899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Thanks, I start the game nowSorry for doubleposting, Can I use ZC 2.5.1 or just 2.5?

I assume either is fine?

If not, bug test ahoy!

[newstarshipsmell]

LOL, love the manual so far. Haven't read it closely, just glanced through it.

Aquarius 1D: F6 trap. If you pass the spikes on the left floor and go down before gaining the Pulse Hammer, you are trapped. Half-tile combo left of hole prevents you from jumping up/left on top of it from right side of hole.

Pulse Hammer boss: Took me four attempts to kill him, including the second attempt where I sullenly activated Invincibility and then somehow managed to get him to trap his head partially offscreen in the lower-right corner, effectively ending that fight and forcing an F6 (as my bullets could no longer reach his hitbox.)

At this point in the game, there are only three powerups you can gain (that I know of, and two of them hidden) - a sidearm power, an energy upgrade and the missile launcher. This means you're still firing with the ridiculously slow sidearm bullets - you really should speed those up just enough so they travel slightly faster than your walking speed, because that shit looks ridiculous as-is. Because of how slowly your bullets travel, this means this fight will generally involve swarming the screen with shloads of bullets. The boss's head hitbox appears to be way too small, which, combined with the preceding, makes what is damaging him vs. what isn't rather difficult to discern. The boss really doesn't give any visual indication of taking damage, beyond the lifemeter dropping*, and it seems like he doesn't even have a hitbox when he's spawning bees (intentional?) And they're fucking bees, so you don't even have a chance for drops to replenish your missiles, energy and/or health. Most of the time when I fired my missiles at him, they passed through his head, presumably because they missed a tiny hitbox. Frustrating.

Anyways, I tried using the wall to jump up and shoot him and drop out of the way when he lunged, but had not much luck with that. My winning strategy was simply to run underneath him every time he shot fireballs and shoot upwards into his head as quickly as possible, doing my best to avoid him the rest of the time. (Once I figured this out, I saved my missiles for use at this point, and beat him with 24 HP left.)

I'm not sure if the Invincibility contributed to the Trapped Head Syndrome or if that can be reproduced without cheating. I did not noclip; I only activated invincibility. So if the leg in the corner is solid, rather than walkable/damage-dealing, then presumably you can reproduce it without cheating. I wasn't paying close attention to my exact position when this happened - I just ran underneath him to shoot up into him and kill him as quickly as possible so I could move on with the rest of the game, and then he chose to act like an ostrich. I tried to get him to do it again on my 4th fight, as I'd nearly killed him and had a bit of health to spare, but I kept getting knockback from his leg and when he lunged at me, his head did not go offscreen again.

(*This is actually true of all your custom bosses, but, unless the damage you're dealing on a particular boss is miniscule, as with this one, forcing you to patiently whittle them down slowly, it doesn't really become frustrating, for most of them. The vulnerable hitboxes on most of them are visually apparent and make sense, so the lack of visual indicators on their sprites that you've dealt damage doesn't usually detract that much from the gameplay. You could resolve it all by duplicating the -HP popups your character has for the bosses as well, which would accomplish the same thing, without fucking with their sprites. By the way, cosmetic bug, the -HP popups also persist across room transitions, like the sword projectiles.)

Also, full disclosure: I frequently made the game easier than intended simply through liberal use of F1, which I've remapped to my Start/10 button (Enter is mapped to R2.) Whenever I've wanted to quickly recharge my energy, I simply wait on a screen I've cleared and uncap FPS. Once I've obtained the Life Recharger, well, any safe spot becomes a full HP restore if I go have a smoke or browse the web for a minute...
If you feel like being a completely evil dick, you could incorporate a minor plot point that the Allies are constantly seeking you out with some specific seeker drone or something, and implement a scripted enemy who only appears after you've cleared a room of regular enemies, and your X/Y position remains the same for n seconds (disregarding holding the D-pad against a solid combo, or changing direction in place, as movement, of course.) All it has to do is appear and begin shooting you - with FPS uncapped, that will generally probably deal a lot of damage if not outright kill you quickly, discouraging the player from exploiting this particular feature to get around limits on health/energy mid-level. Of course, if they can find a safe spot where they can move back and forth quickly without falling/scrolling the screen, they can still recharge their energy quickly, but I think this would rule out recharging the health meter, as the repetitive tediousness would outweigh the convenience of recharging without gathering hearts. (And yes, this is a conscious nod to Evil Otto, though repurposed somewhat.)

