PYRAMID PLUNDER IS ON SALE NOW. BUY BUY BUY. GO GO GO.

Arkhan Asylum · 02/28/2013, 07:26 PM

It's on sale.

CLICK HERE AND BUY IT NOW!

DISREGARD ALL THE STUFF DOWN THERE. IT WAS TOTALLY A MARCH FOOLS JOKE.

......Might be a bit delayed.

There was a bit of a mishap that took out the computer PP was on. One of those industrial work-lamps with the big incandescent bulbs crashed down onto the machine while they were both on, and the resultant crash-bang-boom screwed up the computer.

OldMan gave me a call (which isn't normal since he rarely uses phones) to tell me what was up. I went and surveyed the damage.

Yeah, the computer is a bit... special now. The blast took out the video card, the HDD, and maybe more things. We will see.

We're going to work out what all went byebye Pyramid Plunder wise, but so far it looks like we've lost some of the most recent changes to the game. The USB backups might be recoverable and accessible once we're done fiddledicking around and getting the components in the machine replaced and the entire thing is back up and running.

Worst (most likely, given the current evidence) case scenario, we're going to be delayed about 2 months as we see what we can salvage after repairing the machine. Then we have to put it all back into the game, retest everything, and make sure we didn't miss anything major.

It could've been worse!

Maybe?

.. yeah, no, this sucks...

I will keep you posted. OldMan probably won't do much posting seeing as his computer is exploded and all.

Fingers crossed, people!

PCEngineHell · 02/28/2013, 07:37 PM

I'm surprised you guys didn't make a few back ups of each change stored at different locations, but sometimes unforeseeable shit just happens anyway and that is probably being over protective maybe anyhow. Hopefully you guys get it back up and going pretty quick without too much trouble, and sorry to hear that happened.

DragonmasterDan · 02/28/2013, 08:09 PM

Sorry to hear about the bad news! Hopefully the data can be recovered

ParanoiaDragon · 02/28/2013, 08:22 PM

I am outraged! How could you let this happen!?! We here at Frozen Utopia would never let such mundane things happen to our games! Infact, we release all our games several years earlier then we plan, that's how great we are!

All seriousness aside, that sucks, spit happens though. Time & unforeseen circumstance. I'm sure ya'll be up & running in no time, no worries Arky, people will wait!

Arkhan Asylum · 02/28/2013, 09:17 PM

Yeah I guess we didn't exactly plan for lightbulb Armageddon damage.

henrycsc · 02/28/2013, 09:51 PM

Go figure! I had a dream that this project had gone the way of PC Cocoron and that the only living copy would wind up in a museum somewhere.

Does this mean we can trash-talk, since OldMan won't be around to defend himself?

BigusSchmuck · 02/28/2013, 10:17 PM

You know if you guys are running Windows 7 and have a usb backup hard drive the backup utility on Win7 is superb especially the image part. I have recovered soooo many machines with it at work it ain't funny. If you guys are looking for a another pc, I may be able to help you out as I got one that needs a power supply and a hard drive. Its got a 4870 Radeon 1gb gddr5 video card in it, 4 gigs of RAM, Phenom 2 quadcore @ 3.0ghz, full atx tower case and a ide dvd drive. I might even part it out as there really isn't anything wrong with it. Let me know....

PCEngineHell · 02/28/2013, 11:18 PM

Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/28/2013, 09:17 PMYeah I guess we didn't exactly plan for lightbulb Armageddon damage.

Ha yeah seriously. Sometimes shit just happens. It cant be helped, and at least it doesn't look like it will set you back too much time wise. Well, Bigus made a offer there, but I also have some spare ram too I can contribute if you need some to get a system going again. I have some DDR2 and DDR3 both, though the DDR3 is ECC so you'd need to make sure the board can handle it. If you need some drop me a pm.

