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Entry 2020: The Pandora Incident


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I had been exploring, so no, not straight to the bridge.

 

I tried reproducing it ... but no luck.

 

And shortly afterwards, I hit this:

 

CPU off in the weeds!
PC: $03DE   Instr count: 34988587   Cycles: 344624190


HALT!
PC: $0010   Instr count: 34988637   Cycles: 344624190
 

Likely also another sporadic issue, so hard to chase.

 

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1 hour ago, Peripheral said:

I had been exploring, so no, not straight to the bridge.

 

I tried reproducing it ... but no luck.

 

And shortly afterwards, I hit this:

 

CPU off in the weeds!
PC: $03DE   Instr count: 34988587   Cycles: 344624190


HALT!
PC: $0010   Instr count: 34988637   Cycles: 344624190
 

Likely also another sporadic issue, so hard to chase.

 

 

If you feel brave, enable the debugger, then issue the command "h" (CPU History) at the debugger prompt, and run the game.  If it crashes again by sending the CPU into the weeds, issue the command "d" to dump the CPU history to that point.  Providing the ".hst" file here could allow someone to trace what happened at the moment of crashing.

 

     -dZ.

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Hi, @cmadruga,

 

I played the latest "alpha" version and I have a few comments, which I hope are useful.  First, let me tell you that I like the atmosphere of the game so far.  You have captured it well with the music and the graphics.  Personally, I am not a fan of that style of graphics, where colour boundaries are loosely applied (it reminds me of lesser machines, like the ZX Spectrum), but overall, the game looks fine.  Also, although the game played well, I found a few trivial bugs.

 

  • First, regarding the graphics:  The sprites do not seem to match the scale of the background.  Everything looks fine, but the enemies and player sprites appear to be too big for it.  Not only is it a bit visually distracting, it causes "clipping" problems when the player approaches doors at an angle.  For instance, in both the images below, my player can walk right through the walls.  This may seem inconsequential, but it adds to the "polish" of the game.
    shot0001.gif.0435cf65c7a872072009c7028a2710ef.gifshot0002.gif.70676aa454c93b933e7b2d88e6bbd160.gif

    My suggestion is to make the sprites slightly smaller, perhaps just by a few pixels.  Nothing says that your sprites must span the full height of a MOB.
     
  • Second, regarding navigation and room orientation:  It seems very strange that sometimes you enter a room from the bottom, but it doesn't have a commensurate exit in that direction.  There are quite a few places where I exit a room from one side, only to arrive at a room that has exits on opposite ends.  This tends to be disorienting -- but not in the good "I'm-in-a-spooky-and-creepy-game" way, but in a frustrating "I-think-the-programmer-needs-a-map" way.  The below illustrate examples of this:

    Exit through the bottom, but entered from the left:
    shot0003.gif.9d73c5c27f68fd2b9c5866b2eab1b505.gifshot0004.gif.20ea878cfd8ec25eaf3c27793cbabd56.gif

    Exit through the top, but entered from the right:
    shot0005.gif.4d50ea52a744ddd773d3ddb509e20047.gifshot0006.gif.69ec9041546bf31a56689e01c275086c.gif

    It almost feels like a cartoon scene.

    My suggestion, build your map in a coherent way that follows the same rules all throughout.
     
  • Third, on passing through "open walls":  There are rooms in which the background graphics suggest that a wall is completely open, not just a door; yet you cannot cross it at any point, but must still align to a specific region.  Because the "open wall" has no features, there is no direct way to identify the actual walkable region.  Below are some examples of "open walls" that block my access until I moved to a correct spot to pass it.  In both these cases, the location where the sprite is standing is blocked, yet the graphics do not suggest any obvious obstacle.
    shot0007.gif.7bfa6afdf68a55443fb294ed04dcfe7c.gifshot0011.gif.e93d1ca3437fa3e1d634d33b2f6360fb.gif

    My suggestion, either make a distinction in your game mechanics to account for a fully open wall, or modify the graphics to visually cue the player about the narrow passage.
     
  • Fourth, sound effects:  The sound effects are fine, and I like the gun shot sound -- but it unfortunately does not match the visuals, which look more like a flashing machine gun, or some sort of repeating shot.

    My suggestion is to either alter the visuals to avoid the rapid flashing, or add a bit of "stutter" to the initial attack of the sound effect to make it sound a bit more like a machine gun.  It doesn't have to sustain the sound long, just do like a quick-fire "ptrrrr!"

