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!

[futureal]

Yea, I played a game there and it seemed to work fine. I gave your users something to shoot for in Pacman.

One thing to watch out for is that by default on your forum, users are not browsing the board with cookies. This can cause erratic behavior with the arcade, since people are often playing for longer than the sessiontimeout value -- they may be asked to log back in rather than having their scores recorded.

On forums that don't have people browse with cookies by default, I suggest adding something to the game templates letting your users know that they may want to turn cookies on.

[Audionuts]

i see, for some reason since vb 2.2.3 i've had lots users having problems when browsing with cookies option on...

[eckels2]

Originally posted by futureal


What happens after the game for you? (Error, blank screen, etc...)

And which browser are you using?

Sorry about the delay...

After the game I go immediately back to the Games listing screen.

It doesn't give me any screen to add a comment or anything, although I understand it works for most of my users. I also found out that at least ONE of my users has the same problem as I.

my site is afterblur.com. I'm using IE 5.50 and the user that has the same problem is using IE 6.0.26.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Tigga]

I just installed this on my site and it seems to be working ok for the most part. The only problem I'm having is when I try to access the admin page for it, I get this error...

safeupload is: 1
tmppath is: /home/virtual/site72/fst/var/www/html/temp

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: dotableheader() in /home/virtual/site72/fst/var/www/html/forum/admin/proarcadeadmin.php on line 26

Any idea's what I'm doing wrong?

[Apok2002]

I have the latest proarcadeadmin.php file...when I try to upload the graphics...this is what I get:

safeupload is: 1
tmppath is: /home/httpd/vhosts/ez-company.net/httpdocs/tmp
vbProArcade Error: is not a valid file type for images (only gif/jpg/png are supported)

That is when I upload the scoreboard.gif...but it says the same for every icon/gif no matter where I try to upload it (crown icon, games, etc....)

also, re: the tmp folder...where should this be located? I use vbPortal...so I have it installed at my server root...my FORUM and where the games are installed, is root/forums/

so should it be: root/tmp ?
or
should it be: root/forums/tmp ?

[futureal]

Originally posted by PlurPlanet
I just installed this on my site and it seems to be working ok for the most part. The only problem I'm having is when I try to access the admin page for it, I get this error...

safeupload is: 1
tmppath is: /home/virtual/site72/fst/var/www/html/temp

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: dotableheader() in /home/virtual/site72/fst/var/www/html/forum/admin/proarcadeadmin.php on line 26

Did you make the necessary changes to adminfunctions.php? It looks like you are missing one of the functions there.

[futureal]

Good news, everybody...

SAFE MODE PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN FIXED!

Please replace your current proarcadeadmin.php with this version. It contains all of the current bugfixes for Beta 1.03. This will (probably) be the last Beta 1.x file I post, since I am now working on incompatible versions for Beta 2.

I will be updating the zip file in the first post with this file as well. As always, please report any problems right away.

Thanks.

[Apok2002]

woohoo! gj! I see that it works now. What was the problem?

*edit*

lol I see you doubled the previous top scorer's score on Pacman...they'll never top that. Now did you PLAY it? Or did you modify the score via myphpadmin. haha

In any event, the graphics look great man...thanks for the hard work.


*edit again*

Now how do I get the crown to be in the postbit of each of the King's posts? Did I miss that post in this thread?

[futureal]

Heh, nope, I actually played it. Pac is the only game of the five that I actually play, I've actually logged a few hours in it. I average in the 45K range, but that one was actually my best ever.

The problem was a single line of code that was incorrect. I also found a few more small bugs (mainly logic issues) in the process, so I fixed those along the way.

[futureal]

Originally posted by Apok2002
Now how do I get the crown to be in the postbit of each of the King's posts? Did I miss that post in this thread?

There are some posts about it somewhere in there. Right now, though, the Beta 1 is basically designed for a "text only" champions system. This will definitely be improved in the next release. If you can live with it until then, that is obviously the easiest.

Otherwise, you could edit the getpostbit(...) function in admin/functions.php. Right below the vbProArcade line that says "$post[usertitle] .= ..." you could add something like:

PHP Code:

$post[crown] = "<img src=\"someimage\">"; 


Then in your postbit template, just add $post[crown] in there somewhere, and for the users that are champions, the image you named should appear.

There's a chance this might not work, I'm just making it up as I go along...