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Version 2.9.0 released
After a long time a new version is finally here.
It is now possible to select 5 block variant in the configuration. This makes chaining easier. Currently not avaible in Stage Clear.
This version also introduces a new way of handling themes. It is now possible to mix and match in the configuration menu. At the moment only the background, board background, and the frame can be customozed.
Thanks to sanchez-gayatri the game is now also playable in swedish.
Just check the CHANGELOG.md
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Version 2.8.0 released
A new version has been released.
From a gameplay perspective the changes are minor. Most improvements are internal. Library versions are updated to ensure continued compatibility with new systems.
Just check the CHANGELOG.md
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Version 2.7.0 released
Version 2.7.0 has been released.
Mentionable news:
- Volume control
- Better software render
The versions does now contain a changelog file, so getting the new features is easier than ever.
Just check the CHANGELOG.md
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Translations
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Version 2.6.0 released
Version 2.5.0 has been released! Read the release note and download it
The primary news is that gamepad support has been improved. The game should not be controllable fully by gamepad. You can also add and remove gamepads while on the main menu.
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Version 2.5.0 released
Version 2.5.0 has been released! Read the release note and download it
News this time includes widescreen support. Not that it makes much value, at the game uses a vertical playing field. However in fullscreen you no longer get the black bars in the side.
Previous versions did also suffer for a bug that meant that files was always loaded in reverse order.
It is now also possible to run in permanent software renderer mode for people who have trouble with the hardware accelerated 2d.
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A video from 2.4.0
The previous video of the gameplay is almost 10 years old. It was time for a new one. So I have recorded a video of a VS game from the just released version.
Still 4:3 format like the game. I am planning to do something about that in the next version and then I may create a new video.
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Version 2.4.0 released
Version 2.4.0 has been released! Read the release note and download it
The game now offers several starting speeds for endless.
SDL has been upgraded to 2.0.9 for the Windows version which brings some improvements to the window scaling. The Windows version also has significantly improved unicode support.
I was going to create a trailer but video editing is still a skill I need to work on.
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Version 2.3.0 released
Version 2.3.0 has been released! Read the release note and download it
The game now remember the window size when running in windowed mode
The game controller has also been improved with and more strings are translatable.
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Version 2.2.0 released
Version 2.2.0 has been released! Read the release note and download it
This version introduces a new font system that makes scaling and resolution handling a lot better.
For Windows users with HighDPI displays the game now works “out of the box”.
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Work in progress: New font handling
The fonts in the current version does have some trouble. Some people find them hard to read, they scale really badly and they are completely broken on Windows High DPI displays. I have been working a new font handling method for Block Attack. It is committed, merged to master and will be included in the 2.2.0 release that I hope to get ready before the end of May. Until then I have a couple of screen shots:
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Linux build updated again
It is not that long ago that I updated the precompiled Linux build to be using SDL 2.0.6 instead of 2.0.5. Now I have another update. The compiled Linux build is now compiled on Ubuntu 12.04. This was a bit harder as Ubuntu 12.04 has reached end-of-life. However it was necessary as Ubuntu 14.04 is semi broken. At least the ubuntu:14.04 Docker image is broken. libsdl2-dev has been broken in 14.04 for months now. Even though I compiled my own version of SDL2 the build turned out to not work properly on other systems. Most notably the fullscreen support was broken. Well, that is now in the past.
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Linux build updated
I have updated the standalone Lunux build to use SDL 2.0.6 instead of SDL 2.0.5. SDL 2.0.5 apparently has a problem with keyboard input that resulted in some keys being recorded double. This seems to only affect Ubuntu. I have updated the standalone package. While the new one has working keyboard support it appears that there still are some problem with the fullscreen support. It is weird as the version compiled against the distributions version of SDL2 works perfectly. I guess creating a standalone version is just problematic that way… still want to figure it out though.
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Block Attack on itch.io
In the “old days” when you wanted to install a program then you downloaded it and installed it. Today that is not often the case. There are a large number of shops and download managers that takes care of most of the work. From a users point of view it is very convenient. So far I have not had Block Attack on any such platform. Most platforms are not geared towards independent developers or it was too cumbersome to setup. A couple of weeks ago I used the itch guide to create a standalone Linux version so the next step was logical: Add it to itch. I have now done so. I have tested it with the itch.io app and it works on both Linux and Windows. I’ll not stop distributing standalone copies but I believe you should have another option. Check it out here.
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Linux build added
While I develop and run the game almost exclusively on Linux I have not provided a precompiled version so far. That has changed now. After having experimented with Docker and reading the itch.io package guide. I have now decided to try to provide a precompiled Linux version. I have tested it on old versions of Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora but not versions that have reached end-of-life. I have skipped out on CentOS. While the source is still the safest option this should give an easier alternative.
