899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Cool, thanks for the continued reports.

 

Last boss is done, except for a few non-critical tweaks.  Whew, two weeks on a single custom boss.  It's quite the marathon to play through, too.

[newstarshipsmell]

Sure! No problem. I'm on my way to Dr. Mo with all 11 Zodiac Weapons.

 

Anti-Gravity Device: "Anti-Gravity Device - Consume energy to propel yourself straight up. You cannot move horizontally while ascending." Recommend appending "unless you press R."

 

Virgo Whip: It's kinda lame. Apparently it only works on one enemy at a time, which makes it a poor weapon when you're attacking multiple enemies in front of you, as you'll freeze while draining one and the other(s) can move forward and hit you. Also, it seems to sometimes turn some enemies invisible if you strike a glancing blow that doesn't kill them. ETA: You also can't use it on the left- or right-most columns, or the top row - probably not on the bottom row either.

 

It looks like I re-reported a bunch of bugs ShadowTiger previously posted - oops. I can confirm that the Virgo Zodiac Boss's death is totally messed up, and he has no life meter at any point. I did not experience any trouble with the corridor boss at Virgo 79.

 

Spoiler

Simulation: The message from Dr. Mo keeps triggering whenever you're near the center of the screen in the starting room, even if you don't leave/return to it. Kind of annoying, since if you don't immediately leave the room, but futz around in it (e.g. looking at stuff with your scope) you have to read it over and over again.

Also, after proceeding a couple screens, I quit/saved, expecting I'd resume from the room I began in. Nope. All the way back to the Capricorn entrance room, since I didn't bother stopping in any other rooms on the way to Dr. Mo. Ugh. Is this intentional? I guess I may as well backtrack and go get the Leo weapon again, since I really hate this whip.

 

Leo 0B: You can walk left into 0A on the top and walk into the pillar on the right side of it.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 15 January 2015 - 04:32 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Added strings for the late game transitions and designed a few more rooms.  Tonight, we begin work on scripting the events to follow completion of all of the corridors and connect the last boss to the rest of the game.  From there, gotta script the stuff that happens after that.  (If you've played Dreams of Yesterday, you know I like wearing out the player and then kicking them in the nuts when they're at the end of their rope.)  Depending on how much new artwork I end up using in the credits, the ending itself might take a few weeks to a month to do all by itself.  But we're getting there!

 

Per the Whip:  Well, not all of the weapons are created equal.  The Laser and Wave are by far the most powerful at the moment. The Whip is not strong, no, but it does strike a single enemy repeatedly and refills your life while it does.  If I made the Whip any stronger, then it would outclass pretty much everything by boosting your staying power.  If anything, I need to dial the Laser back. Unless I've specifically scripted the enemy to minimize the continuous dps from the laser, and I've done that for several bosses, it is by far the most powerful weapon in the game.  (a.k.a. murderbeam).  

 

Also: You have made great comments on the mechanics of the game and bugs, but have you noticed any balance issues or plot issues?  Any items too strong or too weak?  Is the storyline clear enough and compelling enough to keep pushing the player along?

Edited by C-Dawg, 15 January 2015 - 12:19 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

If the player actually bothers to read all of the text available within the inside-rooms off the terminals, they should be pretty much well-informed. I don't think there will ever truly be a way to "order" them chronologically, but that's part of the fun. Unless, of course, the player actually forgets little pieces of it while wandering about because (unless I'm mistaken) some terminals can be overwritten by critical plot-related interventions by the main characters, and the player would skip what text would have ordinarily have been there. Assumptions are an odd thing like that.

[C-Dawg]

Yea, the rule of thumb is that if you get a character message when reading a terminal, you should leave and re-read the terminal again because you missed the default message.  I wonder how to make that obvious in-game without breaking the fourth wall.  Perhaps display a flashing "message overridden" or something while that is happening?

[newstarshipsmell]

Yea, the rule of thumb is that if you get a character message when reading a terminal, you should leave and re-read the terminal again because you missed the default message. I wonder how to make that obvious in-game without breaking the fourth wall. Perhaps display a flashing "message overridden" or something while that is happening?