Scorpio 01: Door warps me inside next to the terminal instead of the door.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 29 January 2015 - 01:43 AM.

[Solairflaire]

So, I got this a couple days ago and have been playing through it. It's been pretty fun so far. Note, I refuse to use cheats or look at the quest in ZQuest unless I am truly stuck, which hasn't happened yet. I also haven't read through the thread much so if something I put down is already known, well, consider it confirmed.

 

In Leo I acquired the double jump boots and died after a cutscene in the next room. I wasn't paying attention at low health. As it was late, I had just saved and was going to go back there to explore but found out that the door is closed and I can't get back in. Did I miss anything?

 

I went ahead and explored anyway. I ended up in Cancer and went through the mouth there and ended up in some ice place (don't know the name since I blew up the computer and the terminals don't work). Unfortunately, getting back through those 128 damage blobs isn't possible without using an e-tank ( I have 9 right now), unless there is a way back through the ice area. I can see it being possible that someone could get here and not have any e-tanks making it impossible to continue forward if there is no other way back. Note that I have to glitch up a wall in the blob area to get out as well.

 

On the first trip to Cancer to get the Disintegrator, you may want to make it a little more obvious you're supposed to shoot out a floor on the bridge. I ran around there for almost 4 hours trying to figure out where to go. I think the spot is immune to explosions and can only be cleared by the blaster since I swear I hit it multiple times with explosives (missile and regular). I ended up just damage boosting off some spikes from below to get on the right path. It wasn't until I got back after Leo that I accidentally discovered it.

 

In Scorpio, there are 2 upgrade rooms and a terminal room that put you in the top left corner of the screen after going through the door. I hadn't figured out the coordinate system in the top right corner at the time so I don't have their coordinates. One is near the dash boot boss and the other 2 I believe you have to dig through sand to get. Sorry I can't be more specific.

 

I apparently got the explosive missiles really early. I was able to hit the switch to open the door from below. Just aim a little to the right and your shot will hit it. I actually acquired them on my first pass through to get the explosives. You want to talk about hard, fight that boss with basically no powerups. I don't think it has mattered at all for sequence breaking. It just made me more powerful than I should have been early. There have been several other switches I've done the same thing to, but I can't remember where exactly.

 

I have been able to pull off a glitch by jumping into the bottom corner of blocks and walls. It's pretty precise. There is apparently a magic pixel on both sides where when you hit them they launch you upwards through the block/wall. You have to come from below the block so it doesn't work on walls that connect to the floor. It also won't work on blocks that are near the height of your jump (I'm guessing you move too slow for it to take effect). If you use this on one tile high block, you just get some extra jump height. If you do it on a wall or at least 2 tile high block, you can get yourself stuck in the wall and jump out of it with normal jump height (rather precise as well, but easily doable). Other than getting some minor upgrades, I don't think I've gotten anywhere I wasn't supposed to with this.

 

Aries 0,F and 2,E: The doors here go to blank screens with 4 bees.

[C-Dawg]

Thanks for this, I'll add these to my list.  There is one comment that is important to you:  After you break the computer, you need to acquire an advanced Scanner to use the network without it.  There were messages about it just before you broke it, but it's possible to overlook them.  The Scanner is in Gemini, and if you go there, your coordinates should show you the way.

 

Otherwise, no, you didn't miss anything coming down from Leo.  The passage leads you back around to where you were initially on your pass through the occupied section of Leo, where the switch was.

 

EDIT: Spent most of the night working on artwork.  The kind where I have to boot up photoshop rather than using MS Paint.  Ah, it's been awhile.

 

Also, I gave the Mega_Pheagon boss a big honk'n obvious weak point to shoot at.  I went to battle him with zero upgrades and I survived the battle on the first time.  So he's fair-ish.  I do agree it's way easier when you see precisely where the weak point is.  (Hint: it's in his big open mouth)

Edited by C-Dawg, 29 January 2015 - 02:30 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Okay, here's all the typos I bothered to screenshot. Alas, I forgot to note where they occurred, so I hope ZQ has a search function built into the text strings. I focused on the "spoken" dialog and Dr. Mo's notes, as the rest of the entries are presumably typed in by Allied idiots who can't spell properly. Also, I think there was a case where Schlefen's name is spelled Schelefen, and some of the title abbreviations are not uniform - you've used CAPN, CAPT and CPT all for captain. Minor.

