vbProArcade Beta 2

vbProArcade Beta 2

1/5/03: Beta 2 released
9/12/02: Beta 1.03 zip updated to include safe mode fix
9/3/02: Beta 1.03 released -- small bug fixes, see below
9/1/02: Beta 1 of vbProArcade has been posted. Please see below for installation instructions.


Background Information

vbProArcade is a fully-customizable Flash arcade add-on for vBulletin, complete with game-by-game scoreboards, forum integration, a "champions" system, statistics, and more.

This is an extensive hack that is still in BETA form, and I don't recommend installing it if you are not willing to work through potential issues and future updates/upgrades! I am working on making the installation instructions as easy as possible, but it will probably be some time before it is perfect.

Watch this post for updates as they happen, and check out screenshots from the list below. If you would like to see the hack in action, you may visit my Shadows of Namek forums. You will need to register to play, but you can view the scoreboards and the arcade itself as a guest.


Credits

This hack materialized thanks to work and help from a number of people and forums. Here they are:

• Original vbTetris Hack by Erwin Loh
• Original vbTetris Leaderboard Hack by John Warwick (john.eovie)
• One of my users, Simon Steel, for work on Flash coding/recoding
• The users of one of my forums, Shadows of Namek, for their extensive testing of the system
• And The Kryptonian for pre-release and release candidate installation testing.

Games

So far, there are FIVE GAMES that work correctly with this hack. They are:

Breakout
Pacman
Snake
Space Invaders
Tetris

All five .SWF files are included in the release archive.

There is now a Flash Games Development Thread for the purpose of modifying existing games to work with vbProArcade, or for creating new games to be compatible with vbProArcade. If you have a game that you wish to see modified but don't know how, post the .FLA source in that thread and hopefully somebody can assist you.


Installation Instructions

Download the file attached to this post, unzip it and familiarize yourself with the contents BEFORE doing anything.

There are TWO separate files worth reading, the Documentation and the Installation Instructions. I recommend that you read both BEFORE doing anything else.

Once you have done this, the instructions to be followed are contained in vbproarcade-install.txt. Follow them as precisely as possible. If you encounter an error somewhere, it is likely that you missed a step or made a small error. Please double-check your work BEFORE posting about problems here.

And it cannot be said enough: read that file before you do anything, and if you are unsure of something, please post your question(s) before attempting to install the hack.


Problems and Fixes/Workarounds (as of 1/5)

• None

Known Bugs/Limitations

Here is the list of stuff that I know does not work. I will be working towards correcting these bugs BEFORE adding new features for the next release.

• Netscape will allow you to play the games but not record scores
• If a user uses the "Back" button to go to the game screen, and does not refresh before playing, the score will result in a Security Violation. This is by design.

Screen Shots for Beta 2

Here is the list of posts from this thread that contain screen shots for the new version. Check them out!

• Main Arcade Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...106#post292106
• Game Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...107#post292107
• Game Over Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...109#post292109
• Scoreboard: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...110#post292110
• Top Score Board: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...111#post292111
• Admin Modify Game: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...112#post292112
• Who's Online Display: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...113#post292113
• User Detail Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...811#post337811
• Admin Score Editor: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...736#post338736
• Champ System in Postbit: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...745#post338745
• Modify Games in Admin CP (contracted): https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...858#post389858
• Modify Games in Admin CP (expanded): https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...859#post389859

Upcoming Features

This is the stuff that is in progress for future release:

• Complete Admin Panel Scoreboard Editor
• Additional integration with vB
• Even better Who's Online screen

Some have emailed or PM'd me asking if I would accept donations for my work on this hack, and yes, I certainly will, and any and all support is greatly appreciated. With over 2,000 lines of original PHP code, in addition to HTML and Flash work, I have spent a great deal of time developing and debugging the source for this, and it is a great feeling to have people like it so much that they want to give something back.

All donations received go directly back into supporting my websites and my design activities. You may click here to donate via Paypal. Note that donations are by no means required, and not donating does not mean you won't get support for the hack.

Last but not least, thanks for checking this out!

[Dean C]

Check the vbproarcade games development thread in this forum BlueHawk

- miSt

[PixelFx]

I remember there was work on vbarcade 2.1, all that it needed was some tweaks to the admin panel, has all work stopped on this for vb2.30 users?

I plan on using vb2.30 for while. So just wondering if there were any more updates for this.

or if everything is going on hold till vb3.0.0 RC1+ comes out?

AWESOME HACK by the way :P

[Alien]

I'm wondering the same thing... I want to see the development of the new version for the 2x series as I'll be using that for some time until 3.0 goes through a few revisions after it's no longer beta...

I'd even consider a donation for this script as it's one of the most used features of my website.

[Alien]

07-13-03 at 07:30 PM Matrixgl said this in Post #1436
I was just messing with the arcade, and saw noticed one of the coolest feature....the personal score display page!

I thought may be this could be a part/extra feature for the hack to show a link to a member's score page in their postbit (or anywhere else). Heres the code

Awesome idea.. However can you or someone figure out how to set it up so it will NOT show an arcade button/icon if the person has *zero* high scores in the arcade?

Anyone?

[Areku]

09-02-02 at 04:30 AM futureal said this in Post #118
Ah, thanks for pointing that out for me. I missed a line in the hack. Right before that line, add:

PHP Code:

global $DB_site; 


That will fix that error.

On the latest version (B2) of this hack I downloaded today, the error was still there. Seems you forgot to fix it?


I manually entered the global directive on a 2.3.0 board and now online.php works nice


Congrats on such a nice and awesome hack!

[Areku]

An idea for an addon:

What about a medals-addon for the Arcade?

Ie. creating gold, silver and bronze instead of 1 leader for each game. this way users would retain a "prize" and there would be much competition to obtain/keep the (at least) bronze, for example


Wdy think?

[legendarysk8er]

We've had our arcade installed for awhile now, and it worked fine at first. Recently though, the games haven't been loading and stuff. When is the next version coming?

[Areku]

Woops! Already translated it...

Now I'm just missing how to translate the name of the months and the "th" besides the DATE (already modified the th,rd on the positions).

SInce I guess it's the system Date, how could I modify this?

And oh yes, I use the Today/Yesterday hack... is it possible to use this on the Arcade?

Thanks!

[PixelFx]

one thing I'd like to see is, a hall of fame addon, aka top 5 scores from each game goto a special page for that month. Then at the end of the month you can do a arcade wipe. This would keep the size of your database smaller, and each month players would see who the top player was.

up to now I was thinking of doing this manually but if you could add this to the arcade script it would rock..

[sylem]

HELP
I dont want to sound stupid, but we had installed the (Who's Online v0.0.2 Hack) sometime back which overwrites the (online.php) file that needs to be edited for the Arcade Hack. I didn't realize it before I started, but the overwritten (online.php) file does not contain any of the code that needs to be changed or added to complete this Arcade Hack. This file contains very little code at all. So now Im 80% complete with this installation and stuck. Has anyone else had this problem?? And can anyone Help??