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Rescue: The Beagles - final version released
December 5th, 2008 by nenad
Completed version of Rescue: The Beagles is out at last! You can download it here. The things added are mostly on the presentational side although a few gameplay improvements were made too. Great many thanks to Dean Pavlekovic who took the effort of doing some code management and transferred the project to a better development environment. He also set up a version tracking system for the game code. All this made the finalization process a breeze. And as a side effect, the download size is smaller now as we could afford to lose some runtime libraries.
So enough with technicalities, here’s the list of additions and improvements:
Gameplay:
- gamepad support, for both; hat and analog joystick.
- Placid Flow Bonus - a new type of bonus you earn at the end of each level if you don’t harm anybody on the level. It’s well worth going for as it rewards you with +200% of the total level score.
- bigger HUD option (which is on by default)
- option to mark soon-to-be-lost beagles with flashing red circles, for people who have trouble spotting a beagle
- parachute backpack and rope are now visible on player avatar to indicate the particular resource is available
Presentational and other fluff:
- a new glowy, bubbly logo
- main menu reworked
- story, instructions, enemies and credits screens
- splash screen with illustration by Annabelle Kennedy
There are some beagles in distress and they are desperately awaiting for your help. If you haven’t played the game yet, get it now! If you, however, enjoyed the beta, the full version is well worth downloading - for the complete experience.
Danjuro said:
A delight to play, as it always has been. Thank you.
Bellyache said:
Yay! RTB FTW (on the IGF)! RTB is my favorite game this year (i’ve been playing it more than playing with myself), so this made my day. Thank you!
Also, noticed the boss sprite in the bitmaps folder, haven’t seen him (her?) in the beta.
nenad said:
Thanks.
The boss (CutLab board of directors member) was planned at some point but at the end she didn’t make it to the game. The sprite is just a mockup used for testing. I forgot to delete it. To avoid further confusion I have uploaded a new version with this sprite removed.
Congratulations Bellyache, you’re now one of the few people in possession of a rare version with unused boss dummy sprite ;)
ortoslon said:
Feature request: please add a new gameplay option to open the parachute automatically when Nicole has fallen long enough to die on impact.
Yigguth said:
Pressing up to jump on a gamepad is very unnatural. Please address this
AuthenticKaizen said:
no doubt…this is a masterpiece!
loved the beta and now there is finally an improved final version. awesome!
deed said:
Hi, I just download this new version, but for some unknown reason I can’t start the game. I keep getting an error message about “this application has requested runtime to terminate it in an unusual way”. This did not happen in the beta, what’s going on!
nenad said:
deed, Could you please send me the screenshot of this error message, as well as your computer configuration? (you can send it to contact e-mail that’s in readme.txt)
We used a different development environment for this version so this might be what’s causing the problem.
rocky said:
Rescue the Beagles is also my favorite game this year! As a lifelong Bealge owner, Thank You!
Mischief Maker said:
Yay!
Did you do something to the landscape generator, btw? The landscapes I was playing on were much more interesting than in the beta.
N said:
Hey guys!
I can’t play this new version, I always get the error: ‘Failed to initiate the application due to incorrect configuration. Reinstalling the software might solve this problem’ (it’s not exactly word-by-word like this since it’s a translation…)
nenad said:
@mischief:
Nope, if I recall correctly the landscape generator hasn’t been changed since beta. Maybe you just came to realize the full depths of it ;)
@n:
Are you trying to start it on Vista? Please do report this to the contact e-mail found in readme.txt file. Include as precise description of the problem as you can and specify the system hardware configuration and operating system. Thanks.
nenad said:
@Yigguth:
What setup for the gamepad would you suggest?
Bellyache said:
I’m not Yigguth, but i suggest button 1 for shooting and button 2 for jumping and climbing. Button 3 can be pause (try having a cigarette while playing without the pause button). That was my JoyToKey setup for playing the beta.
Bellyache said:
One more thing; i know it’s kind of late for feature requests, but would it be too hard to add a sound volume option to the main menu? Sometimes i like to listen to music while playing, and hearing a primarius during a silent song is not a pleasant experience.