NightWolve · 03/01/2013, 02:02 AM

Does the HDD spin up at all when connected to another outside power source ?? Well, I hope you can salvage it. If it at least spins up, there's a chance to do it yourself with software like GetDataBackforNTFS which has bailed me out from boot or early sector damage many times. If it that's important, and it doesn't, I should think it's possible to take it to professionals to take out the platters, put 'em in another similar model (I guess that's partly how they do it), spin it up and see what files can be salvaged off. Disaster Recovery services are still pretty damn expensive though, eh ?? Well, I guess the better bet is the USB backup that you mention.

TheClash603 · 03/01/2013, 02:21 AM

Yikes.

Best of luck fixing the shitz.

SuperPlay · 03/01/2013, 05:02 AM

Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 02/28/2013, 09:17 PMYeah I guess we didn't exactly plan for lightbulb Armageddon damage.

"lightbulb Armageddon" LOL

However on a serious note your situation does suck big time! This is a release I was looking forward too.

Is the PC totally dead? Have you re-seated all components?

Also if you PC powers on but does not boot: As NightWolve says you may be OK, if the drive does spin and not clatter! +1 for GetDataBackforNTFS we use this at work and it has saved our bacon a few times!

You can get a trial of the software here:

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Also you could always pick up an external drive adapter and connect the drive to another PC. Something similar to

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4251235&Sku=YYS2-4378878

If you decide to pick one of these up make sure that you have the correct interface on the adapter (eg if this is an PATA laptop drive)

Sorry if you already know this stuff!

If I was not 5000 miles+ away I would pop over to give you a hand! However I can still offer you any advice that you need (if I can).

God luck!

Nazi NecroPhile · 03/01/2013, 09:14 AM

Meh, shit happens. I wasn't expecting anything anytime soon anyway, but ya might want to look at doing more regular backups going forward.

Arkhan Asylum · 03/01/2013, 11:03 AM

Quote from: NecroPhile on 03/01/2013, 09:14 AMMeh, shit happens. I wasn't expecting anything anytime soon anyway, but ya might want to look at doing more regular backups going forward.

Well, we do, but that was also part of Bulbageddon.

Shoulda backed it up to a CD-RW!

NightWolve · 03/01/2013, 11:18 AM

No more details on that HDD ? You've written it off ??

Arkhan Asylum · 03/01/2013, 11:25 AM

No, just haven't had time quite yet on my end and won't until tonight.

OldMan's probably working on it right now though. That or he's eating lunch and swearing at it.

_Paul · 03/01/2013, 12:44 PM

We'll have to look at the ending sequence again, Arkhan had the final files with all the palettes sorted which took ages because of their fiddly nature. I have the raw art but it's not paletted properly. We might just have to bin some of the more complex elements as I'm not going through all that again.

spenoza · 03/01/2013, 04:25 PM

Sorry to hear about the loss of progress. I'm sure we don't mind the delays nearly as much as you mind having to re-do some hard work.

discomeats · 03/01/2013, 05:27 PM

I don't want to make light of this situation but hopefully it should illuminate the need for making sure you take more care in your work environment. But it's good to know that you've fought on to make sure it all happens, even if it is later than you'd hoped.

Nazi NecroPhile · 03/01/2013, 05:45 PM

... make light... illuminate...

Heh, you're a card.

Arkhan Asylum · 03/01/2013, 08:25 PM

ok, so

the mobo seems okay (it passes POST checks), but the video card is fried.

The HDD card (on drive) is fried - OldMan gets garbage characters in the ID for a MAXTOR drive, and a disk dump in Linux is showing some bits as 0, always.

The backup drive hasn't been fully examined yet. We have plenty of computers to replace the dead one if it comes to that.

The machine in question was running XP. It'll take some time to get all the drivers/crap reinstalled.

Overall, we only lost about 2 weeks of work, but it may take that long to rebuild the computer when all is said and done (It probably won't. Depends how fried things are once a new system drive is tossed in and we see what else is messed up). And, this is assuming the backup drive didn't get fried too .

