Thanks everyone for spotting and more importantly reporting the various bugs you've found in Spyglass. We've been monitoring the situation and looking into the various causes of the issues so that we can come up with reliable fixes via an upcoming title update for the game. In the meantime, thank you so much for your patience while we quickly fix these issues and let you get back to a seamless Spyglass Board Game experience on XBLA!

To be clear, our upcoming title update will just correct existing issues and there will be no new features added at that time.  There’s no specific timing yet for the title update, but I promise that fixing these bugs is our top priority to ensure you enjoy your games and are properly awarded achievements.

 

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and support and I'll leave you with some tips to (hopefully) workaround the two main issues in the meantime...

·       In Chess, the game checks a promoted pawn as a queen as soon as it lands on the final square. This can give you a stalemate if promoting it to a queen would have done that. For the moment, watch out when moving pawns to the final square for promotion.

·       For most of the multiplayer achievements, I'd recommend playing against friends who you know won't quit out on you until you've got the achievements. Also pause to look at the game results for a few seconds at least after each game. It won't solve the issue for some of you who've played lots of games above the check points, but it'll help a bit for some of them. (Note:  We're aiming for the fix to spot and re-issue the achievement if possible or at least let you try for it again).

 

Aaron Fothergill
Lead Coder
Strange Flavour

yeah hopefully it will fix alot of stuff because i havent played this since the day after it came out,some stuff is just terrible and seems like it wasnt even tested before release,and in checkers it shouldnt force you to make a move just because you can jump someone because most of the time it makes you get your piece taken also.

 Ruthless Image wrote:

and in checkers it shouldnt force you to make a move just because you can jump someone because most of the time it makes you get your piece taken also.

Actually that's the standard rule in checkers. It forces you to play tactically.

Thanks Aaron. Yes I have 195/200.

 Zwilnik wrote:

 Ruthless Image wrote:

and in checkers it shouldnt force you to make a move just because you can jump someone because most of the time it makes you get your piece taken also.

Actually that's the standard rule in checkers. It forces you to play tactically.

weird alot of other people have complained about this issue too,why so many people are mad if its the standard rule.

Because they don't know how to play Checkers and they're sore losers?

---

http://pzelnip.googlepages.com/sig.png

 Zwilnik wrote:

(Note:  We're aiming for the fix to spot and re-issue the achievement if possible or at least let you try for it again).

At the risk of sounding like an extremely frustrated gamer who's going to vent his frustration on th eonly public face of the devs, here let me help you with some psuedocode for fixing the play 5 achievement:

if (user has unlocked chess champ)
    unlock (play 5);

See, simple...

I'm a CS grad student, so I've done my share of software development, but for the life of me I cannot fathom why this is such a problem to fix.  I'm not that disappointed that the bug crept in (I understand how software development is a complex process and that despite best efforts that can happen), but I am extremely disappointed with how long a fix is taking.

---

http://pzelnip.googlepages.com/sig.png

 Zwilnik wrote:

Thanks everyone for spotting and more importantly reporting the various bugs you've found in Spyglass. We've been monitoring the situation and looking into the various causes of the issues so that we can come up with reliable fixes via an upcoming title update for the game. In the meantime, thank you so much for your patience while we quickly fix these issues and let you get back to a seamless Spyglass Board Game experience on XBLA!

To be clear, our upcoming title update will just correct existing issues and there will be no new features added at that time.  There’s no specific timing yet for the title update, but I promise that fixing these bugs is our top priority to ensure you enjoy your games and are properly awarded achievements.

 

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and support and I'll leave you with some tips to (hopefully) workaround the two main issues in the meantime...

·       In Chess, the game checks a promoted pawn as a queen as soon as it lands on the final square. This can give you a stalemate if promoting it to a queen would have done that. For the moment, watch out when moving pawns to the final square for promotion.

·       For most of the multiplayer achievements, I'd recommend playing against friends who you know won't quit out on you until you've got the achievements. Also pause to look at the game results for a few seconds at least after each game. It won't solve the issue for some of you who've played lots of games above the check points, but it'll help a bit for some of them. (Note:  We're aiming for the fix to spot and re-issue the achievement if possible or at least let you try for it again).