Mopsical said:
Whenever I play the game, it becomes glitchy and it appears that some files, like titles and characters, have become mixed up. I unzipped the file with Bitzipper and I ran it on Vista, what should I do?
nenad said:
Game is not tested on Vista, so Vista is not “officially” supported os
Mopsical said:
Oh. Well, you should definitely consider it for a future update then.
nenad said:
Sure. As soon as I get Vista (which may take some time) or find the people willing to test the game thoroughly on their Vistas :)
Mopsical said:
Glad to hear it. I’d be happy to test it, if I got the chance.
stefan said:
Can it be played on an Apple? I didn’t see any sys req listed in the description!
Tim Reynolds said:
Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.
Radiance said:
I played this for an hour and when I was done I looked at the keyboard and it was moving right while everything else was moving left, weird.
Awesome game, though the jumping with up thing got me killed a few times :D.
Eric said:
This game is a blast, thanks!
Zamkaizer said:
Would it be possible to repost the beta release for those who are having compatibility issues with the final version?
nenad said:
Ok, I made a new build. Hopefully that should solve it. Can some of you guys who had problems running it on either Vista or XP download and try to run it again? It’s the same download link. Thanks, and let me know if it works now.
Also, the beta is still available from:
http://www.16×16.org/download/beagles/rescue_the_beagles_beta.rar
Aaron said:
Please add an option to make the parachute auto deploy when falling from a height that will kill you. It’s seriously annoying. Even better, add the ability to prevent you from jumping to your death when you’ve run out of parachutes. Animal activists will give up a lot of things, but jumping to their death unprovoked doesn’t seem like one of them.
kthxbye
nenad said:
Regarding the auto parachute. It’s absence is a deliberate design choice and there is some thinking and testing behind it. It’s one of the challenges of the game to learn to judge safe fall distances. Just play a couple more rounds and you’ll get the hang of it ;) Seriously, it’s not as hard as it seems at first.
If anybody is interested the topic of auto parachutes has already been discussed in the development thread on TIGSource forums.
Mischief Maker said:
I do have one request that I don’t think is that inappropriate:
Add the option of binding jump to a button other than uparrow (like X or better yet Shift). Jumping with the up arrow just feels wrong.
Mopsical said:
I think it’s official, my laptop can not run this. I’ve tried the beta and the full version and both of them are screwed. I really do not know what is the problem. Should I accept it and move on?
Evgeni said:
This is one of the best indie not commercial games I have played!
Really good!
nenad said:
@Mischief:
Sounds reasonable. To me, pressing up to jump feels natural but I can see how it may feel wrong. I’ll put the additional keys in as well as the pad mapping scheme suggested by Bellyache.
@Mopsical:
Have you tried to run it in xp compatibility mode?
Btw the game now works without errors on xp.
nenad said:
@stefan:
Game currently runs only on Windows. Mac and Linux ports are planned but that’s all the information I can give about it for the time being :)
Bellyache said:
Thank you, nenad.
I’ve been thinking, it can be said that RTB is some kind of a blend of a platforming game with a shoot ‘em up, and the whole pressing-up-to-jump-feeling-unnatural thingy is maybe connected to what your preferred genre is. My favorite games are platformers, and i don’t like pressing up to jump simpy because it is very unusual for a platformer to have that controlling scheme, i’m not used to it. But if your favoured genre is shmup you will probably be accustomed to jumping with up because in a shmup you control your character in a similar way.
nenad said:
Valid reasoning. I definitely prefer shmups over platformers. The control binding scheme just may be reflecting that fact. To minimize the woes, It’d probably be ok to include key/pad customization options but I’ll leave that for some future incarnation of the game.
Anyways, the game download has been updated with following control changes:
Keyboard: X and SHIFT are bound as additional jump/up keys.
Gamepad: button1 - fire, button2 - jump/up, button3 - pause.
