Just gave up on another promising scenario (Stranger's Quest) that
ran afoul of a Blades engine cross-platform bug, and thought it
was time for an author's alert.

The space used to display messages in Blades is slightly larger
than that on a Mac, and the way messages work on the Mac gives a hard
upper limit of 255 characters. As a result, a message which displays
fine on a PC can be truncated for players on a Mac. Often the
missing part is just decorative, and a player can force through; 
sometimes it contains plot-critical info and the scenario dead-ends.

Lest you PC authors respond 'Who cares, nobody uses Macs anymore
anyway", be aware that because Exile was originally written for the Mac
and many Exilers have migrated to Blades, the Mac market share is
much larger than it is for desktops in general. You want those players.

What to do if you are writing on a PC:

1) Make sure your beta testers include at least one Mac user, and
specifically ask that tester to open the scenario in the editor and
run through the all the dialogs/messages of all sections looking
for truncation.

2) To save yourself the trouble of rewriting those that 1) turns up, 
only use about 75% of the available space in each message

3) As insurance, make sure that plot critical info and hot words are
at the beginning of the message.

4) As double insurance, release the scenario _without password_.
Sure, you've fixed all the bugs. _Sure_ you have. So when the player
hits a bug that you're so sure isn't there, he can push through
with the editor if he has to _unless you set a password_. Leave it
off, so he can get the fun of completing the scenario that he's
already put a lot of work into playing. 

Some players will use the editor to cheat if they have a scenario
without a password. That's their problem, not yours.

 Ivan Godard <ig@solaris.kala.com>