NightWolve · 03/03/2013, 06:55 PM

Hmm, so it spins up, registers as a hard drive when connected and all that, but reads nothing but zeros, plus the manufacturer info returns garbage... The jolt of electrical blast either did a mass format or the circuitry/heads simply fail to work when it comes to reading, etc. I guess, yeah, it would take professionals to get something out of that drive now, sad to say...

If he's absolutely sure, he had a program that read the drive from start to finish and it only returned zeros, then I guess you can write that drive off. If it was me, I would get DriveImage (http://runtime.org/data-recovery-products.htm) to create a compressed backup image of the drive and save it to another computer. If it's nothing but zeros, as you say, then the compressed image would be small. I would leave it running before I go to sleep and see what happens in the morning. If the resulting image is in gigabytes, then that means there is something to work with and salvage. So the next program I'd want to use is DiskExplorer (Just checked, yeah, they have a Linux version). This program opens up a hex looking editor interface to the actual drive or a drive image and allows you to scan the whole thing sector by sector for unique strings or bytes of what you want to recover and know is actually on there. I'd connect it to this drive image and I'd do a Find Text using a unique string from one of the project's source files. Like if you had something unique like "pyramid++;" in a C source file and what not, you'd start the search, leave it running all night, go to sleep, and if fragments of the file still exist, it'd find it! This method assumes that most MFTs are destroyed and most files are considered "lost" so something like GetDataBack can't do automated recovery, so you have to manually recover some files that you really need using this approach... I have done it myself successfully actually.

Personal note: This made me think it's probably worth the trouble to upgrade the outlet for one's computer center to a GFCI receptacle... I would assume Oldman had the standard power strip with 15 Amp circuit breaker, plus surge protection and this lamp was plugged in from the same outlet (but not necessarily through the same power strip). When this work-lamp hit the metal chassis of the PC, breaking the bulb, exposing the metal contacts and Bulbageddon ensued, at best you only had 15 Amp overload protection as it was arcing and sending electrical current into the PC...

If the outlet was a GFCI type, this disaster would've been detected as leakage in milliseconds and the breaker would've been tripped far earlier than from the 15 Amp overload protection by itself (wherever this lamp was plugged, the house electrical service panel likely had a 15 Amp breaker at least) or from the fact that the bulb metal material would fry itself on the chassis and eventually stop conducting current with no 15 Amp overload breakers actually being tripped (possible - did a breaker trip and cut power off OR did it fry itself allowing him to unplug it without that happening?)! Anyway, yeah, that's why you have to have these expensive outlets in the kitchen, bathroom, etc. because they trip on leakage, not just on overload, to prevent electric shock and possible death. New blow dryers usually include them on the plug in case your home doesn't have such outlets (new homes must be built with them per NEC codes). More modern homes I believe just have this support from the service panel actually along with surge protection, so even better.

Arkhan Asylum · 03/03/2013, 09:32 PM

So, the backups worked way better than we expected.

Look at them!

So, with this, the game is officially on sale!

www.aetherbyte.com/pce_pyramid.html

I would like to thank all of you for:
1) Not flipping-the-hell out at the "delays".
2) Going above and beyond to offer help and assistance in the matter of fixing things. That kind of attitude is what makes this stuff worth the effort.

and also, I would like to thank you all in advance for:
1) Not kicking me in the nuts the next time you see me for pulling a prank on you all.

The posters you see in the picture will be on sale here first, as soon as I find some nice tubes to ship them in. They are going to be 10$.

The sweet banner you see dangling there will NOT be on sale, but, it will be dangling off the table at CCAG 2013 where we will be demoing the latest build of Atlantean and Inferno,

and we will be selling Pyramid Plunder and Insanity, as always

The proceeds from sales will be used to help fund the AbCard. Speaking of the AbCard, we will be posting the Protocade games and stuff on Aetherbyte.com very shortly as well. That way you can all check those out, and see what went into them.

OBEY PCE.

go go go!

