Game News The Golden Baby Flaps Its Wings: Grimoire Demo Released!

[Zeriel]

Dear god, this is like The Pod People. Who will stand up against Skynet Unity and code some rickety engine of their own design instead? WHO?!

 

[General Maxson]

Stop the demagoguery. John Carmack didn't release sources of his games at least until 5+ years after the game is out. Same goes for 3D Realms. And most other sane commercial developers. Most of whom don't release the source at all.

There's an opposite end of that spectrum - for instance, a game as old as Fallout could benefit from a source code release - but that's clearly not what you're talking about. You're just being a commie.

I promise to release complete source of Grimoire 1 when Grimoire 2 development begins in Unity.

Glad to see you sticking to old school Cleve. Hope it plays well for you.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Dear god, this is like The Pod People. Who will stand up against Skynet Unity and code some rickety engine of their own design instead? WHO?!

Resistance is futile. Unity rocks the house, it is beyond awesome, it is like a Monster Truck that fires lasers and has an EZ-Bake oven in the trunk for making cupcakes. It ran over awesome in the median strip and just kept going with pieces of awesome stuck to the tires.

 

[Moribund]

What's the chance Unity will even be around in 17 years? If it is it might be very expensive. Remember reality engine, cypher engine, project offset, and about half a dozen others, some of which I used to have licenses for.

That's my biggest concern with game engines in general. For a hobbyist or part time would be pro you have to be able to know the mat won't get pulled out fromunder your feet.

 

[tuluse]

Really, you demand 17 years of support from your game engines?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I second the notion that there's no point in open-sourcing a game engine, especially one as niche as Grimoire's. Projects that do best with this approach seem to be ones where a potential user has an incentive to improve upon the code, but gains no significant competitive advantage from keeping the improvement to themselves - like all the technological backend-related stuff that Twitter publishes, for example.

A bit surprised about Recast though. How popular is that library among game developers anyway? Is it just poor indies using it?

 

[Davaris]

What's the chance Unity will even be around in 17 years? If it is it might be very expensive. Remember reality engine, cypher engine, project offset, and about half a dozen others, some of which I used to have licenses for.

That's my biggest concern with game engines in general. For a hobbyist or part time would be pro you have to be able to know the mat won't get pulled out fromunder your feet.

Its true, engines gain in popularity and lose it just as quick. I think you would minimize that risk, by choosing an engine that allows you to make games rapidly.

A bit surprised about Recast though. How popular is that library among game developers anyway? Is it just poor indies using it?

I have no information on AAA usage, however the commercial libs are well ahead of recast navigation now. Problem is they don't advertise their prices, so it is likely they are unaffordable for indies.

 

[Mastermind]

Cleve, weapon skill raises even when you miss?

It sounds, to me, like it would be a good idea for raise on use type skills to raise when they fail rather than when they succeed. If you're doing it right you aren't really learning anything new.

 

[Capitalism]

Cleve, weapon skill raises even when you miss?

That's right. Your intelligence affects the way you learn from your successes. Your wisdom affects the way you learn from your mistakes. If your wisdom is high, missing can be a learning experience.

Thank you, Cleve, now I hate almost every RPG I played for being utter shit compared to Grimoire.

I promise to release complete source of Grimoire 1 when Grimoire 2 development begins in Unity.

Hmm... 17 years of coding...

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Its true, engines gain in popularity and lose it just as quick. I think you would minimize that risk, by choosing an engine that allows you to make games rapidly.

I declare this conclusion to be the ultimate winnarz.

 

[Tramboi]

Are you serious? If you are not familiar with the problems between the STL standard and the Microsoft implementation, this interview ends now. You're clearly a fraud. The problems with M$ STL go back to Visual Studio 6 where it was so buggy it was totally impractical for use in any release code. But hey, since you claim to have been developing for 13 years I am sure you have heard these issues a million times. After all, they have always been a primary point of inquiry for anyone writing C++ using a M$ compiler. This is directly connected to the rise of the Boost library in its place. But hey, you're a developer so you already know about all this, right? After all, anybody writing C++ code has to have collection classes of some kind or they'd be better off writing in ANSI C, right? Mysterious, your references. I'm sorry but I think we will end the interview here.

