No irc channel i'm afraid but you can ask away here, or email me, or post on the forum on our site.

Damnit. Ok then, here goes:

Is there an SVN repository?
How is the console activated?
Are you gonna update the source to reflect the changes in the sauer SVN? The cubescript there is vastly improved, and that's not the only thing updated.
Can i port sauerbraten maps to use their geometry?

No SVN repository as this isn't open source, just freeware. There's a good reason, or at least we think it's a good reason, why this isn't open source. We would really like to maintain a leaderboard, and keeping it cheat free and open source at the same time would be rather tricky.

Console can be activated, and we sometimes use it, but it's not "public" info for the same reason this isn't open source.

Marble Arena 2 is based on the official Justice release. Merging with the latest svn would be a huge pain, because i've heavily modified the original source. If there are other things appart from scripting and console functionality that are vastly improved over the official release, then i think i could, and probably should, take a look at the latest svn.

Sauerbraten maps can be loaded in Marble Arena. You could place the ogz directly in the packages/base/custom folder and load it, but the prefered way is to create a folder for it in packages/base/custom, place the ogz there and rename it to map.ogz. The folder can then contain anything related to this map, like a snapshot, a friendly name text file, a brief description text file, and a custom textures definition file. You can take a look at the official maps to see what these files mean. You won't find a textures definition file yet because the official maps use the official textures, so there's no need, but i can assure you that custom textures are possible and rather easily. Not only geometry loading is possible, but locally i've created some custom texture definition files based on the official sauer cfg files that make MA2 load Sauerbraten maps properly textured.

There's another difference that you can most likely guess at this point: custom scripts aren't permitted, based on the same idea that it would very tricky to maintain a leaderboard if scripts were something any user could create. I bet this is going to be a bit annoying for such experienced map creators as people around here are, but we're always opened for suggestions, and if anyone has a cool idea, i'm pretty sure we could do it in an "official" way.

Yes, there are indeed many disappointing aspects in all of this. I cannot use many editing commands i often use. There's no confirmation for activation of functions such as outlines and allfaces either, which is making my life in editing a pain.

Copy/Paste fills the empty space with full cubes which i find rather annoying. The floatspeed is something i'd like to change yet found no setting for. There's no smoothness in the movement while editing, which frustrates me, call that a personal preference.

I don't see how the use of cubescript would interfere with the leaderboards, unless they are cubescripted themselves. I saw how your upgrades GUI is hardcoded, so i don't think you'll have to worry about cheating when the important aspects are like that and the source is off limits. Not that cheating is impossible, but still.

----

I know that MA2 is based on Justice ed, i could tell by your use of cubescript. Stuff like @($arg1) doesn't go unnoticed. But doing so was a bad idea if you ask me, given how much work has been put into fixing various issues and improving altogether, which is now really gonna make your life hard to update.

The idea about having an SVN repository was more about allowing people to grab "beta portions" of the game between your updates (since they can't build themselves) and allow for better feedback.

----

Edit.
I noticed the "More Levels" link on the launcher opens up IE. How about it goes for the default browser instead? :P
Your leaderboard at your site is also broken, might want to look into that.

Thank you for your feedback and for the constructive criticism, which is always more than welcome. My goal is to GUI-fy everything our editing community would require because i feel that it would be much easier for newcomers. If there are things veteran users require, such as the things you've mentioned, my plan was to add them as quickly as possible. To my defense i can say that we haven't had people complaining because all of our community users are pretty much newcomers, that's why your input is so precious. Also, the things i did add were enough for Cezar a.k.a zeArchitect, my partner in crime, who created all the levels in the game.

About Copy/Paste, i haven't messed with that, so if it's something that was implemented in the meanwhile, or some console option i'm not aware of, i'm going to see what can be done to fix it.

As for cubescript interfering with the leaderboard, the problem comes from the fact that you could easily modify your stats and many other things using console commands, which would make it very easy to finish levels and post "unfair" times and scores.

