News - 2002-01-30

Important changes include:

• Added support for the new hexagonal-tiled Hexoban puzzle format which was invented by David W. Skinner. All of the advanced, computer-assisted movement mechanisms which make SokoSave’s game play fluid and enjoyable work as well with hexagonal puzzles as they do with square puzzles.
• Improved support for external puzzle sets. Now recognizes well-known puzzle file extensions .xsb and .hsb, in addition to .sokomaze and .sokohex. Can now read puzzle files which contain author comments, which is a common feature of .xsb puzzles. External puzzles can now be loaded directly. They no longer require manual pre-processing before use.
• Two new scoring metrics. Runs is the number of straight lines in which crates have been pushed. Looked at another way, this is the number of times crates have changed direction while being pushed. Focus is the number of times the player’s attention has shifted between crates. A high focus count typically indicates a puzzle with a complex solution that requires repeated shuffling of crates. Players participating in the monthly Sokoban contest run by François Marques may find these metrics of particular interest.
• Aesthetic improvements. No longer fills the empty space surrounding the puzzle with walls. The extreme 3D-appearance of wall tiles has been subdued.
• Game solutions are now stored in standard LuRd format in the save file. This makes it simple to send LuRd solutions to a friend. (Previously, the LuRd solutions were compressed with an RLE encoder in the save file, which made them less accessible.)
• Fixed a number of aesthetic problems with the Windows version where controls would overlap and labels would be clipped when Windows was configured to use large fonts and control sizes.