*** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Hydrothermal Feedback for the Mac and iPad
Post Reply [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/vendor/twig/twig/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php on line 1266: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable
User avatar
Jake
Site Admin
Posts: 1035
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:36 pm
Location: Meadville, PA
Contact:

*** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Post by Jake » Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:28 pm

Post any suggestions you have for Hydrothermal. I like to update the game every 3-6 months and several of the improvements originate from your ideas.
Nuclear Nova Software - Games and Apps for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod
GL Golf - Pinball Massacre - Barnyard Blaster - Rocket Golf - Liquid Defense - Hydrothermal

Jak Atackka
Nuclear Nova Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:26 pm
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/vendor/twig/twig/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php on line 1266: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable

Re: *** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Post by Jak Atackka » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:42 pm

Hello, I just love the game Hydrothermal. I discovered it a few years ago and just rediscovered it last month. I just can't put it down.
However, I do have a few issues with the game.

1. Typos. Very unprofessional looking, and to a grammar freak like me it's somewhat annoying.
2. SLOW!!! I'm playing on a Powerbook G4 with Mac OS 10.5.8 and I get a solid 4-5 fps when time is paused. When it runs at full speed, I get about 1.2 fps. Plus, every few seconds the program soft freezes for about a second before continuing. Usually it's just before the year switches over.
3. Intermittent glitches. For example, just now I started playing and the roads, rather than showing the animations, glitched between different terrain tiles, including all of the "zoning" tiles.
4. Lining up issues. Once I start to get rich or I get late into the game both the money and the date are too big for their boxes.
5. Oddities. Currently I have a military quality of 249356.927463

My proposed fixes (coming from an novice programmer):

1. Just go through the game for a while, note down typos, and go back and change them.
2. It seems that the entire game animates at once. My computer (and I imagine most others) can handle everything on screen, and a bit off screen, but the entire world? Not even close. I notice at the initial loading how the minimap updates by tile, which is what the main map needs to do. Have some internal variable to keep track of which frame the animations are on, and as you move the camera have the cached tiles update as well. Done well enough this method allows for seamless scrolling and high fps.
3. Case-by-case. Nothing to really say here.
4. Enlarge the boxes. Also, changing the hyphens separating the month, day, and year to periods should do the trick.
5. This is really the only such bizarre thing I've found. Are you running into precision errors? Are you using a float or a double? If yes, just use an integer.

- Jak

User avatar
Jake
Site Admin
Posts: 1035
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:36 pm
Location: Meadville, PA
Contact:

Re: *** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Post by Jake » Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:02 am

Hey Jak,

I'm glad you're enjoying the game. First, what version are you running? Hydrothermal was originally programmed when I was 15 (which explains the grammar errors haha), but when I ported it to the iPad and Mac App Store I started from scratch, so the new version has many fixes over the old. Make sure you have version at 1.17 http://nuclearnova.com/hydrothermal.zip . Actually, you mention that you have a PowerPC laptop, which unfortunately isn't compatible with PowerPCs

1. Fixed in 1.17
2. Fixed in 1.17
3. Fixed in 1.17
4. Not Sure but maybe fixed in 1.17?
5. Fixed in 1.17

I'll look into #4. Sorry I can't make the new version compatible for PPC, Apple has really made it hard to support it with Lion.
Nuclear Nova Software - Games and Apps for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod
GL Golf - Pinball Massacre - Barnyard Blaster - Rocket Golf - Liquid Defense - Hydrothermal

azona
Nuclear Nova Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:22 am
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/vendor/twig/twig/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php on line 1266: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable

Re: *** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Post by azona » Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:04 pm

First. I think I'll love the game once it's working properly. It's like LinCity with a bit of a new dynamic and new graphics. Unfortunately, it's a little difficult to play right now. I do want you to know, I'm not going into this time and effort because I want to be critical. I'd really love for you to be able to get it fixed. I think it'll be awesome.

The mouse pointer is off vertically by a lot. Nearly unplayably so. Full-screen appears to magnify the effect. It makes me wonder why you aren't using the Objective C built in controls. Granted it's been years since I even looked at XCode, but it seems unlikely the UI design bits are much changed and surely not for the worse.

Apparently screen shots don't show where the mouse is, so I had to mark them up.
Image Image Image

It gets harder to manage in the budget screen.
Image

...and worse yet on the Balance of Powers screen where the other numbers are updated dynamically. I couldn't begin to mark up a screenie to demonstrate the difficulty there.

Also, there are several misspellings. Maybe run all of the output text through a spell checker. I'd think XCode would show spelling errors for you, but again, many years since I've used it.

My Specs:
Mountain Lion on a 15-inch, Mid 2010 MacBook Pro
Processor: 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB

Do let me know if you have any questions or if I can help in any way. I'd even be willing to poke at the code a bit if your source code is open, but I understand if it's not.

Thanks!

User avatar
Jake
Site Admin
Posts: 1035
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:36 pm
Location: Meadville, PA
Contact:

Re: *** Hydrothermal Suggestions ***

Post by Jake » Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:28 pm

Thanks Azona! With the new fullscreen and window changes in the latest few operating system updates from Apple, I can see why the y-cursor could get messed up. That will be fixed in the next version somehow.

As for the spelling errors, those will be fixed too. Hydrothermal was published when I was 15 years old, and back then spelling was not my strongest suite... I'll figure out some way to run all the strings through a spell-checker or manually do it myself.

Thanks for the post!
Nuclear Nova Software - Games and Apps for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod
GL Golf - Pinball Massacre - Barnyard Blaster - Rocket Golf - Liquid Defense - Hydrothermal

Post Reply
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/vendor/twig/twig/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php on line 1266: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/vendor/twig/twig/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php on line 1266: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 9 guests