NightWolve · 03/03/2013, 10:06 PM

Ah fuck, you SOB! We got "punked" on something like this ?? Pffffft. Goddamn it! I feel so stupid for buying his story; I rationalized the plausibility of it, bulb breaking on the metal chassis of a PC, arc'ing for a bit and sending raw 120V AC into it if only for a second or two before the breaker tripped and what not. But then, technically, the grounded chassis/body of a PC shouldn't be connected to the motherboard and damage shouldn't have occurred in theory unless you're dealing with super high voltages, so I dunno... All that said, this was Arkhan...... Fuck, and I wondered why he was passing posts and questions by, not really taking the advice too seriously, etc... Naw, that shit wasn't cool, dude... Not at all!

Mishran · 03/03/2013, 10:23 PM

Awesome guys! I'll be placing an order for one soon.

So Atlantean comes next, then Retrocade?

Arkhan Asylum · 03/03/2013, 10:30 PM

Quote from: NightWolve on 03/03/2013, 10:06 PMAh fuck, you SOB! We got "punked" on something like this ?? Pffffft. Goddamn it! I feel so stupid for buying his story; I rationalized the plausibility of it, bulb breaking on the metal chassis of a PC, arc'ing for a bit and sending raw 120V AC into it if only for a second or two before the breaker tripped and what not. But then, technically, the grounded chassis/body of a PC shouldn't be connected to the motherboard and damage shouldn't have occurred in theory unless you're dealing with super high voltages, so I dunno... All that said, this was Arkhan...... Fuck, and I wondered why he was passing posts and questions by, not really taking the advice too seriously, etc... Naw, that shit wasn't cool, dude... Not at all!

*hug*

You still love me, right?

BigusSchmuck · 03/03/2013, 10:32 PM

Quote from: NightWolve on 03/03/2013, 10:06 PMAh fuck, you SOB! We got "punked" on something like this ?? Pffffft. Goddamn it! I feel so stupid for buying his story; I rationalized the plausibility of it, bulb breaking on the metal chassis of a PC, arc'ing for a bit and sending raw 120V AC into it if only for a second or two before the breaker tripped and what not. But then, technically, the grounded chassis/body of a PC shouldn't be connected to the motherboard and damage shouldn't have occurred in theory unless you're dealing with super high voltages, so I dunno... All that said, this was Arkhan...... Fuck, and I wondered why he was passing posts and questions by, not really taking the advice too seriously, etc... Naw, that shit wasn't cool, dude... Not at all!

I thought it was funny.

But seriously though, it wouldn't surprise me if a bulb did crash into the mobo and kill everything if it was some cheapie PC chips motherboard or something. Here I was talling up yet another project DOA due to hardware failure (I doubt anyone remembers the Dragon Quest V fiasco). Anyway, looks like I need to buy yet another homebrewn gem!

Arkhan Asylum · 03/03/2013, 10:35 PM

The story is based off something that really happened though.

BigusSchmuck · 03/03/2013, 10:37 PM

Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 03/03/2013, 10:35 PMThe story is based off something that really happened though.

About the only time I have ever seen a motheboard lite up was when my boss put in a pciepxress connector where you were supposed to put in the 4 pin power connector. It actually blew the capacitors on the board.

BlueBMW · 03/03/2013, 10:41 PM

Ordered! Cmon peeps, pony up and buy dis shit!

BigusSchmuck · 03/03/2013, 10:42 PM

When I get paid in 4 days I'll buy a copy.

Bardoly · 03/03/2013, 10:45 PM

Congratulations on the release!

Now I just need to raid my piggy bank and order this. I don't see it mentioned in your description like Insanity, but I assume that this release is factory-pressed, and not just burned CDRs?

Bardoly · 03/03/2013, 10:50 PM

I support Turbo homebrew!

I just ordered my copy.

ParanoiaDragon · 03/03/2013, 10:55 PM

Arky, you bastard!

Ordered! BTW, I noticed that I can only order 1 copy. I thought about buying 2, maybe there's a way to change the quantity in Pay Pal??

Arkhan Asylum · 03/03/2013, 11:01 PM

Of course it's pressed! Only the best for OBEYing

EDIT:

Hmmm, let me see if I can do the quantity thing in Paypal.

