The following things 'fixed':

And these things are added:

But that's not it, did some more:

This is starting to look like a bad programmer's blog !

Working all day and then fixing software quickly, late in the evening, definitly is not good for the quality of the code.

The crash bug when a replay ends wasn't caused by thread (mis)management. It happens only when the round ends (or the replay ends) just as a plane is in conflict with two other planes. Freeing the plane causes the conflict to be freed, which in turn wants to free the planes. Sad thing is that I did already notice this way earlier and took care of it, but only when I free the plane, not when Delphi does it through 'destroy' called from a list. Anyways, fixed in 1.3

However, while trying to fix this non-existant thread issue, I actually made things worse in 1.1 and 1.2. You'll notice that in 1.1 and 1.2 it will eventually start to use 100% cpu...

So I reverted back to beta 10 and started over.

Good thing is that while using a stress-replay (20 planes on screen all declaring emergencies), I noticed that some sound threads weren't terminated at all. I fixed that too.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. I promise I won't do it anymore

What more to say. I'll be having a holiday soon and then I will get this over with

Beta 10 is available.

This is more or less the last beta, there is really only one issue I haven't solved yet. Everything else works well.

Thanks to Ernustus and Timothy for their support, I'm sure that without them, there would have been a lot more bugs/inconsistencies in Kennedy Approach. And I'm sure it would have taken far longer for me to find them. Again, thanks a lot!

After beta 10, when I've finished that one issue, version 1.0 will be made available.

Version 1.1 will also include custom map making, online scoring, replay uploads and downloads. Nothing more interesting than seeing how well you're doing

Beta 9 is available.

Beta 8 is available.

The screwup fairy visited me again. I noticed that replaying right after a game caused a crash. On closer inspection, I noticed that one line (which was very needed) was deleted. It's probably a developer thing. Selecting something (either manually or by Find) and then switching screens, pressing the occasional enter and blam, a bug is born. Happens a lot to me, since I'm stupid enough to test from within the IDE.

Beta 7 is available.

Added Hongkong map, now this one will drive you nuts! Stay clear of the mountains!

A big thank you to Ernestus for the idea and the map's layout!

Beta 6 is available.

Again, numerous things I changed, see the changelist. Thanks to T. for testing.

Only a few things left to implement, minor ones. The only big issue is tuning the difficulty levels. I think that some levels are simply to easy. Let me know what you think.

It's slowly time to start thinking about a multiplayer version. Ofcourse a multiplayer version would require a bigger map because I don't think there'll be much to do for two (or more) players on one (20by20) map.

So far, I've got three ideas:

If you've got ideas, feel free to share them with me.

Beta 4 is available. Note that replays from Beta 3 and the config.ini file will no longer work. (Just place this version in a seperate folder and it's ready to go). There are numerous things I changed, thanks to T. for pointing out some of them:

No new screenshots this time, but another, short, video of gameplay here (on youtube). While you're there, leave a comment. Thanks.

I also added (and changed) all the menus, see the screenshots to the right. And I changed demo play (now it plays a compiled demo instead of loading a saved replay).

Fixed one bug (bug is a big word here): planes leaving for Paris at an heading of SouthWest in the London map will now no longer be flagged as an 'invalid exit'.

I also changed all these pages to be xhtml 1.0 compliant, some browsers might display garbage as I have noticed. I've got no problems using 'the o so bad' MS IE 7.

Finally, I created a small video (teaser or trailer you decide) of Kennedy Approach:

Beta 3 is available. Didn't change too much from beta 2. Beta 3 supports custom colorising.

Once started it will make an ini file, you can change the colors in there. Two schemes are provided by default, c64 and Atari colors.

If you finish a level, a replay is automatically saved and you can replay it later.

Changed the colors to match the original games. Changed to Courier New font. Changed font positions on screen. Changed sound handler. Added correct route calculation (when you select a plane you will see its expected flightpath).

Still enough to do, but that will be for later. Cheers.

I didn't have much feedback but then again, who cares about an old C-64 game these days.

I did stumble on some old posts of people who enjoyed the game as much as I do. It was on the AtariAge forums. Some persons requested an Atari skin for the game.

I never knew this game was available on the Atari's back then. And I noticed it was available on the Amiga as well. And I had both computers.....

The amiga game I played a few minutes yesterday thanks to the Emulator. For some reason it just doesn't feel right. The Amiga voice is way off.

Anyways, back to the skin. Someone pointed me to three images of the Atari version and I haven't found any more. Too bad, since that means I will have to just random pick some colors. Then again, I'm gonna make the color settings available in an ini file. So anyone can change it as they see fit.

I finished demo mode and replay mode (still need to do some coding on it tho) but I got it working after solving two major bugs. I spent I guess 80% of the time on 20% of the code. Threads and re-entry... Third party components are a bliss, but if things don't work as advertised they better not provide them. (For some coders 'stop' doesn't mean stop)

And my fear about the Quartz font has materialised. On Windows XP it isn't available. So I could ask users to go download 56 MB (YES!!) or draw it myself. I will go for the second option. For now, I reverted to Courier New. Also, on XP, for some reason, no sound is played when in Demo mode. I've got no clue why it wouldn't work, so that's another thing to find out.

Enough to do (see below) hence Beta 3 will be available by the end of this week (that's on Sunday!).

Time for beta 2 (Let's see how my palls at Simfly like this one). I added almost everything I wanted to add, just a few small things need to be done:

On the other hand, all else seems to work just fine. Wanna try your 15 minutes of fame as an ATC? Download beta 2. Let me know what you think or what issue you found. Mail me.

I added the manual as well. It's (almost completely) the original manual, I haven't changed it yet wrt the current controls and I haven't finished the layout yet.

The most difficult thing I had to solve was the timer issue. Using Delphi and the windows messaging system , this proved to be a real pinta. I spent about four days getting it right (well, I DO have a job =]).

I changed the font (well, not much of a font really, just some pixels..) because the one complaint I got was that "D" and "O", "W", "H" and "M" were so difficult to distinguish. I'm now using a font named "Quartz". (And looking into the future, I will probably have to draw it myself due to the fact that I don't think it is available on windows xp)

Gameplay wise, it is (and will be) exactly the same as the C-64 version. Graphics wise, I've made some changes. I'm sure that as long as the gameplay isn't affected, no-one will care. The thunderstorm has 'lightning' appearing at random places instead of the two bulky flashes appearing every half second in the original game. The clouds are also somewhat transparent. Planes have flashing lights too. Just click on the image to zoom..

Things that I did finish: added Denver, Washington, New York and Dallas maps. Added a scoring table. Fixed fuel status of planes (planes now run out of fuel!). Fixed the delay stuff (planes expect to land/pass though/takeoff in a certain amount time).

Other things that I still need to fix: LGA airport is drawn wrong. mountains (and other objects) are drawn outside of the radar screen. Grid dots appear over 'exit' names. Not all flightplans do have a correct distance set. The washington area has no 'no fly zone' nor buildings. None of the maps do have their river/land background. And of course the main menu, game levels and career mode stuff.

Back in the days, my favourite games were Red Storm Rising and Kennedy Approach. Both games just got me hooked for months, hell, years even. I still play them now and then thanks to the C64/Amiga emulators.

I always wanted to code these games myself and the sh*t finally hit the fan. I started on Kennedy Approach.

Spending one long night on coding Kennedy Approach, I had a working version. Sure gotta respect Andy Hollis, I'm amazed at what he did with only using 32K of ram (and 32K of rom)....