So, the first adventures out in the wild last night with Jet Set Willy Online, and in “oh just typical” luck – there’s a pretty irritating crash bug in there courtesy of the network code (Not our fault, guv!). Whilst its perfectly possible to play the game with the full complement of 16 people in (providing your internets hold out) if someone joins whilst you’re in game, then there’s a chance the thing will go *poof* before your eyes.

However, we’re still pressing on all systems go for a Rodent launch in a few days as everything else seems to be fine. Stu’s going to take a look into shifting the network code over to Raknet, which offers the benefit that the server won’t be reliant on DirectX as well as hopefully crushing the crash bug stone dead.

Other than the irritation of the crash bug (which given the amount of people attempting to pile onto my game for the first 20 minutes was inevitable that if there was a bug, it’d show up then) it went pretty swimmingly. It really is a shitload of fun just wandering around, spying on people and avoiding Scottige’s attempts at bumming me off my wheelchair. And despite having to leg off far earlier than I anticipated to do some kitchen bumph, I still ended up playing for quite a few hours diving into other peoples servers (and triggering the crash bug at least once…)

I’ve taken the file down for the time being whilst the Rodent team get the new issue together, but it’ll be back up again soon enough.

If you were one of the few who grabbed the file and want to avoid the crash bug of doom, then just make sure that everyone is in the lobby before you begin and you’ll be fine and we’ll keep rummaging under the bonnet for a while to get it all fixed.

I wonder if anyone will go to the trouble of mapping the game…and if so, will they manage to find all the rooms?