Crash Report: Conquest Sasquatch Level Thread - Caveman Craig 2

Version 1.05

Due to the difficulty of the map with the increased number and frequency of the dangerous dinosaurs proving to be the biggest challenge, after making a tribe of aproximately 50 cavemen sized tribe to finish the map, the game crashes with a message but is unable to close the game. so is locked up, other than by ctrl alt delete and bringing up the task manager to kill the window.

Edited by: CanadianWolverine

Hi mate,
Best thing to do there is email us the "pbx_errorlog.log" file located in the installation directory of the game. Send it to rhys (at) paraboxgames (dot) com. It's possible that you began to run out of memory as more and more types of dinosaurs became present on the screen at once (turning down "Scenery" will fix this).

On an unrelated note, thanks for your review - they were all valid points. Just a few notes though..
A lot of the XP rewards can be useful in more ways than one, often quite subtle. For example, an earthquake or meteor strike can assist you in bringing down checkpoints. And "stinky meat" could be used either to put pressure on the enemy tribe OR bring all the dinosaurs to your side so you can get more meat.

I've seen some great come backs both from the CPU and player when on their last breath - it's been rather exciting to watch.

I've also seen the strategy change drastically from level to level. For example, in later levels I rarely buy any gatherers after the first couple. Instead I use natural selection and teachers to build a large tribe of veteran preparers - a majority of the vicious dinosaurs in this level are only preparable on the battlefield, and so gatherers aren't as important. This is also because the map is larger and so dragging dinosaurs becomes a longer process. In the 2nd or 3rd level there are a lot of pterodactyls - they drain the energy of cavemen really fast. This usually lead me to thinking more about scheduling cavemen sleep patterns or purchasing towers to take down the pterodactyls early. Despite this, I've seen some people play a very static strategy that more or less worked for them. Other people like to experiment. We tried to accommodate all playing styles.

The "Survival" element of this is mostly pointing at the "Classic" game mode, which the original Caveman Craig was centred around. In classic mode, there is no enemy tribe - you must simply last as long as you can before being overrun.

Does the log file save all the times it crashed or overwrite with just the last time it crashed? I ask because if it overwrites, this is going to be a crash related to the beat the T-Rex final level.

Ok, I sent off the log file.

And I suspect you are correct, IIRC, when it crashed there were packs of dinosaurs on screen ... and probably off as well, the game tracks all objects on the entire map, correct? Perhaps there is an upper limit on the number of characters that could just be capped? Because if the game has a memory leak, I mean, that is how I am taking what you wrote.

In regards to the review, if you like I can converse with you about that more privately but since you remarked about it here I will do so as well. Thank you for respecting my opinion as a paid customer. I tend to like that I don't end up reading through replies to the reviews I give here on Desura, I just hope if I did a decent review that it will be reflected in how my review is voted, I try to share the info I do in a fashion I hope helps my fellow gamers but not necissarily the developer. I am concerned now I was a bit rude in the review and think I will look it over to see if I might word it less harshly. I would like you to know, I do go back and edit my reviews when new versions come out and you do make some good points as well, I could see how other's game play could go differently based on what they unlock - I didn't unlock all the special abilities that could be bought even though I completed every level available.

If it helps any, my strategy that didn't really need much changing that I developed when I played the demo (so I was hoping I would be presented with new challenges in the full version) was to make a ratio of 1 food prep : 1 gatherer : 2 hunters and evenly distribute the times they would sleep among them. Then, when I reached about 10-20 hunters, I would begin my assault on the opposing tribe and they would go down pretty quick, the specials I would buy would just kinda be insult to injury that the AI wouldn't even really notice but hey, the overkill was fun as I noted. In the later levels, I would use catapults to protect the base. If I am honest, I never even touched the earthquake with because of its relative cost in constance hunter/gatherer/prep work the main character had to do in relation to its one time use and I didn't even unlock meteor strike. I did make use of the meat on a stick on occasion but it lacked effectiveness IMHO due to what seemed like the semi-random generation of dinosaurs, it quickly just sat there doing nothing with its green bar going down, so I wrote it off. I found the campfire, target practice, elders, catapults, etc to have much more long term sustaining use for the points I earned - only reinforcements seemed effective for its cost and I often only used that on the initial rush because if I was having to use it in the cave, that attempt at the map was already boned because my main just became the only source of meat/fruit/protection, easily pinned in place by the opponents and dinosaurs, no new credits from meat being generated. Without the neccessary economy going, there were no replacements let alone respawns - if I had been saving my special points up, that would have been a waste when rather getting my tribe advanced and any new recruits quickly trained gained special points WAY quicker.