Moribund is obviously a real developer. I've heard ten of them tell me already I was really asking for it when I defaulted to M$ STL after using STLPort all these years. Everybody tells me the same thing - it's crap, guaranteed heap errors doing the simplest operations. I don't know what you are. I think you are in a trailer right now getting ready to scrub up for your shift at Dennys working the cash register. Are you a C++ developer or do you work in Lisp or Turtle or something at your "big game development house?"

Ok, now the aussie dumbass is insulting me, let's see for real who's a fraud. PJ Plauger, me, or you? I like facts, mind you.
Are you saying the bugs in MSVC6 are still in MSVC10?
Let's hear the code snippets that exhibit MSVC10 STL bugs that really happen in Grimoire.
There are bugs in the MSVC STL but definitely not what a lame programmer like you will encounter.
And how did boost replace std::vector, std::map or such things?
The proof is in the pudding (as they say), so let's see what you can really show.
But I know.
You're definitely the kind of guy who invocates undefined behaviour on a regular basis, deferences invalid iterators and stll pretends to know what he's doing and complains by putting a $ in MS.
Where are your bug reports to MS? Where's your GCC or CLANG build that works much better?
You're right. Let's see who is frauding... and we'll have a bit of fun.
And I'd really like to meet your imaginary friends complaining about the MSVC STL.

(At least now I understand why you don't open your code)

Edit: Don't worry you already got my money for your POS of code blitting a few rectangles and stomping memory all over the place. Seems you won, after all, in some inbred twisted way.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Ok, now let's see for real who's a fraud. PJ Plauger, me, or you?

Ad hominem - references authority figure with name dropping. Real software developers never do that.

Are you saying the bugs in MSVC6 are still in MSVC10?

Everybody who works as a programmer knows it and has known it for the past decade. You must work out of a broom closet or only have passing acquaintance with the IT industry from what you hear surfing the net.

Let's hear the code snippets that exhibit MSVC10 STL bugs that really happen in Grimoire.

Simple deletes and insertions on vectors leave heap errors behind. Hit F12 and watch the profiler. It is not like it is a big secret.

There are bugs in the MSVC STL but definitely not what a lame programmer like you will encounter.

So now there are bugs.

And how did boost replace std::vector, std::map or such things?

Only throughout the entire industry over the past decade in every major application and use, starting with real-time embedded systems where it became policy to use Boost in anything requiring stability from 2005 onwards. But of course you are a developer so you already know all of this.

STL itself is heavily frowned upon because it was never standardized but most people will concede it if STLPort is used.

Where are your bug reports to MS? Where's your GCC or CLANG build that works much better?

I had a former version running in Visual Studio 6.0 right up to October 2012 which from 1998 onwards never produced any heap errors, ever. Ever. Of any kind. (STLPort with exceptions turned on)

You're right. Let's see who is frauding... and we'll have a bit of fun.

And I'd really like to meet your imaginary friends complaining about the MSVC STL.

They are in the imaginary computer industry where I do imaginary work for 95$ an hour plus GST delivering imaginary applications to imaginary clients. If I suggested using MSVC STL at the place I work currently under contract they would laugh me out of the building. The first thing they showed me how to do in the build is to implement either STLPort or Boost in the compile process. We all laughed at the attempt of Microsoft to override STL namespace with their own crap and try to make you jump through hoops to stick in your own. What kind of a madman would use M$ STL? Everybody knows it is defective crap. I did not know at that time I would end up taking a chance on it in my new IDE in VS10 the following month. Clearly a mistake.

