After much mulling over it, I have decided that BASeBlock 2.0 will be “shareware” sort-of. This version will add a numbectr of new blocks, loads of bugfixes, and even fix the high-scores to work properly, which should have been simple but was dastardly to remedy.

What I mean isn’t that it will actually be shareware but rather that the program will be free but some parts of it will require “registration” to unlock. In BASeBlock’s case I’ve decided that the entire application will be free, along with almost everything that comes with the game, including the editor.

The difference is that the editor will be “crippled”- you can create and edit LevelSets and test them with the main game, but you cannot save them to a file unless the game is registered.

DWM

The “protections” will be relatively simple, and almost surely a breeze to crack. I plan to document some of it, in fact. I might utilize the otherwise dead-code that is part of the new licensing component to release encrypted .reg files that are specific for each user’s key and will only decrypt properly with the right key(making it difficult to work around by simply inserting a few jumps or skipping code or something)
The original plan for BASeBlock was to make the entire thing free; but it represents a lot of work- Graphics, some of the music, sound effects, etc. and I haven’t gotten anything monetary out of it yet. It’s not a particularly good breakout clone but it has it’s merits. loads better than my previous attempt, Poing, which is embarassing in comparison. It’s certainly no Ricochet Lost worlds (A fine game and one I highly recommend if you have any interest in the “block and ball” type genre), but then again, I’m only one person, right?

Basically, I’ll add code for simple protection to try to prevent casual piracy (well, really casual piracy) but anything more than that and I risk screwing up when the game is in fact legitimately obtained; which is something I absolutely will not tolerate.