 

Aaron Fothergill
Lead Coder
Strange Flavour

I've got to [giggle]

What the *** is this all about.. dosent anyone understand the rules at SPYGLASS HQ ?

Why wasent this game tested before release ? i'am sure you could of tested it around 100 times for example ?

AI is compleatly wrong - my doughter could win blindfold ....

Please sort it out... to be fair it should of been sorted before release dont you think ? STAFF BETA

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

Another bug i found is achievements are in different languages just because i changed my language setting for xbox. It is a mess: the dashboard changes from one to another language but ACHIEVEMENTS do not follow the new setting!!

 

Is it a bug of this game or is it an XBOX general bug?

 

If you change your language and get an achievement while you are using that language, it will stay that way. If you recover your account it will change back to english.

It's amazing how something so simple looking can have somany problems

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

The thing that I don't understand is......... i got all the ach. in one sitting minus the glitched play 5. Well long story short play testing this game in it's entirity should have took a day or two max to play test it.  The bug would have been found during the testing phase. 

---

Let me ask you "What would Chuck Norris do?"

Guys...why are you taking this guy at face value...he is totally pulling our legs...he doesn't work at that company...I looked it up.

Huh? http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/808/808831p1.html

so hows the update coming along?

---

no gamesaving

So far pretty well. Most importantly I found why the Achievement glitches and stalemate glitch are likely to have slipped past Microsoft's testers (tip. don't quit early from your 5th online game if you want the Play 5 achievement) and I've got solutions worked out for them. I've also got some good data on the other issues. As the work on the update is in my spare time, which I don't get a lot of, it won't be fixed overnight. But it will be fixed.

 Zwilnik wrote:

So far pretty well. Most importantly I found why the Achievement glitches and stalemate glitch are likely to have slipped past Microsoft's testers (tip. don't quit early from your 5th online game if you want the Play 5 achievement) and I've got solutions worked out for them. I've also got some good data on the other issues. As the work on the update is in my spare time, which I don't get a lot of, it won't be fixed overnight. But it will be fixed.

Microsoft testers ? who are they

Not too worried about achievements but more to the point of the stalemate, my friends seem to always work around getting this,... give there parts away and then king on its own wow!! game over.

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

 DT K1LLER wrote:

Not too worried about achievements but more to the point of the stalemate, my friends seem to always work around getting this,... give there parts away and then king on its own wow!! game over.

The only actual Stalemate bug happens when you promote a pawn where the pawn in the last row (before being changed to whatever piece you want to promote it to) would cause a stalemate, which is fairly rare. I've found a fix for that. In the meantime, if you avoid promoting pawns that are next to the enemy king, you'll probably avoid it. Any other stalemate situation, ie your opponent's king isn't in check after your move, but your opponent has no possible moves is actual stalemate, not a bug.

Yes i fully understand this.. 

Who are the microsoft testers ? (paid) or just general open day testing ?

Good luck with your "Fix"

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

Yea not to be a jerk or anything (of course now whatever I say next will sound like I'm a jerk) but chess programs have been around for a very long time in the software entertainment industry. The game of chess itself has been around for a couple of millenia before the first home computer. So the rules of chess are as solid and well understood as the fact that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth.

 With that in mind, how is it that a simple $5 chess game for my shiny Xbox 360 (with 3 3.2ghz processors and HDTV output) can contain a bug which causes a Stalemate when I promote my pawn to a Queen thus rendering the enemy King in Check OR Checkmate?

Did you not do your homework?

I mean come on, you put "en passant" into the game even though most of the GoWHeads that I play against think I cheat when I use it.

Really, you put "en passant" the most rare and rarely used move in Chess into your chess game but you didn't notice a Stalemate bug?!?!?!

Sure my bad for dumping $5 on your game when I should have just waited for Chess "The Real Deal" Master 8000 to come out for the 360; but double bad on your company for releasing a chess game in 2007 AD that Stalemates when it should be Checking.

Agreed... thats my opinion too..

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

Is adding the ability to offer draw considered a feature? or is the lack of ability to offer draw a bug?

I'm just wondering if it will be fixed in the update.

