Now you can play the prototype of Pmachines! I have prepared several builds. In Linux, you can use AppImage and itch.io. In Windows, you can use an installer or itch.io. You can find more information in the page of the project.

Please note: this is a prototype. Everything is not final, definitely. It is “just” the basis of the future work. Moreover, it is the proof that my building/testing pipeline is working now. More info on this in the next section.

I have added another important functional test. Now, during the tests, I check if the FPS are “ok”. So, you should not receive builds with a low FPS count. Moreover, I have added several tests that check that every state leaves a “clean” environment i.e. there are not pending nodes, threads, tasks, events, …

The entire topic of functional tests that I developed should deserve a post on its own. Briefly:

• I run the unit tests &&
• I create the builds &&
• I run the functional tests &&
• I publish the builds

where && has the known semantics. The functional tests are the part that received most of my effort recently (since they will save me from manual testing, so I seriously hope that now I can develop faster). They are executed in a virtual machine, events are generated using xdotool, Windows builds are tested using Wine. During the test I capture some screenshots, and I compare them with the reference screenshots that I took on succesful executions. So, when I make a new build, I can assert that the build is running and it produces screens like the reference ones.

Please note that the gold here is Panda3D. I can run builds inside a virtual machine, and I can even run Windows builds in a Linux virtual machine. The Panda3D’s robustness allows this.

If it is the first time that you read about pMachines, you may want to watch its trailer video.

Finally, I would love if you may consider to support me. As usual, you may consider our campaign on Patreon (minimum pledge: only $1!). Thank you very much!