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Version 2.1.2 released
Version 2.1.2 has been released. This is just a small hotfix for the Windows version. The Windows version would fail to save correctly if “My Games” did not exist. Now it is created.
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Version 2.1.1 released
Version 2.1.1 has been released! Read the release note and download it
Well there was a short lived 2.1.0 but mstraube found a blocking bug that I had to fix.
This has the first gameplay change in a long time. In the previous version the rise would stop while clearing. It could stop for several seconds. This is no longer the case. The time is now bound and will lower as the game progresses.
One change may especially be of interest to a lot of people: The resolution can now be changed. It is a bit of a raw feature. The text is not easy to read etc. But for people that want to run in a window on a small screen it is now an option.
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Version 2.0.1 released
Version 2.0.1 is released. Read the Release Notes and download it.
This is a very minor update. It only has two changes: The animation for “Get ready” and the manpage have been fixed. There are other changes in the master branch on GitHub but they are not yet ready for release.
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Now also without installer
The download section now contains a Windows version without an installer. I always preferred that kind of installation myself but for some reason I have never provided one until now. This makes it much easier to have multiple versions installed. It was Gig that mentioned it.
It can be found on the download page or on Github.
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Version 2.0.0 released
Version 2.0.0 is released. Read the Release Notes and download it.
It is difficult to release software. Especially then you do not have a deadline. Software is never ‘done’, it is just ‘release ready’. But I am happy to release 2.0.0 today because it is better than 1.4.2 in almost every way.
Sure it has lost a few features like Network play and saved replays. But they worked poorly anyway.
However version 2.0.0 has better keyboard support, better gamepad support and better mouse support.
It always annoyed me that while I could play with the keyboard, I still needed to use the mouse to control the menu. Not a problem anymore. Now you can control the menu with only the keyboard, only the mouse or only a game controller or a mix of them if you want!
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Preview of 2.0.0 as of 2016-03-20
TLDR: There is a preview version that are likely better for you.
The first version of Block Attack - Rise of the Blocks was released back in 2005. This is now more than 10 years ago. Back then I did not have the knowledge and experience that I have today.
As many other programmers have thought: “This is too hard to maintain. I’ll just scratch it and start over”.
However that is not so simple. As Joel Spolsky writes in his “Things You Should Never Do, Part I”: That the single biggest mistake you can do is to rewrite code from scratch. Rewriting from scratch may give you better code but you are also throwing out a working system and all the lessens learned from it.So instead I have been attacking and refactoring the bad parts of the game.
The code have been split into smaller pieces or packed behind an interface layer that I can manage.There were some things that I had to cut out for the time being.
Both the old net code and the replay functionality was “hacked” into the game. They had to go.
The old mouse play function was not done with touch in mind. It had to go too.
Game controllers must now be supported by SDL2The SDL library have been updated from SDL1.2 to SDL2. I must admit that I was about giving up several times while rewriting that.
I want to reintroduce those things gain but I’ll rather release often once I have something that most people will consider better.
Because the 2.0.0 version is already better in many ways:
- It has a keyboard and game controller friendly menu system.
- It runs significantly faster on most systems.
- It supports international characters.
Screen shot of the new keyboard and game controller friendly menu:
The preview can be downloaded here: Release page
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Version 1.4.2 is out!
A miner upgrade to version 1.4.2 has just been uploaded. Less than 5 years after 1.4.1 the new and improved version is already available. The Windows uninstaller now works on Vista/7/8. But that is also about that is changed. I have been working on a 1.5.0 version that has a much more keyboard friendly menu and True Type fonts but it has lacked the final polish and has done so for quite a long time. I have also looked into a BlockAttack 2 that fixes some of the original design flaws (the fixed windows size, network model etc.).
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RotBCustPuzzles by nin10doadict
It has been a long time since the last update. However I received an e-mail from nin10doadict about a week ago and it included some custom puzzles. They are very hard but if you like you can grab them here: RotBCustPuzzles. The file must be placed in the puzzles directory. Linux uses may also place the file in ~/.gamesaves/blockattack/puzzles/. To get an idea of the difficulty of the puzzles you might want to view his YouTube video here.
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Key mapping and a video
I have uploaded a new video that shows all gametypes and also shows how to change key mapping. Apparently the key mapping is one of the major problems in the game. The default key setting: Left, Right, Up, Down, RShift and RCtrl is not logical. Perhaps Left shift and ctrl would be better. In my last update I wrote about my plans for future versions. The current SVN version does have some of those features: Like a menu system that can be navigated without a mouse, must hard coded texts have also been replaced by translatable strings. One of the things that personally annoys me the most is that I must move my hands from the keyboard/game pad to the mouse to start a new game. This will go hopefully go away. For now here is the video.
