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2x0ng is a procedural puzzle-combat roguelike game rendered in an 8-bit retro style. Pronounce it "TOO-zong". You control a little pixel-person running through a procedurally-generated maze; with your bouncing, color-changing Squareball, you can match colors to unlock new areas, and destroy an onslaught of enemies as you make your way to the exit. The rest of the rules are for you to discover in-game.

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After collecting more user feedback and some more playtesting of my own, I've released a new version 1.8 of 2x0ng with a few fairly significant gameplay and difficulty-level changes.


First of all, the Squareball was a bit too powerful on its return trip, which meant you could kill some of the minibosses with a single shot. This isn't really what was intended, so I've limited the Squareball to only three consecutive hits per enemy before it explodes and returns to the player. Using the Squareball's return-shot is still an important technique against bosses, but no longer will this allow you to one-shot a boss. This particularly affects the final boss fight.

Speaking of the final boss---he no longer gets stuck in the bricks where you can pick him off. Instead he will gradually bash through layers of bricks, and is generally more aggressive.

Perhaps the most significant change in 2x0ng 1.8 is the cranking up of the difficulty on the first twelve levels, so that the game is overall a bit harder than in the previous version. I also changed the mix of enemies in order to feature the trail-leaving Tracers a bit more prominently.

The result is that 2x0ng is now about as difficult as it's ever been---if not more, despite now having three lives.

The on-line help all refers now to SHIFT as the primary fire button for keyboard use, and SPACEBAR is listed only as an alternate. The reason for this is that many keyboards aren't capable of registering two arrow keys and the spacebar simultaneously---which leads to being unable to fire diagonally in 2x0ng. However, the Shift key will always be recognized for diagonal firing because it's a modifier key and thus will register alongside whatever other keys are pressed.

Lastly, the level exit's two states are marked more clearly with the words "EXIT" and "BOSS" respectively. This is in response to players who were confused as to why the level exit did not open. .

2x0ng 1.7, now also for Mac OSX!

2x0ng 1.7, now also for Mac OSX!

News

2x0ng 1.7 comes to Mac, Windows, and Linux with difficulty curve refinements and bugfixes.

2x0ng updated to 1.6

2x0ng updated to 1.6

News

This new release of 2x0ng fixes several combat and UI bugs.

Weekend 2x0ng news with v1.6 preview

Weekend 2x0ng news with v1.6 preview

News

Here's a look at what's coming up in the next version of 2x0ng.

2x0ng updated to 1.5

2x0ng updated to 1.5

News

This new version of 2x0ng includes several usability improvements and difficulty changes.

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2x0ng-wine-1.4

2x0ng-wine-1.4

Full Version

This is the Wine EXE version of 2x0ng 1.4, intended for Linux users running Wine. If you experience audio latency, try running 2x0ng.exe with the environment...

2x0ng-windows-1.4

2x0ng-windows-1.4

Full Version

Version 1.4 of 2x0ng is the same as the initial Desura release.

2x0ng-linux-1.4

2x0ng-linux-1.4

Full Version

Version 1.4 of 2x0ng is the same as the initial Desura release.

2x0ng-linux-1.4b

2x0ng-linux-1.4b

Full Version

This is a test of an alternate Linux build of 2x0ng 1.4, using the SBCL compiler. Only use this if you have problems with the regular 1.4 release.

2x0ng-windows-1.3

2x0ng-windows-1.3

Full Version

Version 1.3 of 2x0ng includes more frame-rate improvements and several bugfixes.

2x0ng-linux-1.3

2x0ng-linux-1.3

Full Version

Version 1.3 of 2x0ng includes more frame-rate improvements and several bug-fixes.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 38)
Eddward
Eddward

I just pulled an update tonight and now I can't play. I get the following error in .xsession-errors dumped repeatedly until I kill it.

debugger invoked on a SIMPLE-ERROR in thread
#<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {C61FCA9}>:
Error opening shared object "libSDL_gfx.so":
libSDL_gfx.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL.

restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
0: [CONTINUE ] Skip this shared object and continue.
1: [RETRY ] Retry loading this shared object.
2: [CHANGE-PATHNAME] Specify a different pathname to load the shared object from.