Heh, that's a good idea. I misunderstood this game mechanic the first time through, and missed some of the messages, possibly some of the hints on how to proceed, due to that. Possibly, you could just add an " >> END TRANSMISSION <<" line to any NPC messages, and then have a string asking the player if they wish to also access the locally stored information, with a YES/NO prompt, that then displays the terminal message upon selecting YES.

Also, it felt a little odd when I got the messages

Spoiler

from the spy, general, and spy, all in quick succession by leaving/re-entering the same terminal room in Gemini, I think, where the spy's second message exclaims something like "what's taking you so long!?" That works, from an old-NES-game angle, since lots of them were goofy like that, but might seem less silly if it were scripted a) to appear after visiting several more terminal rooms, not the room where you got the first spy message - with a simple 'terminals-visited-since-spy-message' counter - or b) not to trigger in the room he first contacted you, nor in any of the terminal rooms that are basically along the route he's instructing you to take (so you only get that message if you wander off the "intended" path.)

I have a bunch of other stuff regarding balance to talk about, but it'll be a fairly long post, and might have to wait until tomorrow (I just resumed classes, so I'm not able to devote literally all my waking hours to playing the game, like I did when I started on it over winter break.) But in short, the plot is excellent, and pretty well conceived/written, and much more than I was expecting. The most unbalanced things are the money, the keys, the sidearm power, and the life tank availability, later on in the game, which makes most enemies and bosses trivial to defeat. It's also hard to judge some of these things with so many of the later levels' cave doors bugged, since I won't know what's on the other side of them until they're all fixed.

ETA: Also, regarding that initial message/room inside

Spoiler

the simulation... it's not obvious the center of the screen is a warp out of the simulation back into the lab. It looks like a health/energy/missile restore field, and approaching it triggers the script again, making it look like all it does is trigger the message. Having the message only trigger once in the room would fix that, but maybe you should modify the strings so the doctor explicitly mentions that you can exit the simulation by stepping into the field, in case the player wants to backtrack at this point for some reason. And the room really ought to serve as a continue/save point.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 15 January 2015 - 04:28 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Hey! Spoilers!

 

Anyway, yeah, it is supposed to be a continue point.  Your suggestions about telling the player what to do are good ones.

[newstarshipsmell]

Haha, sorry! Obviously I am kind of a noob in the forums here. I think I fixed the previous two posts. ETA: And I just came up with at least half a dozen really good ideas/suggestions in the last half-hour, but I gotta go to class, so I'll post them when I get home in the evening.

Still drafting a big-ass feedback post. In the meantime...

Subscreen: "SAGITTARIUS" cuts off and displays the last S on a row below - AQUARIUS and CAPRICORN both fit, as do presumably the rest of the level names. (And, heh, I've been playing this entire time and just noticed you'd already implemented this suggestion on one of the updates.)

Sagittarius: No coordinates for the current screen are displayed. Intentional?

Counters: The money counter starts off at 000, and presumably drops to 000 if you spend all of it (though I did not bother to verify this.) The key and missile counters start off blank, and only take numbers when you acquire a key or the Missile Launcher. However, each counter simply disappears when you deplete your inventory, instead of dropping to 000.

Life Tanks/Aquarius 6D/1E: Both ? blocks drop 1x Life Tanks. When I pick up the first LT in 6D, I then have 1 in my subscreen inventory. When I then pick up the second LT in 1E, I end up with 3 in my inventory. Not sure what getting them in the opposite order does, or if this happens with other LT pickups. I saved after getting the one in 6D - so after getting both, I used them up and confirmed it decreases from 3 to 2, 1, and none (removed from inventory) after each use. I then quit/retried again and used up the one LT (removing it from inventory) before getting the other, and I only gained 1 LT from 1E. Using it removed it from my inventory as well.

Also, I just discovered a secret cave (with soldiers and a Power sidearm upgrade) as well as a secret cave extension (with an Energy expansion) near the beginning of the game, that I somehow missed up until now. I guess I have not been nearly as thorough as I thought I had been!

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 15 January 2015 - 11:12 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Alright, no time for bug fixes tonight, but I have something better for you.  I've uploaded a new demo that implements the following:

 

1. Final corridor completion plot (Iron teaming up)

2. Plot advancement after that

3. The final flying level

and...

