DCSquares 2.0 has been released for Mac and Windows! This version features a brand new default theme, a new high score system, and improved gameplay. Because of the gameplay changes, the high score ladder has been reset.

The Linux and Dreamcast versions should be available this weekend.

The game uses OpenGL for the graphics. I chose OpenGL because it's pretty fast (assuming you have a 3D card) and also pretty portable.

The timing for the squares is a combination of a few things. Every game tick, the game choose a random number, and if that number is within a certain range, it creates a square. It will also create a square if there are less than 3 other squares on the board. It's a bit more complicated than that, because the frequency of the squares will increase as you progress through the game, but that's a pretty general description of how it works.

I can't release the full source without compromising the online score ladder, but I'm always willing to provide snippits and tips.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoy the game :)

-Sam

The number of squares is stored in the score codes, but isn't sent by the built in score submitter. I'll probably add it in a later version, but I figured the combo and score were more interesting, and I didn't want the score table to get too wide (it barely fits on 800x600 as it is).

Also, the playing field in classic only looks bigger, they're actually the same size, it just scales the screen down in the default theme. The squares are a slightly different size, but not enough to greatly change the difficulty.

-Sam

Oh one suggestion on pausing (for the next minor/major release) - on pause grab the mouse X and Y positions and on resume just before the game starts going again move the mouse back to its spot at the time of pausing

I see what you mean about the timings and pausing.

Oh btw it seems that if you change the volume using the volume keys on a Mac, while the picture of a speaker is on the screen the game slows quite a bit. Someone could essentially keep hitting the vol down key or something and use that to their benefit - if they can manage to pay enough attention to the game while doing it.

Yeah, the same thing happens with growl notifications. I think it has to do with the way OS X handles the translucency. I don't think there's anything I can do about it :?

Maybe its the one thing Quartz doesn't hand over to the GPU?

What version of OS X are you using? Try deleting the plist file from Library/Preferences/DCSquares.plist.

Also, the scores without times are mentioned in the FAQ as well as in a post on the forums. People who enter a score code instead of using the automatic score submitter will not have a time recorded.

-Sam

Hmm. Well, the only thing I can think of is try downloading 2.0 again and trashing the old version. The list of themes is populated by scanning DCSquares.app/Contents/Resources/themes and displaying all the directories that are inside there. If you've browsed that directory with Finder, make sure to delete any .DS_Store files it created, because those will interfere with the directory scanning.

-Sam