While making changes I encountered and corrected several bugs as well. There was one particularly nasty gameplay exploit bug but it was a kind that doesn’t show up too often (if you don’t know how to trigger it). Probably nobody noticed it so far. It’s gone now however…
ortoslon said:
New gamepad controls don’t work for me (every button fires owls), and Shift makes Nicole jump continuosly.
nenad said:
Try to download it again please.
ortoslon said:
Gamepad is okay now. Thanks for making infinite hours of joy less painful.
ortoslon said:
This is bad combination of colours:
http://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lowcontrastac7.png
nenad said:
Yeah! Well, no, it’s just bad visibility due to lousy weather conditions ;)
I always claimed the palette generator is not perfect. But it proved to be good enough in most cases. If anybody encounter more unpleasant color combinations, please do to post them. I collect the stuff just for fun. And of course to possibly use it to add some heuristics to the palette engine.
ortoslon said:
A platforming engine bug:
http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=collisionbugys6.png
When Nicole jumps to a layer which has a cliff, she appears briefly on top of it (true wtf monemt), then falls and dies.
nenad said:
It’s a known bug.
Bellyache said:
And a pretty nasty bug, too. I haven’t seen that one before the yesterday’s update.
nenad said:
Can you easily reproduce it?
Bellyache said:
Yes, it happens very often. Just try jumping around below a layer with a steep cliff. You can trigger it whether by doing a vertical jump (like the one in ortoslon’s picture) or a diagonal one. Here’s my lousy diagram: http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=37136410qh4.jpg
nenad said:
Ok, got it. Could you guys download it once again and see if it’s ok now?
Bellyache said:
Great! It seems the bug is gone now.
ortoslon said:
No bugs to report… Nitpicking time! First: Nicole will jump continuously as long as the jump button is held. This often leads to unintentional second jump if Nicole lands on the upper layer quickly. I’m not sure for second, though: Placid Flow bonus isn’t given if Nicole dies somewhere on the level. Is this intentional? If yes, then readme.txt should state this.
nenad said:
Phew, I was afraid you’ll dig a new bug again. You seem to be rather good at it ;)
The jumping behavior is intentional. I kinda prefer it that way. As for bonuses, none of them are given if player dies on the level. I’ll put it into the readme.
ortoslon said:
Excessive playtesting ;)
So… Um… Jumping behavior option? Please?
Bellyache said:
I wouldn’t put the jumping behavior option in. I think that putting too many options in the game (like in Counterclockwise) would take away the whole fun-little-minigame feel that RTB has now.
Mischief Maker said:
Wonderful! The new jump buttons make a whole world of difference when playing with a joystick.
Now I have one last request. Could you make it so that hitting “up/jump” midair will also open the parachute, since you can’t throw a rope mid-air anyway? It feels a little unnatural hitting “down” to slow your fall, and this change would not affect the normal controls at all.
This would be my last request.
ortoslon said:
I second Mischief Maker’s idea. I wish I could promise to make “one last request” :)
stefan said:
Beautiful game. I found a PC platform to download it on, and have been playing a lot since then. My one feeling is that it needs closure. The story is such a great idea that it feels wrong to just make it get harder and harder without an ending, or a boss. I crave a boss! Learning to get all the flows, and beating level 10 felt amazing. This is a hard core wonderfully imaginative game, great job!!!
rekcah said:
I did a cover of the Intro music (the Disasterpeace version). You guys should check it out here: http://rekcahdam.blogspot.com/2008/12/rescue-beagles-intro-cover.html
Krzysio said:
I’d like to than you very much for this game. It’s perfect, addicing and hypnotizing - it works just like the old arcade games used to when I was much younger. And the music fits beautifully. I try many indie games, but I like that much only few. Small game, but a great work that’s worth to be remembered.
Oh, and the online score table rocks (just as it does in world of Goo)!
Thanks again.
Game7z.com said:
check the Chinese version introduction here
http://www.game7z.com/guide/rescue-the-beagles.html
nenad said:
Yay for the chinese feature! :)
Jamie said:
Can’t wait for the Mac version. Then I won’t have to switch to boot camp… <3
ortoslon said:
Glitch: a vivisector caught a highlighted dog and carried it away while the red circle stayed where he picked the dog up.
nenad said:
This is known issue. It’ll be fixed in next update.
Using highlights is not cool anyway :)
Thanks for pointing it out though.
dmauro said:
I’m a huge fan of this game, and I just found out about this new release. I hope you won’t mind a few minor requests:
1) option to reassign joystick buttons, or else turn that feature off so I can use joytokey to get it how I like, which is what I was doing before. Right now the jump and owl buttons are in a weird place on my Hori Real Arcade Pro controller.