Spoiler

C LEARLY > CLEARLY


ASTERIOD > ASTEROID


TOUCH / GOOD < cut off


ANTENAE > ANTENNA


RADIO-DARK AREAS < if this is referring to the formerly dark rooms prior to yanking the candle, remove this reference?


GOOD < cut off


SEEMS > SEEM


THE! > THEM!


Comma after MULTICELLULAR appears on following row


I KNOW > I KNOW I


STALAGTITES > STALAGMITES


OCCURANCE > OCCURENCE


SHOW > SHOWS


COMMNICATION > COMMUNICATION


EXPLOSIVES > EXPLOSIVES.


ALLIES > ALLIES'

Scorpio 51: In case Solairflaire wasn't clear - you can stand below the switch and aim up, and if you are slightly to the right of it, your bullets will not be absorbed by the block, but hit/trigger the switch instead. I attempted to fight that boss only one time - whatever, I'll get it when I'm supposed to get it. Heh.

Scorpio 29: Door warps to upper-left corner inside cave.

Cancer 36: Terminal text is the instance of General's name misspelled "Schelefen."

Cancer 47: Tile 35 (to the left of top row of bubbles) is a solid combo/empty air.

Cancer 1A: Leftover key.

Scorpio 28: Indestructible sand blocks.

Scorpio 50: Gate doors turn black after defeating boss.

Scorpio 73: As with 51, it's possible to trigger the switch in this room by shooting it from above, by shooting downwards and standing slightly to the right of it.

Scorpio 74: The corridor warps you back into the room in the upper section, left side, rather than adjacent to the closed gate, making you pointlessly backtrack 1 screen just to get the item from beating it.

 

Disintegration Beam: Its icon on the menu is still displaying over the cursor, making it hard to see when you're selecting it.

 

Scorpio: Perhaps intentional - you can stand on top of the cactii without damage/knockback, if you stand on their corners.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 29 January 2015 - 03:57 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Im busy fixing your bugs and others.  However, I wanted to draw your attention to this:

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Stalactite

 

If he fell DOWN onto something, he couldn't very well have been impaled on a stalagMITE, now could he?

[Air Luigi]

I don't played much still, but I notice some things:
*I have 48/60 fps in shmup style. It's playable and I barely notice the slowdown, my pc for ZC is old anyway. Oddly enough, I have perfect 60/60 fps with the boss (which looks more taxing).
*I'm very sure you are aware of this, but there are a lot of places where the enemies appear into the walls.
*The boss midi from Cave Story sounds too high.
*When I had to select an upgrade from POW, SPD and EFF, I had to dodge the powerups... It could be better if they appeared on the air. Also, I'm not sure, but I think I picked a SPD powerup, but my EFF was improved, and not the speed. But maybe it was my fault, I'm not sure about this. I will put more attention the next time about this.
*It's hard to know when you are damaging the green dragon boss. It needs to flicker or add a concrete sound when you are damaging it.

 

Btw, this looks technically impressive. I love the hacking "ala Bionic Commando" xD

Edited by Air Luigi, 29 January 2015 - 05:06 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Thanks!  

 

We had some early problems with the game experiencing slowdown in highly scripted areas.  The flying level is probably the most taxing because you have about 36 scripts running at the same time all looking at each other all the time.  I don't know what level of machine you need for this, but back in 2008 Jman/fatcatfan/Gleeok did some optimizing with the ZScript compiler and I thought we were done with that.  Whats your processor / ram specs?

 

I will work on the music.  I want to replace it all with custom or creative commons work down the road.

 

I've fixed the big green dragon thing so now it's vulnerable point is absolutely obvious.  It'll be in the next update.  I have also fixed several pages' worth of bugs and upgraded the Ray Crystal boss substantially.

[newstarshipsmell]

Im busy fixing your bugs and others.  However, I wanted to draw your attention to this:
 
http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Stalactite
 
If he fell DOWN onto something, he couldn't very well have been impaled on a stalagMITE, now could he?

