AstroQuest 0.20

Two things in world 2. Both were in the emulator, so the fixes are the same for the Quest app and for the PC.

Fixed

• An invisible wall at the end of level 2-1 (#16): the hero stood in the air above the last mound and could not get to the last enemy, and the island below had the same. The collisions of those two islands were most of a block above what was drawn. The game moves a collision with a speed worked out from one frame's time step and applied for the next frame's; on the console every frame's step is the same, here it follows what frames take, and the parts of a level that are only woken when the player gets to them landed off by a few percent of how far the level had moved meanwhile (17 units up a tree, in that level). The game's physics now take each step with the time step the collisions were moved for. It could show up anywhere a part of a level moves before the player reaches it, and differed from run to run.
• Squares in the lava's glow around the octopus at the end of world 2 (and in its challenge), lit and dark, for as long as he moved. The game draws that glow with one buffer bound as two colour targets at once, which the console's GPU accepts and Vulkan leaves undefined. Such a draw is now made once for each of the two.

Also

• The README's answer to "How do I get the game onto my computer?" now only says that this project gives no information on how to get games and that the repository does not include any game data.

Files

• AstroQuest-0.20-Quest3.apk: the app for the Quest 3 (adb install -r).
• AstroQuest-0.20-PC-VR-Windows.zip: the PC version; unzip it into a folder with a short path and start Play Astro Bot VR.bat.

How to install and play is in the README. Tried before this went out: level 2-1 played to its end and the octopus's challenge played, both on the PC in a headset; the collisions measured against where the game sends them (off by the way times the difference of two time steps before, exact after, in both versions of the game); the PC package unzipped afresh and started. The Quest app has the same emulator code and was built from it, but had not been run on a headset when this went out: if the wall or the squares are still there on yours, an issue with core.log helps.

AstroQuest 0.19

What players wrote elsewhere, on Reddit and under the videos about the project. Thank you for saying what did not work.

Fixed

• The PC launcher asked for the Visual C++ runtime again and again, however often it was installed. It looked in the wrong place when Play Astro Bot VR.bat was started from a 32-bit program (a file manager, a game launcher). It now finds the runtime wherever it is started from, names what it misses, and its question can be answered with "start the game all the same".
• The game was always in English. It now speaks the language Windows is shown in, or the headset is set to, if it is one of the game's 28 (English otherwise). The PC launcher's window has the list, to choose another.
• On the PC, the headset's controllers did nothing while a gamepad was connected, even one that only lay on the desk. Whichever was used last plays now, as in the Quest app: a button or a stick of the headset's controllers takes over, and the gamepad takes it back with its first button.
• On the PC, the game stopped with "Unhandled Exception code 0xc0000005" some time after the headset connected, and its sound came from the PC's speakers until then, when the game was started before Virtual Desktop streamed to the headset. The sound now goes to Virtual Desktop's own sound device whenever that is there, whichever device Windows prefers, and Windows changing its playback device no longer stops the game.
• A question in a box behind the game's window at the very first start ("Save Migration"), for those who start the emulator without the launcher (reported from Linux through Proton).

New

• Turning round without turning yourself, for whoever sits where they cannot: hold L1 (with the headset's controllers: the left grip) and flick the right stick to a side. The view turns 30 degrees that way for each flick; resetting the view faces you straight ahead again. (turn= in the settings for another step.)
• The README answers the questions asked most: how the game gets onto a computer, which headsets and controllers, SteamVR without Virtual Desktop, why the picture looks "reprojected", and a player's recipe for Linux through Proton.

Files

• AstroQuest-0.19-Quest3.apk: the app for the Quest 3 (adb install -r).
• AstroQuest-0.19-PC-VR-Windows.zip: the PC version; unzip it into a folder with a short path and start Play Astro Bot VR.bat.

How to install and play is in the README. Tried before this went out: the game on the PC in French, Japanese and Arabic; the PC package unzipped afresh and started from a 32-bit program; the controllers taking turns and the view turning against a simulated headset; Windows' playback device changed, taken away and put back while the game plays; and the view turning on a Quest 3 without wearing it. Not yet tried in a headset: the view turn, the controllers taking turns on the PC, and the sound finding Virtual Desktop's device. Please report what you find.

AstroQuest 0.18

The first release since 0.13, and the first with fixes that came from your reports and pull requests. Thank you.