 

  • A bug that I found was in a specific room, where the elevator door does not get drawn.  The elevator works fine, and I am able to go in and out of it, and the door is animated as well when it arrives; but in its "closed" state, there is no door.  Here's an illustration of my player waiting for the door-less elevator to arrive.  I only noticed it in that specific elevator.
    shot0008.gif.4cecc88c7bfb60462db78b88728dd7c1.gif
     
  • Just a comment on the dialog.  Most of it is fine, but there was one instance that I thought was a bit too "casual," in the "Research Bulletin":
    shot0009.gif.685f8f51a23b2361d87f355b13759630.gif

    The phrase "way beyond," strikes me as a colloquial slang construction, which I do not think a research scientist would use in a bulletin.  Perhaps something a bit less folksy would be "Our specimens have strength beyond all expectations!" which takes the same amount of characters.

 

That is it for now.  I will continue exploring the Pandora ship to see what else I can find.  Great job so far!  I think this game has some excellent potential. :)

 

     -dZ.

 

Edited by DZ-Jay
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Thanks for the jzintv debugger tip, but unfortunately that only helps when the bug reproduces reliably.

I've only encountered the problem that one time.

 

None the less, I tried to reproduce it in the debugger.  But no luck.

 

One other terminal issue.   I can't recall the exact terminal, or phrasing.

But one of them had a repeated phrase, two words that included "our",

for example "of our of our", or something like that.

 

I second one of DZ-Jay's other comments, regarding disorientation when room entry/exits

don't strictly obey north/south east/west relationships.  It makes it difficult to keep track of

my route.  But I'm guessing it was probably done this way to accommodate the excellent

room graphics.

 

One other question.  It wasn't clear to me how close I need to stand to the enemies

when firing.  There's a short flash, but no indication of any harm done to them.  So

I try to get real close, which of course puts Ellen in peril.  I would think the gun easily

fires across a whole room, but I could not be sure.

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6 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

Thanks for the jzintv debugger tip, but unfortunately that only helps when the bug reproduces reliably.

I've only encountered the problem that one time.

 

I understand.  I made the suggestion for future runs:  if you are play-testing a game that could have some unknown or rare bug, then it helps if you are pro-active in running the game with the debugger every time.  That way, if it ever happens, you can trap the error in the act. :)

 

6 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

One other question.  It wasn't clear to me how close I need to stand to the enemies

when firing.  There's a short flash, but no indication of any harm done to them.  So

I try to get real close, which of course puts Ellen in peril.  I would think the gun easily

fires across a whole room, but I could not be sure.

 

That's a good point, the same happened to me.  I just shot continuously until they died.  It seems I had unlimited bullets, but I thought that was done on purpose during testing.

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56 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

I played the latest "alpha" version.

Just out of curiosity, why the double quotes on "alpha"? Is the term not adequate?

 

37 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

Personally, I am not a fan of that style of graphics, where colour boundaries are loosely applied (it reminds me of lesser machines, like the ZX Spectrum), but overall, the game looks fine.  

Lesser machine? Ouch, hopefully no fans of the ZX hang around here. ;-)

 

41 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • First, regarding the graphics:  The sprites do not seem to match the scale of the background.  

I disagree a little. Scale of sprites and background graphics is generally compatible.

Is it perfect? No, but we will look for ways to refine it. Thanks for the feedback.

 

45 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • Second, regarding navigation and room orientation:  It seems very strange that sometimes you enter a room from the bottom, but it doesn't have a commensurate exit in that direction.  There are quite a few places where I exit a room from one side, only to arrive at a room that has exits on opposite ends.  This tends to be disorienting -- but not in the good "I'm-in-a-spooky-and-creepy-game" way, but in a frustrating "I-think-the-programmer-needs-a-map" way.  

The map layout is fully coherent. It's not a matter of the "programmer needing a map", but of players realizing that there are corners in that map, and that the "camera" has changed perspectives. Many classic and modern games employ this. I guess it comes down to a matter of style and preference. But the feedback is noted.

 

50 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • Third, on passing through "open walls":  There are rooms in which the background graphics suggest that a wall is completely open, not just a door; yet you cannot cross it at any point, but must still align to a specific region.  

I think that's a fair point and something that can be indeed improved. Thanks.

 

59 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • Fourth, sound effects:  The sound effects are fine, and I like the gun shot sound -- but it unfortunately does not match the visuals, which look more like a flashing machine gun, or some sort of repeating shot.

Good suggestion, we will look into it!

 

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • A bug that I found was in a specific room, where the elevator door does not get drawn.  

Good catch, will fix it.

 

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:
  • Just a comment on the dialog.  Most of it is fine, but there was one instance that I thought was a bit too "casual," in the "Research Bulletin"

Appreciate the suggestion! I like it!

