Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Workaround: Trello card shows "Loading..." instead of GitHub PR link

Here's a quick workaround for when you pull up a Trello card with the intention of clicking through to the linked GitHub pull request, but the "GitHub Pull Requests" section of the card stubbornly just displays "Loading...", without ever resolving to the link you're after. (This situation is likely related to a number of HTTP 500 error responses from requests to api.github.com visible in the Network tab of the browser's developer tools.)


Scroll down to the Activity section of the card, and look for the events with the "attached" verb. One of them should include the GitHub PR link.

If you know your GitHub repository's name, you can do a Ctrl+F/⌘+F search for that. The word "GitHub" doesn't actually appear in the text of the activity log item, but the repo name does.

Sunday, February 09, 2020

Vigil RPG 5th Anniversary Edition Now Available!

Now available on the App Store for iOS devices: Vigil RPG, Special 5th Anniversary Edition!

Vigil RPG is a game that I solo-developed and released for iPhone back at the end of 2014.  Vigil RPG is the kind of designed-for-mobile RPG that I couldn't find on the App Store, so I wrote it myself! It features interesting combats (even in non-boss battles), while also allowing you to play each combat round in a single tap.



I'm happy to announce that Vigil RPG, Special 5th Anniversary Edition, is now available! It's a free update to the original Vigil RPG app. It features:

Universal (iPad) support


Vigil RPG had always been playable on iPad, but only as an automatically-scaled-up version of the original iPhone 4. Now, Vigil RPG is a full Universal iOS app, with every screen in the game having been updated to take advantage of iPad portrait-mode screen resolutions.

iPhone X and iPhone 11 support


Vigil RPG now also takes advantage of the full resolution available on newer iPhones, all the way up to the iPhone 11 Pro Max. (Future large phone models will now be automatically supported as well.) Enjoy Vigil RPG's beautiful pixel graphics in glorious high resolution on your new device!

New and reworked enemies


A new, unique early-game boss enemy has been added. Players familiar with Vigil RPG will no longer find it quite so easy to retrieve a quest item from one of the local farms early on in the game!

A number of existing enemies in the game have been reworked to make them more interesting to fight. A few examples:
  • The Tank Goblin, instead of just having thick armor, now has a defense that is really tough to crack.  Players familiar with how to beat King Hippo in Nintendo's Punch-Out! series, though, should have an advantage in figuring out how to hurt him effectively...
  • The Skeleton Fire Mage now chants some strange words at the beginning of combat. Could those words be somehow related to the combat round numbers in which it casts its FIRE spells?
  • The Fire Elemental now grows into a larger and larger flame as combat progresses! The ICE spell can help cut it back down to size, though!
  • It's now extra effective to use the never-miss FIRE spell on flying enemies, such as the Giant Hornet that is encountered early in the game.

New Music


Delight your ears with new 8-bit-style music tracks for many of Vigil RPG's unique boss enemies!

As a bonus, here's my favorite, as a free download: The new Arcane Tower boss battle theme!  (Composer credit: nene at opengameart.org!)

New In-Game Commentary


Everyone's favorite root-beer-serving bartender, Bo, has lots and lots of new commentary, gameplay tips, and humor for you at the Tavern. You can also now just tap him to get more tips, instead of having to leave the tavern and come back again.


Local High Scores


Vigil RPG has always featured an "elapsed turns" system, which tracks how efficiently and effectively you've been proceeding through the game. Completing quests in fewer turns gets you better quest completion rewards.

Now, a local high scores table for each quest is available at the Tavern! When you complete a quest at the Tavern, your performance compared to other save files and prior playthroughs on your device is now displayed.

Many more enhancements!


To name just a few:
  • Stats are now displayed at the end of combat for how well you did mitigating enemy special attacks (i.e. blocking them, or otherwise taking advantage of an enemy's weakness to stop them from being effective), and interrupting enemy spells.  These stats for the entirety of your playthrough are also now displayed on the Hero Status screen!
  • The Shaman (a late-game NPC located in a remote section of the world map) now invites the hero to rest at his hut (to restore HP) after he is done assigning the hero a quest!
  • The Town of Arboria now has a new and improved appearance!
  • Some quest rewards, hero level-up bonuses, item prices, and monster stats have been tweaked to make Vigil RPG even more finely balanced!
  • Picking up Fire Rubies in the Volcano now slightly restore the hero's HP!
  • 400+ new git commits of new sound effects, UI improvements, and other goodness!

Support your local Jon Schneider's Tech Blog indie game development scene!


To learn more about Vigil RPG, check out the Vigil RPG website.  Or help me buy my wife a delicious coffee by checking out the game that TouchArcade.com named one of the top 10 JRPG-style games available on iOS -- alongside such notable series as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Chrono Trigger! -- by buying your very own copy of Vigil RPG on the App Store!

Friday, February 07, 2020

Fix: "OS Error 4294956486" launching Children of Morta on Mac/Steam

Early this morning, I tried to launch the game Children of Morta on Steam running on my Mac. The game failed to open, and Steam displayed the error "OS Error 4294956486".

Solution

Deleting the game via the Steam (via Library → Right-click on Children of Morta in the list → Manage → Uninstall), and then redownloading and reinstalling Children of Morta, fixed the problem for me, and I was able to get a little gaming in before my work day.

Other solutions attempted that didn't work for me

  • Restarting Steam.
  • Restarting my Mac.
  • Launching the game manually via the command line.
  • Doing a "Verify Integrity of Game Files" (via Library > Right-click on Children of Morta → Properties → Local Files tab → "Verify Integrity of Game Files" button).