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I'm getting very weird vertical alignment when using Silver in GameMaker.  Attaching an image showing three single line strings all drawn in the same spot (the red dot) with different valign settings. The vertical alignment differences are so extreme that it appears as though they are on entirely different lines. 

My guess is something is wrong with the internal font formatting in Silver that's causing this since it doesn't happen with other fonts (at least nothing this extreme!).  

I have a solution that fixes this issue using the Scribble text rendering library, but wondering if there's any way to fix it for native GameMaker text rendering as well.  Anyone know if there is some way to change the font settings in GameMaker or a special import method so it doesn't do this?

For anyone else using Scribble this is my current fix, which aligns everything to the edges of the capitalized roman characters. Depending on how you're approaching localization, slightly different settings may make sense and you may want to swap these settings when changing languages. Note that this will only fix the issue when rendering text using Scribble functions not for any native text rendering.

scribble_font_set_halign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_center,1);
scribble_font_set_halign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_right,2);
scribble_font_set_halign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_left,0);
scribble_font_set_valign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_top,-2);
scribble_font_set_valign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_middle,1);
scribble_font_set_valign_offset("fnt_silver",fa_bottom,5);

I've noticed some odd kerning for a few of the characters, the most obvious one being the capital "I" which has an extra pixel on its left side causing awkward gaps in some words. Image provided to show what I'm talking about.  There's also a similar issue with the exclamation mark and some other characters, but the "I" is the one that really stands out.

Just imported the new version. Seems to be working great! Thanks! 

I'm having some trouble installing the newest version of GM Live into my current project. When I import via the marketplace. I get a whole bunch of error messages:

I also tried downloading the zip file for 2.3 from the marketplace to install it manually however it only had a live23.yyp file, no .yymp or .yymps files as described in the documentation. 

Is LTS 2022.0.1.31 just unsupported now or is something else going on?

Thanks!  

Good to hear you figured it out! It auto saves when you finish a level, but if you close the game mid-way without exiting the level first, it doesn't know to make a mid-level save.  Glad you're enjoying it! 

That would definitely be a difficult port! Apart from everything else the screen  on the playdate is very different than the full color 720p screen They Bleed Pixels was designed around. It is an intriguing little device though! 

Thanks! Great to  hear this version is running nicely on Steam Deck.

Gotcha. Unfortunately I'm going to have to decline. A lot of time and effort went into the art for this game and we don't want the artwork to be used as generic placeholder artwork representing other games like this. I would recommend searching itch for some art asset packs and using those to construct the generic snapshots for your game launcher. 

Hi Phil! 

  Could you explain how these snapshots will be used in a bit more detail? Will they be associated with Russian Subway Dogs within the launcher in some way? The example gallery doesn't really clarify this, as all the images are small cropped, unlabeled thumbnails and seem to be generic stock images of various sorts, not game screenshots. Feel free to shoot me an email at games at spookysquid dot com if you want to discuss further. Thanks! 

Great to hear the Linux version worked well for you. Always good to have confirmation for Linux since I was only able to test it on the machine I used to create the build. 

DRM free standalone versions are finally released! 
Sorry for the wait! Took far longer than originally planned.

DRM free standalone versions are finally released! 
Sorry for the wait! Took far longer than originally planned.

Thanks so much! It's always great to hear from folks who enjoyed the game :D 

Good news! I've got a stand alone build I've been testing that's looking like it's in a good place. Should be releasing later this month, assuming no major issues come up. Thanks for your patience!

Planning to release the DRM-Free standalone versions as soon as the console ports are done and the final update to the game is finished. There have been some setbacks recently but hoping to wrap stuff up soon! Apologies for the delay! 

Yep! A Linux port is already out. Mac port exists but is pre Catalina OS, I'm hoping to update that one once all the console ports are done and the final update is released. 

Other way around (she's a guest in Bleed 2) but yes!

Good to hear that helped!
The repeated auto-minimizing is a new one. I haven't come across it before or had any bug reports regarding that, so it might be something unique to your system.  Are you running the exe directly or using the itch client? 

I did a bit of googling and this looks like a good checklist of possible causes if this is actually a general issue with your setup and multiple games. I'll also let you know if I hear of anyone else having this issue or come up with a solution. 

In situations where the game is running too fast, disabling vsync often works but still may result in slight speed issues on some setups. This is my recommended fix for high refresh monitors (should also be useful for other games with this problem): 

If you have an Nvidia card: Open the Nvidia control panel, go to Manage 3D settings and click the "program settings" tab.

Under "select program to customize" select "they bleed pixels pc.exe" , you may need to click the "Add" button to locate it but if you've run it recently it's probably in the list. 

Once it's selected, find Max Frame Rate in the "Specify the settings for this program" list and set it to 60fps. Click apply and you should be good to go. 

They Bleed Pixels should now play at the correct frame rate and speed regardless of your monitor settings with v-sync on, and it won't impact other games.  

If you have an AMD card you should be able to do something similar using the application profiles and "Radeon Chill". Just make sure you apply the settings only to They Bleed Pixels and set the min and max values to 60. 