4. The final battle (?)

 

There's some more work to be done on parts of this, but it's all cosmetic / polish.  You are now able to go all the way up through the final boss battle.  Mind you, the game checks for corridor completion using global variables, so if you've been updating save files I would be shocked if the script works properly at the moment.  But, if you finish all 20 corridors (two in each Zone), you'll find out.

 

So, at the moment I have to do:

 

1. Some secret stuff after the final boss battle

2. Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes.

3. The ending.

 

And then that's all she wrote.  Except for beta testing and balancing.

Edited by C-Dawg, 16 January 2015 - 12:11 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Okay, I am starting over with a new game from the 399 demo. So all further bugs reported will be solely from that version.

I kept a list of everything I've reported previously by PM and in this thread, so I shouldn't be reporting anything I already reported before.

I am carefully reading every message this time through, and screenshotting anything that has typos/misspellings, so I'll post all those in one big post at the end.

NPC Messages: If you acquire the Pulse Hammer before hacking any terminals, the next time you hack one, it'll skip the introductory messages from the commander and the spy, which will likely confuse some players and detract somewhat from the plot. I would assume the rest of the NPC messages (from terminal hacks) would be prone to the same issue, so perhaps overhauling how your game handles that, and having alternate messages lined up for those situations, so the character dialogs maintain cohesion, would be a good idea. In this instance, you could set it up so if the player gets the PH, then visits a terminal, they get a modified message from the spy that basically combines the first and second messages, i.e. introduces the character without giving you useless directions to the PH, congratulates you on finding it, and then proceeds to direct you to Scorpio as before. You could receive a message from the commander, either before or after the modified spy message, basically chastising you for rushing forward without reporting in for further instructions and insisting you check in more frequently from there out (i.e. hack terminals regularly) and basically just restate whatever he says in the message you missed. It might get more convoluted down the road, depending on which messages you skip while completing objectives that move the NPC message queue forward... but it would make for entertaining replay value, for those that know where to go, and then end up getting funny messages... like the commander losing his shit later on, and pointedly reminding you that you're a COMMUNICATIONS robot, so COMMUNICATE already.

Missiles: The plain ole' regular missiles now fire at Bow2 speed. Intentional? ETA: Er, never mind. It's the Explosive Missiles that move at the slower, Bow1 speed - I guess I just forgot/didn't notice that the regular Missiles travel faster... or is that a bug?

Destructible block explosions: All the blocks that can be temporarily or permanently destroyed, including ? blocks, now remain on their explosion animations indefinitely, after being destroyed, even if you leave and return to the room they're in (temporarily destroyed blocks respawn normally after leaving/returning.)

Life Tanks: This time, I got the 1E/6D tanks in the opposite order. Picking up the first one, in 1E, gave me 1. Picking up the second in 6D brought my total up to 3. So it's a bug with how the game is adding a 1xLT to an existing inventory of 1, rather than the 1E tank having the wrong number/sprite/etc. May apply to other sums too; I'll be paying attention to that as I play. When I think about it, I did seem to be carrying an excessive number of tanks, on the previous playthrough, and because I didn't want to waste any, I never grabbed more than I could carry, so if the 3x and 4x LTs are adding more than they ought to, I would've been less likely to notice it. ETA: OldInventory+1xLT=NewInventory = 0+1=1 , 1+1=3 , 2+1=3 , 3+1=4

Scorpio 43: Not really a bug, in my opinion, but just pointing this out in the interests of "can't have people avoiding the hard bits," in case you'd overlooked it - entering from 33, you can hold Up/Down while hopping onto the cactus (so you stay on top of it when knocked-back) and then hop over it, completely bypassing that entire section and the two (I think) lockblocks along that path. I just wasted twenty minutes stuck in there, after carelessly falling in through the sandfall hole, fruitlessly grinding for keys, which I lack, so I quit/continued and realized I could go around it (which I must've figured out on my last playthrough, since I noted later on that I never unlocked any of those blocks - I think almost all of them in this level, in the early section, are avoidable, if you know the correct route to take.)

Thank god you finally fixed that boss in Scorpio 64.

Aries 70: The bottom purple block doesn't cycle/phase in and out.