LOL, yes! He would've fallen onto a Stalagmite. Stalactites hang from the ceiling; stalagmites form on the floor. You misspelled it by combining the two into "stalagtites," which is not a word.

A stalactite [...] is a type of formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, [...]
The corresponding formation on the floor of the cave is known as a stalagmite.

ETA: I mean, if you want, you can win this argument simply by citing future astrospeleological scientific terminology unknown to us in the present.

/back to bugs

Scorpio 66: Inside the cave room, I struck something at the left bottom of the screen and triggered this:

Had to F6 after falling into the space in the lower-right corner.
Also, the prize for clearing this room is another Key.

Scorpio 5E: Door warps to the upper-left corner of the cave room.

Scorpio 17: This enemy produces a dashing graphic in the upper-left corner:

Don't remember if it happens in other rooms with that enemy as well.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 29 January 2015 - 08:22 PM.

[Air Luigi]

It's nitpicking time:

 

 

This could be disabled when the player purchased it

 

I appeared directly in front of the computer (after entering)

 

Aquarius 54: This boss is a bit lame >.> 

 

I also discovered the source of my confusion with the powerups. In the subscreen, the powerups are presented in POW, SPD and ENG order, while in the secret rooms they are POW, ENG and SPD. They don't match.

[C-Dawg]

Consider your complaints catalogued and destined for a fix.  It sounds like everyone thinks the big Scorpio boss is too boring.  How about we add two more attack modes to ensure you die horribly, ok?

 

It's nitpicking time:

 

....

 

I also discovered the source of my confusion with the powerups. In the subscreen, the powerups are presented in POW, SPD and ENG order, while in the secret rooms they are POW, ENG and SPD. They don't match.

 

Ooooh that's anal-retentive.  I like it.  Will fix right away.

[Air Luigi]

 

This guy feels a bit cheap in his way of attack. I think it can be more fun and fair if there is a (very) small delay between the weapon animation and the shot, imo. You could increase the boss HP to compensate this.

 

In Scorpio there is a type of enemy that doesn't have death animation. In general, I found too many problems with the placement of enemies, like the "Aquamentus" enemies that turn their backs to the Guardian, that's odd. Also, enemies that spawn on me when I went to another screen. The sand physics are also a bit strange. I don't know... these things hurts too much the immersion for me. I like a lot what I see, but this game need a TON of polish. I recommend to work in polishing this game all the time you can, every little touch can improve the quest immensely, don't rush the release. If you can improve some of the physics, adding new enemies that fit the side scrolling gameplay, balancing the bosses or any detail that you have in mind, I strongly recommend to go for it, don't matter how much time it takes.

Edited by Air Luigi, 29 January 2015 - 10:50 PM.

[Solairflaire]

Some bugs and a sequence break... I'll start with the bugs.

 

Gemini 1,3: Door goes to a blank screen

Gemini 3,1: Switch points to 1,3. Should point to 3,1 (at least I remember the switch getting rid of blocks there)

Gemini 4,3: Switch doesn't say where it points to, also, the enemies drop a fairy item (floating heart)

Taurus 5,7: Is part of one of the support beams supposed to be solid? It seems kinda weird that it is.

Taurus 4,4: The shop ate my money here. I don't know what happened to cause it since I haven't acquired enough money to try purchasing it again.

Taurus 5,9 Boss: It's HP bar doesn't represent it's actual HP. I had to shoot it several more times after the HP bar disappeared for it to die.

Taurus 4,8 and 6,E: Inside the Terminal rooms, the terminals froze my game after the dialogue until after I hit "A". I'm guessing there is an accidental shop confirmation that's hidden.

Taurus 1,7 to 1,8: A rock on the left side of 1,8 is one higher than it should be for transitional consistency.

 

I don't know what happened since I beat it way early (before getting the Disintegration Sword), but, the corridor at Pisces 3,3 became unfinished. I went in to finish it again but it just kept going after the boss was dead. There is too much stuff I did between when I discovered it and when I beat it. I think all of the other corridors I've beaten stayed that way.

