Just my two cents, I don't think the fault with search lies in the code. Search was working for a long time and then it stopped working. Since there isn't much active development going on with the site, it doesn't seem likely that a code change was responsible. Instead it seems more likely that something elsewhere in the system broke down, eg. a stuck query, something in scheduler not running anymore, max table size exceeded somewhere. Those are just total stabs in the dark, but you get the idea. It's possible the ultimate fix will be a code change, but I'm not sure just spelunking around the code base looking for errors is going to be that helpful. I think it will take a broader view of the entire system and its parts and how they fit together and what could go wrong with those connections to find the problem.
Personally, I would start by looking at search and queires it generates. I'd try running a few manually to see if that gets the same result as the web code displays. Then I'd take a look at the database tables the queries hit and try to understand how they are populated and why they might not be getting the right data anymore.
But again, I don't know anything about Drupal or how OGA is setup so that's just my naive guess at what would be a sensible approach.
yuck. Let's not get lost in a game of 'where does all the patreon money go?'
I think it's sufficient to leave it at the funding is enough to keep the site up and running but not enough to pay for any active web development on it.
I am actually ok with the site going forward without active feature development. We can all dream of a million ways the site could be improved or new fizwidgets that could be added, but the reality is, the site as it is terrific. Maybe not perfect, maybe not up to all the latest fashions in web programming, but it certainly works well enough, otherwise it wouldn't see the traffic and continuous stream of submissions that it does.
However, I am very concerned that search is broken and has been broken for such a long time. There are a lot of things that can break and stay broken with the site, but search is not one of them.
I am not familar with PHP or Drupal, but I am a pretty seasoned developer and a quick study and more than happy to volunteer my time towards finding and fixing the search problem. Admins may private message me if they feel I could be of help in this capacity.
If there is anyone else from the community who has experience with PHP and Drupal and would like to volunteer their time towards fixing the search issue it'd be great to hear from them.
In the short term, I think it would very, very nice to post something to main page about the search issue.
Something along the lines of:
Search Issues
There is currently an issue with the search indexing on OGA which is preventing works newer than February 2016 from appearing in the search results. The problem is being investigated, however there is currently no ETA for getting it fixed. As a workaround, a 'Title' search option has been added to the search pages. This searches submissions by title only but side steps the indexing issue which is thwarting the main search feature and will return results newer than February 2016.
Thursday, September 22, 2016 - 09:40
@dannorder: Yeah I see what you are saying, does seem like defaulting to a 'sort by date, desc' would make sense, especially if you are coming from the 'latest art' page.
I'll second MoonStar's suggestion. I don't know that it needs a slider or anything too fancy, just adding another row would be great.
The problem MoonStar describes is real and we've actually had an issue in recent memory where a problematic user was dumping submissions onto the site crowding out new work by other artists.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - 10:17
Ok, I'm here to keep this thread alive!
We're past six months that search has been broken now.
Again, I do certainly appreciate the work that goes into keeping OGA alive, but is there anything any of us can do to help get this issue addressed?
And could we get an update on the main page at least acknowledging the issue so new-comers and folks that have missed this thread have a way of knowing about the issue and the various work-arounds available?
Thursday, September 8, 2016 - 11:14
Unfortunately music is a bit tougher. There's tons of great songs on OGA but not a ton of 'complete' sets. You're best bet might be to fish around for a song you like and then see if the musician who wrote it has submitted any other songs.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - 10:30
I'll second the LPC recommendation. If the license works for your project, the LPC set is huge and should definitely contain almost anything you'd need for a top-down RPG.
Only downside is that being so huge, you might have to do some digging to find everything you want.
If you're looking for a single submission set that covers the basics, try sharm's woderful tiny basic set:
One nice advantage to russpuppy's set is that it's relatively 'crude' style, aside from being wonderfully charming, should make it easier for you to kludge in your own 'programmer art' for any additional pieces you might need.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - 10:21
> Limitations are fun! They lead to creativity and finished games.
True on both counts!
> This resolution and screen size mean designing 8x8 tile rooms.
> That's really only big enough for one thing in each room, like one item pickup or one platforming challenge.
Yeah, that's exactly the concern that popped into my head. Currently working at 256x144 and finding it a challenge to fit things into a single screen, so when I saw 128x128 I shuddered a bit. :)
But what can I say, at least you seem to have a very good handle on the challenges before you!
I guess I think of two tidbits to toss out there:
a comment:
> scrolling on vanilla HTML5 isn't pretty on every device at the moment
This actually might work out to be for the best. At that resolution full screen scrolling can be pretty rough, at least for these old eyes anyway. Struggling to find the right words to describe it, but basically there's just so little 'look ahead' or 'look back' space on the screen, can be jarring and hard to keep track of everything. At best it feels like you are looking at the world through a tiny peephole and at worst it's a disorientating mess. Definitely a problem I've had trying to play some older GameBoy games.
a question:
Have you thought about using 8x8 tiles at all? Even sticking with 16x16 sprites, going 8x8 on the tiles/world grid might allow you to add a little more granularity to jumping etc. I'll add that one thing I've learned from studying surt's stuff if that visually 8x8 tiles can be a really powerful tool, not that you need any help there, game already looks incredible! ;)
Friday, September 2, 2016 - 15:14
Being the programmer here, I'll ask the boring techincal question, why 128x128 specifically? Just curious as that's actually a good bit short of true NES res, so seems like an even more daunting challenge to work with.
