This is the most baffling and puzzling bug I have ever encountered or read about..

[FrankJones]

This does not look like a crazy bug to me at all. Complex games requires complex engines and complex engines are not free of bugs. Depending on how they are made, it's clearly something that could happen.

I understand all that. I realize that games with multi-step combos can be prone to bugs. I help read and sort and categorize bugs every day on the Terraforming Mars forum. Cards can have multiple discounts, rebates, interactions for multiple players. Writing code to handle all these situations, some of them rather elaborate, can be difficult to do in a way that covers all edge-cases.


But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking a game somehow losing track of whose turn it is.
A game that fails to change the "player_Turn" variable after a completed turn would probably not make it out of Alpha. I mean, we're talking about something that happens after literally every turn. One person makes a move, then the next person gets a turn.

Again, I will reference the game log:

5:04 PM FrankJones starts their turn
FrankJones plays Wave-Teller.
FrankJoness scores a location
FrankJones scores a location
FrankJones discards Wave-Teller.

[Okay, nothing unusual here, and nothing complex. The wave-Teller gets played every game, and it scores 2 locations. Both I and my opponent saw this in the game log, everything is fine so far]

5:05 PM ManneMan starts their turn

[As to be expected. My turn ended, and now it is my opponent's turn. We both see this in the game log.]

11:01 PM FrankJones starts their turn.

[ ??? THat's it. The game had already changed the active player from me (after playing the wave-teller) to my opponent. But then 6 hours later, both of us see that the game has sent the turn back to me. Nothing complex here. The game indicated it was my opponent's turn, which it was. And then 6 hours later, the game, without either of us doing ANYTHING, switched it to my turn.]

I very much doubt that is a common occurrence. I've never seen nor heard of it happening at all. We're not talking about a situation in which the game failed to complete one player's turn. Or where each player was seeing something different, for example, each player's screen showing it is the other player's turn, which happens so frequently, there are near-daily bug reports from someone who forfeited on time because of this.

Again, just in case I am not making this clear - game code was executed when nothing was happening, and no play or action was being made.

This would be like two players returning to a game of chess after a few hours, and some of the pieces have been rearranged.

[FrankJones]

I consulted a good friend who I consider an expert developer.

He said this sounds like a system / framework failure, which can happen with large frameworks using distributed systems. Or something like that.

Meaning, the game code for "Aquatica" is fine. This is not a reproducable bug. That is what I was trying to determine.

[nik592]

My day job is to investigate high level bugs in a complex piece of software (the ones our support team, some of whom are also very experienced and quite good at debugging, cannot solve). I've been working for the company for almost 18 years, and doing this particular role for around 4 (and intermittently before that too, in between writing the code, and leading small teams of other devs). I know the code base pretty well. My manager is similarly experienced, though with maybe 4-5 years of extra time with the company. He knows the code base better than I do, and when I get stuck, he can often tell me where to look next.

I've seen countless bugs that I (and my manager) will say, that makes no sense. I cannot see how that could possibly happen. I've looked at code and said, this bug is impossible. Sometimes in these cases we have to set the bug aside and ask the customer to report if it reoccurs, because we can't define the factors that led to this. Yes, sometimes it is a product of a customer's environment (firewall, etc.). Sometimes Chrome decides to rename a function to a the same name as a function in our code and breaks every instance of that function being called (yes, this actually happened). Very occasionally, I've seen Windows bugs impact our code - and those are basically impossible to figure out if Microsoft hasn't reported them. And then every so often, some crucial piece of information will fall into place - ah! That's why it does that. Suddenly, our impossible bug makes perfect sense. And we can fix it.

I'm not saying this isn't some kind of framework issue, it could be, but that's still a bug in code somewhere (even if it's not in Aquatica). Impossible looking bugs turn up regularly in complex code systems. That it's never happened here before (in your experience or anyone else who happened to come across this thread) doesn't mean it couldn't possibly happen. Also doesn't mean it's not reproducible, though that might be difficult.

Your post honestly came across to me like, how dare this happen? Why are there bugs in MY games? Ludicrous (which I realise you've now decided maybe was a poor choice) generally tends to imply something should not have ever occurred - not simply that it's surprising, or unexpected, but this is actually ridiculous, and I am almost slightly offended it's happened to me. My opponent is "super nice", "a good player" and "was in a strong position to win", and how dare this ruin their game? Then you went on to use a bunch more caps, as if this terrible thing happened. Not simply that you were confused by it, but actually "bothered" - which is why I said, if it bothers you, start again. Every so often, I pick some options on a game that I haven't seen, and it turns out to be a poor choice for whatever reason. Often, I will abandon those games and restart them. In this case, leaving the game running so the dev can look at it is probably a better option, but the action is to report the bug and then either wait to see if it can be resolved (which I'd doubt, since I don't think devs can make changes to rewind time, or add a one-time move to a game), or you go start over.