New

• The game's version 1.04 plays (#1, #3, #5, #7, #10), on the PC and on the Quest. An updated copy of the game stopped at "Adjust your position until you fit roughly inside the silhouette" over a green picture, with no controller to be seen, and the picture stayed small. Both builds of the game are known now, 1.00 and 1.04; see "The game's versions" in README-PC-VR.md for a game and its update kept as two folders.
• SteamVR and other PC headsets (#6, by @ODevStudio): Valve Index controllers, headsets with canted displays, and the right words in the launcher for the runtime in use. Players have reported a Valve Index, a Bigscreen Beyond and a Pimax Dream Air working.
• A view for spectators on the monitor (#11, by @ODevStudio): one eye or both combined, with or without cropping, chosen in the launcher's window.
• Quest app: a field-of-view menu at every start. Less than all of the headset's view puts the same pixels over fewer degrees: a sharper picture inside a soft border. The choice is remembered.
• Quest app: more controllers than the DualSense. The headset's own Touch controllers play the game on the headset alone as well, with the layout they have on the PC: no gamepad needed. With a gamepad and the Touch controllers both at hand, the game is played with the one used last. For gamepads that are not a PlayStation's, the right stick's finger on the touchpad now works the catapult, and a gamepad without motion sensors is turned and tilted in the game by the hands that hold it (it only followed them before, pointing straight ahead).
• The gamepad in the game can be moved where nothing tracks it (#4): hold the PS button and press the D-pad (L1 nearer, R1 farther); PS + triangle switches between your place for it and the standard one.
• The touchpad without a touchpad (#2): on VR controllers and on gamepads that have no touchpad, the right trigger (R2) presses it (water, guns), the right grip (R1) swipes forward (hook, throwing stars, chests), and the left trigger (L2) pulls back and lets go, which is the catapult at the end of every level. The right stick's finger is one the game can follow now; before, the catapult took luck with it, the more the fewer frames a second the game drew.
• Blowing (#8): the launcher's window says what the game hears, mic_gain makes a quiet microphone louder, and the PS button and square held together blow without one (X and Y on the Quest's own controllers).

Fixed

• The game stopped as it started with code -1073741819 where Windows listed a gamepad that could not be opened (#9).
• With SteamVR, the game stopped as it started with "Mapping cannot fit inside free region", code -2147483645 (#14; found by @evertec82).
• A right stick that drifts held a finger on the touchpad for good, and real swipes then did nothing (#12).
• A package that is only the game's update was unpacked as if it were the game (with #15, by @ODevStudio).
• Geometry shaders read vertices from registers that were never set, and shaders that draw once for each eye chose the wrong viewport after a switched-off one.

Files

• AstroQuest-0.18-Quest3.apk: the app for the Quest 3 (adb install -r).
• AstroQuest-0.18-PC-VR-Windows.zip: the PC version; unzip it into a folder with a short path and start Play Astro Bot VR.bat.

How to install and play is in the README. Played in a headset before this went out: the game's version 1.04 and the touchpad's buttons on the PC (the catapult goes off), and the Quest's own controllers in the Quest app. Everything else was tried on the PC against a simulated headset and on a Quest 3 without wearing it; SteamVR itself and gamepads other than a DualSense were not at hand. Please report what you find.

AstroQuest 0.13

PC VR: the sound no longer stays silent until the emulator is restarted.

Virtual Desktop takes its playback device ("Virtual Desktop Audio") out of Windows whenever the headset is not being streamed to, and puts it back afterwards. The emulator's sound stayed on the device that had gone, silent and without an error. Now the sound follows its device: a few seconds after the device went away it plays on Windows' default device, and a few seconds after the device is back, on it again.

• The log (pc-vr\user\log\shad_log.txt) says which sound devices come and go.
• An emulator crash leaves its call stack in the log.
• Not changed: the microphone.

The Quest app is the same as 0.12 (version 13), rebuilt from this source.

Tested by taking a playback device out of Windows and putting it back while the game plays (tools/pc-audio-device-test.sh); not yet tried with a headset over Virtual Desktop.

Install and play: see the README. Checksums are in SHA256SUMS.txt.

AstroQuest 0.12

A simpler install on the PC. ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission (PS4 / PlayStation VR) in virtual reality on Meta Quest 3, on the headset alone or from a Windows PC through Virtual Desktop.