Aries 42: The bombable blocks don't stay bombed, and the cave exit warps you to the far side of the pillar from the door - I suppose both are intentional, just posting in case.

Aries 48: I only broke one of the blocks, the lower one in the middle pillar. When I came back down from 38, all six were broken.

Aries 6D: Like 48, broke the block on left, returned and both blocks broken.

Shops: It seems like most (if not all) of these shops, the message finishes scrolling, without transferring control to the YES/No prompt below. Pressing A after the message finishes scrolling seems to both move to the prompt and immediately select YES, while pressing B seems to effectively select NO. So it "works" but strangely. Perhaps instead of using these YES/NO prompts, with the movable cursor, you should just use a "A: Yes B: No" prompt at the end of the message instead - no cursor to deal with that way.

Aries 00: All of the boss's tiles except the lower-right corner tile exploded when he died.

Aquarius 55: After purchasing shop item, the glass doesn't break; returning, the message triggers again and you can buy some awesome nothing.

Cancer 36: Inside the terminal cave, there's a rupee lodged in the wall behind the terminal. Is it just there to taunt the player or is it actually reachable? I tried bombing/slashing everywhere in the room.

Cancer 3D: Not sure what happened. I had only shot Iron with maybe 2-3 missiles, so he had most of his health, when I think he tried to uppercut me, facing right, near the right side of the screen, and it looked like he just zoomed off the right side of the screen. It immediately went to the script after you've defeated him.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 16 January 2015 - 07:29 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Cancer 3D: Not sure what happened. I had only shot Iron with maybe 2-3 missiles, so he had most of his health, when I think he tried to uppercut me, facing right, near the right side of the screen, and it looked like he just zoomed off the right side of the screen. It immediately went to the script after you've defeated him.

 

Well, he's done with your nonsense and he's going home.

 

Looks like a failure of the collision detection function.  Added to the list!. 

[newstarshipsmell]

Scorpio 2A: When I entered the room, it warped to the boss fight, which lasted about a second, before warping back to the room with the item, which drops underneath the center platform. Within about a second, it warped back to the boss room fight, and then warped back to the item room a second later. Over and over. I finally managed to position myself underneath the item and jump up as it warped back to that room so I was able to obtain it, but the warping loop continues. I remain in the same position, so at least I'm able to work my way over to the doors and exit while they're open in the item room. (The item does not reappear after acquiring it.)

Scorpio 12: I think someone mentioned this earlier in the thread, but you can work your way up here without the HJB by jumping into the lower-right corner of the 2x2 block in 22 and ascending into 12. If you hop over to the right, there's no way out but quitting/resuming the game. If you removed the top block from the stack of three blocks on the right side of 12, that would allow such players to jump back over the 2x2 block and back down into the intended path; alternatively, you could simply remove that 2x2 block in 22 and I believe that would prevent the HJB-less player from being able to ascend into 12?

Scorpio 3B/4B/5B: If you fall down in the middle, and make it into the gap on the right, you can jump up and to the right a few more times and then fall to the gap that leads to the switch in 4C, but if you miss any of those jumps before reaching/triggering the switch, you fall into a trap that you must quit/resume to escape. (Unless I'm missing something here - I could be. )
Possible solutions: Make one of the blocks swordable, or add a hidden path, like this:

 

Scorpio/Pisces: Cosmetic, but it's aesthetically displeasing to me that the sand blocks in the cave rooms, as well as Scorpio 02 (1st Iron fight) and throughout Pisces are not destructible with the Disintegration Beam/Zodiac weapons. If you have sand pathways that lead places you don't want the player to go, you can always make them turn into grey blocks, like they do in lower Scorpio. And if every single sand block the player strikes in Pisces turns into a grey block, well... the one that doesn't would be rather well hidden, yes?

 

Explosives: As I said before, the bombs-falling-through-thin-floors bug is easily worked around by simply aiming them up, so they fall onto the block you're standing upon and destroy it if destructible. If you really don't feel like fixing that, then you could communicate this work-around to the player in a tongue-in-cheek, not-quite-breaking-the-fourth-wall way by simply adding a terminal room with a dig team message "explaining" it. I'd suggest putting a door for it in Aquarius 61, on top of the pile of rocks (or inside them, if you turn them into a pile of obvious bomb blocks) since that is directly on the route the player must take after acquiring them, and impossible to miss. You could have the message say something like "we've found a strange situation where sometimes when we plant explosives on the ground, they mysteriously seem to fall through it - but we've found that if we simply toss them up in the air, they land on the ground instead. If you think that's strange, just wait until you hear what Dig Team ____ has found in Libra..."