 

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

I will continue exploring the Pandora ship to see what else I can find.  Great job so far!  I think this game has some excellent potential. :)

Please do. Thanks for the feedback!

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17 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

None the less, I tried to reproduce it in the debugger.  But no luck.

Thanks for trying again! I will keep trying on my side as well.

17 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

One other terminal issue.   I can't recall the exact terminal, or phrasing.

But one of them had a repeated phrase, two words that included "our",

for example "of our of our", or something like that.

Ooops! Will check it out.

17 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

I second one of DZ-Jay's other comments, regarding disorientation when room entry/exits

don't strictly obey north/south east/west relationships.  It makes it difficult to keep track of

my route.  But I'm guessing it was probably done this way to accommodate the excellent

room graphics.

One feature of the post-contest version would be an auto-map, and it would show your location... I think that would help navigation.

It was actually getting ready to be included, but we ran out of space due to the bank switching restriction imposed by the contest.

 

25 minutes ago, Peripheral said:

One other question.  It wasn't clear to me how close I need to stand to the enemies

when firing.  There's a short flash, but no indication of any harm done to them.  So

I try to get real close, which of course puts Ellen in peril.  I would think the gun easily

fires across a whole room, but I could not be sure.

The gun reaches across a whole room, and will hit even targets you cannot see as long as you are facing correctly.

But I think the idea of giving some type of visual feedback to the player about the monster actually getting hit is a good one.

 

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19 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

That's a good point, the same happened to me.  I just shot continuously until they died.  It seems I had unlimited bullets, but I thought that was done on purpose during testing.

Bullets are actually quite limited. 

The previous version had an animation bug that showed the gun still firing if you kept the button pressed after running out of bullets.

That was fixed in this latest version.

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1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

Just out of curiosity, why the double quotes on "alpha"? Is the term not adequate?

No, I just quote the word. *shrug*

 

1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

I disagree a little. Scale of sprites and background graphics is generally compatible.

Is it perfect? No, but we will look for ways to refine it. Thanks for the feedback.

Well then, why are the doors smaller than the sprites? ;)

 

It's your game.  You can take the feedback or not, as you like.  I will say that it diminishes the overall professionalism of the game when there are clipping problems and when the sprites' scales do not really match the props in the background.

 

1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

The map layout is fully coherent. It's not a matter of the "programmer needing a map", but of players realizing that there are corners in that map, and that the "camera" has changed perspectives. Many classic and modern games employ this. I guess it comes down to a matter of style and preference. But the feedback is noted.

I got that the "camera changed perspectives."  However, it doesn't really come through like that.  It actually looks more like an oversight.  Just my opinion, of course, but don't be surprised if others will feel the same and only mention that it's confusing.

 

1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

One feature of the post-contest version would be an auto-map, and it would show your location... I think that would help navigation.

It was actually getting ready to be included, but we ran out of space due to the bank switching restriction imposed by the contest.

An auto-map is nice, but that's not really the problem I was pointing out.

 

    -dZ.

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1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

Bullets are actually quite limited. 

The previous version had an animation bug that showed the gun still firing if you kept the button pressed after running out of bullets.

That was fixed in this latest version.

I saw my bullet count go to zero at some point.  Then on the next room, I continued firing at the next monsters.  The counter was greater than zero again.  I'll see if I can reproduce it, but I know I didn't run out of bullets even though I kept the trigger going without stopping whenever I saw the enemies.

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1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

I saw my bullet count go to zero at some point.  Then on the next room, I continued firing at the next monsters.  The counter was greater than zero again.  I'll see if I can reproduce it, but I know I didn't run out of bullets even though I kept the trigger going without stopping whenever I saw the enemies.

When the bullet count goes up again, it is usually because there is still an ammo clip left. It gets decremented automatically.

Did you see that happening?

 

 

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7 hours ago, cmadruga said:

When the bullet count goes up again, it is usually because there is still an ammo clip left. It gets decremented automatically.

Did you see that happening?

 

 

Yes, but I wasn't sure where the clip came from.  All I noticed was that I was running out of bullets, then later I was still shooting and had even more bullets.  I'll have to be more observant in the future. :)

 

I found the Health boxes, but where do you get ammo clips?

 

    -dZ.

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6 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

Yes, but I wasn't sure where the clip came from.  All I noticed was that I was running out of bullets, then later I was still shooting and had even more bullets.  I'll have to be more observant in the future. :)

 

I found the Health boxes, but where do you get ammo clips?

 

    -dZ.