Just my two cents, I don't think the fault with search lies in the code. Search was working for a long time and then it stopped working. Since there isn't much active development going on with the site, it doesn't seem likely that a code change was responsible. Instead it seems more likely that something elsewhere in the system broke down, eg. a stuck query, something in scheduler not running anymore, max table size exceeded somewhere. Those are just total stabs in the dark, but you get the idea. It's possible the ultimate fix will be a code change, but I'm not sure just spelunking around the code base looking for errors is going to be that helpful. I think it will take a broader view of the entire system and its parts and how they fit together and what could go wrong with those connections to find the problem.
Personally, I would start by looking at search and queires it generates. I'd try running a few manually to see if that gets the same result as the web code displays. Then I'd take a look at the database tables the queries hit and try to understand how they are populated and why they might not be getting the right data anymore.
But again, I don't know anything about Drupal or how OGA is setup so that's just my naive guess at what would be a sensible approach.
Thanks!! These are all great changes!!
yuck. Let's not get lost in a game of 'where does all the patreon money go?'
I think it's sufficient to leave it at the funding is enough to keep the site up and running but not enough to pay for any active web development on it.
I am actually ok with the site going forward without active feature development. We can all dream of a million ways the site could be improved or new fizwidgets that could be added, but the reality is, the site as it is terrific. Maybe not perfect, maybe not up to all the latest fashions in web programming, but it certainly works well enough, otherwise it wouldn't see the traffic and continuous stream of submissions that it does.
However, I am very concerned that search is broken and has been broken for such a long time. There are a lot of things that can break and stay broken with the site, but search is not one of them.
I am not familar with PHP or Drupal, but I am a pretty seasoned developer and a quick study and more than happy to volunteer my time towards finding and fixing the search problem. Admins may private message me if they feel I could be of help in this capacity.
If there is anyone else from the community who has experience with PHP and Drupal and would like to volunteer their time towards fixing the search issue it'd be great to hear from them.
In the short term, I think it would very, very nice to post something to main page about the search issue.
Something along the lines of:
Search Issues
There is currently an issue with the search indexing on OGA which is preventing works newer than February 2016 from appearing in the search results. The problem is being investigated, however there is currently no ETA for getting it fixed. As a workaround, a 'Title' search option has been added to the search pages. This searches submissions by title only but side steps the indexing issue which is thwarting the main search feature and will return results newer than February 2016.
@dannorder: Yeah I see what you are saying, does seem like defaulting to a 'sort by date, desc' would make sense, especially if you are coming from the 'latest art' page.
I'll second MoonStar's suggestion. I don't know that it needs a slider or anything too fancy, just adding another row would be great.
The problem MoonStar describes is real and we've actually had an issue in recent memory where a problematic user was dumping submissions onto the site crowding out new work by other artists.
Ok, I'm here to keep this thread alive!
We're past six months that search has been broken now.
Again, I do certainly appreciate the work that goes into keeping OGA alive, but is there anything any of us can do to help get this issue addressed?
And could we get an update on the main page at least acknowledging the issue so new-comers and folks that have missed this thread have a way of knowing about the issue and the various work-arounds available?
Unfortunately music is a bit tougher. There's tons of great songs on OGA but not a ton of 'complete' sets. You're best bet might be to fish around for a song you like and then see if the musician who wrote it has submitted any other songs.
I'll second the LPC recommendation. If the license works for your project, the LPC set is huge and should definitely contain almost anything you'd need for a top-down RPG.
Only downside is that being so huge, you might have to do some digging to find everything you want.
If you're looking for a single submission set that covers the basics, try sharm's woderful tiny basic set:
http://opengameart.org/content/tiny-16-basic
or russpuppy's rpg set:
http://opengameart.org/content/rpg-tileset
One nice advantage to russpuppy's set is that it's relatively 'crude' style, aside from being wonderfully charming, should make it easier for you to kludge in your own 'programmer art' for any additional pieces you might need.
> Limitations are fun! They lead to creativity and finished games.
True on both counts!
> This resolution and screen size mean designing 8x8 tile rooms.
> That's really only big enough for one thing in each room, like one item pickup or one platforming challenge.
Yeah, that's exactly the concern that popped into my head. Currently working at 256x144 and finding it a challenge to fit things into a single screen, so when I saw 128x128 I shuddered a bit. :)
But what can I say, at least you seem to have a very good handle on the challenges before you!
I guess I think of two tidbits to toss out there:
a comment:
> scrolling on vanilla HTML5 isn't pretty on every device at the moment
This actually might work out to be for the best. At that resolution full screen scrolling can be pretty rough, at least for these old eyes anyway. Struggling to find the right words to describe it, but basically there's just so little 'look ahead' or 'look back' space on the screen, can be jarring and hard to keep track of everything. At best it feels like you are looking at the world through a tiny peephole and at worst it's a disorientating mess. Definitely a problem I've had trying to play some older GameBoy games.
a question:
Have you thought about using 8x8 tiles at all? Even sticking with 16x16 sprites, going 8x8 on the tiles/world grid might allow you to add a little more granularity to jumping etc. I'll add that one thing I've learned from studying surt's stuff if that visually 8x8 tiles can be a really powerful tool, not that you need any help there, game already looks incredible! ;)
Being the programmer here, I'll ask the boring techincal question, why 128x128 specifically? Just curious as that's actually a good bit short of true NES res, so seems like an even more daunting challenge to work with.
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