 

Scorpio 2F: Really? Is it really fair that the boss can still attack you while he is exploding and dying? I was standing in the lower-left corner of the room, and he was at the top center of the screen with his death-explosion spread to about half the room when he fucking ninja'd me with a tail-strike that killed me. I didn't bother to activate the Life Tank seconds earlier because I'd just managed to kill him, and didn't react in time when I saw his attack coming. (This is mostly me grumbling about a lame, avoidable death and a long track back to that point, heh heh. If this is your desired boss-death-mechanic-threat, sobeit.)

 

Initial Zodiac Weapon: The dialog upon contacting the field: "RELEASE YOUR PREVIOUSLY EQUIPPED ZODIAC WEAPON TO INSTALL THIS ZODIAC WEAPON?" Recommend checking whether any Zodiac weapons have been obtained yet, and if so a) skipping the text string/prompt, b) displaying an alternative string, replacing "ZODIAC WEAPON" with "DISINTEGRATING BEAM" or c) a string simply informing the player they've equipped their first Zodiac weapon, dropping the YES/NO prompt.

^ This was all for obtaining the Scorpio Sting first, so I have no idea if the Aquarius weapon was intended to be found first, and/or if its dialog is any different from the rest.

 

Aquarius 03: There is no gate on the left side to match the right-side gate in room 02.

 

Aquarius 20: Unlike every other door I've found, you cannot stand on top of this one - you just fall through (and into the warp if centered.)

 

Scorpio 74: The boss drops so many health/energy items when you shoot it with the special weapon that it makes defeating him totally trivial. He might be a bit harder if you arrive at him with your energy bar depleted... but probably not much harder, since one single energy drop is enough to get you pretty much continuously shooting him with it.

 

Pisces 66: This shop restores the (empty) box and reactivated the purchase script when you re-enter it. (AQ55, IIRC, never "broke" the glass box when I bought the item, but required leaving/returning to retrigger the dialog - this one broke but was restored when I returned.)

 

Pisces 52: Another shop like 66.

 

Pisces 06: Inside the first cave room, the miniboss/enemies don't stay dead, and the wall destruction triggered by clearing them isn't permanent, so when you return to the room from the right, you end up walking through a solid wall.

 

Pisces 4F: In the lower cave room, two of the underwater tiles do not have an underwater layer on top of them.

 

Pisces 32: Another shop like 66.

 

Pisces 28/29: Along the bottom, you can walk right off room 28 into a block in 29. Both that block and the space above it have a leftwards conveyor applied to them.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 17 January 2015 - 02:26 AM.

[C-Dawg]

AQ55 appears to be set up properly.  Not sure why the item is not dropping for you.

 

Shops generally reset (with empty pods) after you've purchased the item.

 

Skelesnake Boss now spawns bones on damage less frequently.  The bones it does spam have more hit points.  The sum total of these changes should be to make it far less easy to spam items while fighting it.

 

AQ 20 - Door moved to avoid edge-of-screen problem with half combos.

 

AQ 03 - Door added.

 

Cancer 36 - Random energy removed.

 

Modified Zodiac Weapon equip code to display different message if you don't have a Zodiac Weapon yet.

 

Escape from the Wall'o'Doom - Unwalkable combo installed below gantry so bombs won't fall through it.  The player might be panicking here, and there's no reason to make it LESS obvious how to escape from certain death.

 

Sand removed from room where you first fight Iron.   This is a frequently-traveled route and kind of breaks the symmetry where all normal rooms in Scorpio have destructible sand.  (It's very complicated to make the sand breakable in a room that I've got set as a boss room or plot point.)  As for the sand within rooms and Pisces?  I think I'm ok with a rule that "sand outside of Scorpio proper doesnt' break."  Heck, the sand in Pisces isn't even the same tiles.