As for using the official release, it comes from the fact that it was good enough for what we needed, and now that you mention that many things were added and fixed, i do feel a bit sorry for going that way, but one thing that i can say is that i started working on the game about this time last year, so the official release was only about half a year old, and i assumed it hadn't changed much.

Having a daily beta build, or something like that, sounds like a very good idea, and i'm most likely going to implement that. Early feedback is always great.

The launcher is created in C# on Windows and uses a web browser component that opens up IE when you click on a link. Didn't think it would be too big of a problem so i didn't put much effort into that. The leaderboard however, well the fact that it's now broken, is very suprising. Thank you for pointing that out ! I use Chrome and it looks fine there, and i had tested on every browser when the site first went live, and it looked fine, so this must mean i've messed something up recently.

EDIT: Fixed the leaderboard ! Again, thank you for pointing that out !

I like seeing stuff get fixed, regardless. :P

--

Regarding the savegames, you might want to prompt the user to save his game before quitting. i played all of the tutorials and now i have to redo them. Damnit. You need an option to skip them. After all, you can choose what level to play.

Leaderboard: haven't seen it cubescripted somewhere. If it is, i probably missed it. But then again, it shouldn't be "tweakable" in the first place, for the reasons you described.

SVN: half a year is a long time. There isn't every day activity, but things are getting slowly done. One of the features i liked the most is the new cubescript compiler which solves many of the problems you had to hack your way through using the interpreter. There's a chance srbs will pop in here to tell me how wrong i am, but it's my opinion, bugger off! :P

See, i don't mind the launcher firing up IE that much, infact, i like IE9. But many other people generally don't want to see it in their whole life, so it might be a good idea to go for what they like.

--

I'll let you know later of anything else i deem worthy of nagging about. ^_^

It is similar to those games in some regards, yes. The user actually controlls the ball, using a typical FPS control scheme (W,A,S,D + Mouse)

Check the leaderboard again, page 44 broken. Something is off. And again on page 40. and 47. :P

Wow, how did you find those ones :) ?

Thank you once again, they have been fixed.

Though i don't suppose it's a problem, if you take a look at the marble icon of the 4th place, you'll see it's slightly over the grey bar, while the others on the rest of the pages overlap it. Just letting you know. :D

A side effect of the smaller font now used when names are too long (which was the cause of the more severe, previous bug). I'll let that one slide :)

That's exactly the feeling. Sure, making a GUI for everything to help newbies get a better grip of the game isn't a bad idea, but then again, there's stuff you do not expect to see in a GUI. Like the 'replace(sel)' command. And map switching isn't quite as fast given how you have to browse to a specific GUI each time.

There is also no edithud to display entity/texture/etc information, which is quite helpful (i suggest using the one in the SVN, as the justice version of both edithud/gamehud has a problem with multiple lines). If you plan to incorporate this little feature, i have an edithud ready which you will find useful.

I imagined you would, being that the console is a huge part of the typical Cube 2 editing workflow, and finding the things you need in an unknown GUI takes some getting used to, but we've hotkey'd so many things that once you know where things are, everything is pretty much one hotkey and/or mouse click away.

There are just a couple of hotkeys you need to know for starters:

T - brings up the editing Tools menu. In there you should find many goodies, and you'll notice the hotkeys for each action is displayed next to the action itself.
P - brings up the Properties window. If you have an entity selected it will bring up that entity's properties, if you have geometry selected it will bring up a gui that allows you to set so many things that you normally would have had to use the console for.
L - brings up the Lighting window. Most of it is straight out of Cube 2: Sauerbraten, but there is one extra thing in there that i'm proud of, and that is the ability to increase or decrease the detail of sky lighting. Crank that up to 32 and you'll get a very good looking, but pretty slow to calculate, environment lighting.

If there are things you usually need, and can't find, your input would be incredibly valuable because i believe members of this community have considerably more experience working with the Cube 2 editor than we have.