(At least now I understand why you don't open your code)

Because I'm not deranged? Did you just admit you have never developed anything as an indie? Crazy talk on your part with no experience. You're upset I would not trust your suggestion despite you admitting you have never developed a game of your own?

Edit: Don't worry you already got my money for your POS of code blitting a few rectangles and stomping memory all over the place. Seems you won, after all.

You should work on your own game and as soon as you get it running, give away the source for free. Right after that, you should strip naked and run screaming down the boardwalk hurling your feces at policemen and yelling at them that you are open sourcing your waste products. That will make sense as well.

I hope you won't be a big enough troll to say they went bankrupt because of this. Sad because they made good games and had the balls to go open-source on their engine.
Making your non-commie point totally valid, I guess.

[CONCLUSION DETECTED. ABORT TRAIN OF THOUGHT. RESUME REGULAR IDLE CYCLE]

 

[Tramboi]

Ok, now let's see for real who's a fraud. PJ Plauger, me, or you?

Ad hominem - references authority figure with name dropping. Real software developers never do that.

You called me a fraud pal. Now you're gonna need to prove you're better than me or MS.

Are you saying the bugs in MSVC6 are still in MSVC10?

Everybody who works as a programmer knows it and has known it for the past decade. You must work out of a broom closet or only have passing acquaintance with the IT industry from what you hear surfing the net.

We're all waiting for you showing the bugs. The whole C++ Windows industry is depending on you because it seems it relies on very buggy components.

Let's hear the code snippets that exhibit MSVC10 STL bugs that really happen in Grimoire.

Simple deletes and insertions on vectors leave heap errors behind. Hit F12 and watch the profiler. It is not like it is a big secret.

It *is* a big secret. Seems you're the only one to know. Please show us code.
Please. Let's have a laugh. But I know it won't happen because "your software is too complex" or something like this.
Edit: The "profiler'. WTF are you talking about?

There are bugs in the MSVC STL but definitely not what a lame programmer like you will encounter.

So now there are bugs.

Every software has bugs. The point is transparency. Showing bugs. And having them fixed. Not saying "Oh it's so buggy but I'm the only one that can demonstrate it".

And how did boost replace std::vector, std::map or such things?

Only throughout the entire industry over the past decade in every major application and use, starting with real-time embedded systems where it became policy to use Boost in anything requiring stability from 2005 onwards. But of course you are a developer so you already know all of this.

STL itself is heavily frowned upon because it was never standardized but most people will concede it if STLPort is used.

Yeah, right. Boost *expands* on the stl, and doesn't replace it.
STl is sometimes frowned on in the embedded industry (where I work now) but not for these reasons.

Where are your bug reports to MS? Where's your GCC or CLANG build that works much better?

I had a former version running in Visual Studio 6.0 right up to October 2012 which from 1998 onwards never produced any heap errors, ever. Ever. Of any kind. (STLPort with exceptions turned on)

Which means your code was lucky. And buggy. And that's it.
You crap on MS - sorry MS, and you don't have a gcc build?

You're right. Let's see who is frauding... and we'll have a bit of fun.

And I'd really like to meet your imaginary friends complaining about the MSVC STL.

They are in the imaginary computer industry where I do imaginary work for 95$ an hour plus GST delivering imaginary applications to imaginary clients. If I suggested using MSVC STL at the place I work currently under contract they would laugh me out of the building. The first thing they showed me how to do in the build is to implement either STLPort or Boost in the compile process. We all laughed at the attempt of Microsoft to override STL namespace with their own crap and try to make you jump through hoops to stick in your own. What kind of a madman would use M$ STL? Everybody knows it is defective crap. I did not know at that time I would end up taking a chance on it in my new IDE in VS10 the following month. Clearly a mistake.

Clearly. If your clients are as dumb as you, I can only be happy for you all. This is a sane ecosystem - like in Deliverance.