 

Scorp 4C: Modified room so you can shoot the switch from below.  This opens an escape route from the oubliette in which you found yourself.

 

Scorpio 12 - Put a rock there.  Now you're not stuck in the hole if you get explorey.

 

Aries 48, 6D - Secrets are now temporary.  No more double block breaking.

 

Aries 42 is intentional.

 

Fixed explosions not going away.  Somehow the NEXT-> pointer got reset.

 

Aries 70 - Block pops in and out again.

 

Scorp 33 - Wall made solid.  Reduced number of lock blocks to minimize risk of having to grind it out.

 

NPC Messages = Added a warning: "Message Override" to all conversations replacing regular terminal functionality.

 

Sagittarius intentionally has no coordinates.  Welcome to limbo.  

 

Sagittarius DMAP title changed to something that fits thematically and in the space allowed.

 

==================

FOR LATER

==================

 

Scorpio boss death attack = This is relic of the prior scripts where bosses and their ghost enemy were different FFCs.  It's not easy to make them talk to each other.  Eventually I will revamp earlier bosses to reflect later script techniques.  This is not a simple fix to do, and it's probably something I will defer until the polish phase.

 

Bomb Hint = I like the idea of an in-game description for bombs acting strange.  Yet, this mechanic probably does not really NEED any hand holding to describe.  It's pretty obvious to the player what's happening and it's easy to learn this particular technique through trial and error.  

 

Scorpio 2A - Oh, great, now this boss is fucking up even in an earlier area.  Since it's plot-dependent, consider this idiot on my short list of bosses to redo as quickly as possible.  Try to get to it tomorrow.

 

Iron fight bug - Will check later.  Seems like a rare occurrence.

 

Aries explosion: More early boss goodies.  I know what is causing this.  You don't want to know.  I will get it corrected down the road.

 

Shop / Zodiac code = I should build in a few frames of delay after the message to avoid snap-clicks on yes or no.  On the list.

 

Life Tank Bug = Huh.  That's a queer one.  I thought the tanks worked fine.  Worse, I cant' see anything wrong with the code or setup.  It's a really simple code.  By the way, it's something anyone who wants multiple levels of life tanks or potions can feel free to borrow for their own quest:

// ==================================================
// Backup Tank
// This script allows the pickup of up to 9 backup
// tanks.
// DO = The level of the tank
// ==================================================
 
item script backup_tank_pickup{
 
void run(int tank_level){
 
// First, what level tank is this item?
 
// Next, what is the highest level of 
// tank possessed by the player already?
 
int existing_tank_level = 0;
 
if(Link->Item[29]) existing_tank_level = 1;
if(Link->Item[30]) existing_tank_level = 2;
if(Link->Item[239]) existing_tank_level = 3;
if(Link->Item[162]) existing_tank_level = 4;
if(Link->Item[143]) existing_tank_level = 5;
if(Link->Item[144]) existing_tank_level = 6;
if(Link->Item[145]) existing_tank_level = 7;
if(Link->Item[146]) existing_tank_level = 8;
if(Link->Item[147]) existing_tank_level = 9;
 
// Next, add the two levels together, cap at 9.
 
int new_tank_level = tank_level + existing_tank_level;
if(new_tank_level > 9) new_tank_level = 9;
 
// Finally, give link the appropriate level of tank
// and all earlier tanks. 
 
if(new_tank_level >= 1) Link->Item[29] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 2) Link->Item[30] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 3) Link->Item[239] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 4) Link->Item[162] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 5) Link->Item[143] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 6) Link->Item[144] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 7) Link->Item[145] = true;
if(new_tank_level >= 8) Link->Item[146] = true; 
if(new_tank_level >= 9) Link->Item[147] = true; 
 
}
}

Edited by C-Dawg, 17 January 2015 - 02:25 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

AQ55 appears to be set up properly.  Not sure why the item is not dropping for you.
 
Shops generally reset (with empty pods) after you've purchased the item.

Sorry, I was being sarcastic and was unclear. The shop worked. But it let me re-enter and spend more money, on nothing. I wasn't sure if this was a "bug" in this particular room, or just how your shops work. You've cleared that up now, so I won't report any more of those.
 