I mean sure, post in the forums if you're confused or wondering if it's ever happened to anyone else. Despite the last line asking if this had happened to others, the rest of your post came across like an injustice had occurred, and I (and maybe others) were confused as to why you'd frame it that way. It's a bug. Bugs happen. Even really unexpected ones. Especially really unexpected ones, in my experience.

[Tisaac]

[quote=FrankJones post_id=218875 time=1751754502 user_id=1635119]
[quote=Tisaac post_id=218873 time=1751751075 user_id=154830]
This does not look like a crazy bug to me at all. Complex games requires complex engines and complex engines are not free of bugs. Depending on how they are made, it's clearly something that could happen.
[/quote]

I understand all that. I realize that games with multi-step combos can be prone to bugs. I help read and sort and categorize bugs every day on the Terraforming Mars forum. Cards can have multiple discounts, rebates, interactions for multiple players. Writing code to handle all these situations, some of them rather elaborate, can be difficult to do in a way that covers all edge-cases.


But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking a game somehow losing track of whose turn it is.
A game that fails to change the "player_Turn" variable after a completed turn would probably not make it out of Alpha. I mean, we're talking about something that happens after literally every turn. One person makes a move, then the next person gets a turn.

Again, I will reference the game log:

5:04 PM FrankJones starts their turn
FrankJones plays Wave-Teller.
FrankJoness scores a location
FrankJones scores a location
FrankJones discards Wave-Teller.

[Okay, nothing unusual here, and nothing complex. The wave-Teller gets played every game, and it scores 2 locations. Both I and my opponent saw this in the game log, everything is fine so far]

5:05 PM ManneMan starts their turn

[As to be expected. My turn ended, and now it is my opponent's turn. We both see this in the game log.]

11:01 PM FrankJones starts their turn.

[ ??? THat's it. The game had already changed the active player from me (after playing the wave-teller) to my opponent. But then 6 hours later, both of us see that the game has sent the turn back to me. Nothing complex here. The game indicated it was my opponent's turn, which it was. And then 6 hours later, the game, without either of us doing ANYTHING, switched it to my turn.]

I very much doubt that is a common occurrence. I've never seen nor heard of it happening at all. We're not talking about a situation in which the game failed to complete one player's turn. Or where each player was seeing something different, for example, each player's screen showing it is the other player's turn, which happens so frequently, there are near-daily bug reports from someone who forfeited on time because of this.

Again, just in case I am not making this clear - game code was executed when [i]nothing was happening[/i], and [i]no play or action was being made[/i].

This would be like two players returning to a game of chess after a few hours, and some of the pieces have been rearranged.
[/quote]

Your whole reasoning lies on the assumption that there is some kind of very rigid stucture for player's turn but that's not true in a complex game engine. If your game engine allow for interruption (player's reacting to other players), then the active player might be different than the one that is currently taking their "turn". I have got many similar reports in my most complex games. Now, even if aquatica dont have these kinds of back and forth, if the same engine is re-used from a previous game, it might still cary this kind of issue.

[FrankJones]

I am nor bothered; I am disappointed it happened and that we cannot finish the game.
And, I am very curious how such an unusual bug could occur in a situation that was not complex, did not involve back-and-forth interaction, and differs from every other bug report I've ever seen.

I am curious to see whether it can be replicated (most likely not, for reasons I have already stated).

As nik592 said, sometimes inexplicable bugs occur that seem to defy reason.

nik592, thank you for the professional insight.

Regarding the apparent impossibility of reverting the game to the proper player's turn - is that something that is literally not possible here on BGA? Or is it just something that is not practical for developers or staff here to do on a case-by-case basis when very often, players are simply mistaken about a bug having occurred?

[FrankJones]

Your post honestly came across to me like, how dare this happen? Why are there bugs in MY games? Ludicrous (which I realise you've now decided maybe was a poor choice) generally tends to imply something should not have ever occurred - not simply that it's surprising, or unexpected, but this is actually ridiculous, and I am almost slightly offended it's happened to me. My opponent is "super nice", "a good player" and "was in a strong position to win", and how dare this ruin their game? Then you went on to use a bunch more caps, as if this terrible thing happened. Not simply that you were confused by it, but actually "bothered" - which is why I said, if it bothers you, start again. Every so often, I pick some options on a game that I haven't seen, and it turns out to be a poor choice for whatever reason. Often, I will abandon those games and restart them. In this case, leaving the game running so the dev can look at it is probably a better option, but the action is to report the bug and then either wait to see if it can be resolved (which I'd doubt, since I don't think devs can make changes to rewind time, or add a one-time move to a game), or you go start over.