EDIT 2: Hmmmmm. I don't a way to do it. I can only add more shipping options. No quantity screwing arounding.

well, that's kinda dumb.

I'll keep looking into it. I just need to find out where it saved shipping options so I can get it off of Priority Mode, since priority has gone up significantly (25$ international!)

EDIT 3: Man! All the links that take you to "editing your shipping options" all go to this new page that doesn't even HAVE anything related to editing shipping preferences and available options.

If anyone here has an idea about that, I am all ears!

If not, and you want to order a bunch of copies, just e-mail me.

OldMan · 03/04/2013, 12:18 AM

For everyone who really wants to know....

He's not joking. I really did knock a light (a swing arm lamp) into the chassis of a computer.
Interestingly, the mobo itself was un-harmed (and I'm still using it - it's a Pentium I ), probably because it was on plastic stand-offs.

However, the video and HDD died. One of the Ram chips popped (ie, the plastic blew off) on the video card.
More interestingly, some of the address/data lines died on the HD. When I tried to recover stuff from
it via linux, I could read the drive (though the geometry was wrong).
A dd (disc to disc copy) to another drive showed repeating blocks from the drive, which is how I know
some of the address lines died. And when I examined the copy, some of the bits in the data were consistantly
wrong. I used a hex editor to view the dumped copy against a hex edit of a standard windows HD. By comparing
the two, I could see which bits were consistantly wrong. At that point, it was not worth trying to recover.

Yes, the lamp and the computer were on the same power strip. Apparently the power strip was not quick enough, as this accident blew the fuse in the main fusebox. Don't know if a GFI would have helped, but I'll keep it in mind.
And needless to say, the lamps around my work area are now florescents - I hope they won't fry anything if I do it again

And thanks for all the offers of help. Fortunately, I have probably a half-dozen or so computers floating around in various states of repair. When something bad happens to one, I can usually salvage what I need from another one.
Since I use XP for building this stuff (Anything higher has problems with HuC), offers of newer computers won't help. Most won't run XP, anyway. At least, not the ones I've tried.

For the record, though, I used to do data recover on a semi-professional basis for a few companies in the area. When drives 'died' people who worked there and knew me would bring them over, and I and a few friends would have a go at them. Out of about 20 drives, there was only 1 we couldn't recover 90%+ of the data from. The professional place they sent that drive to charged them $2K, only to tell them the head had come loose, and there was nothing they or anyone else could do, because it destroyed the platters while bouncing around inside the drive.

That's when I quit doing it for fun.

VestCunt · 03/04/2013, 03:02 AM

HOLY SHIT. Ordered. Nice to see black trays making a comeback.

Quote from: BlueBMW on 03/03/2013, 10:41 PMOrdered! Cmon peeps, pony up and buy dis shit!

Seriously. I don't want to see anyone signing up for a PP raffle three months from now.

henrycsc · 03/04/2013, 06:13 AM

Congrats guys!

I tried to egg everyone on to no success.

Everyone - you're in for a treat! Superb game!

Ark, USPS has priority rate poster tubes that you can get for free. They'll deliver them to your house too if you order them from their website.

small
https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?categoryNav=false&navAction=jump&navCount=0&productId=P_O_1098S&categoryId=subcatMSS_PriorityMail

medium
https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?categoryNav=false&navAction=jump&navCount=0&productId=P_O_1098M&categoryId=subcatMSS_PriorityMail

I think they both are probably big enough for you to ship a game and a poster in one tube. They are't flat rate though, so you'd have to get a ship est based on weight for each place you send it.

If you haven't shipped mine yet, I'd like to add a poster as well. I'll shoot you an email.

TheClash603 · 03/04/2013, 07:09 AM

Got my order in last night.

Was weird, I fell asleep and when I woke up I checked the site for a minute. I noticed the preorder available and I sent in for one. I then fell back asleep.

