Category Archives: Uncategorized

Losing save data? Try leaving game before powering off console.

So I’ve been looking into the lost save data issue that people have been reporting.  I’ve got a fairly easy repro of the issue related to powering off your console.  Basically if you power off the console while the game is running, your data won’t save.  Main menu counts as well, as long as any part of Deadburg is running when you power off, anything you did that session won’t save.  What you can do is exit to the dashboard first.  Then power off, and your data should be saved.

This will be fixed in an upcoming patch, but given how long its taking patch #1 to go out, it will probably be a few weeks out.

Patch update

Just wanted to give everyone an update on the first patch (1.0.1).  It was submitted to review on the 2nd, but we’re still a few reviews short of it going live.  I had indicated in some comments I expected it to go live this week, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case.  In case you don’t know what the review process is, I’ll quickly outline it.

The Xbox Indie store is gated by a peer review process.  Where devs review each others work, to ensure that only games reaching a certain level of quality reach the store.  In this case quality is generally referring to how the game behaves, rather than its content.  In order to get a game onto the service you must submit it for review, and then a certain number of developers must review it.  This process can be slow as the current number of developers is rather low.  Patches also go through this process, and it is here that the first patch is current hung up.

I’ll post again when the patch is live, and give more details on what it fixes.  And a rough road map for the upcoming patches.

Hitting a crash and want to help fix it?

First off, no one is under any obligation to assist in solving crashes.  It’s our job to release a stable game.  But assistance can help us solve problems faster.

There are three basic types of crashes that you should see:

  1. A “Blue screen”, with text on it, like this
  2. A “Code 4” error that your Xbox will pop up
  3. A hang/stall of the game, this may occur even if the graphics are still animating in/out.

For any of these issues the most important information is some idea of what you were doing when it happened.  Whether that’s joining a game, or performing an action.  The more detail the better.

The next important piece is whether this happens consistently, or if it has happened once/twice/etc.

Finally, in the case of a “blue screen” crash, there is some data on the screen itself that can help us track down the cause of the crash.  The best thing you can do is snap a picture with a cell phone and e-mail it to support@reanimatedgames.com.  But even if you can’t do that it can be helpful just to know about a few lines from the text on this screen.  Essentially we need the second line from the crash screen, and then the first two lines that start with “at ZombieBlocks.”, these lines may be at the top or in the middle of the crash log.  I’ve highlighted the important part of the log on this image.  This data will make it much easier to track down the cause of crashes.

If you hit a hang, or a Code 4 crash there is not currently any further information that can be provided beyond a description of the problem and how often it happens.  But please do report any issues you see as we might be able to diagnose the problem simply on the description.

Local co-op on the same console is NOT supported!

Due to a mistake made when posting the build to the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace Deadburg currently shows support for offline co-op. This is NOT a supported feature.

We will be updating the game as soon as possible to fix this error in the description. That will probably go live around 1/6, based on how long it took to get initial approval.