2) make it possible to enter your name/initials with the dpad and a button, perhaps as an option (default or arcade style). I plan on playing this in my arcade cabinet, and since there will be no keyboard handy, I can’t type in my name and then hit enter (and none of the keys are currently mapped to enter either).
Thanks for updating the game though! It looks great with the larger HUD.
:)
nenad said:
Noted both; 1 and 2. I’ve put them on to do list for the next update.
I’m glad you found the game worthy of an arcade cabinet :)
jeremy said:
hey, love the game. only problem is we can’t get the online scores to synchronize. it shows the top 7 or so and the rest are blank. it’s obviously a problem on my end since no one else seems to have the problem. anyway thanks for the super awesome game.
nenad said:
Some evil childish personas persist in hacking the table over and over. Time for another cleanup *sigh*
jeremy said:
don’t worry too much about it. thanks again.
spookyjon said:
What a great game! I am so glad people are working on stuff like this. It’s really inspiring to see such a great game come out from an independent developer.
Andrew said:
Love this game but I’ve got to admit I’m not thrilled with the changes made. I’m not sure about the idea of double the score if you don’t kill anything, I guess that’s alright though. But I don’t like the graphical changes to the landscape and I was hoping I’d be able to change the music around more, I like the Aesqe menu music but the Disasterpeace in-game music but it’s like I can only have one or the other. The splash screen is nice but sitting there not being able to skip it sort of destroys the appeal of it being a game you can just pick up and have a quick blast on when you have a few minutes. And the story screen is good but can we clean up the typos? ‘wast area’ and the bit about ‘three’ elite activists, shouldn’t that be two?
I’m using Vista as well though, I know you’re working on this but it always crashes on exit.
I’m nitpicking though, I love the game but I’m just highlighting what I don’t like cos everything else is perfect the way it is. I’ll keep playing but it’ll probably be the beta.
nenad said:
Thanks for the feedback Andrew. I appreciate it
Bonus for not killing anything is there to give players opportunity to quickly boost their score in the first few levels, possibly earn a quick extra life or two before things start to get nastier. It’s a reward for using a (harder to play) lateral strategy. It also offers some extra challenge to advanced players. A decent amount of skill is needed not to hurt any enemies. Especially once the lab executives enter the game, around level 5-6. It deserves a generous score reward.
Graphical engine and landscape generator didn’t change at all between beta and the final release. Can you specify the exact changes you’re referring to?
Splash screen can be skipped by pressing any key on keyboard or gamepad. In fact, every situation in the game that includes some waiting can be skipped by pressing the fire button - end of level, game over, story printout… I personally hate it when game takes away the ability to control from you (unless it’s absolutely necessary, e.g. loading the level). The player should be able to start playing *immediately*, no matter in what state the game currently is. I stick to this principle throughout all my games. I consider the “gui flow” to be almost as important as the actual gameplay flow.
‘Three activists’ is referring to three lives you have at the start of the game, not the characters. So many people have noticed this that it kind of become an internal joke here, hence I’m keen to leave it as it is. ‘Wast’ will be corrected in the next release, thanks for pointing it out.
Does the beta crashes on exit too?
You’re really good at nitpicking ;)
dmauro said:
“Noted both; 1 and 2. I’ve put them on to do list for the next update.
I’m glad you found the game worthy of an arcade cabinet :)”
Awesome, I can’t wait for the update! For now I can use it with the weird button layout and use a joypad mapper to hit the enter key for me to enter a blank name though. I’ll have to send you a pic of it running in the cabinet!
Jo said:
nenad, Thanks! It’s one of the best ‘pure’ games I’ve played. I’ve been playing the beta for a while, and just spotted this new release. About to give it a go.
Add my vote to the making of an OSX/linux port.
Right, let’s rescue Beagles!…
Andrew said:
Thanks for the reply nenad.
Regarding the graphics I’ve just been playing them both and I think that what I saw earlier might just be my stupid brain planting illusions again, I somehow came under the impression that the game had been changed to include more trees and background stuff but I don’t really see it anymore.
As for not being able to skip the splash screen I just had another go and it worked, probably just this crappy keyboard I’m using after I broke my old one.
