, and hence the program is controlling a part of your computing. In addition, since the developer controls the program, the program becomes a system of unjust power for the developer, and that system is unethical. You can read more at http://gnu.org/philosophy/ if you are interested.

Well, thanks for your source code being available (though the link in your comment is broken; it looks like some stuff is cut out from the middle). Unfortunately, Unity3D is proprietary, and I am not aware of a free replacement which is compatible with it (there are free replacements, such as OGRE and the Blender Game Engine, but none are compatible with Unity3D), so it looks like I won't be playing this game.
Jun 9 2013, 7:03 PM See Page
Would you consider releasing the source code under a free software license such as the GNU GPL? The game looks interesting, but I refuse to run proprietary software and can't run this anyway because you only offer a Windows binary. I would be willing and able to run it if you released the source code under a free software license, and I would be very interested in doing so then.
Nov 18 2012, 4:10 PM See Page
Just a quick update: I have no intention to work on this game any more. It's way past done, and I'm happy enough with the result.

At NCFC 2012, I teased for a possible sequel a bit. If it's done, the sequel will be in Python instead of Game Maker, so an engine rewrite is needed. Because of that, it will take some time. I intend to fix a lot of problems and perceived problems with Bowser's Last Stand in the sequel:

- Some people still think the Bowser Bomb takes too long to complete. The next game will either just get rid of the wait time (which would ironically make the Bowser Bomb take less time than the Ground Pound), or allow you to cancel out of it by jumping.
- The lack of variation in enemies has been criticized. BLS 2 will have more of them.
- Megabowser was admittedly overused. I think a "perfect" version of Megabowser will show up in BLS 2 more or less as a continuity nod and a demonstration of how much more powerful Giga Bowser is, rendering Megabowser obsolete.
- A lot of people wrongly assumed that BLS is based on Hello's SMB engine because of the graphics. Partly because of this, but mostly because I'm looking for a different feel, BLS 2 will use different tiles.
- Some people didn't like the MIDIs I used in BLS. I'll be using Ogg music instead in BLS 2, and music from games other than Super Mario Bros will be common.
- Bowser being the same all the time was criticized a bit in BLS. BLS 2 will introduce Giga Bowser as a powerup (probably a temporary one, like Mega Mario), and either a mini-mushroom or losing all health will cause Bowser to shrink, making him weaker but allowing access to more areas. I might also consider other powerups if they're possible.
- Some people find that Bowser's powers have little necessity since the spin dash in particular is not required until late in the game. This was a design choice to give the player a chance to learn how to do it. BLS 2 will either make the assumption that the player has "read the fine manual" or played BLS before, or use a quick tutorial of some kind to explain them.

I have other projects that take priority over BLS 2, so I don't know how long it will be, but the engine I'm writing for another game will also be used for BLS 2. I expect at least a couple years. Assuming NCFC is still around when a BLS 2 demo is ready, that is where I will show it first.
Sep 27 2012, 5:26 PM See Page
It's actually not that bad. The physics are reasonable, especially considering it comes from the Game Maker platformer tutorial. The biggest problem is it's incredibly bland and a bit annoying at times. Not that bad, but not worth playing.
Sep 26 2012, 8:12 PM See Page
Quote

You want glow? I got your glow right here. A sound will play when your bro is defeated, and I might make some visual notification if I can make one look good.

That's perfect! :)
Sep 15 2012, 6:05 PM See Page
The boss could use some work, I think it's annoying that the bouncing balls sometimes need to be jumped over (you should make it so they always go over Mario's head, an easy way to achieve this would be to set the speed based on its starting position relative to Mario).

Other than that, very nice!
Jul 13 2012, 11:53 PM See Page
Quote (LuigiMario9 on Jul 11 2012, 9:42 PM)
World 8 being released?

Huh? The game has been finished for 7 months now. Has all 8 worlds, plus a bonus level called "World 666".
May 22 2012, 3:25 AM See Page
Quote (superteddybros on May 19 2012, 10:18 AM)
THIS GAME IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks. :)
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