Now that I am waking up for work I had to double check I wasn't dreaming the whole thing. Sleep shopping could end up being a real problem, I gotta keep my phone away from the bed at night. Next time I bet I wake up with a new Audi A4 in the driveway I can't afford.

Arkhan Asylum · 03/04/2013, 10:13 AM

Quote from: henrycsc on 03/04/2013, 06:13 AMCongrats guys!

I tried to egg everyone on to no success.

Everyone - you're in for a treat! Superb game!

Ark, USPS has priority rate poster tubes that you can get for free. They'll deliver them to your house too if you order them from their website.

small
https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?categoryNav=false&navAction=jump&navCount=0&productId=P_O_1098S&categoryId=subcatMSS_PriorityMail

medium
https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?categoryNav=false&navAction=jump&navCount=0&productId=P_O_1098M&categoryId=subcatMSS_PriorityMail

I think they both are probably big enough for you to ship a game and a poster in one tube. They are't flat rate though, so you'd have to get a ship est based on weight for each place you send it.

If you haven't shipped mine yet, I'd like to add a poster as well. I'll shoot you an email.

Yeah, the local post office had no poster tubes so I am going to just order some. I'd be leery of sticking a game in a poster tube though.

Once I get the poster tubes and find out shipping, I will let everyone know.

touko · 03/04/2013, 10:25 AM

LOL, this was a stupid joke arkhan

..

But congrats for the release, and all your team

spenoza · 03/04/2013, 10:27 AM

I think this was brought up before, but.... Any chance of seeing a Hu build of this? I seem to recall that it was designed with CD in mind, but I don't remember if a Hu release was ruled out altogether or was just unlikely.

Nazi NecroPhile · 03/04/2013, 10:33 AM

Heh, you tricky farkler. Order placed!

Arkhan Asylum · 03/04/2013, 10:37 AM

Quote from: touko on 03/04/2013, 10:25 AMLOL, this was a stupid joke arkhan ..

But congrats for the release, and all your team

It was fun, I think.

I thought about saying the game was cancelled completely and we were just going to release the last known beta we had of the game. but, I didn't feel like being responsible for heart attack related injuries.

Quote from: guest on 03/04/2013, 10:27 AMI think this was brought up before, but.... Any chance of seeing a Hu build of this? I seem to recall that it was designed with CD in mind, but I don't remember if a Hu release was ruled out altogether or was just unlikely.

Probably not. The game would have to be reprogrammed to not load data from CD, and instead use a mapper

jlued686 · 03/04/2013, 12:38 PM

Ordered!

Ark, you're the fucking man! Congrats on the release!

_Paul · 03/04/2013, 12:50 PM

Ooh, the banner came out OK. Looks really nice!

jlued686 · 03/04/2013, 12:54 PM

I should also mention that I love the packaging artwork. It looks great!

Bernie · 03/04/2013, 12:55 PM

Bought!

Arkhan Asylum · 03/04/2013, 01:05 PM

Quote from: guest on 03/04/2013, 12:50 PMOoh, the banner came out OK. Looks really nice!

Yeah, the banner turned out fucking awesome. It's a nice vinyl material that is very sturdy also. Like a real thick shower curtain.

At least I know what to do with the banner when Aetherbyte folds in on itself.

My womanoid drew the art on the cover, and Paul used his art-fu to color it in.

The rest of the packaging is all Paul's handy work. Wait til you guys see the CD itself. I think it looks awesome. Hopefully you guys do too.

Same with the awesome 1980s throwback posters.

jlued686 · 03/04/2013, 01:10 PM

Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 03/04/2013, 01:05 PMThe rest of the packaging is all Paul's handy work. Wait til you guys see the CD itself. I think it looks awesome. Hopefully you guys do too.

Show! Don't tell!

Arkhan Asylum · 03/04/2013, 01:26 PM

Nope. You can see it for yourself when I mail yours out.

MAYBE ILL SEND YOURS LAST NOW.

Just kidding. Im going to be preparing them all to go out tonight and tomorrow.