Need some help!

[TroyHepfner]

I've put together a v.1.1 beta for Rick Rocket that should support Windows Vista and Windows 7. It also has the ability to remap keyboard/joystick functions, and a few other improvements as well. I could really use some feedback on it, especially from Windows Vista users.

The Windows beta can be downloaded from here:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/beta/rickrockettrialsetup_windows.exe

I also have a Mac beta can be downloaded from here:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/beta/RickRocketTrial.dmg

Sorry, Linux users, I didn't have time last night to do a Linux build. But v1.1 will be available for Linux when it is released.

[TroyHepfner]

Ok, it looks like my first attempt at support Windows Vista/7 isn't quite right. The data files that the game writes out don't have the correct permissions, so other users can read them but not write (which means they can't save their game, update the high score table, etc).

I'm working on it...

[Thurmond]

The desktop shortcut doesn't work for me on Vista.

[TroyHepfner]

Thanks, Thurmond!

I've just uploaded a new version that fixes the working directory on the desktop and start menu shortcuts, and I think I fixed the permissions problem. Can you Windows users download the new version and let me know if it works? (same link as before)

Thanks!

[TroyHepfner]

I now have a Linux beta for Rick Rocket v1.1!

The Linux version should fix issues that people are having with PulseAudio on Fedora and the latest versions of Ubuntu. It also uses the latest versions of SDL and SDL_mixer, which fixes some issues.

If my Linux users could please download it and let me know how it works on your particular distribution, I would really appreciate it. You can download the beta from here:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/beta/rickrocketsetup_linux

Make sure you set the execute bit on it after you download it, so you can run it.

[surfingpenguin]

Works perfectly on Fedora 12! Nice job!

[torrinj]

I downloaded Rick Rocket beta to try it out on my Debian Linux (squeeze) system. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it to run yet.

The first issue was it could find libGLU.so.1. I found it in /usr/lib. I added that to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH line in rickrocket shell script. Unfortunately, the next time I tried to run, it failed because libGLU.so.1 in /usr/lib is the 64 bit version. OK, good point "emily" (The name of my computer). So I installed the 32 bit version from ia32-libs[1] package. Then removed /usr/lib from the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and tried to run again. This time I get the error below . . .

torrin@emily:~/tmp/RickRocket$ ./rickrocket
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: dl-open.c: 611: _dl_open: Assertion `_dl_debug_initialize (0, args.nsid)->r_state == RT_CONSISTENT' failed!

I'm not sure how to get around this particular error. I doubt you get many people using a AMD64 Debian Linux system, but do you have any ideas what I can do to get Rick Rocket running? Install Fedora 12? :)

1. http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/ia32-libs

[TroyHepfner]

Hi Torrin,

I did some googling, and it appears that other users have encountered the same problem with Skype on AMD64. On this particular page (http://blogs.skype.com/linux/2009/08/skype_for_linux_21_beta.html), a user named czarnyckm discovered that it is a problem with the 32-bit compatibility versions of PulseAudio. The way he fixed it on his system:

- deinstall PulseAudio
- open mc as root and go to /usr/lib32 and remove libpulse* (or rename it)
- execute ldconfig

Hope that helps!

Update: another user just reported the same problem via e-mail. He confirmed that it is a problem with the 32-bit compatibility version of PulseAudio on Debian Squeeze on AMD64. His solution was not to remove PulseAudio but to temporarily move the libpulse* libraries from /usr/lib32 to his home directory. Then the game ran fine and sound worked (I guess it forced the game to use a different audio driver).

[torrinj]

I can confirm that moving libpulse* out of the way did fix the problem. Nice work.

[TroyHepfner]

Cool! Thanks for letting me know.

[TroyHepfner]

Just a quick update:

I had more feedback during the past 24 hours on the Windows and Linux versions. Several Linux users reported issues that I needed to investigate. Fortunately, nearly all of the errors are caused by SDL+PulseAudio, not my game, and there are workarounds. So I updated the readme file to document the errors & workarounds, and to add some additional troubleshooting steps. The one error I haven't been able to resolve was a X server crash, but only one user has reported it. So I think I will release anyway, and continue investigating afterwards. If/when I figure it out, I'll issue another update.

The Windows beta seems to be working pretty well. The only problems that have surfaced are due to the new installer, which has caused two issues for two different users. One user reported that the desktop and Start menu shortcuts didn't work (though they seem to be working for other Windows Vista and Windows 7 users) - so I spent time investigating that problem. The other user is running Windows 7 64-bit, and reported that the installer would not start for her. I built a different installer for her, and I'm waiting to hear back from her.

So right now, I'm working on the final builds. I have the Linux and Mac builds done, plus their installers/dmg files. The Windows build just finished. I'll build the trial and full version Windows installers as soon as I know the new beta installer worked.

I'm planning to release the Linux and Mac versions of Rick Rocket v1.1 in the morning. Hopefully the Windows version will be ready tomorrow too. Stay tuned!