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!

[AutomatikStudio]

I looked through some recent posts to see if this had been requested as a feature but I couldn't find it. So either way...my request is to add a feature where the users have to post a certain number of times to play...I think this was originially done via the ArcadePass hack which is now completely useless to anybody and everybody.

[AndrewZ]

What about the forum pointing to proarcade.php?

[TheSonic]

futureal: Any hints for the vb3-Arcade-ReleaseDate

[AutomatikStudio]

Originally Posted by AndrewZ

What about the forum pointing to proarcade.php?

This is what I did:

</a><a href="proarcade.php?action=arcade&s=">Arcade</a>

Put that in the "Title" of the forum you are wanting to point the arcade to. vb2 doesn't have the option to make forums that just simply forward to another destination so it will just have "0" in the posts and threads column and for the most part will make it look kinda wimpy...so what i did was add a sub-forum to the link to the arcade so people can talk about the arcade and therefore keep that from looking so empty...anywho....

[AndrewZ]

Thanks

One final thing.

The thing to get the icons and game name of the games the user is champion isnt working for me. Its not showing up at all... Here is a section of my postbit.

PHP Code:


<td bgcolor="$post[backcolor]" width="175" valign="top" nowrap>
    <a name="post$post[postid]"></a>
    $post[firstnewinsert]
    <normalfont><b>$storeextraglow</b></normalfont><br>
    <smallfont>$post[usertitle]</smallfont><br>
    $post[avatar]<p>
    <smallfont>Registered: $post[joindate]<br>
    Location: $post[field2]<br>
    Posts: $post[posts]<br>$pointname: $store_sign$post[storep] $donate<br>$vpachampicon$vpachamptext</smallfont></td> 


[Paris Holley]

im having 2 problems.....

1) When i go to the page for the game, the flash is just black...and it goes no where...

2) When i access the file directly, it redirects to domain.com/proarcade.php

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by Paris Holley

im having 2 problems.....

1) When i go to the page for the game, the flash is just black...and it goes no where...

2) When i access the file directly, it redirects to domain.com/proarcade.php

You link to your game directory is wrong. Search this thread. Your problem is the most common problem.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

[Paris Holley]

i've read this hole thread, some say do games/ instead of /games/ and some said do little fixes, i did it all man

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by Paris Holley

i've read this hole thread, some say do games/ instead of /games/ and some said do little fixes, i did it all man

Hmm. If you are sure about these issues then the only possibility would be that your code in your game is not correct. In the last entry field of each game you have to specify the game location. If the game location is not correct then you get a black screen.

You have 2 possible errors:

- your <object> is not correct and the link to the source swf file is wrong
- if your <object> is correct and using the variables, then your directory is wrong for the games

Try to manually put the path into the <object> tag and see what happens. If it works, then your path is not set correctly.

( i hope you uploaded all .swf files into the correct directory onto your server )

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

[futureal]

Pointing to the game directly will never work, since the script must pass in a "location" variable so it knows where to redirect to.

If your games directory is in yourdomain.com/games (for example) then try setting the Admin CP setting to "/games/" (with the preceeding slash). If your games are in yourdomain.com/forum/games then you want it to be "games/" (without the preceeding slash).

This problem arose because I (stupidly) figured that most people would not place the games within their forum directory. I said "make a games directory on your server" and to most people that meant "make a games directory inside your forum directory on your server."

If this still isn't working (check Pseudomizer's post as well) I'll see if I can think of anything else.