Tidalis:Common Technical Support Questions

License Key Problems

I bought the full game, but it says trial mode

Generally this just means you need to enter your license key. When you first run the game, it will always be trial mode, even if you bought it. When you purchased the game, you should have received an email from the game distributor that included a license key for you. Simply type that into the License Key textbox that pops up when Tidalis starts, or even cut-and-paste it in, and you're all set! Once the game accepts your license key, you'll be in the full version.

If you already entered your license key and now you have reverted to trial mode when you load the game again, this may mean that your settings.dat file has been erased or corrupted. The game keeps a backup of this file as settings.bak, so this is exceedingly rare. The settings.dat file also has your settings information and high scores, so those also would be gone in this case. In such an event, you can simply type in your license key again and you're good to go. But if this is happening, you might also want to check on your hard disk to make sure it's not going bad.

If you were in the full version of the game, but then connect to another player and went into trial mode, don't fret -- this is temporary. It simply means that the other player is in trial mode, and your game will act as if it were also in trial mode until you disconnect from that player. You won't lose any data or have any other problems. This is simply a convenience so that trial players can play with full version players without the full version players needing to revert their license keys out or anything like that.

The game won't accept my license key

Please make sure that you typed it exactly as it was shown in the email, with capital or lowercase letters, the dashes intact, and no spaces at the start, end, or anywhere in the middle of the text. Usually cutting and pasting the license key will solve any such problems. If you still have an issue, the problem is likely extra spaces at the start or end of the license key; sometimes that gets selected along with the license key, depending on your email client.

Visual Problems

The game looks squished or stretched

If the graphics look stretched or pinched, most likely the game is running at a resolution that is too wide or narrow for your monitor. Simply go under the Settings window from the main menu, and you can select a new screen resolution until you find one that looks correct.

I can't set my screen resolution on Mac OSX

Tidalis runs on the Unity 3D game engine, which is a wonderful engine and in fact started out on the Mac before becoming wildly more cross-platform. Unfortunately, the latest official version of Unity 3D (2.6.1) at the time that Tidalis was initially released has a bug that prevents us from being able to set your resolution or your fullscreen/windowed status from in-game.

When future versions of Unity comes out, we'll update Tidalis to use the new version so that this problem goes away for Mac players, but in the meantime there is fortunately a pretty simple workaround, and the Screen Resolution popup in the game will tell you about this: simply hold the Option key while clicking to open the game, and you can use the default Unity 3D screen-resolution-configuration interface to set your resolution and your fullscreen status.

I'm colorblind, and can't tell the blocks apart

Tidalis has six different block sets, some of which will be easier or harder to tell apart depending on your type of colorblindness. You should be able to find one that works for you. To change your block set, go under Settings from the main menu and there is a big "What style of blocks do you prefer?" dropdown that you can use to compare and choose the one that works best for you.

I'm sensitive to motion and flashing, and this is giving me a headache

Tidalis has a lot going on on the screen, to be sure. For most folks, this is exciting and no problem. But, we know that amount of visual flair can be both overwhelming and painful for some people. If you fall into either of those camps, no worries -- we've got you covered.

Once again, go into the Settings screen, and this time there are two options that may be of interest to you:

Reduce Visual Stimulation Checkbox

If you check this checkbox, then a lot of the special effects and animations on the game board will be removed. Fewer flares and victory explosions and background shakes and that sort of thing.

Use Static Backgrounds Checkbox

Normally the visual backgrounds while you are playing are full of life and motion. If you check this checkbox, then instead a non-moving image will be used. This is great for if you were finding the motion overwhelming, and it's also great for if you're playing on an older computer.

The non-moving backgrounds load faster, and put far less of a load on your computer's processor and memory. So if you're finding the game loads levels very slowly or stutters a lot while playing, you may want to use this option simply for that reason.

Network Troubles

All networking-related questions are answered on the Network Troubleshooting page.

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Technical Support Forums

Question not answered here? You'll want to head over to the Tidalis Technical Support Forums to search, and then ask if you don't see it answered there, either.

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Bug Reports

Did you find a bug? Please let us know at the Tidalis Bug Report Forums!

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