Community News

RANews By RANews.

Contents

Intro

So long DevNews. Hello Community News. We are changing this page to feature news for all the community members, including news on new console support, Quality Assurance, Developer Compliance, Web updates, Developer tool updates, Discord updates, DevQuest, QualityQuest, and more. If you have any information you would like to see monthly in this article please let us know. With that, lets see what all has happened in the RA Community throughout the month of April.

Console Support

Arduboy

Arduboy is a miniature game system the size of a credit card with over 200 free games to play. The games are all open source so, if interested, you could learn to code and create your own games. More information about the Arduboy can be found here.

You can check out which games currently have achievement sets here.

WASM-4

WASM-4 is a low-level fantasy game console for building small games with WebAssembly. Game cartridges (ROMs) are small, self-contained .wasm files that can be built with any programming language that compiles to WebAssembly. More information about the WASM-4 can be found here.

You can check out which games currently have achievement sets here.

A Look Towards the Future

While it’s always exciting to get new system support, there is also a lot of work that goes into it. We need time to test core functionality and to properly expose memory. Developers need time to look through the game list, pick some games and create the sets for them. It’s not something that happens over night. Here is a look at some potential upcoming rollout systems, please keep in mind that there is no current ETA for any of these.

  • CHIP-8
  • Fairchild Channel F
  • Mega Duck
  • PS2
  • Sega Pico
  • Uzebox

Quality Assurance & Developer Compliance

The QA Team Restructure was finally implemented on 04/27/2022. The main goal of this QATeam Restructure was to split the current roles of the @QATeam into three: Quality Assurance, Developer Compliance and DevQuest. Quality Assurance would focus on achievements set quality with respect to logic and writing. Developer Compliance would focus on adherence and updates to the Developer Code of Conduct. DevQuest would focus on maintaining DevQuest spreadsheet, tracking claims and completed quests, voting on new quests, etc.

The three teams can all be reached by either sending a message to the site accounts (QATeam, DevCompliance and DevQuest) or by pinging the role in Discord.

Quality Assurance

Developer Compliance

Nothing to report from April for this team given we only had a few days. New users are getting acclimated to how the team operates. More to come in the next issue.

Site Updates

RAWeb Version 1.84

  • Add recent masteries page by @Tsearo in #571
  • Split Site Awards into Game/Event/Site Awards by @Jamiras in #937
  • Separate subsets from similar games by @Jamirass in #940
  • Add pagination to games list; replace dev filter with has achievements filter by @Jamiras in #942
  • Allow merging aliased hubs by @Jamiras in #939
  • More detailed achievement modification messages by @Tsearo in #947
  • Show user game history on ticket page by @Jamiras in #945
  • Hide controlpanel sidebar until user is registered by @Jamiras in #943
  • Reset account to unverified when user changes their email address by @Jamiras in #944
  • Escape apostrophes in hash descriptions by @Jamiras in #948
  • PHP 8 compatibility by @luchaos in #935
  • Use PHP 8 language features (using Rector) by @luchaos in #911
  • Ignore achievements with no retro ratio when determining easiest achievements by @Jamiras in #941
  • Lazy load images for completion list by @Jamiras in #946
  • Fix inbox output sanitization by @luchaos in #936

Full Changelog

RAWeb Version 1.84.1

  • Allow award groups to be ordered by @Jamiras in #950
  • Remove pagination for per-console games with achievements lists by @Jamiras in #951
  • Start with collapsible sections collapsed by @Jamiras in #949

Full Changelog

RATools

RATools Version 1.8.5

  • Many improvements to generating scripts from existing achievements
    • Support for generating from local achievements
    • Support for built-in macros
    • Support for compound code note sizes i.e. “[32-bit float]”
    • Convert PauseIf with hitcounts/ResetNextIf logic to disable_when()
    • Convert AddHits chain to tally()
    • Fix exception if macro has no parameter
    • Fix exception when no tickets are found
  • Add array_map() function
  • Add tally_of() function
  • Add logic to convert “A<1||A>1” into “A!=1”
  • Support for multiple conditions in a ResetNextIf using OrNext
  • Make error more user-friendly when an if expression cannot be evaluated at compile time
  • Fix multiple conditions in a repeated() in measured(when=) getting split into separate MeasuredIfs

Full Changelog

Discord Updates

Several Discord updates this month as a reault of the QA Team Restructure and developer preparation

Role Additions

Role Purpose
@QA-Maintainer Formally named @QA-Team, renamed as part of the QA Team Restructure. Helps maintain the several Quality Assurance discord teams.
@Dev-Compliance New role for new team created during the QA Team Restructure. Handles any Developer Code of Conduct related topics.
@DevQuest New role for new team created during the QA Team Restructure. Handles DevQuest related topics.
@Compatibility-Tester New role for new team created during the QA Team Restructure. Helps to test ROM compatibility for existing sets.
@Set-Repair Role and team resseructedew team created during the QA Team Restructure. Help to fix sets that are highly exploitable or vulnerable.

Channel Additions

Channel Purpose
#ardu-wasm-rollout Discussion and preperation channel for developers to get ready for the Arduboy and WASM-4 rollout.
#auction-house Allows devs to “bib” on highly exploitable or vulnerable old sets to become the new author.
#compatibility-tester Discussion channel for the @Compatibility-Tester members.
#devs-help-me A help me channel dedicated to the developer questions.
#devquest-discussion Discussion channel for the @DevQuest members.
#devquest-inbox Messages to the DevQuest site user get forwarded here.
#dev-compliance Discussion channel for the @Dev-Compliance members.
#dev-compliance-log Log channel for notable DevCompliance actions.
#dev-compliance-inbox Messages to the DevCompliance site user get forwarded here.
#pcsx2-testing Discussion and testing channel for developers interested in PS2 achievements creation.
#qualityquest Discussion and submission channel for QualityQuest.
#qualityquest-inbox Messages to the QualityQuest site user get forwarded here.
#set-repair Discussion channel for the @Set-Repair members.

Addition Updates

  • RABot !contact command updated to add DevQuest, QualityQuest and to reflect the QA Team Restructure changes.
  • #tickets-cleanup has been locked down to the @Ticket-Hounds role in an effort to turn that role into a team that handles closing out bad tickets, forwarding manual unlick requests, and organizes Devember.

DevQuest

DevQuest Awards

[DevQuest 001] Ticket Massacre [DevQuest 001] Ticket Massacre

[DevQuest 002] Summer Set Repair [DevQuest 002] Summer Set Repair

[DevQuest 003] Singles In Your Area [DevQuest 003] Singles In Your Area

[DevQuest 006] The Unwanted [DevQuest 006] The Unwanted

[DevQuest 007] Most Wanted [DevQuest 007] Most Wanted

[DevQuest 008] World Traveler [DevQuest 008] World Traveler

[DevQuest 009] Launch Party! [DevQuest 009] Launch Party!

[DevQuest 011] Happy Birthday RA! [DevQuest 011] Happy Birthday RA!

[DevQuest 012] Hacker's Habit [DevQuest 012] Hacker’s Habit

[DevQuest 014] Laudable Leaderboards [DevQuest 014] Laudable Leaderboards

[DevQuest 015] Console Conqueror [DevQuest 015] Console Conqueror

QualityQuest

The goal of this event is to help the website as a whole, whether it be rescores, grammar corrections, ticket save states or full game save states. This event can evolve over time to include more if the community would like, but this is a good starting point for the event.

Community Contributions

Category Contribution
Save States 89 Games with full save states received
3,418 Total save states received
States for 22 different tickets received
Grammar 201 Achievement grammar corrections received & updated
Art 5 Incorrect badge sizes fixed