Where the unlocks seemed to shine the most was in Classic mode but those same unlocks just brought about a new disappointment for me - taking out the T-Rex nest didn't let me use any of the specials in the fight.

This is the part where I say it probably wasn't you or your game really, I probably came into the game with delusional high hopes with memories of a old shareware game Caveman Sim tucked away safely in my memories where I chipped away stone tools and collected berries, desperately searching for shelter and water. Plus another gamer said your game was awesome, so I gave it a shot anyways despite the demo not really doing it for me. Oh well, see, my own fault really but I can't help but shake that cheap ass part of myself that wishes he had paid less and I don't know how telling someone you think their stuff is worth less than what you paid is not insulting - and its totally ok if you call me on it and say you deserve every bit of my ~$10 (minus whatever cut others get), I know that making games can't be easy, especially with opinionated tossers like me around

While everyone thus far save a very small handful including yourself have been happy with the price, it does not make your opinion that $10 is not worth it any less valid.
The game does not have a memory leak - instead, resources are loaded and unloaded as required. The 'cap' depends on the system you are running. For me, I could load every single resource in the game at once - including menus, all dinosaurs, levels, etc.. and the game would not crash. But then I have a very high end system. This is why I suggested turning down the scenery - as this stops the game from loading some large textures and might be enough to allow the game to run stable. This is an issue with any intensive game (2D Games can be surprisingly relatively more intensive than 3D games because there are a lot of textures and not much realtime rendering).

Just some ideas relating to your strategy..
Training cavemen is not a difficult task later on if you start buying in bulk. So instead of buying a hunter, gatherer, and preparer, it's effectively three times more efficient to get 3 gatherers as they all learn at the same time. Early on that's not an easy thing to do, later on, it is. Then you have more XP to spend on special items. I've seen people try your strategy and fail badly - they just can't grow and manage that fast and really needed to rely on more tactical special items. For us, there's only so much testing we can do to make sure it's perfect for every player but we think we did a fairly good job there. You may have been one to fall between the cracks a little. As a side note, the 'meat on a stick' only deteriorates IF there are dinosaurs in the level. So if you place one and dinosaurs don't appear for ages, you aren't any worse off. If you were left with just your main checkpoint and needed to fight back - that is absolutely what reinforcements are for, and you could also then consider using meat on a stick and fruit hedges to keep your tribe growing by attracting all the herbivores AND carnivores to your tribe.

I hope that is helpful. Don't think that your point is invalid though, it's very helpful and it is an accurate representation of what your game experience was like - which is important.

P.S the log files keeps a running log of all errors from every play

In the interest of helping, did the log give my system specs?

I don't know why it slipped my mind to have them in the Original Post, that is like standard procedure for crash reports, sorry. I'll rectify that right now (taken from dxdiag):

------------------System Information------------------Time of this report: 3/27/2012, 23:57:26 Machine name: WNER-PC Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.111118-2330) Language: English (Regional Setting: English)System Manufacturer: Acer System Model: Aspire X1420 BIOS: Default System BIOS Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 645 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz Memory: 4096MB RAMAvailable OS Memory: 4096MB RAM Page File: 2387MB used, 5801MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 11DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: Using System DPI System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode

---------------Display Devices--------------- Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip type: GeForce GT 430 DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DE1&SUBSYS_0828196E&REV_A1 Display Memory: 2785 MB Dedicated Memory: 993 MB Shared Memory: 1791 MB Current Mode: 1366 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor Monitor Model: Acer P186HL Monitor Id: ACR019D Native Mode: 1366 x 768(p) (59.790Hz) Output Type: HD15 Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2umDriver File Version: 8.17.0012.7533 (English) Driver Version: 8.17.12.7533 DDI Version: 11 Driver Model: WDDM 1.1 Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: 5/24/2011 23:09:12, 15223912 bytes WHQL Logo'd: Yes

Ok, nothing wrong with the specs, there.
Again, are you loading a game andg etting these errors, or are the errors occuring during new games, too?

New games too and by new game I think you mean when I click on a circle to start up the level. I particularily brought up this crash because it was repeatable, though I could not pin down exactly what it was but given the size of my tribe plus all the dinosaurs, I think you were on to something about that having some reason why it would do that, since it didn't seem to happen on any other level. Oddly enough, no crashes in classic, even though I end up litterally covering just about the entire map in dinosaur carcasses thanks to liberal use of catapults

Ok, interesting enough.
I will do some further digging! Thank you for helping me.

-Rhys