It works!!!

Quick install

1. download and unzip soko2012.zip
   Android users: you’ll need an unzip utility.
2. install DosBox 0.74 or higher
3. For Windows only, here’s how to create a shortcut (see also the below picture):
   • Go to the Desktop.
   • Select the DosBox icon.
   • Press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V to copy the shortcut.
   • Right-click, select “Properties”
   • At the end of the field “Target“, add the full path of soko2012.exe.
     E.g., if “Target” was "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -userconf, and the files were extracted to C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\, then “Target” should become "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -userconf C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\soko2012.exe.
   • Change the field “Start in:” to point to the folder where you extracted the zipfile.
     E.g., continuing the previous example, “Start in:” would now become C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\.
   • Change to the Tab “General” and rename the icon to SokoBox.

To play:

• Unix: run startsoko.sh from the command line.
• Windows: Double-click the SokoBox icon.
  Potentially the game runs slow, press Ctrl+F12 a few times to speed up DosBox.
• Android: Run DosBox and enter the following commands:
  • cd Downloads\sokoban
  • soko2012.

Screenshots

Features

• 48 completely original fields
• 22 completely original, totally not-ripped graphical sets, including:
  • a fastfood-themed set
  • a halloween-themed one
  • a crisis-themed one (bring your money to the bank)
  • a Sinterklaas-themed one
  • a christmas-themed one (notice that Sinterklaas != Santa)
  • a few inspired by videogames of the 8-bit era
  • and more!
• a stand-alone level editor
• a stand-alone graphics editor (heavily updated in 2012!)
• Keeping tracks of 2 types of highscores:
  1. the best efforts (least moves, then quickest) for the first 10 levels
  2. the 10 players who got the farthest completing all levels
• A player-state saving system, so that you could continue to improve your score for the 2nd type of highscore
• Level selector with thumbnails of the levels
• a demo mode (don’t touch any key for a while in the beginning, and the game will play one of the first 20 levels).
  Pointless? FUN! :)
• Opening and ending scrolling titles
• Insanely trivial-to-break encryption scheme for said titles :)
• And, lest we forget: CHEATS! Including a complete internal level editor. I kid you not.

System requirements

• A system capable of running DosBox 0.74 or higher

Yeah, that’s sort of it. This game was in development for a while, and unlike Duke Nukem Forever, we never deviated from the original specs. Sure, we need some memory (640K is enough :),  CPU (press Ctrl+F12 to speed up, Ctrl+F11 to slow down — these are dosbox controls, not ours), and some graphical requirements (stock VGA modes). Really, your smartphone can handle these. With two fingers in its nose.  :)

Development history

Question: what does this version of Sokoban have in common with such pretentious names as Guns n’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, or the game Duke Nukem Forever?
Answer:

• Chinese democracy: in development 1998-2008
• Duke Nukem Forever: in development 1997-2010
• Sokoban by us: in development 1994-2012

Message to take home: all good things deliver. Alternatively: not everyone can maintain their development quality as long as Arnout and I can :)

Thanks

Big thanks due to everyone who helped and inspired us. You’re probably named in the titles already!

Questions/comments

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact me!
If you’re reading this blog, you ought to know how :)

Point of particular annoyance: in Dosbox, QB / QBasic does not react to CTRL+Break. Which happens to be the key code to halt the program and edit it — in other words, my debugging key. I now got curious, and turned to The Google.

• Here’s why CTRL+Break doesn’t work in a normal DosBox setup.
  (tl;dr version: no event generated whatsoever by the keypress. Also: this is a “magical” key-combo, in that it triggers an erase of the keyboard buffer and a call to a special handler — in short: special magic is needed, and none of it is there).
• Apparently, there is a patch to enable CTRL+Break (note that this patch requires another patch). Didn’t try it myself.
• Best of all: QB / QBasic respond similarly to CTRL+ScrollLock. Which works out of the (dos)box. :)

Occasional hiccups in FF3.6, will check FF4 RC1 next… way better!!!

PS: Tetris from the URL bar, over whatever site you’re visiting.

Les Miserables

My parents celebrated their 60th birthdays at the beginning of this year. Us kids thought long and hard to come up with a nice gift. It wasn’t easy, but then we hit upon a good idea: we’d take them to a musical of their choice.

Of course, in the Netherlands, a choice means either Scheveningen or Utrecht. Ow, or the Efteling theatre (and I’m probably doing a disservice to some travelling musicals in NL, but the point is clear, methinks). In short, there is no real “choice” in NL. However, we’re not bound to the Netherlands. In fact, the musical capital of the world, London’s West End, is only a short flight from Eindhoven airport. So we offered them a trip to London, and dinner and a show on West End.

As we’d all join, we had to juggle five calendars, which meant this trip was postponed till after the summer (and planned long in advance). My parents opted to go by train, and Anke and Rogier joined them. I’ve done the train journey before, and while it is nice, it takes so long, I prefer to fly (direct connection London-Lux). Since I left roughly at the same time as the others, I was in a London bookstore, shopping and browsing to my heart’s content, when their eurostar train was about to leave. Which gave me another few hours in the store… yummy!

