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[bigpants]

Hold me closer, Giant Dancer
v1.6 - Beta, Silent

>>> Download v1.6 Now <<<
updated 2008-09-16 to fix bug

Official Website

YouTube Speedrun - Valus
YouTube Speedrun - Gaius
(watch in high quality available for Gaius)

Custom Monster - Shrine of Workship (fan made monster & video)  * new *
* spoiler * Custom Monster - Block (fan made monster & video)  * new *

Controls
Left/Right - Move
Up/Down - Move, only while grabbing, don't forget diagonals
Space or C - Jump
X - Grab, can only grab Green
Z - Shine beam to find Monsters
Z + Direction (close to monster) - Sword, stab White Sigils

Demade for the TRS-80 Model III (probably before your time)

[Noyb]

Looks spiffy, but it crashes within 5 seconds for me after multiple tries. First the text disappears, then it gives a "Run-time error 91: Object Variable or With Block Variable not set". I'm on Vista, if it matters.

[Anarkex]

I get the same error as Noyb, and I run XP.

[bigpants]

Edit
I've been able to duplicate the error on some machines. You can forget my original idea of updating the core VB dlls (below). I think that was a red herring. I believe the error is caused by the fact the monster bitmap I allocate (Win32 GDI CreateBitmap) is simply too big for some graphic cards. The first monster is a 780 x 1050 bitmap. At 32-bit color, he takes ~3MB of Video Card Memory. While that's not a lot, I just learned that it must be contiguous. Judging by the errors people are experiencing, the odds of finding an unfragmented 3MB chunk of Video memory is not good. I will fix this tonight by dividing the monster into several smaller bitmaps. Popcap does this, but I thought my monster was small enough that I could avoid it.

---

Original, Probably Irrelevant Troubleshooting Idea
Does the game work for anyone?

Sorry about this. I did test the game distributed correctly, but obviously I missed something. The game relies on core Visual Basic DLLs that both XP and Vista ship with. I believe you're missing them, or have outdated versions.

Microsoft provides this setup program that installs the latest core VB DLLs:
Download Visual Basic 6.0: Run-Time Redistribution Pack (vbrun60sp6.exe)

It's absolutely safe to install on XP and 2000 (done this many times, and many corporations use vbrun). Additionally, based on this Microsoft  support article, it's supported by Windows Vista.

If you could install this and let me know if the game worked,
I would really appreciate it.

[Pishtaco]

Runs for me (on XP, and I didn't install update anything extra). I like the atmosphere and the sense of scale.

The instructions disappear too fast for me to read them, and the second time round I went for ages without finding a colossus so gave up.

[bigpants]

Holding Z when you're not near a monster will light a path from you to the monster. That way, you always know which direction to go in. I tried to stay true to the source material

Additionally, I modified the game (and re-uploaded it) so the instructions will stay on the screen for a long time.

Thanks for the feedback.

[bigpants]

The BUG hath been VANQUISHED!!!

Let's forget the past and start fresh.

The Monster is no longer one giant bitmap. Unbeknownst to you, he's now 20 small bitmaps that conspire to form one angry blob. I believe this will fix that nasty problem some people were encountering (hold off buying that new video card). For the record, I would have fixed this before the deadline had I known it existed.

There are 6 monsters to defeat, and the reward is vast. Dare ye?
Seriously... the ending is worth it.

[Terry]

Sorry, I'm getting video card errors with this build too

[bigpants]

HA hA hA!!!
You almost had me you prankster you.
I mean, if the game still didn't work, I'd... I'd...

(insert tragic meltdown here followed by 5 years of intensive therapy)

I have returned! I've uploaded yet another version of the game, which is available at the same download URL.
This .zip now includes a LastChance version of the game (in addition to the latest build).
LastChance has less background graphics, which may free up enough Video RAM for the monster.

Terry >
Could you download again and try the LastChance version. Let me know what happens... or maybe not.

Satan >
The deal is OFF.

[Terry]

Sorry man, I'm still having problems I don't have much in the way of a graphics card on this old laptop, that's probably not helping matters...

[bigpants]

You have left me no choice.
I'm bringing out the world's smallest monster.
Right Click this image and save the picture in your Game/Monsters folder (do not change the filename).

Does the game finally work?
If yes, then you are doomed to battle dinky monsters (try making your own).
If no, the problem is unrelated to your videocard - try installing the VBRun mentioned earlier.

(Dinky Monster aside, I seriously appreciate the help)

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I just watched the video! Amazing stuff, and great game title too! :3

[Terry]

Yikes; ok, I installed that vb stuff and tried it out with the dinky monster - and for a while it seemed to work! Then my computer crashed - like, worse than it ever has before. A blue screen of death, but one so bad that the display was all corrupted and stuff and it displayed one scanline at a time

I'm sorry, I don't think I can test any more builds of this... My little laptop has one year left till retirement!

[bigpants]

Thanks very much Terry. Very sorry for the heart attack. Please DON'T test anymore, your laptop scares me and you've already gone above and beyond. This has never happened before (and I've been installing VB games for many years).

I believe I can explain what happened. With the previous builds, I was always grabbing way too much Video RAM for your little laptop, so the requests were outright rejected. With Dinky, the Video RAM requests were small enough to be accepted, but it put you right near the brink of having no Video RAM whatsoever. As time progressed, Windows and my game made some small bitmap requests until >boom< no Video RAM left period. This is a rare occurrence, and it sounds like the graphics card driver was unable to handle this exception gracefully. When graphic drivers have errors, you get all sorts of interesting experiences.

3 Final Questions
1. What version of Windows are you running?
2. What make of graphics card do you have (ATI, NVidia, Intel graphics)?
3. How much Video RAM? Display Properties > Settings > Advanced > Adapter > Memory Size

---

If you're reading this thread, and are now afraid to try the game, I offer this:

1. The game doesn't do anything permanent to your system.
    You just unzip files & run. Game does NOT have a setup program that installs and upgrades files.
    i.e. your registry, windows folders, and graphic drivers remain untouched

2. Visual Basic is a standard part of Windows.
    If Microsoft completely removed all VB DLLs, they would need to rewrite MS Office, Outlook and IE.
    VB is safe. It has to be

Dinky is one bad Mofo

[Cheater‽]

So, uh. I kinda downloaded this yesterday (before the bugfix) and it worked fine, yet the new bugfixed version doesn't (Last Chance does, however). 

Also, I beat it.