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LOOK MOM, NO DBPRO CODE

First off let me tell you this solution won't solve save/load within a single game, but if you break it down into missions, this will allow you to save their progress. No passwords. No modified DBPro versions of the source. Just a simple detection of their completion of the level (the "game won" state) and the ability to resume at the mission they last finished. First a quick note (and a suspense builder) ...

A CROWDED FIELD, BUT CHOICE IS GOOD!

Though it will have the company of various other game menu projects, I too am releasing a Game Menu system with mission-based save/load. Be sure to check it out. A beta version will probably be out real soon.

SPILLING THE BEANS

Solutions may vary, I don't know what other people are doing, but
I tried the DBPro route, but the executable even produced with unmodified source code seemed to have some problems. In the end though, and I'll highlight this to make it easy to read.



So, to give a step by step on how to detect a successful mission completion for the coders out there.

(1) Save the last access time for the "game won" hud image for the game. You know the image that appears when a game is completed.

(2) Launch the game mission from the code, going into a wait state until the process stops.

(3) Check the access time in the "game won" hud image again. Save their progress if it has been accessed.

There. That was simple. Now I feel better. And yes. It is that simple.

Keith

I noticed that you said no one noticed your thread in another post.
I noticed your thread earlier but did not have a chance to post anything.
I am looking forward to seeing what you can do with your application.
I think some people may not have posted because the are waiting to see what you have done and what it will do and/or look like.
Don't worry about it if nobody posts or very few people post in your thread.That's just the way it is around here.
Good luck with your project and I hope to see how it works out.

I am sure I missed something, but I remember trying this once and I could not get it to work as everytime I checked to see if the file had been accessed the act of checking the file changed the time anyway so I could not tell if the program had changed it before I checked. I will have to look at that again. I most likely am not checking the file properly.

Thanks FredP. I was not really going for a project announcement here, I just wanted to contribute something back since I am new to the FPSC boards and seem to be mainly ASKING the questions. It appeared this was a topic people were interested in. Maybe my post came off with the wrong message. Reading back over my post it does look a little convoluted. Oh well! Live and learn.

By the way, I like the cow logo on the bottom of your web site.

Keith

That will take you to the Ozark Games website.
Check it out when you get the chance.
It is at http://www.ozarkgames.com.
They have some intersting stuff there and I have a board in the Associates' section.
You should check out all the boards in that section.
There is a lot of cool stuff there.
I am glad you like my site.

Only question I have is if FPSC would change the access time, I mean that is a windows controled peice of data is it not? Also, I might be wrong (really don't feel like reading the source code now) but I am sorry to inform that FPSC should pre-load all images/media. That is why when having many scripts involving media you have a slower game load. I am not certain if it is the same for the loading screen or not but still...

Hmm, if this does not work, could you make a jpeg virus that works with FPSC? Like when the jpeg is displayed (meaning it's contents are read and processed) it writes a file...

It does work, not that once TGC gets its next update out it will be that big of an issue. I wrote a program to try it out and it properly advanced missions. I guess they don't preload rarely used images like the one displayed for winning a game since that would be a waste of resources.

Keith