After the hotfix for Windows, here comes the hotfix release for GP2x and Wiz users. It’s highly recommended to use this latest version, as the game could not be completed in the previously released update (v0.99.5).

Changes so far:

* Fixed screen shakes at bosses (cosmetic fix)
* Getting a powerup at a dissolveable bridge should temporary stop the bridge from crumbling away
* Jumping behavior is back to “normal” again, this should solve several issues intruduced with v0.99.5.
* Fixed owl moving behaviour in Level 32
* Fixed positioning bug after bonus cave in Level 45
* WIZ / GP2x – Fixed scripting bug, which left things in the RAM instead of freeing it.
* WIZ / GP2x – Recompressed music files, hardly any quality difference BUT saves 7mb of space!

Thanks to Pickle for the hard porting work!

Some of the WIZ and GP2x Users out there reported, that the game occasionaly stucks for a second.

The only conclusion is, that this might be caused, once a track loops.

The Giana’s Return soundtrack is tracked, in particular we do use .xm (Extended Module). While the Windows version uses bass.dll and we don’t have a single problem with the music, the SDL standard playback for .xm is based upon MikMod. MikMod does not play our .xm’s proper, as it leaves out instruments or plays them wrong.

As solution for the GP2x and WIZ version we converted the .xm’s into the open source streaming format .ogg.

As the encoded quality is rather high, we try to decrease the bitrate, which will lead into a smaller file size and a hopefully lower CPU usage.

This hopefully leading into a proper looping without anything getting stuck.

Game development can be fun, but sometimes it’s just frustrating :D

v0.99.6 is a bugfix release – For now it’s only available for Windows. WIZ and GP2x update to follow the next few days. It’s NOT recommended to download the WIZ and GP2x version at this time, as bugs make the game incompleteable!

Changes so far:

* Fixed screen shakes at bosses (cosmetic fix)
* Getting a powerup at a dissolveable bridge should temporary stop the bridge from crumbling away
* Jumping behavior is back to “normal” again, this should solve several issues intruduced with v0.99.5.
* Fixed owl moving behaviour in Level 32
* Fixed positioning bug after bonus cave in Level 45
* WIZ / GP2x – Fixed scripting bug, which left things in the RAM instead of freeing it.

As we managed to break few things in the last release, we are working on a hopefully better one…

Changes so far:

* Fixed screen shakes at bosses (cosmetic fix)
* Getting a powerup at a dissolveable bridge should temporary stop the bridge from crumbling away
* Jumping behavior is back to “normal” again, this should solve several issues intruduced with v0.99.5.
* Fixed owl moving behaviour in Level 32
* Fixed positioning bug after bonus cave in Level 45
* WIZ / GP2x – Fixed scripting bug, which left things in the RAM instead of freeing it.

Because of a bug in v0.99.5 the game is not completable, therefore the download has been stalled for now. The problem is reported and should be fixed soon.

CMoses and Night_Creature found and reported this bug, too. Thanks for the head ups!

Mulle (Beta Tester)

Almost after one month, here comes a bugfixed version of Giana’s Return. As you can notice, it’s still not v1.00, as we don’t feel it should be v1.00 yet. A few minor things still need to be overworked, this will be saved for the next release.

The joypad/gamepad bug for Windows users in this update still exists and vertical scrolling is still disabled by default. This are the major points, which will be overworked with v1.00.

The following editions are updated: Windows 32/64 Bit & Wiz
The following new flavors are here: GP2x

Changes:

* Fixed grammar/spelling/structure within German language part
* Exchanged gray spiky stone in world 1 with red spiky cactus tree
* Decreased difficulty in level 6-8, extended three platforms with each one bug
* Leveldesign / Modified level 7-4, which fixes a problem if Giana dies in water
* Leveldesign / Modified level 7-8, removed a bonus cave which was placed in a way Giana got stuck when she came back to daylight.
* Leveldesign / Fixed fire animation in 3-4, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-5, 5-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, 6-6
* Leveldesign / Modified level 3-4, because one platform had a double enemy occupation
* Fixed Swampy password bug
* Added checkpoints
* Speed is set 0 when Giana stops at a wall-tile
* Fire collision is more forgiving now
* Added hint how to save Maria from Swampy
* Exchanged flags on language selection screen
* Redesigned language selection screen
* Bonus caves are harder to find now, it was partially too obvious before
* Increased level time from 140 to 160 seconds
* Big Bosses don’t kill instantly anymore, if you have more than 50% of your energy left
* Appearance/Quality of title screen improved
* Removed hidden bonus bricks for Swampy boss stage, which caused a possible slowdown at a very important place – this actually resulted in time loss and swampy catching you.
* Fixed hardly noticable layer bug in Swampy boss stage.
* Modified Level 46 to make it a bit more fair – if you had proper timing, it was not a big deal, but most players obviously had a problem.
* WIN32 / Changed default keyboard configuration to: Cursor keys for Left, Right, Down, Jump – Space for Shoot – this will only apply if you do not have a giana.cfg already.
* Minor fixes and other stuff we forgot to write down…

Today is also a special day: So Eid Mubarek for all of you who had a hard fasting month :D But wait… this does not mean, we have the next update on XMAS… ;-)

Please head over to the download menue on the left for the downloads.

Thanks and ENJOY!

If you experience speed issues, it’s highly recommended to turn off the anti-aliasing by starting the game under command line with “giana.exe -aa”.

You may also optionally play in windowed mode, which is also a lot faster than fullscreen.

Yes!!! – Some players indeed still own a 10 year old computer :D

We are close to release a minor update, but don’t feel it’s time for v1.0 yet.

The changelog so far:

* Fixed grammar/spelling/structure within German language part
* Exchanged gray spiky stone in world 1 with red spiky cactus tree
* Decreased difficulty in level 6-8, extended three platforms with each one bug
* Leveldesign / Modified level 7-4, which fixes a problem if Giana dies in water
* Leveldesign / Modified level 7-8, removed a bonus cave which was placed in a way Giana got stuck when she came back to daylight.
* Leveldesign / Fixed fire animation in 3-4, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-5, 5-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, 6-6
* Leveldesign / Modified level 3-4, because one platform had a double enemy occupation
* Fixed Swampy password bug
* Added checkpoints
* Speed is set 0 when Giana stops at a wall-tile
* Fire collision is more forgiving now
* Added hint how to save Maria from Swampy
* Exchanged flags on language selection screen
* Redesigned language selection screen
* Bonus caves are harder to find now, it was partially too obvious before
* Increased level time from 140 to 160 seconds
* Big Bosses don’t kill instantly anymore, if you have more than 50% of your energy left
* Appearance/Quality of title screen improved
* Removed hidden bonus bricks for Swampy boss stage, which caused a possible slowdown at a very important place – this actually resulted in time loss and swampy catching you.
* WIN32 / Changed default keyboard configuration to: Cursor keys for Left, Right, Down, Jump – Space for Shoot – this will only apply if you do not have a giana.cfg already.

A release will follow the next days. We plan to update the following “Editions”: Windows, Wiz

For those of you who still own a Dreamcast, the following news might be of interest.

Indiket, a spanish developer, has agreed upon porting Giana’s Return to the Dreamcast. His part of the work will start once we have released the next update.

Viva la Dreamcast \o/

As time moves on, Giana’s Return moves on too. We already have fixed a bunch of bugs, but there are a few more to go.

We had a discussion, if it makes sense to release a bugfix as soon as it’s done, but considering we do have around 30 improvements to do, it would also mean 30 updates. Even if we couple few improvements together, there might be still 3 to 5 updates.

The final result… we will wait till the bugtracker is empty. It simply makes more sense.