The GUI design could be improved a bit. For example in the Lighting window, consider removing the guibar between the sliders. That will make it easier to see them without confusing you.
As for the colours on the next tab.. Only 2 of them? In Sauer there are 12 important colour settings you can change in a map, like: skylight, sunlight (svn), ambient, shadowmapambient, skyboxcolour, cloudcolor, cloudboxcolour, watercolour, waterfallcolour, lavacolour, fogcolour, fogdomecolour. There's also outlinecolour in the SVN, but that's not map related.

Take a look at my color GUI.

Oh, and the properties window is invisible, what about that? <- nevermind, i know why :P

Very nice GUI, need to "borrow" a few ideas from there :)

The properties window of selected geometry is fully transparent, yes, so that you can have a better idea of what you're changing without having to close it.

Quite a few of them ideas might prove problematic with the way Justice cubescript works, so be careful, my stuff is strictly SVN compatible (even if it means not working at all with Justice).
You might also like the Skybox tab WIP seen in the next picture. Beats your sky selection list that shows nothing. :P

I find the ability to rotate the camera freely beyond the vertical boundary of weirdness both amusing and quite annoying. Is there a setting for it somewhere? I'd like to restore the game window without the camera upside down :P

No setting for that at this point i'm afraid. It's something that has annoyed a few other people as well. Need to see what i can do about it. Your skybox selection does look better, no doubt :)

You could limit how far up and down the camera can go, it's not that hard i think.

Up and down are very relative in a world of variable gravity. The easiest way was to just let it move freely, but it clearly becomes annoying in some situations. It will be fixed somehow.

So when will other people be able to get that gui =P?

Thank you !

Hi Jake,

Can't wait to see how your map turns out !

The metal material is a brilliant suggestion. Indeed, it would allow for many interesting things.

It's a bit on the tricky side because to visually represent the fact that you stick to that surface the camera would have to switch its up vector, like it does when you go through a gravity bubble. I mean you would want the surface that you stick to, to become your floor, and it's a bit tricky for geometry because it could face in any direction. However, for the sheer ammount of things that could be achieved using this material, it would be worth the effort. I've added it to my list of things to do.

About the console, i see that this is a major request for experienced map makers, so yes, soon enough editing commands will be allowed in the console.

In Marble Arena, that command is bound to RSHIFT.

Thanks for your input, it's very valuable.

"soon enough editing commands will be allowed in the console."

This sounds like limiting console availability to a select few of commands. In effect, you can't expect people to create their own custom editing functions and cool stuff either. :P

That's true, but it will be all of them, and hopefully that will be good enough as a first step. I can only take this one step at a time, and eventually find a way to reconcile the need for a cheat free leaderboard and the ability to create your own scripts.

I'm not sure why I didn't try RShift the first time. :P

Thanks!

I find it funny that you don't support editing commands in the console, yet the edit binds in PERIOD & COMMA exist.

We don't support them publicly, but internally sometimes use them, plus that the console is used for multiplayer chat :)

But those two binds would suggest the capability of a console, but neither call the console and instead just say the text as if you were chatting.

Say the right things in there and it becomes a fully functional console ;). The binds do trigger the actual console, but unless certain conditions are met, the game converts those into chat messages.

"fully functional console"
> I think you mean partially. :)

I do see that they do work under some intense conditions. It seems as though only integers are allowed, and not any variables that the internal scripts use or even hexadecimal digits much less floating point. (I only tested with entset)

Nope, i actually mean a fully functional one, you just didn't write the correct thing in there to make it become that :P

However, i am quite surprised and very impressed that you were able to do an entset command in the console. Could you let me know how you've achieved that please ?

I went back, and it seems as though I found some fluke since it's not working anymore.. :/

You most certainly could :)

The stars and powerups do spin, but at a pretty slow rate. You are free to modify the cfg files of their models, like you mentioned, to get the look you want.

Hm, that's strange. I unzipped a new copy of the game, when I started the game the stars indeed spinned. But I'm very sure they don't always do. Can there be a bug, that the stars don't always spin at some levels?

