899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Shadow - Are you SURE you visited each and every room after beating a Zodiac Boss?  Libra is particularly easy to miss.  I'll check again, but unless there's something screwy going on with the global variables, it worked last time I messed with it.

 

She should plug you into her computer once you're fully integrated into the Zodiac Project.

 

Here's my days lately:

 

1 hour programming

2 hours searching for unpaired bracket

30 minutes fixing runtime errors

1 new boss mode finished

 

Ugh, dem brackets

Edited by C-Dawg, 10 January 2015 - 04:59 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

Pisces Spread was it! Probably my least favorite, on a personal level. It does work, my apologies. There is no in-game checklist as of yet to make sure. I also tend to completely just not pick up the earlier ones because they're weaker, or I prefer certain styles of motion above others. Nobody needs to get them in order, after all, apparently.

Are you working in Notepad++? (Can get it from ninite.com, along with a bunch of other great software.) Really great program. There are better ones for tracking curly braces, but they're also a lot harder to use as well.

[C-Dawg]

I actually use Microsoft Visual Studio.

[newstarshipsmell]

Scorpio 0A: So I'm still dicking around after picking up the WCBs. I haven't gone to Leo yet to follow the plot. I've discovered that I can access the Virgo entrance with Wall Cling Boots, by jumping around the corner of the block and back/up onto the side. (I can also exploit this in several other locations I'd assumed I needed the AGD or IJB to access, but so far they've all been minor expansions. Not sure if this was intended and/or you'd level-designed expecting it.) I don't think the same move would work if the overhang in the wall is at least 2 blocks wide (assuming the player is unable to double-jump/exploit the jump-from-bottom-row.)

Wall Cling Boots: If you end up slightly inside the wall, but not far enough to shoot up the side (or too far in, I'm not sure which) the WCBs don't seem to work at all - you have to move entirely out of the wall and then back against it to use them. That glitch with sliding along ceilings has happened to me dozens of times unintentionally now.

Virgo 07: Cave Terminal text misspells "THIER".

Taurus 27: Cave Shop sells the Shield you get in Aquarius. Is this intended as a backup for players who miss it the first time? ETA: I've forgotten which switch opened the door to the Black Hole Armor, but I obviously got mine before you fixed this room, so I couldn't compare the item for sale and verify it looked the same as the first Shield Module. So I bought it, to see what happened (hoping I wasn't about to replace/downgrade my BHA heh heh) and inferred it's just the SM since my inventory didn't change. If you aren't required to pass this room to open the door to the BHA, is it possible to replace the SM for sale with a key or a LT if the player already acquired it in Aquarius? (Probably not that big of a deal - another cosmetic suggestion.)

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 10 January 2015 - 07:31 PM.

[C-Dawg]

To your questions:

 

Yes, you are intended to be able to access Virgo at this point.  Yes, you're intended to be able to hop around the corner of walls with the wall-jump and double-jump to proceed.  In fact, you will eventually find this technique required learning for some upcoming platforming challenges.  The plot doesn't point out Virgo just yet, but there's no harm in exploring it if you want.  

 

The Taurus shop does sell a backup, yes.  Honestly it should be something else, though, because if you're going to have a backup shield 1 that should probably be sold around the time you make the first trip into Pisces and no later.

Also: Scorpio mode done!  Sort of.  I have one strange quirk with how my FFCs are reacting when I assign a script to them to work out,

[newstarshipsmell]

Huh. I posted this earlier:
Gemini 4B: Doors are orange and frame is purple. Door in adjacent room all purple.

But when I exited Taurus back into Gemini 4C just now, the doors/frame in the room are orange, not purple. The adjoining room still has orange doors/purple frame. So either I wrote the wrong color the first time, or it changed for some reason.

Taurus 1F: The cave room is still empty, looks like it should have a power/energy/speed option. Or is this room hiding another? I tried bombing/slashing/shooting everywhere.

Gemini 6F & 5F: The fish eggs in these two rooms do not hatch when struck with stun beams.

Pisces 1B: The waterfall flows out of a hole in the ceiling, instead of over blocks like in 1C and 0A, so you can jump up into it and scroll up, bounce off a solid block on the bottom row of 0B, and fall back down.

Pisces: The vertical shooting squids seem to trigger when you're off-center from their columns, rather than directly above/below them, so they fire sooner if you're crossing their path right-to-left. Probably doesn't really matter. But in 1E you can run left-to-right past them (without dashing) without getting hit. Going right-to-left, you dash or you get hit. Not sure about the horizontal ones; probably harder to eyeball with gravity.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 10 January 2015 - 08:29 PM.

[C-Dawg]

That's strange.  The room was set up properly in ZQuest.  I don't know why it's not working, but it's back on the list.

[newstarshipsmell]

That's strange.  The room was set up properly in ZQuest.  I don't know why it's not working, but it's back on the list.