But the crashing still persists and it didn’t struggle on the beta. Here’s the error report on the crash if it actually means anything to you:
Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: beagles.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 49455376
Fault Module Name: StackHash_fd00
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: e8006a00
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: fd00
Additional Information 2: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Additional Information 3: fd00
Additional Information 4: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 1067236911
Thanks for your time.
Bellyache said:
Hi, my mates and i made a love song about Rescue: The Beagles and the game review show Bytejacker, on which RTB almost won the free indie of the year poll.
Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76M90OwAHgY.
Bellyache said:
Oh, dang, that period there ruined the link! Here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76M90OwAHgY
Andy said:
Loved the game!
But it stopped working. :(
I got all excited the first time I opened it. I played it for a while then closed it. The next day when I tried to play it, I got the runtime error messsage stating “This application has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way.” I think some other folks mentioned it earlier. And yes, I’m running on Vista and have tried running all the compatibility modes.
Maybe my computer doesn’t like the idea of saving animals. :(
discount bank checks said:
Victory! At last I have found a site that answers my questions. Thank you.
Valerio said:
Hi nenad,
Recently I saw on the Bytejacker site this question:
What game turned you into the hardcore gamer you are today?
And I immediatly thought of Rescue the Beagles!
I love this game, and I played many hours to increase my abilities.
My last record with the name ISAEVALE is 749978, one of the last honest records before stupid hacker scores.
Now I don’t play much, because it isn’t fun to compete in a dishonest competition.
I would like to ask you to create, as soon as you can, a new release of the game to correct some bugs and above all the problem of the record online. Then create a new site where you can post your records in the new game, so in this new table, only serious and honest players can submit their records.
So I, like other players, will come back to play this incredibly fun and challenging game, to enter the first place of the scoreboard!
Doug said:
there are a lot of names on the high scores that show up twice pushing some of us further down the list than we should be. could you delete the doubles please?
ortoslon said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3puL4iIaZY
watch me get Placid Flows on the first seven levels
christophe said:
Waw! J’adore! Le gameplay est ultra addictif, les graphismes géniaux et la musique sympa! La difficulté est corsée mais c’est tant mieux.
J’ai aussi eu un effet hypnotique à force de jouer: une fois le jeux arrêté toute ma vision semblait défilée vers la gauche !!!!
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Frank said:
Nice to see your site is back up.
Barts said:
Yay, welcome back!
Now that the site is up, I can write yet another article on Rescue The Beagles!
jeremy said:
to reiterate with some amount of hindsight : this is one of the best games i have ever played. period. make a 3ds version! :) beagles in 3d!
John I.G. said:
This is an amazing game, thanks for making it for us all.
I do have a question though: I saw the beta had an online score board, but I don’t see that in the full version. Was it cut for programming or bandwidth reasons, or am I just missing something?
nenad said:
Jeremy, there are some plans for the version with 3d graphics… In far far future. No promises though.
John, the online score is there in the full version. It just may seem broken. The online table was hacked so many times that I simply got tired of doing a cleanup every couple of days.
Artwork said:
Hi,
first of all, its a really great game. I started on drawing this procedural lines that build the terrain since I am very interested in the technique. I startet with the markov chain (drunken man’s random walk) algorithm but it’s really hard to understand for me as a non mathematician. I would appreciate it if you would give me some entry point or even share some code on this random terrain generation.
regards
nenad said:
@Artwork:
Thanks.
Yes, the Markov chains could seem quite dense when explained via strict mathematical formalism, however the basic concept is quite simple if you try to grasp it intuitively. I’m pretty sure googling for “markov chain simple explanation” will give you a lot of useful stuff. There is plenty of source code around the web as well.
Artwork said:
thanks, the search term “markov chain simple explanation” actually provided some good stuff. But there is one thing I am confused of. Actually the terrain is not random, isnt it? You have to provide some initial data that describes terrain, the algorithm then takes based on the markov matrix “randomlly” pieces from the initial terrain…please correct me if I am wrong.
I don’t know at that moment if you understand what I mean with markov matrix. I found that example http://jmusic.ci.qut.edu.au/jmtutorial/Markov1.html
The markov matrix describes the propability of what might be the next piece of terrain. Does each of your terrain pieces have the same propability, like 50%?
Artwork said:
I think I got that now :) http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/unbenannthvx.png/
thank you for your help