 

So sequence break. At Taurus 4,E and 3,E it seems like you're supposed to have the Ice Beam to ascend it and hit the switch at 0,F. I used Newstarshipsmell's "Wall Jump" technique with the double jump boots to get up instead (tricky jump at the end, but a lot easier than some of the others I tried). At 1,C, I used a damage boost off the moving fire to get enough height to get up over the wall there. After that it was just travel to 0,F and hit the switch. I have since gotten the wall cling boots. I still don't know where the Ice Beam is...

 

And since I know you'll ask. The other places I tried to sequence break are in Cancer 7, D (possible but insane in difficulty) and in Scorpio just past the dash boots room where you also need to go around a low hanging wall (this is also insane). I also got into Libra (that's the plant place right?) doing the same thing from Scorpio. I didn't do anything there though. The enemies just did too much damage to explore properly at the time. I could see a determined soul doing something there. All of these were attempted/done without the wall cling boots.

 

In regards to the big Scorpio boss. It would honestly just be a much better fight if his eye opened up more often, even if it did so while trying to stab you. It is an early boss so it doesn't need to be hard.

 

Edit: Is Libra the ice area? I could have sworn that one of the terminals said that a plant monster from Libra has the dash boots.

Edited by Solairflaire, 30 January 2015 - 08:45 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Some bugs and a sequence break... I'll start with the bugs.
 
Gemini 1,3: Door goes to a blank screen
Gemini 3,1: Switch points to 1,3. Should point to 3,1 (at least I remember the switch getting rid of blocks there)
Gemini 4,3: Switch doesn't say where it points to, also, the enemies drop a fairy item (floating heart)
Taurus 5,7: Is part of one of the support beams supposed to be solid? It seems kinda weird that it is.
Taurus 4,4: The shop ate my money here. I don't know what happened to cause it since I haven't acquired enough money to try purchasing it again.
[...]
Taurus 4,8 and 6,E: Inside the Terminal rooms, the terminals froze my game after the dialogue until after I hit "A". I'm guessing there is an accidental shop confirmation that's hidden.
[...]
I don't know what happened since I beat it way early (before getting the Disintegration Sword), but, the corridor at Pisces 3,3 became unfinished. I went in to finish it again but it just kept going after the boss was dead. There is too much stuff I did between when I discovered it and when I beat it. I think all of the other corridors I've beaten stayed that way.

Yeah, a lot of these are bugs I posted previously. Which is not a bad thing, and all your reports are certainly appreciated - I definitely swamped him with bug reports, so it's really helpful to see which ones he overlooked/forgot; saves me the time of going back and checking them all in the new demo to verify them, if I know they're still bugged.

If you look carefully at the support beams in Taurus, you'll notice that some of them use lighter greys than others. The lighter ones are intended to be "foreground" objects you cannot cross, while the darker ones are "background." If you find any solid dark ones, or walkable light ones, report them; otherwise, they're intended the way they are.

That shop will take your money indefinitely. I paid three times without the item dropping. Thankfully it was just a missile expansion.

A lot of those later terminals will behave like that. I think another user said they all point to an empty string at the end, so it's closing the window displaying a blank string, and requiring you to press A or B one last time in order to release control back to the player. I meant to note all of them on my current playthrough so I can report them all. So post any others you notice. I tend to forget to note them while playing.

Glad to hear about Pisces 33; I was wondering if that was due to me swapping demo versions mid-game, but it sounds like it's definitely still a bug in the current version. The other corridors which I found to be bugged like that (reverting to open after beating them, leaving the area and returning later) were...

Spoiler

Scorpio 0F, Aries 00, Gemini 75, Leo 00, and Taurus 79.

If those all re-open on you after beating them, then the end-game still isn't reachable without cheating; if only one of them reset, e.g. Pisces 33, then in theory you could simply beat that one last, but with multiple corridors resetting, you would end up playing a sort of Whack-A-Mole trying to get them all beaten.
 

So sequence break. At Taurus 4,E and 3,E it seems like you're supposed to have the Ice Beam to ascend it and hit the switch at 0,F. I used Newstarshipsmell's "Wall Jump" technique with the double jump boots to get up instead (tricky jump at the end, but a lot easier than some of the others I tried). At 1,C, I used a damage boost off the moving fire to get enough height to get up over the wall there. After that it was just travel to 0,F and hit the switch. I have since gotten the wall cling boots. I still don't know where the Ice Beam is...
 