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Version 1.4.1 is out
Version 1.4.1 was uploaded to SourceForge a few days ago. There is not much new in this release, mostly background stuff for the Linux version and I have not bothered creating a Windows version this time. The game not requires PhysFS - a file system abstraction layer. Theme support is also added and at some point I might upload a theme to show that it works.
The things that I still have planned are: New menu system that can be navigated without mouse, lobby system for multiplayer, integrated puzzle level editor and upload of highscores and such. Don’t expect anything soon though, a yearly release is still the most likely scenario.
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A video showing VS mode
I do not think this page shows what the game is about so I have created a video to show the VS mode and the AI in version 1.4.0:
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Version 1.4.0 is out
It is here! Version 1.4.0. It does not feature all the functionality I had hoped for but it is till a major step up from 1.3.2. Qubodup’s graphics is the biggest news but there are more changes including more statistics to read.
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New graphics by qubodup
It has been a while… I am working on the next version of Block Attack but it will not arrive until January or February. The next version will feature some new and greatly improved graphics by qubodup. There will be statistics so you can see how much you have accomplished so far. And not a little screenshot to show that things are happening.
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Version 1.3.2 is out
Version 1.3.2 has just been uploaded. It is mostly bug fixes. Enet, the networking library used, has been upgraded from version 1.0 to 1.1 so network support with 1.3.1 uses is not possible (except some Linux versions that already used 1.1).
I hope the next release will be within a year.
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A new version is comming...
I am currently working on a new version that I hope to release in the beginning of January. It will feature a new Replay format that will take up less space and allow games longer than 5 minutes to be recorded. I am going to move to enet 1.1 meaning that network backward compatibility will be broken. However currently bundled versions of Block Attack is already using the new version.
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Block Attack is now in Debian
Block attack is now in Debian. See http://packages.debian.org/unstable/games/blockattack
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Version 1.3.1 is out
Version 1.3.1 is up. Windows 9x know works again and Puzzle mode has been fixed. Not much new if you are not running windows.
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Puzzle editor version 4
The GCJ java version of the “Block Attack - Rise of the Blocks - Puzzle Level Editor” has been released in version 4. It know supports “Test” so you can automatically launch blockattack with the level you are working on (blockattack must be version 1.3.0 or newer). From the next version of blockattack I expect to be able to include it with the windows version too.
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New homepage design
I have tried a little different design of the homepage, still nothing fancy and totally wrong usage of tables. Also a deb-package can now be found on the Download page.
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Version 1.3.0 is out
Version 1.3.0 has been released today! Most notably is that gray garbage blocks have been introduced. Also “.” can now by typed making it easier to type IP addresses. See changelog (dead link removed) for more details. I also received a Spanish translation yesterday, I believe it works with 1.2.0 and newer. It can also be found on the download page.
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Version 1.2.2 is out
Today I have uploaded version 1.2.2 for Linux/Unix. Also a new version of the Level Editor that now can be compiled with gcj (GNU Compiler for Java). I also tried compiling the game on a 64 bit system (Ubuntu Dapper AMD64) and I got a 20% increase in performance, somewhat more than expected, since the game does not have any 64 bit optimization at all (but SDL might have). The Windows version is still 1.2.0 none of the new things in 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 applies to Windows.
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Version 1.2.0 is out
Yesterday I uploaded version 1.2.0. The game now has network functionality and Replays up to 5 minutes can be saved. Nothing new in the single player part.
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Block Attack and Debian
Not much new. I have received a patch for version 1.1.2 from Gonéri Le Bouder. He is packaging Block Attack for Debian. I have uploaded the patch plus the patched source code plus some additions to the Source Forge mirrors. The changes in the patch are related to the makefile and the directory there the data files are loaded from. I hope that the patched version will make it easier to make packages should anyone want to. I have been working on a new version 1.1.3 witch includes a Replay function (done) and network play. The patch will be incorporated in the next version.
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Version 1.1.2 is out
Version 1.1.2 of “Block Attack - Rise of the Blocks” can now be downloaded. Most of the changes are small. The CPU is a little better. Vs. Mode in Single Player. Some new graphic. The most important news is that small numbers pop-up when chaining, this should make people more aware of chains
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Puzzle editor version 2
Version 2 of the Puzzle Editor has been released. It is still a Java application. There is now documentation and examples along. This increases the file size a byte.
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Version 1.1.1 is out
Version 1.1.1 of “Block Attack - Rise of the Blocks” can now be downloaded. It has a new design. Better Puzzle management. Bug fixes. Better controls. Handicap in local multi player. Basic AI (very stupid and very fast). New make file for linux. A starter for linux (can be started by double clicking the starter binary). Does not work in Windows 9x anymore.
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Puzzle editor released
There is now a working Level Editor for the Puzzle mode. It has a GUI and should be relative easy to use. It’s written in Java and should run on most machines. Although almost no documentation.
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New graphics
I have made a new design, it will be used in the next version.
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