Orbital Snake version 2.1.2 released

[Ryan]

Hello all.

I'm pleased to announce the release of Orbital Snake version 2.1.2, which introduces the ability to retry sending a high-score if there's some problem connecting to, or communicating with, the server - meaning that you'll no longer lose the chance to submit a high-score just because there was a problem with the line!

Of course, you'll need to be running the newest version in order to use the online high-score chart, so do be sure to update as soon as possible.

Have fun!

Regards,
Ryan

[Cryoburner]

I was playing a bit of Orbital Snake today, and ran across a couple potential issues and thought of a few feature suggestions as well.

First of all, the new resend score feature is a bit problematic. As I mentioned before at ABB, I receive an "error communicating with server" most times the game attempts to load the online high score list. However, the scores are always sent correctly, even when such an error occurs. The resend feature doesn't know this though, so it will keep prompting you to retry each time, causing you to submit the score multiple times. If someone didn't know this was occurring, they might inadvertently spam the list with multiple submissions for each score. I tested this, and my score of 4193 was indeed submitted twice. You can delete that duplicate, by the way. : ) If you want to keep the resend feature, you might fix that by sending the time the match was completed with the score, and if they match, ignore the duplicate.

Another situation I encountered in-game, which may or may not be intentional, was something that occurred after using a ghost drive to abandon my tail inside a wall. I managed destroy the entire tail, so there was only a head zooming around. However, upon eating my next piece of debris, the snakey head exploded. I considered that this might potentially be by design, since the snake might not be able to process new body segments, but wasn't entirely sure.

On to suggestions, it might be nice if your last score were displayed at the bottom of the high score summary screen displayed after a level, even when you don't achieve a high score. You typically crash suddenly, and there isn't really time to see what your score was if it doesn't make the list.

Also, it might be cool to report some other info, and send it with submitted scores, such as how long a snake was. It might be fun to have a 'longest snake' list. : ) Adding an indication of whether a score was achieved in turbo mode could be nice as well.

That's about it for now. I just thought I'd put those suggestions out there.

[Ryan]

First of all, the new resend score feature is a bit problematic. As I mentioned before at ABB, I receive an "error communicating with server" most times the game attempts to load the online high score list. However, the scores are always sent correctly, even when such an error occurs. The resend feature doesn't know this though, so it will keep prompting you to retry each time, causing you to submit the score multiple times. If someone didn't know this was occurring, they might inadvertently spam the list with multiple submissions for each score. I tested this, and my score of 4193 was indeed submitted twice. You can delete that duplicate, by the way. : ) If you want to keep the resend feature, you might fix that by sending the time the match was completed with the score, and if they match, ignore the duplicate.

Actually, there is already a system in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening, and it seemed to work perfectly in testing. After some thought and experimentation though, I think I might have spotted something that might have been allowing the duplicate scores through, so this is now fixed... And hopefully, so is the issue! Thanks for reporting.

Another situation I encountered in-game, which may or may not be intentional, was something that occurred after using a ghost drive to abandon my tail inside a wall. I managed destroy the entire tail, so there was only a head zooming around. However, upon eating my next piece of debris, the snakey head exploded. I considered that this might potentially be by design, since the snake might not be able to process new body segments, but wasn't entirely sure.

Ah, now that is indeed a bug. It's now fixed in the new version.

On to suggestions, it might be nice if your last score were displayed at the bottom of the high score summary screen displayed after a level, even when you don't achieve a high score. You typically crash suddenly, and there isn't really time to see what your score was if it doesn't make the list.

That's a really good idea, actually - I've included it as of the new version.

Also, it might be cool to report some other info, and send it with submitted scores, such as how long a snake was. It might be fun to have a 'longest snake' list. : ) Adding an indication of whether a score was achieved in turbo mode could be nice as well.

I'm not sure about adding information on snake length to the score charts, simply because it's something that varies throughout the game and isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing in itself, but flagging scores as being set in turbo mode is a good idea, and I've now added it in v2.1.3.

Anyway, more information on the update here - thanks for the suggestions!

Ryan

[Ryan]

First of all, the new resend score feature is a bit problematic. ...

I've made some further tweaks this week, and I'm pretty sure this is now fixed.