Beta patch 109. install at your own risk etc etc blah blah

Kudos Kudos (General)
1

Ok, here is the patch that brings the game to version 1.09
The actual on-sale version is 1.08, which is known to be generally stable. I’m 99% certain 1.09 is even more stable, and better in every way, but as I don’t have access to a vast range of hardware I’d like to get some feedback before I really push it:

positech.co.uk/kudos/patches/Kudos109.exe

Heres the fix list:

1.09 Fixed missing paintball description Fixed some faulty job salary data Fixed bug where NPCs don't improve at bowling. Game no longer runs at 99% of CPU when not topmost window in windowed mode. Changed to a different sound engine entirely to fix the crashes with some drivers. Fixed rare crash with job offers. Fixed bug where save game would fail to load job data correctly. Introduced idea of 2 actiivties per day on weekends and unemployed days and sick days.

If you had random crashes and had to disable music, I’d really like to know if this version fixes that, as I basically bought a totally new sound system to hopefully fix that stuff.
In addition to crash bugs and fixes, I’ve also introduced the ‘2 activities in a day’ thing, for the weekends, days off ill, and unemployed. I think it makes it slightly too easy, but then, I know the game inside out, so maybe I’m aiming it too difficult. If you have any feedback on that change it is much appreciated. I’ll start a separate thread in a day or two to get feedback on what you’d like beyond this patch.
Thanks everyone.

2

works fine for me

3

Thats what I like to hear. Anyone else?

4

I gave it a brief try, no problems on my end. Running Win XP if that helps.

5

Here’s a bug I’ve noticed while playing 1.09beta. Couldn’t tell you if it’s new, or if it exists in previous versions. One day, I received two social invites; one from friend A (accompanied by friend B), and one from friend B (accompanied by friend A). I chose the latter option, passively “rejecting” friend A’s invite, making her unhappy even though I’d socialised with her that evening.

6

I’ve seen that prior to this patch - tends to happen more when you’re being a bit unsociable and only have a couple of active friends.

7

Ok, updated today, started a new character, and everything was going fine, until I tried to end a day and got this error in a popup:

failed to create sound C:\DATA\PROGRAMMING\MILO\GUI_Sounds.cpp 373

Now, my setup is a bit…unorthodox; I boot off my D drive, though my C drive is still attached and configured (don’t ask, long story). I did the original Kudos install to my D drive, though, so if it was going to create a directory, I’d expect it to remember where the files are. I could take a guess at the problem, but you know the program better :laughing:

Otherwise, though, the sound issue seems to be gone and everything else works great. Fantastic job, Cliff.

8

Your drive setup shouldnt matter at all. This wasn’t the first day I take it? but after playing for a while? Is this reproduceable? any save game that would let me trigger it maybe?
If you havent run the game since, there will be a shiny full error message in the “debugdata” folder ina file called debug.txt. Could you email me that?
Basically, I need to know the exact error message. And of course, if anyone else hit this problem, I’d really like to know. I’m going to hold off on 1.09 until I track this puppy down.

9

I just got this identical crash and popup with 1.09. I’ll pull out the debug.txt file and shoot it over.

EDIT - I could reproduce the crash from the autosave, so I manually saved the game and tested that (after backing up the autosave). It still crashed for me every time, so I e-mailed both that save and debug.txt. It crashes just after I hit the clock to advance the day.

10

I’ve fixed this and I’m putting a patch together now. Its failing to play the sound your dog makes when he bites a burglar :smiley:

11

What happened to the lottery? I dont’ see it as an option in the new beta patch

12

Ok, some more bug testing reports from me.

The sound glitch concerning music seems to be fixed now. I played for several hours and didn’t have any trouble.

The dog biting burglar bug definitely exists.

Concerning gameplay and the weekends, I noticed one bug concerning shopping. It seems that shopping takes up two activity slots. If you go shopping in the morning, the entire day is spent doing so, so you lose a slot. If you shop in the evening things are fine.

If you have a class scheduled, you can use a post it note to take the class once, as intended, but if you go to solo activities, you can take the class again for two classes. Possible exploit?

Suggestion for sick days. Since you are sick, I’d think one activity slot is enough as it represents your illness. When I’m sick at any rate, I don’t feel energetic.

Also, with music, can you put in your own music in the directory or is it hard coded to accept only the two songs?

Anyway, this is why I like indie games. You often have so much more contact and ability to give feedback than to say EA games.

13

I hate following myself up, but some more things I’ve noticed.

Solo activities that take up two weekend activity slots: Watching television, Shopping, Crosswords. One exception for shopping exists. If you get a post it note reminding you to buy pet food, the shopping only takes one slot.

Also, with the weekends, there is an exploit for phone calls inviting you to activities. If you have one call, you can do the same activity twice by accepting the invitation.

One bug I’ve noticed is that the memory handling is odd. When I run the game there are huge leaks in memory. I have a gig of memory on my machine and if I play for four hours or so, and exit out, my memory is exhausted. Even The Sims 2 or Simcity 4 or the notorious Firefox don’t do that. Here’s the funny part. After the program cleans itself from memory, I have more memory than usual. Typically I’ll have almost 700 megs free when I first start my system. When Kudos empties out, it goes to 850 megs. I’m unsure if there is a reporting error on the part of my memory monitor program or if there is something unusual in the way it handles memory.

Suggestions:

Can we have keyboard shortcuts? I’m definitely a keyboard person. I’d especially appreciate it for windows opening or the end of day summary.

Can we have “lifestyle” classes that would teach sports skills, nutrition, fitness, public speaking, hobbies, etc. Many colleges offer this as personal enrichment classes.

Speaking of hobbies, that might be a nice future addition. It would increase happiness, decrease money, add to social contacts, and possibly even be a source of money from collecting and selling the collection later.

Social clubs, like the Masonic order or local clubs. It’d meet once a week or month and add to social.

More sporting leagues would be nice. I like the bowling, but there could be more I think, just for variety.

When you capture a mugger, what about a small monetary reward since you caught a criminal and put yourself at risk?

Question:

With the bowling league, if you get kicked off the team, can you get an invite later?

14

wow, lots of great feedback there. The memory leak sounds worrying, I’ll investigate this. You dont get re-invited to the bowling team, they take rejection badly. I do have plans to build on the team activity thing a bit, so we will see how that goes. Those exploits you suggest will also get looked into.
As for music files, as I recall, it will play any in the music directory, but they need to be converted to ogg format ;(

15

Just fixed all those exploits for doing things twice in one day. My solution for evening classes is to enforce them being evening classes, so you dont get the option to do them as the first thing, only the second thing each day.
This will be in patch 1.1, which will be a fair few days yet, I want to add some stuff as well as do fixes.

16

I looked into the memory issue. The reason my available ram goes up beyond usual is because the programs go into my paging file rather than remaining in ram. Apparently Kudos is aggressive in taking memory.

17

I found a bug in version 1.09.

If you have a class on saturnday or sunday and you pass the exam in the first time slot you get stuck with an unclickable window.

18

dont worry, both bugs have been fixed, and thenext patch will sort them out, as well as adding some new things.

19

Are you sure you don’t have a new friend? When you take a class and make a new friend as a result, the class window is in the foreground, while the new friend window is hidden behind it. For some reason, the new friend window takes the mouse focus. You have to click slightly above the middle of the class window to bring the friend window to the front so you can close it.

20

ah yes, i fixed that bug too…