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!

[Ian]

Originally posted by futureal
[B]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.

The fix worked, thanks!


Sorry about wasting your time with the other problem. you were right, one of my members snuck in when I wasn't looking. :bored:

[Apok2002]

Here's a new one for ya...

I have a usergroup named EZCO Admins. They have all the permissions of the Registered Group, and more. They have access to 3 other forums that the Registered Group does not.

Yet...no one in this group can play any of the games. It says:

You do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
You do not have permission to access the page that you were trying to. Are you trying to edit someone else's post or trying to access administrative features? Check that you are allowed to perform this action in the Forum Rules.
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
Logged in user: Llama [logout]

What would cause this? Somehow they are being subjected to the rules of those not signed in, or not registered.

I assigned other usergroups to the same member name...it appears that any created usergroup, does not have permissions to play the games. Only the default groups do.

[futureal]

Originally posted by Apok2002
How many scores will be recorded? The hack has been installed for only about 4 hours or so, and in the Snake scoreboard, I have 190 rankings (scores recorded).

If there is a limit, what is it? And how do we edit that to suit our own boards needs? And if there is no limit, won't that cause the db to get pretty large?

We really don't need anything more than the top 100 scores on the scoreboard.

Scores will be recorded forever, and database size is not an issue at all. I have had over 15,000 scores recorded on my site so far, and the size of the three tables, even with the icons, is about 300KB. Compared to a typical site's search index and post/attachment database, that is next to nothing.

The ability to define a max. number of scores to be displayed will be added in the next version.

[chad777]

Apok.

I had the same problem.

Ope up proarcade.php

search for // access check (here for future expansion)

right around line 32

under that there is lines that start with
if (($bbuserinfo[usergroupid]

just add the uder group id.

you will see when you get there pretty easy

[futureal]

Originally posted by Apok2002
Here's a new one for ya...

I have a usergroup named EZCO Admins. They have all the permissions of the Registered Group, and more. They have access to 3 other forums that the Registered Group does not.

Yet...no one in this group can play any of the games. It says:

See my response to chad777 in this post: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...244#post294244

You need to add a line to proarcade.php corresponding to the group you'd like to give access to the arcade.

This functionality will definitely be part of the admin panel in the next release.

[chad777]

futureal


I have a couple suggestions for a features to be added in one of the releases not nessary, but would be nice.

Put the users highest score achieved under user name kinda like the crown.

Maybe if they don't have the highest score (crown) then it would have there highest scores achieved for certain games.

Also maybe the feature to be added to let the user select a type / music for the games they are playing ?

I don't know i had some brain storms when I was playing breakout. I mean it was kind of a boring game so I could think of other things

btw let me know if you need any beta testing

[futureal]

Having multiple music selections is tough, since it increases the filesize of the game files significantly. Plus, I'm not yet the Flash wizard that I'd like to be.

As for the highscore thing, that is something that could definitely be done...

[Erwin]

Great... can't wait to install this...

My users are going to be upset because their high scores with John's arcade hack will have to be reset again... I may have to figure out a way to import it over (but it looks like he does use a very different db structure).

[Apok2002]

Thanks for the info on the db size, I won't sweat it then.

Also, sorry for not seeing the permissions issue earlier. Fixed as per your instructions, and it's running fine. Thanks again, my members are going nutz over it.

I'm still working on the Who's Online issue though. I'll get back to you if I can't get it working on my own.

[futureal]

Erwin: Converting the old vbTetris table would not be terribly hard.

You would need to alter the table to include the date, time and username fields, and then make a quick script to pair the usernames with the ids and insert bogus date/time info. Once that is done though, it would work fine -- you'll just have to make sure that the Tetris identifier in vbProArcade is 'tetris' to match up with John's hack.