Are you referring to Taurus 1F? Because, in case this matters, I visited that (empty) room with the PUBLIC Beta 01-03-15 quest file, then swapped the .qst file with the PUBLIC Beta 01-10-15 quest file today, and went back to check all the rooms I'd reported to get whatever I missed last time. Could visiting it while broken have triggered something that's keeping it empty now because I didn't start over with the new demo? Or are you referring to another room? (By "empty" I mean, the room is there, but there's no items to grab or scripted dialog.)

Hmmm... Maybe I should start over with a new save. I just visited Pisces 33 - whose corridor I cleared a while back. The item window is empty, rather than cracked, and the corridor doors are open instead of closed, and the platform below it is intact instead of a pair of 1x2 tiles opened in it. It was not like this when I revisited the room before, after clearing the level, so I'm wondering if changing the .qst file screwed this room up?

I'd rather keep playing than start over, but I'd hate to waste your time reporting bugs that result from mixing .qst files, rather than problems with the current .qst file. On the other hand, any bugs I find in further rooms I haven't visited yet ought to be current bugs, yes? So if I stick to those and ignore problems in earlier areas, I can "finish" the game in a couple more days and then start over with the newest copy and give everything a more thorough inspection.

These rooms still have conveyors applied to the platforms:

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 10 January 2015 - 08:59 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Yes, you should keep going your earlier save. Since starting end of game stuff, I have not added to the plot. If you saved using the new file, though, I do not known what problems that might cause...

[newstarshipsmell]

Leo 79: The wind pushes you into the left side of the pipe on the right.

 

Libra 18/19: The doors and gates are purple when you enter each room, as they open. The doors turn orange when open all the way, in both rooms.

 

Libra 37: The door warps to an empty room again.

Also, the snowman enemy 2nd from bottom runs all the way to the left wall, across a 3-tile gap:

 

Libra 09: I landed on one of the warps (the lower-left one, I think) and it warped me inside a wall in 00:

 

Gemini 2B: Door leads to empty cave.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 11 January 2015 - 01:18 AM.

[Gleeok]

Whoa... looking good C-Dawg. Definitely going to have to give the final beta a playthrough when you get her all done. I remember some of those bosses could be brutal; hope this is still the case! Looking forward to it.

Here's my days lately:
1 hour programming
2 hours searching for unpaired bracket
30 minutes fixing runtime errors
1 new boss mode finished

Ugh, dem brackets

Ouch... In VS Ctrl K, Ctrl F will format a selection, making this easier.

Also (as of 2.5 rc2) I made it you can rename the zscript.txt to a .h and Visual Studio will be able to parse it as c++ (along with the newer java-styled documentation). So if you create an empty project and rename your .z files to .h (or similar) you can use all the Intellisense and auto-complete functionality of VS with Zscript. (This is what I do)

[C-Dawg]

 I remember some of those bosses could be brutal; hope this is still the case! Looking forward to it.
 

 

Yeah, that remains true.  The last boss, the one I'm working on now, should be neigh-unbeatable.  You have 9 health tanks to work with, but it has 9 modes because it can switch Zodiac weapons just like you can.  And each time it does, it gets a new fresh health bar.  I just finished Scorpio and Leo is nearly working, so I'm just about halfway done with the different modes.  It's beatable, but only now because the Leo Laser is grossly overpowered.  Once I do something to correct for that on the boss, like perhaps add invincibility after it is hit, it should be back into insanity-town.

Edited by C-Dawg, 11 January 2015 - 02:49 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Virgo 0D: Door warps to no-gravity/4-bat empty cave.

 

Virgo 2A: Door warps to an item/guy cave with no items/dialog. I Quit/Continued from inside this cave and resumed play in the terminal cave at Libra 46.

 

Virgo 25-26-27: the Sidearm bullets display underneath the hidden tunnel tiles, making them pretty easy to spot if you bother to fire up - which is likely, since the enemies also spawn inside the tunnel, and you can somewhat see them when they move. (Assuming this applies to a number of other hidden tunnels that are easily found by firing the sidearm.)

 

Virgo 15: Door warps to no-gravity/4-bat empty cave.

 

Virgo 2E: The half-tile hanging vines in the lower-left path make it impossible (I think?) to ascend/go left along that path to backtrack after obtaining the Life extension in 4E below, and I've bombed everywhere I could and found no other way out, so this tile forces you to quit/resume.

 

Explosives: Just noticed this one - probably related to missiles not exploding on the top row/left column, bombs placed on the left column of any room will fall through any/all solid tiles and off the screen.

 

Virgo 2C: Door warps to no-gravity/4-bat empty cave.

 

Virgo 2B: Triggering the switch does not display the opened door coordinates in that room. ETA: It appears to open the door in room 43, which is a door on the right, and the switch graphic indicates a door on the left opening - so the graphic needs to be reversed, and the room fixed so it displays 43 below the room number after triggering the switch.