(At least now I understand why you don't open your code)

Because I'm not deranged? Did you just admit you have never developed anything as an indie? Crazy talk on your part with no experience. You're upset I would not trust your suggestion despite you admitting you have never developed a game of your own?

No. I leave graphists doing graphs, game designers doing game design.
But it has a good side. I know how to program.
You should try.
I don't care about you not open-sourcing your code, I'm upset about you thinking you kown how to code.
Any competent professionnal reading this now is flabbergasted by what you're writing.

Edit: Don't worry you already got my money for your POS of code blitting a few rectangles and stomping memory all over the place. Seems you won, after all.

You should work on your own game and as soon as you get it running, give away the source for free. Right after that, you should strip naked and run screaming down the boardwalk hurling your feces at policemen and yelling at them that you are open sourcing your waste products. That will make sense as well.

Will do.

 

[Moribund]

Ok, now the aussie dumbass is insulting me, let's see for real who's a fraud.

Oh, the guy who does lua script on JRPGs has spoken! We all quiver in anticipation!

Now why don't you reveal every game you've worked on and your exact duties. Then we will laugh.

What have I done? I INVENTED GENE SEQUENCING MOTHERFUCKER! As jimbob put it. Well that's not true exactly but of the 50 guys on planet earth who are in my league as programmers I don't think any of them are working on AAA OMG AWESOME JRPGS.

PJ Plauger, me, or you? I like facts, mind you.

Provide your credentials or you are the fraud. Who's PJ Plauger? MS retard? Is there anyone involved with VC++ who is NOT a fraud or incompetent of some kind? Does someone there really impress you? Does the retard at intel who works on OpenMP impress you too? Says it all about you, if so.

Are you saying the bugs in MSVC6 are still in MSVC10?

Oh, it's quite bug free if you are doing trivial work. I get some kind of bug what, once a month? My only conclusion is there's just a handful of real programmers on earth, it's the only explanation.

Let's hear the code snippets that exhibit MSVC10 STL bugs that really happen in Grimoire.

Yeah, when you know what the bugs are they aren't bugs any more.

Personally I believe it's nothing to do with 64 bit and everything to do with permissions, but anyone who trusts stl ESPECIALLY FOR A FUCKING GAME is incompetent. End of story no need to go on, you are an idiot.

There are bugs in the MSVC STL but definitely not what a lame programmer like you will encounter.

Yes you are the expert, obviously. Of course you've never delievered anything on your own in your whole life. Until you do, shut your whore mouth when CMB is talking.

And how did boost replace std::vector, std::map or such things?
The proof is in the pudding (as they say), so let's see what you can really show.
But I know.
You're definitely the kind of guy who invocates undefined behaviour on a regular basis, deferences invalid iterators and stll pretends to know what he's doing and complains by putting a $ in MS.

You use iterators, tramboi? Are you by chance a woman with a vagina? I can't think of any other explanation, and I don't have to even ask CMB if he uses that kind of retarded shit, he's a real programmer who learned in C and assembly, like a real man. You fucking sissy.

Where are your bug reports to MS?

Oh I had any number of them until I realized they just wipe their ass with them, and even when they do get fixed they magically pop back up again and again because they have never heard of regression testing.

Where's your GCC or CLANG build that works much better?
You're right. Let's see who is frauding... and we'll have a bit of fun.

Like I said, show me your name on mobygames, so we can ridicule you. Wow you were part of a team of 50 guys, impressive.

And I'd really like to meet your imaginary friends complaining about the MSVC STL.

Wow. Really. You must be making up your experience entirely.

(At least now I understand why you don't open your code)

Edit: Don't worry you already got my money for your POS of code blitting a few rectangles and stomping memory all over the place. Seems you won, after all, in some inbred twisted way.

If you were really mr hotshot, then you'd have come across this exact problem before, and know it's all about the permissions. So, you are obviously a fraud.

 

[EG]

What have I done? I INVENTED GENE SEQUENCING MOTHERFUCKER! As jimbob put it. Well that's not true exactly but of the 50 guys on planet earth who are in my league as programmers . . .

