ENIGMA Development Environment

This is a problem when Java is confused by itself. That is actually not an ENIGMA error, but Java one. See here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15277496/registry-key-has-value-1-7-but-1-6-is-required-java-1-7-is-installed

Basically when you uninstalled all the previous Java versions, did you also delete the files? Some files have to be removed in System32 folder. That is an issue because there was a great switch between Java1.6 and Java1.7 about where the data is held. Starting with Java1.7 there should be no Java files in System32 folder.

This is actually very bad for us that the error seems to come from ENIGMA, because the user thinks "Java cannot be found, which means Java itself didn't print that error, so it was ENIGMA", while in reality it is "Java ran, but with different version of DLL's because of Java version conflict, so Java errors out and tells that it cannot find correct Java". ENIGMA doesn't actually print any error in this case. Not sure how to go about it.

I wasn't even aware of such function. Sadly only the declaration was added by Robert, so he didn't actually implement it. And so it doesn't work. I think we should remove them in general, as those functions are quite useless. The user should be able to make his own splash windows using available functions. The only one that splash_ implements, but cannot be done via functions is splash_show_video, for which an extension should be written.

I'm just saying there hasn't been a case that I know of that a company sues a freeware game. There are wolfeinstein clones, worms clones, pac-man clones, terraria clones etc. etc. Nobody has ever been in any trouble. What IS illegal is to claim rights to something you don't own. As well as break licenses, which is actually much more important when using freeware stuff. Like there was an instance when free Linux utilities were sold, which ended in a lawsuit, as that broke the license. On the other hand there is instances where people sell open source games (like the flight simulator) and it's perfectly legal because of the license (but of course it is immoral). Basically what I am trying to say to you is that you WILL NOT BE SUED BY A GAMES COMPANY IF YOU MAKE A FREE REMAKE OF IT - that is a fact. You can make a million pacman clones, especially with your own graphics and release them for free and you will never be in any legal problems.

i guess people are really not pushing the limits right ?

You don't even need extensions for that. I have made whole Diablo2 remakes in pure GM, and I can assure you that 2D wise it can create any game imaginable. 3D is another story (at least before GMS) as you couldn't write shaders and you still cannot optimize the renderer yourself.

But if you ditch LGM, then how the bloody hell are we supposed to develop using ENIGMA

My idea is to write one myself. I will start with writing some tools, like GUI editors.

They are NOT. Whether for non profit or commercial, you cannot RIP assets from games and use them without written permission.  Some companies are more lenient and allow fan games, videos, etc, like LucasArts, others are not and they enforce their rights.  To my knowledge, Nintendo does NOT allow use of their assets, whether free or not, without their consent. There is precedent about companies going against fan games (FREE), perhaps you are not aware.
Not everyone has time to go to court and run after every kid who steals your bloody assets - so if you can protect them or make it harder why not......WHY NOT - that's my motto.... WHY NOT

Game clone doesn't necessarily mean 1:1 ripped assets. You can be "inspired" by them. Take the assets, recreate them with slight modifications and use them. I have not seen any free game that has been in any legal trouble. That just doesn't happen. And if you want to use the assets directly, you must ask the user to get the game (like Stargus which is Starcraft clone). Here is a good list of clones: http://osgameclones.com/ . And as far as I know none of them have been in any real copyright problem.

Special Agent J. C. also known as Lonewolf, made me aware of this.....If someone were to use his video engine to make a game and distribute game, any cunt can simply take a look in their temp folder and steal his bloody engine and use it without paying for it!!!  You'd be happy with that Harry ? 

I wouldn't care one bit. But getting the .dll doesn't allow one to use it. You have to reverse engineer the whole interface. If it was so trivial, then everyone would be using BINK video in their games instead of some Lonewolf video engine. And even then BINK wouldn't care, as if the persons don't sell the game (or get any monetary gain from it), then 99%  of companies don't do anything. As suing and then paying a lot of money for lawyers and things like that is a waste. And people who can reverse engineer the dll, then they are competent enough to get the dll out of the game anyway even if you encrypt it.

Who the bloody hell would want to do that ? It might be convenient for small games I agree, but for larger games no way. Most commercial games use external assets, some pack them, some protect them, but they are external. Every game I have owned and run had external assets. On big games when you want to distribute only fixed to specific area (levels, gfx, etc) add stuff, you would want to break your game into as many pieces as possible......otherwise for most games you'd have to download the entire bloody game to update just a few items. That would be silly.

But that is the point of GM. GM games are usually very small, they are self-contained. GM is the go-to engine for things like LudumDare where you have 48h to make something. I hate that I download a 5mb game and it consists of 25 files. At the same time if you WANT to have everything external you can. All I'm saying is that it should be a choice. Unreal doesn't have that, GM has it partially. ENIGMA has it fully.

Unfortunately ENIGMA has its limits and flaws and right now painfully unstable (IDE part).

But the best part is that you can extend the limits and fix the flaws. I have fixed many bugs and implemented a lot of very interesting features in the past two-three months. When I have more free time I will try to make a topic about them. IDE part is a soar point though, and something I sadly cannot change. If we are not able to get any Java dev's on Windows, then we will sadly have to ditch LGM. And as I am not part of NaturalGM either, then I will have to start something from scratch. Which is something I'm not a big fan of.

I cannot find any information on why it keeps crashing. Sometimes it's so frustrating that it crashes 10 times in a row. It doesn't write any crash dump (maybe windows does?) and I cannot run any of it in some kind of debug mode. I think the problem is in either the JNA or the plugin, as the crashes happen ONLY when using the plugin buttons (Run, Compile etc.). But that means the .jar talks with another .jar and so it makes sense that I cannot debug it. Maybe someone with more Java knowledge can see what is up. Because the crashing is unbearable.

edit: The only windows log that is created is this: http://pastebin.com/3GT9hQ2f . I have a .egm that crashes every time on my PC (so I cannot run it at all), but runs fine on my laptop ("fine" meaning it crashes 50% of time, not 100%). When I save a .gmk I can get it to run with the 50% though.

Can you post the .jar somewhere? As Robert and Ism is missing, it would be good if the LGM fixes were still available to download if not in the repo. I personally have problems with LGM freezing when pressing the Run button (or Compile button, or the Debug button), as well as crashing the whole program (windows asks to End Task) when one of the buttons are pressed. So in one case a freeze happens when the ENIGMA plugin is called (LGM then uses 0% of CPU, so it doesn't seem to be stuck in an infinite loop without sleep), and in the second case it happens when the compilation starts (the console starts printing stuff). They are actually very easy to replicate, as I have these crashes on both PC's and they happen at least once every 5 or even less compiles. Sadly no log is created. Also, ENIGMA.exe seems to crash when I try to debug it in GDB (also when it's compiled in Debug mode). I'll see if I can find the cause of that.

But we should probably take this discussion elsewhere.

See what extensions are added and what systems are used. For example, OpenAL is about 3mb, so if you disable sound system, it will be smaller. Then did you try compiling with Compile option or the Debug/Run options? For me an empty game is 1.17mb.

That is weird. And it goes past that if you disable the extension? I have feeling there could be a lot more missing or incompatible functions in that game, as it is made in GM. But it should report them and not just silently fail.

Does an empty game compile? Or a simple test, like drawing text or sprite on a screen? Just for a sanity test.