At any rate, we all spent a few days in London, and had a blast. We went to see Les Miserables, which was a fair deal more upbeat than the trodden, steaming pile of desolate despair that I thought it would be after reading the story on Wikipedia. The day before that, Anke, Rogier and I chanced upon the Royal Albert Hall. We browsed the programme, to see if anything interesting would be on. There was — at least if you’re my mum :) So we surprised my mom&dad with tickets to that too, and they greatly enjoyed it :)

Hoopje weekend

Two days after coming back from London, it was time for the (somewhat) annual Hoopje weekend: a weekend for the group of friends from Eindhoven. Ever since we finished studies and got ourselves jobs, we’ve drifted apart a bit. Different calendars, even harder to juggle. So someone had the bright idea to suggest a weekend to ourselves. And so we have, for a few years now. It is a great opportunity to meet everyone again. And things (people) have changed: couples came, got married, got kids. I drink less beer than before — hell, we all do (we took 10 crates, 8 remaining at the end… hmmms.) But it was good to be there and to see everyone, and to catch up some bits and pieces. Which reminds me: I ought to phone them more often. I played a bit of a PS3 tower defence game, and a lot of guitar. All of which was fun, but not as much as seeing everyone there and seeing them go about their business, but happy to be there.

Ronald’s visit

Fast forward one weekend, and we’re at today and Ronald’s visit. Ronald called me at one point, with the goal of picking a date for a visit. We managed, and so I called him on Wednesday eve to arrange final details. During that call, he let it slip he was off from work on Thursday and Friday as well, so I promptly invited him over for those days. I was lucky, in that his plans could be done on Thursday, and so he arrived Thursday evening. He bravely joined for my dance/sports/aerobics class (we were doing the part from 00:16-00:40 — and no it doesn’t look anything like that when I attempt to move my body). That was quite brave of him, since we were in week 5 (not that I informed him beforehand though ;-). Other than that, we had a very good time with a cheese fondue evening (yummy) and we even played a bit of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (long time no play! Fun!). Of course, we also went shopping and almost bought yet another: guitar (me) and a playmobil Christmas nativity set (him). In the end, we constrained ourselves because we both had these toys already. However, we might still succumb to seduction :)

Before he left, Ronald even managed to (1) fix my couch (Rogier: take note, it doesn’t slide anymore — you’ll love it) and (2) fix the rack in my garage that was wonky. So now I have another set of happy memories, good discussions (cheese fondue was fun :) and a better couch and more storage space. Very happy me!

Well of course it’s a good game! That’s why I took it back :)
Two things stuck out as better than remembered though: the story, and the localisation. First, the localisation. The game can be played either in French or in Dutch (I probably have the French/Belgium/Dutch version of the game). I played a part in French, but it didn’t appeal that much to me. So I played the most part in Dutch. The voice acting in Dutch is good — really good. Substantially better than the silly dubbing you’d see at children’s cartoons. The way in which the characters speak highlight their characters — Pey’j sounds like a wiley, willful, down-to-earth, heart-of-gold guy, and he is. Double H sounds overly polite, like he’s god a stick up his …, and he sounds like a soldier strongly adhering to the manifest. Well, what did you expect after they addled his brains? He is a bit messed up and falling back on simple settings — and he sounds that way too.

The real gem, however, is when you get separated from Pey’j for a sec in the middle of a dark, dangerous dungeon. You open a door to let him in, and he goes “Wilt u soms kinderpostzegels, mevrouw?”. There is no translating for this, but the blatant flippancy combined with the inherent Dutch-ness of his remark is hilarious.

Second major upside: Story. Having played and finished the game before, the mechanics were known to me and never a big hindrance. So I progressed rather swiftly through the game (at one point, I was busy on the PC while the game idled, and I still finished within roughly 20hrs), which kept the pace of the story going. As it turned out, I waited long enough — I didn’t remember the details of the story (having forgotten completely about the middle third, and most of the other parts). So while gameplay was familiar, and finding my way about was not too hard, there was still plenty to discover, and enough story to discover. The story is creepy. It’s serious. It is, in my view, closer to books in its depth than to movies. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Next, I might play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which I remember mostly enjoying for the cool acrobatics. Story, not that much. If I get round to playing/finishing it, I’ll post an update to let you know how it is a second time around.

• Finished both Bowser’s inside story and Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box. (±36 hrs and ±18 hrs, respectively).
• I visited Stijn, Maartje and Iris, was great! But that’s none of your business :)
• I went to see Bobbie’s new place, it’s pretty cool but I came a bit soon — Bobbie hasn’t moved in yet (put in furniture, but usually sleeps elsewhere).  So, I better revisit him later :)
• Visited Ronald as well, though failed to see his new house. Still wondering who will see whose house first, him mine or me his. Might make an appointment for the 23rd just to win ;-)
• Bro came here, and we had the full ritual, and it was *good*!! inducto-gourmet, Battlestar, Mario,  Ikea, shopping, car… all the essential ingredients were there :)
• Finished Battlestar Galactica, the reimagining. Not fully happy with the ending, but okay. Can’t win ’em all :)
• Redecorated the place. It’ll probably be a few days before I’ve finished building the new furniture, actually :) But most has been done, and looks good, really good. Will take pictures.
• New furniture offers new ways of storing stuff (finally! racks for in the garage!), so probably within $IMTOOLAZY I’ll have sorted out some of my stuff and make more use of the available space :)
• Bianca and Matthijs are coming over next weekend!!
• Dutch television is turning stupider and stupider. I’m not talking content, I am talking dubbing. It’s evil, it’s bad, and we should put a stop to it.  I mean, subtitles appear to be used more often in the news (to subtitle people talking Dutch with an accent) than for cartoons…

That’s it from the Bourg! Happy New Year to all!