If at some point, the stars or powerups weren't spinning then that's definetly a bug. If it happens again, could you please let me know.

Played now some time, it seems that the spin even with my method stops after a while in a level. After loading the next level, or reloading the current one, it was fine.I'm not sure, but could the problem be: The priority of the spinning animation could be to low, maybe they stop spinning related to low fps but then don't continue even if the fps rise again? I'm not very sure there, because I don't know how to see my fps. (/showfps 1 is of course not working :X)

Btw. I'd also love command line, even if it could be limited. Its often the fastest way to edit something. :D

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It will be investigated. What platform are you playing on ?

Playing on Linux.

Something else: It seems the Launcher with mono does not work for me.(mono bin/ma2_mono)
(Error:

** (bin/ma2_mono:18254): WARNING **: The following assembly referenced from /home/restcoser/Downloads/Marble Arena 2/bin/ma2_mono could not be loaded:
Assembly: webkit-sharp (assemblyref_index=2)
Version: 1.1.15.0
Public Key: eaa1d335d2e19745
The assembly was not found in the Global Assembly Cache, a path listed in the MONO_PATH environment variable, or in the location of the executing assembly (/home/restcoser/Downloads/Marble Arena 2/bin/).

** (bin/ma2_mono:18254): WARNING **: Could not load file or assembly 'webkit-sharp, Version=1.1.15.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=eaa1d335d2e19745' or one of its dependencies.

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeLoadException: A type load exception has occurred.

)

I simply use now ./bin/arena_32. Could this cause the problem?
I don't know what the launcher should do...

Hmm, i can't say if running the binary directly is the cause or not, but it is recommended that you use the launcher. By the looks of that error message, i would say you're missing a dependency, namely libwebkit1.1-cil.

Thanks, the launchser works now. The star spin bug is hard to reproduce, but i found another one ... :O

When I turn the settings to higher levels, the rolling sound of the marble stops. (not very important)
I will write here as soon as i see the star spinning bug again(and I'll use the launcher)

However, I'm not sure how much impact the usage of the launcher has on the game(I don't think that causes the star-bug). As I see it, it is just an interface to launch the game with various commandline-options that could also be used without the launcher.

Perhaps there's an animation timeout? Do they need a specific amount of time to stop spinning?

Thanks for letting me know about this. I think i have an idea of what it could be, and it's something that needs fixing in the code itself. One thing you could do, if it becomes too annoying, is do a quicksave (F5) followed by a quickload (F6). That should reload the map and the stars should restart spinning.

Good suggestions and some harsh words in there (not sure if i deserved it), but i guess i understand your frustration.

Console + scripting and a cheat free leaderboard don't go hand in hand that easily. I have a quick example why it wouldn't be as easy as a simple switch: you could create a map that with a help of a script, would modify your stats and upgrade points. People work hard to finish levels in a given amount of time so that they recieve those upgrade points, but a map that they would only need to load once, without even touching the console, would nullify that.

I'm not saying that its impossible to reconcile the two issues, but given how i imagined the majority of our editing community would be, i chose the easier way out until such a request was made by enough people. I did mention a bit earlier that the console will be opened up for editing commands soon, but full scripting support i haven't decided on yet. That may turn you off MA2 for now, but hopefully not entirely :). There are so many cool things that you can do, even without the console.

Looking at many maps posted here, i rarely see some that are scripting intensive, and the ones that i appreciate the most are those that make good use of geometry and textures, and are clever in their design.

The biggest issue i see with not having access to a console is that it takes away from you commands that you've become so used to, and i completely understand that, and i'll do my best to keep newbies and experts happy. Hopefully that will be good enough for now.

As for opening the source, that may come at some point, but for now i'm the only developer, and no-one has volunteered to help :)

You COULD for example give upgrade points to people competing in maps certified to be "cheat free". Such a map could be given a status update from the masterserver when played if it isn't already 'starred' and reward points normally.