I mean sure, post in the forums if you're confused or wondering if it's ever happened to anyone else. Despite the last line asking if this had happened to others, the rest of your post came across like an injustice had occurred, and I (and maybe others) were confused as to why you'd frame it that way. It's a bug. Bugs happen. Even really unexpected ones. Especially really unexpected ones, in my experience.

My apologies for using caps in my earlier post. The intent was emphasis, not yelling. I edited out the caps and changed to italics.

I would be equally disappointed for any player here who encountered a similarly disappointing and inexplicable bug. I have spent many hours in my capacity here as a volunteer assistant on the bug report forum for Terraforming Mars. I wouldn't have done that if I only selfishly cared about bugs in my games. I volunteered because I wanted to help all Terraforming Mars players avoid bugs in their games.

I would happily take on the same role for Aquatica as well if I were asked. As it is, I read each bug report for Aquatica and reply by saying either "that is not a bug because [explanation of the rule]," or, "Yes, that is a bug, the game did not function as expected."

Fortunately, this scenario we encountered is rare. For me, it was a first-time occurrence, out of hundreds of thousands of possible occasions in which it could have occurred but did not. And from the absence of similar bug reports from other players, I assume it very rarely happens to other players either.

[RobertBr]

I understand this game (Aquatica) is still in Beta, but it doesn't need to be.

Your post suggests otherwise. Like others I'm having trouble understanding your hyperbole, it makes no sense as a rhetorical strategy as it has no effect but to confuse people.

[Tisaac]

I am nor bothered; I am disappointed it happened and that we cannot finish the game.
And, I am very curious how such an unusual bug could occur in a situation that was not complex, did not involve back-and-forth interaction, and differs from every other bug report I've ever seen.

I am curious to see whether it can be replicated (most likely not, for reasons I have already stated).

As nik592 said, sometimes inexplicable bugs occur that seem to defy reason.

nik592, thank you for the professional insight.

Regarding the apparent impossibility of reverting the game to the proper player's turn - is that something that is literally not possible here on BGA? Or is it just something that is not practical for developers or staff here to do on a case-by-case basis when very often, players are simply mistaken about a bug having occurred?

Again, there is no such thing as a player's turn. The bga framework is very basic and let you do whatever you want as a developper (as long as you are sticking with the coding language used for the framework). So developpers handle players active status themselves, they just have built in function to make a player active, that's all. All the other parts of the engine is hand-made by the dev, so depending on how it's done, bug with player activation/turn are likely to happen or not. It's really not about the game complexity but rather about the choices the dev made to implement that game. On top of that, from what the dev is mentionning in the report, there seems that the game might have some combo depending on what cards are in play, so i would definitively classify that as non-simple game.

[FrankJones]

I am nor bothered; I am disappointed it happened and that we cannot finish the game.
And, I am very curious how such an unusual bug could occur in a situation that was not complex, did not involve back-and-forth interaction, and differs from every other bug report I've ever seen.

I am curious to see whether it can be replicated (most likely not, for reasons I have already stated).

As nik592 said, sometimes inexplicable bugs occur that seem to defy reason.

nik592, thank you for the professional insight.

Regarding the apparent impossibility of reverting the game to the proper player's turn - is that something that is literally not possible here on BGA? Or is it just something that is not practical for developers or staff here to do on a case-by-case basis when very often, players are simply mistaken about a bug having occurred?

Again, there is no such thing as a player's turn. The bga framework is very basic and let you do whatever you want as a developper (as long as you are sticking with the coding language used for the framework). So developpers handle players active status themselves, they just have built in function to make a player active, that's all. All the other parts of the engine is hand-made by the dev, so depending on how it's done, bug with player activation/turn are likely to happen or not. It's really not about the game complexity but rather about the choices the dev made to implement that game. On top of that, from what the dev is mentionning in the report, there seems that the game might have some combo depending on what cards are in play, so i would definitively classify that as non-simple game.

For what it's worth, the developer said the game should not have changed its game state while both players were inactive in the game:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=174959

[FrankJones]

I understand this game (Aquatica) is still in Beta, but it doesn't need to be.

Your post suggests otherwise. Like others I'm having trouble understanding your hyperbole, it makes no sense as a rhetorical strategy as it has no effect but to confuse people.

What hyperbole? I'm trying to decipher a rare bug that skipped a player's turn altogether, while neither player was interacting with the game in any way, a bug that occurred 5 hours and 56 minutes after either player had interacted with the game in any way.

What I meant when I said the game does not need to be in Beta is, the vast majority of bugs have been addressed and fixed, and now has fewer problems than at least one game that has already been moved out of Beta.