Sure.

 

[Moribund]

See that loses its effect after 10 years of you always being wrong and me always being right.Even Jaesun has cooled it after Cleve proved them wrong, and with the continued lack of thurday.

Flying babies are only the beginning, boy! The future will be so exciting - wheee I can't take it any more!

 

[EG]

So what changed, Cleve? Why all these errors now?

In particular, why all these errors outside of your testing systems?

I'm having a little trouble believing it's STL or some implementation of STL that has worked perfectly only for you, but I'm probably labeling myself as a retard for not going back through the thread to confirm this statement.

By the way, can I include a command-line argument to the exe to force windowed mode? MSVC debugger craps out on accept, regardless of administrative access or not.Though, at least the lovely music track continues to play.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

So what changed, Cleve? Why all these errors now?

In particular, why all these errors outside of your testing systems?

I'm having a little trouble believing it's STL or some implementation of STL that has worked perfectly only for you, but I'm probably labeling myself as a retard for not going back through the thread to confirm this statement.

By the way, can I include a command-line argument to the exe to force windowed mode? MSVC debugger craps out on accept, regardless of administrative access or not.Though, at least the lovely music track continues to play.

I'll tell you why I think this.

I used STLPort for 12 years in Grimoire. I used to do heap traces when I thought I was overwriting memory. Once in a while I would see there was a heap error, caused by me. I fixed them. After this, no amount of tracing ever revealed any heap errors. Of course I fixed all kinds of other bugs but no errors in heap allocation/deallocation. This certainly was due to custom allocators I wrote that I knew every inch of. I initialized these in STLPort when I created templates.

Now when we switched to VS10 from VS6 in October 2012, I simple relinquished all that custom code and defaulted to MS STL, assuming that all memory allocation and deallocation was handled as specified in the STL template by the library. It wasn't. I traced the heap more than a couple times (F12 while running in debug in the IDE) and noticed there was a constant stream of heap errors. They all seemed to have to do with deallocations mostly. However, they did not cause any problems in Windows XP running outside the debugger. I tested them on Win 7 and Vista both 32 and 64 bits. No problems there either. Whenever you created or deleted objects, it was easy to see the default code in the MS STL was leaving heap errors. These are not custom objects we are talking about. I am talking about simple lists and vectors of type <int> and nothing else. If I had not been deliberately tracing them, they did not even throw exceptions on any machine I tested on.

Because I did not notice crashes on any of my machines after the Fastgraph library was fixed, I just assumed this was some kind of standard behavior for MS STL and let it roll for the demo. I think this may be related to the problems people have had but I am not certain. It may actually have nothing to do with these things I observed but I think since for 12 years I didn't experience them, I should really restore STLPort on my build and use that just to be on the safe side.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Clearly. If your clients are as dumb as you, I can only be happy for you all. This is a sane ecosystem - like in Deliverance.

I just think it is important to keep it all in perspective. Remember, all things being equal, the one universal constant in life that we can all count on is that in any given situation, I will always mysteriously make a hell of a lot more money than you do. It's my cross to bear. It is the curse of the village idiot.

 

[EG]

And . . . I think I just fixed it.

Cut GrimoireDemo from ProgramFiles(x86) to the Desktop. Removed the read-only flag. Applied the changes to all sub-files. Ran as administrator.

Playing in Windowed mode.

Glorious.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trying to edit files in the %ProgramFiles% directory, Cleve?

For shame. %AppData% is your only hope.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crash on hit while fighting a flower. Woe, I was wrong! But look -- a dmp file and a log file? Where'd those come from?!
Interestingly, the crash coincides with a modification of the config.dat file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception 0xC0000005

If this were Project Zomboid, I'd now tell someone they had to download an updated video driver from nVidia, IBM, or AMD directly.o_O

"Unhandled exception at 0x5C97D74C (dmime.dll) in GRIMOIRE DEMO V1.00.dmp: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000001."