If the problem is that people would modify existing maps for a better score, just make sure they can't be in edit-mode on those maps (like not being able to call coop-edit on official maps)...

I doubt that would be damn hard to code, as there are a lot of servers on Sauerbraten which aren't allowing coop-edit when announcing a vote.

The problem isn't that they could edit the maps. At the moment, there already is a mechanism in place that prevents you from editing a map, and coop-edit is already disabled in multiplayer.

If you allow scripts, you wouldn't even need to change the map, just write a script that is loaded with it, like cfg files currently work in Cube 2, that does whatever you want. And even if that was taken care of, you could create a new empty map, write a script for it that will modify your stats and upgrade points, which are persistent variables that transfer from one map to another, and that way easily get better times, without even touching the console or original game maps.

I think I may of been misunderstood (imagine that :>). Those words were not meant to be mean in anyway. It is just easier to say it plainly. I hate it when people dodge around issues just to make you feel better.

I sure hope your map protection uses some sort of map hash that is compared with the leaderboard. Otherwise it wouldn't be hard to just modify the map file outside of the game (iirc).

About making it open source, I see that you have a lot more issues than what I brought to mind. I knew that opening up the source wouldn't be as easy as opening up the console :)

About the map scripting. You never know what will come up unless you try something. Opening up your maps to new possibilities is not a bad thing. Don't take the easy way out on that matter :) (Nor does it need to be a priority)

Just think about what you could do if you had that scripting capability. You probably cannot even start to imagine how many cool ideas can come up.

"Console + scripting and a cheat free leader board don't go hand in hand that easily."

It's not as hard as you would think since all you have to do is keep the variables that deal with the scores to be read only or only accessible by a getfrags style command. You also should keep movement related commands inaccessible from the console like they are in Sauerbraten (key must be down).

It's not like there still aren't way around your anti-cheat system. It can prove to be difficult, but nothing is impossible.

Also, I do severely miss typing /quit since that is how I exit everything with a console.

srbs

I would like to aware several movement-related commands like "attack" or "jump" aren't "read only" at all. I Wouldn't mind to seem them like that though.

Don't play dumb. Movement commands are restricted to key presses. Nothing else works to trigger them.

As jump and attack are also having effect on movement, it wouldn't be bad to make them read-only also. That the point I was talking about, nothing more mate.

jump and attack both require a key to be down also, so they are "read-only".

Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't like that in a previous release. Anyways, I apologize for the trouble my comment gave...

Ah, yes, that would happen. A respawn protection mechanism is definetly needed.

Agreed, more mappers we do need. If only i could convince people to create levels for the game :P

Get the damn console working and you might just end up with more people trying out the editor than you thought :P

Will do :)

It's an autokill mechanism if you're falling for too long, but in that particular case it doesn't seem to be working very well. Thank you for letting me know !

Sounds like you took the easy way on a lot of aspects :P

A perhaps better measure would be to make sure players don't go far outside the map boundaries. If you think it's a good idea, don't forget there's also editmode. :D

The easy way out has proven to be the best way out in 99% of cases, and for that 1%... That's what updates are for :P

Actually, i wanted to save zeArchitect the hassle of putting trap geometry all around every level he created, and there's also the issue of AI falling off the level accidentally, or even pushed by a player, which should be handled differently than when they are pushed into an intended trap area, which should award points.

I also wanted to mention that i've reinstated the console and custom scripts. Every command in Cube 2 is now permitted, with two notable exceptions: bind and map. I know you won't be 100% happy with it, but it's the best i can do for now :)

EDIT: i haven't uploaded it to the site yet, but that's only a few small fixes away.

I don't see how arranging binds and loading maps from console are dangerous. :P

Also, don't you have a death material like in sauer? That should be enough to stop people from going off limits.

There is a death material, it's the trap geometry that i mentioned. The problem is that when an A.I. player dies because it goes into a trap, it awards a certain amount of points to the player that sent it there. That's how you can actually "kill" something in the game and be rewarded for it. Putting this kind of a material to prevent people from stepping out of the level would work fine if no AI players existed, but once they are added (and you can do that in any level, from the main menu), players could simply push them out of the level and get points for it.