Unfortunately I don't have access to a machine with an AMD card so haven't been able to confirm this works, but it should be the same. 

Hope that helps! 

https://spookysquid.itch.io/they-bleed-pixels

So first apologies that it has not been released yet. It's IS still in the works and planned for release after the console ports are done.  Current progress...

• One of the three announced ports (PS Vita) has been released. 
• Stand alone leaderboard is now in a shippable state and localized, this was needed for PS Vita but will also be used for the DRM free builds. 
• Code has been ported from GMS1.4 to GMS2 (required for Mac) but still needs more testing. 

Once the Xbox One and PS4 builds have shipped I'll get to work on exporting and testing the DRM free builds.  Given the difficulties I've had estimating these releases I can't say for sure when this will happen, though I'm hoping to have everything out this year. 

Thanks for the great in depth review, happy you enjoyed the game so much!

https://spookysquid.itch.io/they-bleed-pixels

Thanks for sharing your review, happy you enjoyed the game!

Great glad that worked for you!

You can turn off controller vibration by going into:

Options -> Custom Controls 

If you have a controller plugged in you'll see an option called "Rumble", just turn that off and you should be good to go.  Let me know if you have any issues with getting it to work. 

Ah I remember your email now! Yeah we tried our best to support older cards (I test on a 8-ish year old laptop) but the *really* old Intel HD's (or strange variants) have some missing features we weren't able to account for.

Great to hear you got it working and enjoyed the game! Could you let me know what fixed it for you in the end? 

Great! Happy that did the trick and thanks for following up!

Thanks! Trying to make the combat not just about button mashing was a big design goal for us.

We actually have a second game out now you might want to check out, Russian Subway Dogs. It has some They Bleed Pixels cameos in it and is also playable in Linux!

https://spookysquid.itch.io/russian-subway-dogs

Thanks really great to hear that! Glad you're enjoying the game! 

Yeah, it's a known issue with some setups. Try turning of v-sync and if that doesn't work try switching your monitor refresh rate to 60 hz.  If you're using a monitor with some form a smart sync tech you may need to turn that off.  Shoot me an email at support at spookysquid dot com if that doesn't work!

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with this, definitely the first time I've heard of this particular error happening, I know how frustrating it can be to lose your progress in a game.  Lets see if we can get it fixed for you!

Are you playing using the itch.io app or just running the game where you unzipped it?

What operating system are you running? What version of it?

If you are in windows and not running as administrator, try right clicking on the game and picking run as administrator. See if that fixes things. It's possible this is a permissions issue stopping the game from writing the save files.   

If that doesn't work could you follow these steps and then email me the resulting file at support at spookysquid dot com?

1. Find the directory with the game files.

2. Open config.txt in notepad.

3. add the following line to the bottom and safe the file: DEBUG_FLAG = 1

4. Run the game.

5. send me the file "errorLog.txt"

Hopefully we can get this sorted out for you so you can continue your game!

They Bleed Pixels dev here! This is a mystery to us as well. I'm able to replicate the issue, but it doesn't seem to happen if you run They Bleed Pixels from explorer or run the Steam version. I just asked the programmer if he has an ideas of how this could be happening, but it appears to be on the itch side and not something on ours from what I can tell. 

Thanks for the feedback! The game was released in 2012, so it's eight years old now and while there are definitely things I'd change if I were making it now. I'm actually mostly happy with how it controls (at least on a gamepad, not so much on keyboards).  To me there is a certain rhythm you get from the two button controls that would be lost if they were split up.

I gave a short talk about my thoughts on the controls back in 2013 if your curious about them (sorry about the audio quality!).

This isn't to say you're wrong to dislike them, more that they were thoughtfully created to a specific, admittedly idiosyncratic taste, and that taste may not be for everyone.  

Glad you're enjoying the game for the most part despite disliking the controls! 

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Could you follow these steps and then email me the resulting file at support at spookysquid dot com?

1. Find the directory with the game files.

2. Open config.txt in notepad.

3. add the following line to the bottom and safe the file:
DEBUG_FLAG = 1

4. Run the game.

5. send me the file "errorLog.txt"

Also let me know what version of Windows you are running and what your graphics card is.

I'd also recommend updating your graphics card drivers just in case that's causing a problem. Another thing worth trying is installing the game using the Itch.io app if you haven't already.

Thanks! 

Ok! New build is up with a brand new high res Windows icon since the old one was designed for older OS versions and was tiny. 

Oops. Looks like the icon file got lost in the shuffle at some point. I'll upload a new Windows exe with the icon asap. If you've installed via the itch.io app it'll update automatically when that goes up.

If you don't mind answering a few follow up questions I want to make sure this doesn't effect other players. 
Were you playing with a gamepad (or had one connected) when you had the camera problem?
Did you change the dead zone at all before playing or was it set to the default?
Thanks!

Sorry to hear you're running into issues!
Could you elaborate on what's happening? 
Are you playing with a gamepad or a keyboard?