Sand removed from room where you first fight Iron.   This is a frequently-traveled route and kind of breaks the symmetry where all normal rooms in Scorpio have destructible sand.  (It's very complicated to make the sand breakable in a room that I've got set as a boss room or plot point.)  As for the sand within rooms and Pisces?  I think I'm ok with a rule that "sand outside of Scorpio proper doesnt' break."  Heck, the sand in Pisces isn't even the same tiles.

Heh. I was speaking from memory. And when I got to Pisces again, the first thing I thought was "these sand tiles don't even look the same."
For the record, the boss guarding the Explosives also has sand on top of the room - but whatever! It would look weird to have him crawling all over rock.
 

Sagittarius intentionally has no coordinates.  Welcome to limbo.

Awesome. I only explored about 6-7 rooms before starting over. Since I wasn't sure where I was, and assumed it's another 16x8 map, I just expanded my blank map template to 33x17 rooms and put the first room dead center, so I don't have to mess with it later. It sure does make Zoom to Window a huge pleasure to look at...
 

Life Tank Bug = Huh.  That's a queer one.  I thought the tanks worked fine.  Worse, I cant' see anything wrong with the code or setup.

Well, without knowing anything at all about how ZC works internally, and very little experience messing with ZQ, I have no helpful response to that... But I can confirm that it's only happened for 1+1=3; I've gone all the way up to 7+1=8 on individual LTs without any other summing error. All I can think of is that the potions in TLOZ come in two levels, so I figured since you're adding to that, maybe the way the game engine is interpreting your script is somehow treating the existing "half-potion" single tank as a full potion when it adds the second LT and comes up with 3 total. I dunno.

/resume bug reports

Gemini 03: Activating the health restore inside the cave works, but it doesn't display an energy field like the others do.
Also, after defeating Iron in 04 (who had about half his last health bar remaining when he abruptly disappeared and the fight concluded) and triggering the switch, I backtracked inside the cave here and opted to quit/continue. I resumed inside the terminal cave at Gemini 42. (Expected to resume at the level entrance in the room below, so no biggie, but...) ETA: This happened from inside another terminal cave somewhere in Gemini, so I suppose many/most/all of them set continue points to inside this cave.

Speaking of 52/42, it's not very difficult to execute a pair of wall cling ascents at the entrance to jump up into the room above it and bypass the seven-room circuit to 51, in case that matters to you. I know you've designed the levels with that "enhancement" in mind pretty well, so I'm loath to report every single instance where you can obtain some lesser item "early" or take a shortcut, but you changed that room in Scorpio, so maybe I should report more of them?

Gemini 58/68: If you fall down the left side of the hole, you land in a solid block. Can't jump up, but can walk out the side of it. ETA: It's super-annoying to ascend out of, too, since you have to walk out of the solid block to the right and time your jump correctly to make it out of the hole; the ledge on the right side is too far down to jump out of it from.

Stun Beam: Only fires a shot downwards from the top row.

Pisces 09: Found that randar! He's in the cave shop here.

Shop / Zodiac code = I should build in a few frames of delay after the message to avoid snap-clicks on yes or no. On the list.

If you can fix it so that pressing A and B on the final strings of messages and on the YES/NO prompts stops triggering the items assigned to the respective button, that would be awesome. It really blows beating a Zodiac boss right after you had to eat another Life Tank, then acquiring the new Zodiac weapon and blowing yet another tank in the process, because you forgot to switch the button assignment right after the fight. I love facing the choice of quit/retry to recover the wasted tank, or saying "screw it" and proceeding.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 17 January 2015 - 08:13 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Alright, so the spinning cactus boss works now.  Should warp properly in both locations it occurs.  I also took the opportunity to make it quite a bit harder than it was originally.  Hooray!

 

EDIT: You might have the answer for the Life Tank.  Perhaps Zelda Classic notices that I'm picking up a potion, so it automatically increments to Potion 2, and then my script uses 2 instead of 1 as a starting point.  Strange, though, since I thought scripts ran each frame BEFORE the engine did its thing.  If that is what is happening, all I have to do is put an exception into the code for picking up 1 tank when you have 1 tank.

Edited by C-Dawg, 17 January 2015 - 12:24 PM.