You need your own copy of the game: the European release CUSA12392, version 1.00, dumped from your own console. No game files are included.

What is new in 0.12 (PC)

• Put the game in the games folder in either form and start: the game's folder (the one with eboot.bin in it) or its .pkg file, anywhere in games. A package is unpacked the first time, after asking: about a minute, and about 13 GB. (Only a package made from a dump can be unpacked; one from the PlayStation Store is encrypted.)
• No more text file to edit: when the game is not found, a window asks where it is and remembers the answer.
• Clearer messages when the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime is missing, when the folder's path is too long for the game's files, and when Windows is short of the memory the emulator asks for.

The Quest app is the same as in 0.11.

Downloads

File	What it is
AstroQuest-0.12-Quest3.apk	The Quest 3 app ("Astro VR Host"). Install it with adb install -r AstroQuest-0.12-Quest3.apk (or SideQuest), copy the game's folder with adb push CUSA12392 /data/local/tmp/astro/games/, pair the DualSense with the headset, and start it from Unknown Sources.
AstroQuest-0.12-PC-VR-Windows.zip	The PC version. Unzip it to a short path such as C:\Games\AstroQuest, put the game in its games folder, set Virtual Desktop to VDXR and 120 Hz, connect the DualSense to the PC, and start Play Astro Bot VR.bat.
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksums of the two files above.

Step-by-step instructions: README.

Good to know

• Only CUSA12392 version 1.00 is known to work.
• The headset needs the game's folder, not a .pkg: the PC version unpacks one (drop it in games, start once, copy games\CUSA12392).
• On the headset, the app keeps your saves in its own folder: updating keeps them, uninstalling deletes them.
• On the PC, keep the folder path short: Windows does not let the emulator open game files whose full path is longer than 260 characters.

Built from commit 8b1173f. AstroQuest is free software under the GPL-2.0-or-later; the parts by others are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. Built on shadPS4 - thank you to its team and contributors.

If you enjoy it, you can support the project: https://buy.stripe.com/6oU4gB5450PZ18h8aK1wY00

AstroQuest 0.11

The first release of AstroQuest: ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission (PS4 / PlayStation VR) in virtual reality on Meta Quest 3, either on the headset alone or from a Windows PC through Virtual Desktop.

You need your own dump of the game: the European release CUSA12392, version 1.00, as an extracted folder (eboot.bin, sce_sys, sce_module...). No game files are included.

Downloads

File	What it is
AstroQuest-0.11-Quest3.apk	The Quest 3 app ("Astro VR Host"). Install it with adb install -r AstroQuest-0.11-Quest3.apk (or SideQuest), copy the game with adb push CUSA12392 /data/local/tmp/astro/games/, pair the DualSense with the headset, and start it from Unknown Sources.
AstroQuest-0.11-PC-VR-Windows.zip	The PC version. Unzip it to a short path such as C:\Games\AstroQuest, put the game in games\CUSA12392, set Virtual Desktop to VDXR and 120 Hz, connect the DualSense to the PC, and start Play Astro Bot VR.bat.
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksums of the two files above.

Step-by-step instructions: README.

What you get

• Quest 3 on its own: 30 frames a second in the levels and 45 in lighter scenes, each frame shown for the same time, at 90 Hz; the DualSense with its motion sensors, touchpad, rumble and light bar; the controller placed in the game by the hands holding it; 3D sound; the microphone for blowing at things. World 1 (levels 1-1 to 1-4) has been played through.
• PC + Virtual Desktop: 60 frames a second at 120 Hz, as on the console, multisampled, at up to 3600x3840 an eye (2880x3072 by default); the DualSense on the PC, or the Quest's Touch controllers.

Good to know

• Only CUSA12392 version 1.00 is known to work.
• On the headset, the app keeps your saves in its own folder: updating keeps them, uninstalling deletes them.
• On the PC, keep the folder path short: Windows does not let the emulator open game files whose full path is longer than 260 characters.
• On the headset, 0.11 does what 0.10 did: it is 0.10 rebuilt from the published source.

Built from commit b5f400b. AstroQuest is free software under the GPL-2.0-or-later; the parts by others are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. Built on shadPS4 - thank you to its team and contributors.

If you enjoy it, you can support the project: https://buy.stripe.com/6oU4gB5450PZ18h8aK1wY00