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

And . . . I think I just fixed it.

Cut GrimoireDemo from ProgramFiles(x86) to the Desktop. Removed the read-only flag. Applied the changes to all sub-files. Ran as administrator.

Playing in Windowed mode.

Glorious.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trying to edit files in the %ProgramFiles% directory, Cleve?

For shame. %AppData% is your only hope.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crash on hit while fighting a flower. Woe, I was wrong! But look -- a dmp file and a log file? Where'd those come from?!
Interestingly, the crash coincides with a modification of the config.dat file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception 0xC0000005

If this were Project Zomboid, I'd now tell someone they had to download an updated video driver from nVidia, IBM, or AMD directly.o_O

"Unhandled exception at 0x5C97D74C (dmime.dll) in GRIMOIRE DEMO V1.00.dmp: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000001."

Adding the .dmp dump was something we did when we were trying to locate the problem that ultimately turned out to be in the Fastgraph library assembly code.

Did you know you can actually load that file into the VS10 IDE and step through the bug like it had just occurred on your own machine, as long as you have not recompiled the code since then?

The log file should be written every time the game runs.

 

[EG]

Aye, but I was having crashes on save, on attempts to modify game settings, and walking around. Moving out of ProgramFiles .etc cleared those crashes up for me. One of Windows 7 quirks, trying to protect that directory.

Now it's just a crash on every second encounter. Not the first, but the second encounter.

At least it's something predictable. I can now save after the first encounter, reload, and go on my merry way like-wise.

Couldn't step through the code, but I have Visual Studio 2012 installed. Running the dmp in native mode just brought me to that exception (which I assume is where the game is crashing, or is that merely the dmp? As you can tell, VisualStudio isn't my thing )

I'll try it on a Windows XP SP1 32x virtual machine now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Absolutely love you for adding the enter key as a way to speed up combat, by the way.

 

[Tramboi]

Lots of dumb teenager shit

You moron, Cleve is talking about bugs in the MSVC STL compared to STLPort and trying to ridicule me because "it is well known the MS STL corrupts memory". I'm still waiting for him to exhibit these "well-known bugs".
He speaks about bugs in vector insert and removes : it is about iterators invalidation. Even if you don't understand the terms.
You guys can't play it technical? I guessed that earlier. Even if I didn't ship several games (3d engines) and contributions to several open source projects, which is *not the point*, he'd still have to prove this.
That's how it works, it is called computer *science*.
I encounter codegen bugs in MSVC regularly but I've still to be shown a bug about their standard containers.
You don't see the difference?
And PJ Plauger/Dinkumware are the author of their STL, do your research.

 

[Tramboi]

Clearly. If your clients are as dumb as you, I can only be happy for you all. This is a sane ecosystem - like in Deliverance.

I just think it is important to keep it all in perspective. Remember, all things being equal, the one universal constant in life that we can all count on is that in any given situation, I will always mysteriously make a hell of a lot more money than you do. It's my cross to bear. It is the curse of the village idiot.

Good for you.
Of course you realize it will never make you win a technical argument, though. Which is my cross to bear presently.
To each his own.

 

[Akarnir]

Hey that games looks great. Brings back memories of my father playing on the old basement machine. *nostalgic tears*

That also looks like the kind of game I could have played using sheets of paper and imagination (and rule book). Or some complex board games accumulating dust in my basement.

Which makes me think : why is this a video game? Don't take it harshly at all, it's not meant to be edgy or condescending, more like a genuine question. What can that game provide that I can't already do on a board or with sheets of paper?
Apart of course, for the plug and play experience (no need to set up the game during 3 hours), and it's emphasis on single player (it's more easier to play this on single player than Paper RPG in single player)

I never really played any of these kind of video games, so forgive my blatant ignorance. I'm simply tying to decide if I should invest hours (and jew gold) on this game.