Playtester Instructions

THIS IS FOR PRIVATE TESTING ONLY. The June 6 playtest will be using the Steam version, which you only have access to if you got a private key. SVN testing will resume the next week.

Smashball has a private playtest system that allows players to help test out the newest patches to Smashball before they're released to the general public. You can be a private tester and still play regular Smashball. This page contains instructions on how to download and set up the test release. When you're done, you will have two copies of Smashball: the regular one, and a "Smashball_Test" directory.

Installing Smashball_Test
You need roughly 600 MB free, and you need to download a free copy of TortoiseSVN.

Install TortoiseSVN
You will need to install a copy of TortoiseSVN, available for free from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads. It's a tiny little application that gives you access to our repository. After you install, it may ask you to reboot.

Get Development Copy
Do the following to get a fresh copy of the latest Smashball development release set up alongside your 'production' Smashball installation:


 * 1) Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods directory (case-insensitive, by default it is C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods)
 * 2) If you've already installed a Smashball release, you should see a Smashball directory here, along with directories for other mods you've installed
 * 3) Right-click->SVN Checkout... and fill out the Checkout dialog as follows:
 * 4) * URL of repository: http://svn.smashball.tv/svn/sb-src/Smashball-Source-ep2/trunk/Smashball
 * 5) * Checkout directory: C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\Smashball_test (make this match the location of your steam directory. the 'leaf' should be called Smashball_test.)
 * 6) * Checkout Depth: Fully recursive
 * 7) * Omit externals: unchecked
 * 8) * Revision: HEAD revision
 * 9) Click OK.
 * 10) If you get a dialog asking you if you want to create the Smashball_test directory, click Yes.
 * 11) Let it chug for a bit.  It has to download the entire distribution of Smashball, which is 551MB at last glance.
 * 12) When the checkout is complete, click OK.
 * 13) Restart Steam so that it recognizes your shiny new checkout.
 * 14) Open the Games browser in Steam.  If you see both "Smashball" and "Smashball Private Test" in the list, you have successfully installed a playtester version of Smashball.
 * 15) Before launching, you should set up your config:
 * 16) Browse to your ...Smashball_test\cfg directory
 * 17) Rename 'config.tmpl' to 'config.cfg'

Updating
Since this is a development copy, it will change a _LOT_. Be sure to update to the lastest revision before attempting to join a test server.


 * 1) Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods directory (case-insensitive, by default it is C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods).
 * 2) Right-click on the Smashball_test directory->SVN Update.
 * 3) Let it chug.  The amount of time it takes depends on the number and size of changes the Smashball Labs team has made since you last updated.
 * 4) Click OK once the update is complete.

Launching & Joining
There is a single Smashball Private Test Server located on the USA west coast.

To join it, we recommend that you start the Smashball_Test game from the Steam game browser, and then find the test server with the in-game browser. It seems that if you try to join the test server from the Steam server browser, it sometimes launches the regular Smashball game (not Smashball_Test).