 Scalan wrote:

Is adding the ability to offer draw considered a feature? or is the lack of ability to offer draw a bug?

Offer draw is a weak mans option. (theres always a way to win)

Draw is a pressure move from a player who understands he will lose the game with the current shape he stands.

And yes - what the *** is going on with this chess game ? why no update YET

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

I would love this game if it had selectable difficulty for the computer AI.

I remember as a kid more than 20 years ago having a portable chess computer that had difficulty settings higher than this game.  Its a big disappointmen because Spyglass is pretty much online only and I didn't realize that before purchasing it.

To be honest I don't even get why the AI is so bad.  Even if public domain algorithms are being used why can't they be set to at least think more moves ahead? 

It actually makes me want to write my own game (as a teenager in the 80's I wrote a simple checkers computer game - maybe I should get hold of an XNA license and start working on it again).

WTF... this game has been out for 4 months now... ANY DAY NOW THEY WILL COME OUT WITH AN UPDATE FOR THE GLITCHED ACHIEVEMENTS ! 

---

[Code of Conduct]

I hear ya, would be nice to have 200/200 instead of 195/200.  To be blunt though I don't think this game will ever be patched.

---

http://pzelnip.googlepages.com/sig.png

 Pedle Zelnip wrote:

I hear ya, would be nice to have 200/200 instead of 195/200.  To be blunt though I don't think this game will ever be patched.

Well it really seems this way, i would like to see a few things sorted like the AI and the stupid glitches sorted out pronto. whats the chance of someone re-adding another chess game on the arcade section ... none probly, so basicly this game really needs sorting out because we all have some kind of complaint about it.

How the heck games like this pass microsofts terms and conditions i dont no.

---

Are you looking for a xbox360 team community ? DeadlyTactics.com

 DT K1LLER wrote:

 Pedle Zelnip wrote:

I hear ya, would be nice to have 200/200 instead of 195/200.  To be blunt though I don't think this game will ever be patched.

Well it really seems this way, i would like to see a few things sorted like the AI and the stupid glitches sorted out pronto. whats the chance of someone re-adding another chess game on the arcade section ... none probly, so basicly this game really needs sorting out because we all have some kind of complaint about it.

How the heck games like this pass microsofts terms and conditions i dont no.

I know, remember when Worms was to come out for the arcade?  It took *MONTHS* for that game to get past QA, and many of the Worms devs become frustrated with how strict the testing for MS approval was.  What happened since then?

---

http://pzelnip.googlepages.com/sig.png

 Zwilnik wrote:

Thanks everyone for spotting and more importantly reporting the various bugs you've found in Spyglass. We've been monitoring the situation and looking into the various causes of the issues so that we can come up with reliable fixes via an upcoming title update for the game. In the meantime, thank you so much for your patience while we quickly fix these issues and let you get back to a seamless Spyglass Board Game experience on XBLA!

To be clear, our upcoming title update will just correct existing issues and there will be no new features added at that time.  There’s no specific timing yet for the title update, but I promise that fixing these bugs is our top priority to ensure you enjoy your games and are properly awarded achievements.

 

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and support and I'll leave you with some tips to (hopefully) workaround the two main issues in the meantime...

·       In Chess, the game checks a promoted pawn as a queen as soon as it lands on the final square. This can give you a stalemate if promoting it to a queen would have done that. For the moment, watch out when moving pawns to the final square for promotion.

·       For most of the multiplayer achievements, I'd recommend playing against friends who you know won't quit out on you until you've got the achievements. Also pause to look at the game results for a few seconds at least after each game. It won't solve the issue for some of you who've played lots of games above the check points, but it'll help a bit for some of them. (Note:  We're aiming for the fix to spot and re-issue the achievement if possible or at least let you try for it again).

 

Aaron Fothergill
Lead Coder
Strange Flavour

Report on additional bugs found so far:

1. Black player unable to castle either long or short when swapping sides in lobby.

Affected playmodes: any rank match, first friendly match and the friendly match after in-game side-swap.

2. First win/lose in friendly matches not mirroring in leaderboards.

Affected playmodes: first friendly match (win/lose for rank matches always score in leaderboards including early quitting and lost connections).

Watch out for exploiters of these bugs!