Ammo is found later as you play the game.

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1 hour ago, cmadruga said:

Ammo is found later as you play the game.

Oh, wait, I just realized that the bullet counter includes a clip counter as well.  I didn't pay attention to that.  Sorry.  DOH! :facepalm:

 

That's probably what happened.  I'll play again and try to pay attention.  Are there Ammo clips already in the game or do you mean that you will add them later?

 

     -dZ.

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Just now, DZ-Jay said:

Oh, wait, I just realized that the bullet counter includes a clip counter as well.  I didn't pay attention to that.  Sorry.  DOH! :facepalm:

 

That's probably what happened.  I'll play again and try to pay attention.  Are there Ammo clips already in the game or do you mean that you will add them later?

 

     -dZ.

The ammo clips are already in the game. Sorry, I'm trying not to give any spoilers ;-) 

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Hi, @cmadruga,

 

I also forgot to mention something else I noticed:  the "glare" effect on the outside windows flickers wildly, which gets distracting.  I suppose you are trying to multiplex MOBs.  Putting aside that I am not really a fan of that effect on the Intellivision, it wouldn't be too bad except that it seems to miss certain frames making it doubly distracting.

 

You may need to review your core engine to see if the STIC updates are being dropped for some reason, or skipped.

 

1 minute ago, cmadruga said:

The ammo clips are already in the game. Sorry, I'm trying not to give any spoilers ;-) 

 

Hehe, no worries.  I thought it was something mentioned in the guide that I missed.

 

      -dZ.

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Just now, DZ-Jay said:

Hi, @cmadruga,

 

I also forgot to mention something else I noticed:  the "glare" effect on the outside windows flickers wildly, which gets distracting.  I suppose you are trying to multiplex MOBs.  Putting aside that I am not really a fan of that effect on the Intellivision, it wouldn't be too bad except that it seems to miss certain frames making it doubly distracting.

 

You may need to review your core engine to see if the STIC updates are being dropped for some reason, or skipped.

 

UPDATE:  I see in the debugger that writes to the STIC are not dropped.  I also noticed that it only happens when the player changes position from rest:  whenever my avatar is idle and I press a new direction, the glare skips one frame.  It may be related to starting the animation state.

 

Perhaps someone can test on an LTO Flash! on the hardware, just to see if its an artefact of jzIntv.

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Hey Carlos, I just spent a few hours playing and mapping as much as I could the version from 1228.  

I think the game looks great graphically for Intellivision and has a good creepy sci-fi "Alien" vibe.

The music is cool too, I like how it ratchets up once the aliens get loose. 

 

My only issue so far is the collision detection seems a bit finicky in some spots,

I'm playing with a flashback intellivision controller using jzintv on my MacBook.

 

Several times I seem to get stuck between 2 screens and flick back and forth between them several times until I move a tiny bit,

this also happens in room with terminals you can interact with.

 

I read all the terminal info then try to move away from the computer

but it asks several times again if I want to read the terminal before I can move away from it.

 

And sometimes it looks like Ellen is lined up correctly to go through a door on the left or right but she won't until I move her a bit higher,

which looks like her head is too high to go through but somehow she fits.

 

Apart from that I'm really enjoying the game, I just have to figure out where the lab is now that I have unlocked the door to it.

 

One thing I noticed on one terminal screen, you spelled Captain as Capitain, is that deliberate?

I think if you were going for Capitan like in "El Capitan" you don't need the second i.

 

1237800451_ScreenShot2020-12-31at1_25_36PM.thumb.png.e8cea223713d263ded471303cfa6f394.png

 

Oh and my usual request, can the lower left action button also be mapped to the lower right too.

 

Thanks for all the great games so far, they keep getting better and better.

 

Cheers, Steve

 

 

 

 

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On 12/30/2020 at 5:47 PM, DZ-Jay said:

Well then, why are the doors smaller than the sprites?

The human and creature sprites are the same height as the negative space of the common doorways (I think some of the early ones I made may be a card taller).

 

 

door3.gif

 

 

 

It's just an optical illusion from what you and Steve mentioned about the sprites being able to cross over part of the wall around the doorways. Shorter sprites won't change that.

 

This is what it would look like if enough sprites were available to mask the sides of the doorway:

 

 

dwalk9.gif

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe a happy medium can be struck where you leave a room when only a few pixels of the player sprite cross the doorway or something? It shouldn't occur too soon as there is only so much space in each room to manoeuvre in, particularly the corridors.

 

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

The human and creature sprites are the same height as the negative space of the common doorways (I think some of the early ones I made may be a card taller).