As for bind and map, believe me, they are, and getting them to work and be safe, would mean too much work to be actually worth it. But once it will be worth it, and by that i mean many many people asking for them, i'll muster the courage to try to get them to work :)

It's not that i don't believe you, i just haven't yet seen a reason as to why they're dangerous. Are there binds that shouldn't be touched? Sensitive info stored in some? What is it? :P

You can bind anything to a key, even an alias that would change your stats and upgrade points. The game wouldn't allow it at first because it would come from an unreliable source, like the console or a custom script, but once the game exits, the default cube 2 behaviour is to save all the binds to config.cfg, which is considered a reliable source by the game, because it is protected by the anti-cheat mechanism. Once in a reliable source, the game will no longer restrict access to variables holding player stats, and because of that, the script, via the bind, would on a second run, be able to change anything you would want.

Map is dangerous because it would allow you to load any map, without having to unlock it first.

I think i would go with what srbs suggested, saying to make such things read-only to avoid potential problems. With the same solution, you can also allow the game to mark finished maps, as well as expose the list itself to cubescript for reading.

What happens if someone replaces one of the default maps? is there protection against that? A simple file hash should suffice i believe.

Read only variables would be simple enough, no doubt, but here is why that is not what i want: official scripts should be able to do anything, like a superuser in linux. Custom scripts and the console without the right permission, should have limited access, like a regular user.

If i was to set those variables as read-only, the official scripts would no longer have write access to them either. And that's only half the problem. There are also commands i've implemented that are exposed to the scripting language, commands that the gui or other parts of the official scripts use, and that should not be available to regular users directly. A read-only model wouldn't work with such things.

The only model that would truely work, and that would give us, and anybody that really wants to join us :), absolute freedom, and give regular users all the tools they would need, is a kind of a superuser model, where with the right privileges you can do anything, and without them almost anything. That's what i've currently implemented, and so far i've placed map and bind in the restricted category.

As for replacing the official maps with easier to complete ones, at the moment that would work, but is about to change :P. All it would do though is unlock the next level. Try and post your best time and see what happens.

Unless you have some really smart way of locking away those super scripts, your solution is likely gonna fail. You can't really enforce permissions upon scripts. Unless you hardcode their names and hashes to avoid tampering. WHICH WOULD allow you to freely expose sensitive functions without worrying about them working.

Hows about just enabling binds for regular commands such as what is already in the existing config?
ie; allow us to bind movement to different keys, and regular edit functions ( like translate, allfaces, entsel, delete, etc ) to other keys,

It would be kind of like having the game check for

bind *wildcard* [attack] in the config

If it sees 'bind Mouse1 [attack], then it's happy.
If it sees 'bind Mouse1 [attack; do something else] then it reverts to defaults.

"You can bind anything to a key, even an alias that would change your stats and upgrade points."
This should never have been designed such that a script can edit these values. Could you go in a little more detail on why this is the case?

I hope you realize that restricting map & bind won't actually fix your problem. There are ways around that restriction that you probably haven't thought of which is why you seriously need to just restrict access to the score for all scripts and manage it's value in the source code.

One final note: there is no way to guarantee a hack/cheat-less system.
And although it is said to never use absolutes, I will guarantee that note.

srbs

The reason that these can't be read-only is the "Customize your marble" GUI, where you can modify your stats. But like i said earlier, these variables are only half the problem. Even if i make all the variables in question read-only, and find a way to work with them, there are still commands that the official scripts need to have access to, that are too powerfull to be permitted to regular users.

Map isn't restricted because it would mess up the leaderboard, just that i wanted to keep the "unlock level" mechanism in place. I know that currently there is a way around it, but that is going to be taken care of.

As for other ways to go around the system i propose, it would be so helpful if you could tell me what those are. Here is what i know and please correct me if i'm wrong: commands and variables in cube 2 can be executed/modified from the console and/or scripts.

