Panumbra Newsletter #3 December 11th 1997

Panumbra Newsletter

No. 3, December 11, 1997, Thursday

Dear Panumbra Newsletter Readers,

As we promised, here is the update about the progress.

1. Demo release. As probably most of you have guessed, we did not make it.   Dave is leaving tomorrow and we still have a significant amount of bugs unresolved.   We were not able to complete our test cycles either - one of our testers fell ill.   Expect the demo be out sometime mid-January. But...

We offer a preview of the current Panumbra version exclusively to our Newsletter readers. We will have the game up on

Tuesday, December 16th, 1997, between 6 PM and 10 PM
Central Time US

(that is 7-11 PM Eastern and 4-8 PM Pacific, 12-6 am GMT, sorry guys in Europe).

The purpose of the preview is to give you an idea of what the game will be like. Be aware that it has still a lot of bugs, especially a lot of cranky things with the interface (e.g. the scroll bars work in a weird way).

I know it is a very limited time frame, but think of it as an extra special opportunity for a sneak preview rather than a limitation.

2. System requirements. You need a Java enabled browser and a decent Internet connection, and a machine that is capable of running them. That is:
   Netscape 2.02 or higher or Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher;
   28.8 KB modem or a faster Internet connection (e.g. ISDN), with no firewall;
   PC 486/66 MHz or higher;
   Min. 8 MB RAM, 16 recommended;
   Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 (Java is supposed to run on any platform but we only tested with these. Mac users are welcome to try but we do not guarantee any results.)

3. Differences in browsers. Java has a bunch of bugs that are all different in different browsers and platforms. We are trying to work around them. But if we do have a work around, the code may do weird things if you use a higher version of Java which already has these bugs fixed (e.g. Netscape 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 has a new Java version).
   We are testing with Internet Explorer 3.02 and Netscape 3.01, so for best results, use these versions. Our experience: Internet Explorer is much (!) faster than Netscape. The difference can be as much as 1 second per move or other action.On the other hand, IE crashes every once in a while, but Netscape have never crashed on me yet, at least not while the game was running :).
   
   
4. Newsletter list. We are setting up an automated list, because I am starting to get way to many entries in my address book for the Panumbra newsletters. Users will be able to automatically subscribe and unsubscribe to/from the list. It will also eliminate the long list of addresses in the header. Sorry for the inconvenience for now.

This newsletter will not be posted on the site until the preview is over. The preview is absolutely exclusive to newsletter members. 

Cheers,
Marta Gabnai - lead designer

P.S.  For web site readers: the instructions for the preview were sent out in e-mail only.  They are not posted on the web site.