 

 

door3.gif

 

 

I understand that.  I pointed out that the problem is of clipping.  I mentioned the scale because the size of the sprites are "just exactly the same size" as the openings of the doors which exacerbates the clipping problems at anything but the exact position or angle of collision.  It's also not precisely realistic.

 

However, you are right, that reducing the size would not have fixed all the clipping problems of the doors.  That's due to the isometric perspective.

 

Quote

It's just an optical illusion from what you and Steve mentioned about the sprites being able to cross over part of the wall around the doorways. Shorter sprites won't change that.

 

This is what it would look like if enough sprites were available to mask the sides of the doorway:

 

 

dwalk9.gif

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe a happy medium can be struck where you leave a room when only a few pixels of the player sprite cross the doorway or something? It shouldn't occur too soon as there is only so much space in each room to manoeuvre in, particularly the corridors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not new problems, to be sure.  The problem is brought on by a couple of things, first of which is the isometric view, which opens up an interim space that needs to be accounted for while the player transitions out of the scene.  In other words, the problem is self-imposed:  you want cool-looking wide 3-D doors, then you now have a clipping issue to address in exit transitions. ;)

 

We've all been there.

 

One way to solve it, as you suggest, is to re-purpose one or two MOBs to cover the transition and clip the edges of the sprite as it goes through.  Indeed this is what I do in Christmas Carol for the tunnels in the maze, and the exits in the cut-scenes.  Take a look at the red box below.  It automatically adjusts its position when it "senses" that there is a sprite within a few pixels of it.  (In the real game, the red box is painted black to blend with the background.)

 

auto-cover-test.gif.553b7a78ef00e2e891b77ef5b08afbcb.gif

 

I created this problem for myself by adding those cubes at the edges.  But because I already knew about this problem before hand, I could face it head on from the beginning:  I built a sub-system to handle the automatic movement of the cover, and I also made sure I didn't put myself in a situation where I had no MOBs available for it.  And in those cases where I had no MOBs left, well ... I had to find a way to gain one back.

 

That last part is the trick:  Once you are aware of the problem, you can find creative solutions for it.  In my case was to make sure to leave at least one MOB available whenever a sprites were going through a door.  At points when no sprites were going through a door, I could use all 8 MOBs.  When sprites start moving, I had to find ways to reuse at least one MOB:  for example, force one sprite to stay put for a few seconds (drawn in BACKTAB, yet still animated) until a sprite leaves the stage.

 

I could also design my cut-scenes so that no two sprites ever left the stage simultaneously on opposite ends, say, by staggering their movements so that one reaches the edge at exactly the point when the other already left.

 

In the Boss Level I added an enemy which consumed an extra MOB -- precisely the one I used for the tunnel cover!  So, I removed the arms of the Snowman to gain it back.  But then the Snowman looked stupid.  I could have left it like that and nobody would have complained, but it was half-assed; it looked precisely like what it was, a cheap solution:  I needed a MOB so I stole it from another sprite.

 

So I came up with a compromise:  the Snowman is melted in a cut-scene into a snowball. He now has no arms.  Done.  The solution is not only practical, but diagetic:  part of the narrative of the story.

 

In the end, all those little tricks are invisible to the player because they are built into the entire game naturally.

 

Perhaps something similar could be done in this game.  One simple idea would be to force the player to not be able to leave until all enemies are dead, and therefore guarantee the availability of MOBs.  I don't know, the doors could shut when an enemy enters, or they could block the exits, or whatever suits this particular game.

 

Another idea would be to animate the sprite "crouching" to go through the door.

 

Perhaps a simpler idea is to just dispense with the wide 3-D door look altogether and just make the cavity narrower, decreasing the necessity of having the sprite walk into the "in-between" space.

 

There are ways around these sort of issues.  Some of them easy, some hard, but all of them compromises, of course; but that's what makes making a really polished game hard.  Game design is full of trade-offs, and the programmer should choose the best trade-offs for his game.  If a wide 3-D door doesn't add anything to the game play, and it is only cosmetic; then what does it really add if it brings with it extraneous aesthetic issues?

 

Also, you do not need to solve this problem right now -- there are bigger fish to fry while you continue making the game.  However, you should at least start thinking of ways around it.  The one thing that I really wouldn't recommend you do is to just throw your arms in the air and say "that's the Intellivision, I can't do anything about it."  The canon of every platform is full of half-assed games like that, even when other games themselves prove that different trade-offs would have provided a better experience.  That defeatist mentality is what stops a good game from becoming an awesome one. ;)

 

     -dZ.

 

Edited by DZ-Jay
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