There are 3 ways you can do that, that i know of:

1. Directly assigning to a variable or directly calling a command, either from the console or from script
2. Via the GUI that provides access to modifying variables without going through the usual value setting path that the console takes, and allows you to call commands and aliases when GUI elements are interacted with (i.e. click on a button)
3. Binding a variable or a command/alias to a key

For the first two ways i can safely determine what the source is and restrict access to variables/commands based on it.
For bind, like i said earlier, because binds are saved automatically to config.cfg which is considered an official script, i can't really know what the original source was. I guess one solution would be not to save "unsafe" binds to config, or like Windecker suggested, only allow binding to certain commands.

There would be two other ways:

4. find out the "superuser password" and gain full access to all the commands
5. hack the exe

none of which are trivial.

I definetly agree with you, there's no way to guarantee a cheat free system, but i certainly can make it non trivial.

"The reason that these can't be read-only is the 'Customize your marble' GUI, where you can modify your stats."
I looked into this and it looks like you just hard coded the scripts into the executable. This is fine for guaranteeing the accuracy of the gui, however the variable changes should still be internal and not part of cubescript.

"[commands] are too powerfull to be permitted to regular users."
Like what? I haven't seen any commands that seemed to be powerful.

1, 2, & 3:
There are other ways of getting by these restrictions. I think I should mention here that I am known to be able to get around a lot of restrictions, in fact, I have already come up with 4 ways around what I would expect to be the first version of restricting bindings. With an almost guaranteed to always work version as one of them.

4, 5:
Anyone with a free day can probably get past those. Oh and thanks for the superuser password confirmation..

Trivial:
I can personally guarantee there is a trivial way to get the console at the current moment. (I'll be emailing you shortly)

srbs

If we can't bind keys ourself, a question: is there a manual killing key? it would be nice if there was some /kill button (K would work very well there)

Not really sure if this is what you were looking for, but a kill key does exist, and it's R for respawn.

Thanks, that was what i was looking for.

It's an autokill mechanism if you're falling for too long, but in that particular case it doesn't seem to be working very well. Thank you for letting me know !

Doesn't sauer have a mechanism for this already? Why not use that?

mapsize 16. it's a long way down.

From what i know, in sauer you are automatically killed if you reach the end of the level, which happens rather quickly in small levels, but can take a while in large ones, or if you touch a death material.

The game autosaves only when you go through a checkpoint. Other than that you'll have to save manually using F5 for quicksave, or the "Save game" button from the Options menu. I've added more autosave in the meanwhile and we'll be posting that version very soon.

It would probably be a good idea to have it save every time someone finishes a level.

As well as an option to skip the tutorial levels. :)

done too

done

"After restarting Marble Arena 2, I noticed you have to start all over again (while you just confirmed you fixed that?). I used the version which currently is available on the official website."

He is working on updates, but he never said he uploaded any of them. RTFC :P

Thanks for taking the time to write down all these very useful suggestions. I will be looking into all of them. As for the version on the website, as RaZgRiZ also pointed out, when i said i fixed things i was refering to the version i'm currently working on. Haven't uploaded it yet. It shouldn't be much longer though and it has one thing in there that hopefully you're going to love if you have an android smartphone or iOS device.

How was progress into incorporating some of the features from the SVN?

Well, i'm afraid that so far progress on that side has been terrible to be honest. I've had very little time to focus on other things. After the iOS version of the mobile controller is released, i'll most likely look into what's cool in the SVN. I was very "annoyed" because i couldn't load svn sauer maps into MA2 like i can with the regular ones, so that MUST be taken care of, because there are some really cool "roundy" maps for the SVN version.

The remip system has been reworked in the SVN, thus making some maps incompatible to anything other than the SVN. You'll probably have to focus on that aspect first before moving on with things.

Thank you :) !

Gyroscopic's cool alright, but sucks for gaming until they freaking improve its response times. This could pose a problem with maps that require some precision movement to complete..