10 replies to this topic

[Smiley]

Hi all.

Just to let you know that several minor bugs and a couple of more serious bugs have been squashed, and the updated version is now available.

You can find out more at my website:

--- www.smileydesign.co.uk ---


Cheers,
Smiley.

[richardpen]

thanks for the update, will give it a try!!

just one quesiton, how is the scoreboard stored in this new version? i thought it was embedded in the program but when i copied v1.6 onto a backup disk and play it on another computer, the scoreboard is clear.

thanks

richard

[Smiley]

Sorry for the late reply guys.
Busy, busy, busy.

RobinHood,
at it's most basic, you use the cursor keys to move the hand, and fire button 2 to press whatever the hand is on.
You can configure the keys to decide which buttons to use, but they will still only move the hand and press the hand down with fire.

Richard,
The scores aren't embedded in the file, so moving the game to another computer will create another high score table.
There is a bug with all previous versions (including the latest) which means that running the new version will also create a new high score table, which most people don't want, so that will be fixed in the next version.

Talking of the next version, the next update (1.6.2) will have 2 new features.
These will be Smiley Bingo and Pound Drop. These will replace the newly added Chopper feature and Chompy Shoot features.

My reasoning behind these changes are as follows:
Before I finally draw a line under Smiley Fruit Machine, I want to make sure that I'm happy with all the features that are in there, and that all the bugs are squashed (as is humanly possible).
Chopper and Chompy Shoot, although decent enough, aren't enough fun to play, and I wanted to find something that was as popular as Diddy Diddler, Treasure Hunt, Hate Ball, and the rest.

I believe that Smiley Bingo fits the bill perfectly (100% working, just need to see what my testers think), and Pound Drop is looking very good too (think of the ball bearing games in Shenmue, but with pound coins instead).

With these 2 new features in place, the high score fixed, online high score table added, and any other bugs that appear squashed, I think I'll be ready to release it as Smiley Fruit Machine 1.7 and be done with it.

If the Mods don't mind, please use this thread to post any bug reports you find, but please don't post feature requests, because as I said, I'm hoping that will be it for Smiley Fruit Machine.

I currently have 2 non-fruit machine games in progress, so they'll take priority after Smiley is finished, but at some point in the future I will probably decide to make another fruit machine, and early in the development stages I'll be asking this community what they'd like to see in there.

I hope you're enjoying Smiley.

Cheers,
Smiley.

[Liverpool2008]

Sorry for the late reply guys.
Busy, busy, busy.

RobinHood,
at it's most basic, you use the cursor keys to move the hand, and fire button 2 to press whatever the hand is on.
You can configure the keys to decide which buttons to use, but they will still only move the hand and press the hand down with fire.

Richard,
The scores aren't embedded in the file, so moving the game to another computer will create another high score table.
There is a bug with all previous versions (including the latest) which means that running the new version will also create a new high score table, which most people don't want, so that will be fixed in the next version.

Talking of the next version, the next update (1.6.2) will have 2 new features.
These will be Smiley Bingo and Pound Drop. These will replace the newly added Chopper feature and Chompy Shoot features.

My reasoning behind these changes are as follows:
Before I finally draw a line under Smiley Fruit Machine, I want to make sure that I'm happy with all the features that are in there, and that all the bugs are squashed (as is humanly possible).
Chopper and Chompy Shoot, although decent enough, aren't enough fun to play, and I wanted to find something that was as popular as Diddy Diddler, Treasure Hunt, Hate Ball, and the rest.

I believe that Smiley Bingo fits the bill perfectly (100% working, just need to see what my testers think), and Pound Drop is looking very good too (think of the ball bearing games in Shenmue, but with pound coins instead).

With these 2 new features in place, the high score fixed, online high score table added, and any other bugs that appear squashed, I think I'll be ready to release it as Smiley Fruit Machine 1.7 and be done with it.

If the Mods don't mind, please use this thread to post any bug reports you find, but please don't post feature requests, because as I said, I'm hoping that will be it for Smiley Fruit Machine.

I currently have 2 non-fruit machine games in progress, so they'll take priority after Smiley is finished, but at some point in the future I will probably decide to make another fruit machine, and early in the development stages I'll be asking this community what they'd like to see in there.

I hope you're enjoying Smiley.

Cheers,
Smiley.

