Welcome to the spookiest update yet! In the spirit of Halloween we have a horror story that is stranger than fiction~ 👻 So here’s what we were up to during the last month!
A Horror Story For the Ages
Imagine: you’ve been working on a project for over ten years. Many people have contributed over the years and much time and effort has gone into it (Let’s just say over 6169 hours to date – such a random number!). You’re making use of proprietary software to make your project – but hey! It’s used by professionals.
You’ve been working with this software for years and yeah- there’s occasional issues – it happens – but it gets solved quickly and it’s not like anything really bad has happened.
And yet it happens:
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ERROR in
action number 1
at time step2
of time line <undefined>:Unable to find any instance for object index ‘96904’ name ‘<undefined>’
at gml_RoomCC_Map_4_3_8_Create (line 1) – x = inst_Map_4_3_Rob.x;
############################################################################################
gml_RoomCC_Map_4_3_8_Create (line 1)
You haven’t changed anything. You haven’t upgraded versions. This code where this error is being thrown hasn’t been touched for years.
The error – it’s curious. It says that this object – inst_Map_4_3_Rob – it doesn’t exist. So you try to wrap it in a check. Maybe it’s just being silly with instance creation order or something.
But… it exists.
And yet it doesn’t.
You decide then – ok maybe there’s something wrong with this object. You’ll just remove the offending line of code. It’s fine. You’ll get back to it later.
But then-
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: Room Start
for object obj_StatementScreenManager:Unable to find any instance for object index ‘96400’ name ‘(null)’
at gml_Script_scr_StatementScreen_UpdateIcons (line 103) – inst_StatementScreen_StatementBttn._is_selected = type == StatementType.STATEMENT;
############################################################################################
You realized – quickly – that this is happening everywhere. Everywhere in the project where you access objects by their room names crashes. And most- terrifying – this is used everywhere. Over a thousand places. And every. one. crashes.
Quick! Go to google! Surely others have come across this! And yes- thankfully- they have! There are workarounds! But- None of them work? An explanation: It’s an error in the proprietary code. There is nothing you can do.
And so it dawns on you: Ten years of work is gone in moments – outside of your control.
…
…
…
BUT NO! You don’t give up. How could you! It’s ten YEARS of work!
And so you struggle-
And so the answer comes – what if – just what if- this works:
Cautiously, you build and run the game. You open up the areas of the code that were previously crashing and-
Finally-
They run.
It’s a True Story
Yes. Really. It might be hard to believe, but this October in the year 2022 fate decided to give us a real scary time. A good portion of the month was spent running into this issue, going through the five stages of grief, figuring out a solution and uh- logging a bug.
We hope the bug is fixed soon.
This would’ve been a very different update if we hadn’t found a workaround. So we are very happy to report that development can go on. However it is unfortunate that we must report that October had no major development.
However if you happen to be one of the many many people who have come across or might come across this – we hope a simple pass through function will help you carry on through your day.
What’s Next?
Since we couldn’t get too much done this month, we’ll be focusing on some similar items that maybe showed up last month including and not limited to:
- Adding more UI animations
- Fixing some minor visual bugs; and
- Adding a skip feature to cutscenes
October 2022 Progress Update