 

Virgo 39: Door warps to no-gravity/4-bat empty cave. When you exit, it drops you 2 tiles up, 2 tiles right of the door warp, so you fall into the spikes - instead of placing you beside the door on the platform.

 

Wall Cling Boots / Aries Saber (all swords?): If there's an item drop on the far side of a 1-tile wall, and I cling beside it and strike away from the wall, my sword strike will still "hit" the item behind me on the far side of the wall and pick it up. ETA: This may only happen when the item drop is on the far right side of a wall and you're on the left side. I could not replicate it with the relative positions reversed.

 

Virgo: The spore enemies - are they supposed to be harder? Not sure if your beefed up sidearm was supposed to make them as easy to clear as they are. Shooting them with it kills them, whereas using the sword/explosives/missiles splits them into many enemies. As is, they are exploitable somewhat like the Libra ice cubes, in that you can split them up into dozens of enemies quickly, and then kill them all with the sidearm for tons of drops. (ETA: haha, now that I actually tried doing so, they are even more exploitable than the ice cubes. I just refilled my meters and recovered most of my spent missiles with just 3 enemies near each other and a few missiles.)

 

Virgo 44: I defeated the boss pretty quickly, but I was standing right where the item (Dash Boots 2?) was displayed when I entered the room, when the boss died/exploded. I did not acquire the powerup, and was stuck in the room with the door shut, no powerup, and the walls firing fireballs at me. ETA: This room/boss is totally buggy. I quit/continued after killing him the first time, and entered the room and he reappeared. When I jump over the pillar on the left side, the room repeatedly flips between the room with the powerup and no boss, and the room with the boss and no powerup, over and over again. So you can't even go over there without resetting the boss fight. I've tried killing the boss standing on the top center block and on top of the right column - in both cases, when he dies, I briefly see a health bar below where the bar normally goes, after the regular bar disappears, and it fills downwards as the boss dies. Then nothing. Just an empty, sealed room with walls shooting fireballs at me. I could probably go try to explore Capricorn without the Dash Boots 2, but not sure how much farther I'll make it before getting stuck? Can I just "cheat" and give this item to myself? I haven't saved after beating the boss, so should I wait for you to fix it and swap demos again, or just start over at this point?

 

Pisces: After giving up on the Virgo 44 boss, I went and beat the corridor at Virgo 79. I backtracked to Aquarius and headed over to Pisces, to go explore Capricorn as far as I can. There's no water in Pisces now. Is this a bug or on purpose?

 

Capricorn 72: I'm pulled to the right in this room, even though I don't see any fans/magnets/etc.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 11 January 2015 - 05:13 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Yikes, not sure what's going on with that Virgo rematch with the spinning plant thing.  You'll be happy to learn that this is NOT the level 2 dash, you need nothing other than Super Missile to explore Capricorn.  Those are stomp boots.  

 

No water?  You probably turned off a layer at some point.

 

Some of the Exploits you found were unintentional at first, but I kind of don't mind them.  As the game goes on I really do punish the player in many ways, so there's a part of me that thinks it's nice to give the player a few exploitable areas to grind.

 

As always, thank you for the reports.

 

I've completed Leo, Capricorn, and Libra modes now.  Whew.  We have Cancer, Taurus, and Virgo left, and then... at least that boss is done.  Hallelujah.  At that point, I need to script the events following the completion of all the corridors to get you into the final flying zone, script the events in the Pandora, including the boss fight, and then the ending.  Then the first draft will be completed :-o

Edited by C-Dawg, 11 January 2015 - 05:51 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Ugh. Now that you've mentioned that, I totally remember clicking on "Show Trans. Layers" just to see what it did - which seemed like nothing, in the area I was in at the time - but I thought I turned it back on afterwards. Nope.

 

Glad to hear about that boss - though, you know, I was really looking forward to the stomp boots. I stuck with the Aries Saber rather than getting one of the other Zodiac Weapons that're good for killing enemies on the row below you, since it deals so much more damage. I fought the Pisces Zodiac and died pretty quickly, so my attitude was to pretty much blow off any other Zodiac bosses until the end of the game when I need to collect all the weapons. (I've only found the entrances to the Taurus and Gemini bosses so far, but haven't even tried them yet.)

 

Oh, and I had a funny idea for a total dick move on one of the last corridor bosses. You could code him so that when his health drops to point X, he "tosses" a Life Tank above/behind him (and stops moving horizontally, so it doesn't scroll down the screen past him.) Time it so that unless the player is hitting him directly with both the main weapon and special weapon continuously, it'll scroll down the screen and hit the boss before you can drop its meter to 0, and if it contacts the boss, fully restores his life meters. But time it so that if the player is just close and fast enough when it happens, they have time to circle around the boss quickly and grab the item before it hits the boss. The best part of that is the player wouldn't even learn about it until making it all the way to the boss and then nearly killing it...