I Rekon you should keep all old features and new to make more features in every update version ... thats part of the fun !!!

[Smiley]

I Rekon you should keep all old features and new to make more features in every update version ... thats part of the fun !!!

I know what you mean, but the feature board is 7x3 slots, and over the years I've done several complete re-designs and I don't fancy doing another one. lol

I just think that the gameplay on Chopper is a little too difficult for casual players, and Chompy Shoot isn't much of a feature really.

I'm sure people won't be disappointed with Smiley Bingo, and if Pound Drop works out as I hope, then both features will be better suited to Smiley Fruit Machine than Chopper or Chompy Shoot.

With a bit of luck, the next version will be out sometime next week (maybe earlier).

As usual, I'll post here when it's available.

[Smiley]

I'll be releasing the final version of Smiley Fruit Machine in a day or two.

Many changes and tweaks have been made.
So much so that I'm ready to call it the finished product.

I'll announce it in another thread when it's released.
I'll also be updating the Smiley Fruit Machine page on the website with detailed info on each feature.

Cheers,
Smiley.

[richardpen]

looking forward to the next release. i've spent many hours playing smiley, both the original and updated versions.

i'm glad that chopperfeaturesgoing, never got the hang of that!!

which ones chompy shoot? is that the one where youstart at the right hand side of the screen and have to pick up the money bags from the leftsideof the screen. ialso found that feature hard.

of course, there is one way of squeezing another feature in your 7x3 grid, remove the 'LOSE' feature!! hehe

could you make the 'Extra Credits' feature as generous as the 'Nudges' feature? an occasional extra 54 credits would make the game interesting.

look forward tothe next release.

richard

[Smiley]

Thanks Richard.

Yeah, Chompy Shoot's the one where you have to go to the left of the screen and pick up the bag and take it to the right to gain the money.

I wasn't fond of Chompy Shoot or the Chopper features.
They didn't seem as much fun as the rest of the features, and many others agreed.
I think you'll like Smiley Bingo and Chompy Derby which are the replacements, although the user interaction with them is minimal apart from the choices made at the start of them.

Other things that I've done for this (hopefully) final release are:
:: Hi-Lo has been completely overhauled with real card graphics, random amount of goes you get displayed on the screen, and a few other tweaks.

:: Cash Vault is now displayed on the fruit machine screen, just below the Credits/Bank, and £3 pound goes in for every "2 fruits the same" on reels 1 and 2, instead of £2, but it's still capped at £100 and doesn't carry over if you quit the game.

:: Knock Knock has had a major facelift. There are now more doors, and 3 different values behind them (£5, £10 and £20).

:: The fireball in Invaders gets destroyed when it hits the shields, instead of going straight through (don't know how I missed that).

:: Added a few fun things that don't make any difference to the gameplay, but I felt like adding. Check out Treasure Quest and the ending score for examples of these.

Incidentally, my nephew phoned me tonight, saying that him and his girlfriend bought a HD TV today. He said his main reason was so that he could hook his laptop up to it and play Smiley on it, which is what he sees me doing when he pops in.

Oh, and I could change the credits feature so that there's more available, but I don't wan't it to spoil the game by putting it too high.
I would say that maybe 30 or 40 tops should be ok.
You can have the final say on whether it's 30 or 40 if you like.

I'm currently taking screen grabs for the website so that I can give detailed descriptions of each feature, so when that's done, it should be past it's final testing and will be uploaded.
There was one major bug that's been present probably for years that showed itself yesterday, and that's if you nudged the three flags in, you didn't get paid the £30 pound.
This has been fixed, and hopefully it's the last of the showstoppers.

I'd better get on.

Thanks for your comments,
Smiley.

[Smiley]

Just a quick note:

There may be a little delay in the final release of SFM.
It seems quite a lot of people are fond of getting rid of the LOSE on the feature screen, and replacing it with another feature, so I'm going to knock up a few ideas in the next few days and see if anything is suitable.

As a lot of the features can be quite punishing anyway, I suppose not having the LOSE wouldn't be a great loss.

I'll keep you posted, and if I'm not happy with anything I come up with, I'll release it this weekend with the LOSE included anyway.

Cheers,
Smiley.

[Liverpool2008]

Can i Have the 1st version please ... aswell so i have both sets

thanks