(SB-SYS:DLOPEN-OR-LOSE #S(SB-ALIEN::SHARED-OBJECT :PATHNAME #P"libSDL_gfx.so" :NAMESTRING "libSDL_gfx.so" :HANDLE NIL :DONT-SAVE NIL))
0]

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dto Creator
dto

Hi, can you try uninstalling the game completely, and then reinstalling it?

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Eddward
Eddward

It still reports the errors in the .xsession-errors file.

debugger invoked on a TYPE-ERROR in thread
#<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {C61FCA9}>:
The value NIL is not of type (OR (AND SYMBOL (NOT NULL)) RESTART).

Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL.

restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
0: [ABORT ] Reduce debugger level (to debug level 1).
1: [CONTINUE ] Skip this shared object and continue.
2: [RETRY ] Retry loading this shared object.
3: [CHANGE-PATHNAME] Specify a different pathname to load the shared object from.

(INVOKE-RESTART NIL) [more,optional]
0[2]
0]

I think the root cause is still the same, but the log is huge. It's hard to tell if I'm looking at the same error.

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Eddward
Eddward

I just cd'ed into the directory and ran ./2x0ng.bin and got

=============

debugger invoked on a SIMPLE-ERROR in thread
#<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {C618CB1}>:
Error opening shared object "libSDL_gfx.so":
libSDL_gfx.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL.

restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
0: [CONTINUE ] Skip this shared object and continue.
1: [RETRY ] Retry loading this shared object.
2: [CHANGE-PATHNAME] Specify a different pathname to load the shared object from.

(SB-SYS:DLOPEN-OR-LOSE #S(SB-ALIEN::SHARED-OBJECT :PATHNAME #P"libSDL_gfx.so" :NAMESTRING "libSDL_gfx.so" :HANDLE NIL :DONT-SAVE NIL))
0]

===========

I'm on Mint 14. I don't see a package in the repo for libSDL_gfx. The only copies of libSDL_gfx I see are either desura or steam games. Setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH and copying a 32bit version of libSDL_gfx.so.13 (renamed to libSDL_gfx.so) did not help. I'm not sure where it is looking to find the library.

Let me know if you want me to do anything from the debugger. Also let me know if there's a different forum where you'd like to debug it.

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dto Creator
dto

Can you email me at dto@blocky.io to sort it out? BTW on Mint 15 here, the packages are called libsdl-gfx1.2-4 and libsdl-gfx-1.2-dev

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dto Creator
dto

Hello. If you choose the "CONTINUE" option by typing "0" and then pressing return, it should work for now. I'll fix this issue ASAP, thanks for taking the time to report this and providing the error message.
Please let me know whether the CONTINUE option functions as a workaround for now---I'm pretty sure it should.

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dto Creator
dto

I just realized you can't choose CONTINUE if Desura is pumping the messages to .xsession-errors. If you are able to start the game from the command line, CONTINUE should work. Sorry for any confusion---I'll contact Desura about the issue and see what's changed. In the meantime, you may have an easier time with the standalone download for Linux: Blocky.io where running it from the terminal will let you choose CONTINUE.

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Eddward
Eddward

It just dawned on me, sbcl. I thought that looked like a condition handler. You rock! I wouldn't have thought CL would package up nicely.

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dto Creator
dto

Yes :) the whole game is written in Common Lisp. The build process is a bit of a black art, but I'm in the process of writing up and sharing my recipes.

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Eddward
Eddward

It's no problem. I could probably compile my own version. I just thought I'd share. It's a fun "pickup" game.

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dto Creator
dto

So glad you enjoy the game :)

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Eddward
Eddward

It looks like desura bundles this library as
.desura/tools/116/libSDL_gfx.so.13,
.desura/tools/117/libSDL_gfx.so.13,
.desura/games/16115/2094/lib/libSDL_gfx.so.13,
.desura/games/21729/6437/lib/libSDL_gfx.so.13.

The 2 Dirk Dashing games bundle their own copy.

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