And since I know you'll ask. The other places I tried to sequence break are in Cancer 7, D (possible but insane in difficulty) and in Scorpio just past the dash boots room where you also need to go around a low hanging wall (this is also insane). I also got into Libra (that's the plant place right?) doing the same thing from Scorpio. I didn't do anything there though. The enemies just did too much damage to explore properly at the time. I could see a determined soul doing something there. All of these were attempted/done without the wall cling boots.

[...]
 
Edit: Is Libra the ice area? I could have sworn that one of the terminals said that a plant monster from Libra has the dash boots.

Ice Beam is in Libra, the ice area. And it's easy to obtain, presently, since the boss guarding it doesn't even appear in the current demo. (Or didn't for me, when I played through the second time.) The path to it is rather insane, but once you get there - no boss fight to kill you and do it all over again.

To be honest, it's a pretty useless item. And if you can pass the Taurus section which seems to be the only spot requiring it, without it, then you won't really need it later on, that I can recall. It basically just adds a freezing shot to the Stun Beam, but it moves slowly enough, and most flying enemies move faster and randomly enough, that actually freezing them boils down to more luck than skill. And since the enemies remain frozen much shorter than in Metroid, good luck trying to chain them together to ascend even higher. Mostly, I just ended up taking damage/falling down whenever I tried to do that. Plus, it doesn't seem to freeze some or all (not sure which) scripted enemies. I think I tried to use it on the vertically moving enemies in Cancer to reach that corridor you bugged your way up into, and it didn't freeze them.

Interesting you were able to exploit the cling-less wall ascent in Taurus. I didn't think it was possible, but I don't understand the mechanics thoroughly, so I was assuming, based on where I could exploit it. Cancer 7D doesn't really matter, since it's just an Overcharge Adapter. I didn't even bother trying to explore Virgo early - since I knew how hard some of those enemies would damage me without the Black Hole Armor. So I'm not sure whether it's even feasible to sequence-break anything exploring it early.

I think you are supposed to use it to get up onto the ledge in Taurus 1C/1D, but I had no luck actually freezing enemies in place correctly to make the jump. On my first playthrough, I simply dashed/double-jumped from the right and hit the corner of the hanging blocks just right to do a wall ascent and pop up into it, jumping out onto the platform on the left, all on my very first attempt (lucky me.) On my second playthrough, when I got there, I was not able to execute that jump easily, and wasted half an hour trying to freeze the enemies in both rooms to jump up there. This led to a lot of falling, and backtracking to the ledge at the top of 3E, where I could safely F1/uncap FPS and let my life bar recharge between attempts. I finally ended up replicating my previous jump by accident while trying to jump over to 1C from 1D, and sighed in relief. Not looking forward to that jump this playthrough - TBH, probably just going to noclip past it when I get there.

/bug reports

Pisces 38/37: I've noticed that sometimes, when your jump brings you up against the upper corner of a block, you'll automatically hop up a bit again and land on top of the block, rather than hitting it sideways and falling. Not sure if this is intentional or a bug with the jump script, but it's helpful at many times. Like here, where you can obtain the Health Upgrade in 37 by dashing and jumping at the last second off the bottom block in 38. Perhaps intentional - if not, just shift the platform in 37 left one tile so you cannot reach it without the grappler/double-jump/etc.

Pisces 66: Shop sells a key for 50.

Pisces 06: Previously reported, not fixed. Inside the cave, the enemies in the first room do not stay dead when you return from the right, so you walk through a solid wall.

Pisces 3E/4E: You can fall down the left side and fall into a solid combo

Corridors: I think I know why the background graphics change/frequently cut off. It looks like you're taking a template and redrawing it above itself as the top from the lower section scrolls towards the top of the screen. Inferring this since I can still see it through the energy/missiles windows, and it goes black near the top before redrawing another section on top of it. So it looks like you've either failed to match up the top/bottom ends properly, or they're misaligned and not matching up where they overlap.

Pisces 4F: Previously reported, not fixed. Lower room inside cave - tiles 71 (under clam) and 78 are underwater but do not have water layers on top of them.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 30 January 2015 - 11:31 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Re: Wall clinging and ice beam shenanigans

 

This is a productive discussion.  So, let me explain a bit about the guts of these issues and get your combined input in what you would like to see as a player.

 

The wall-clinging stuff that happens before you actually get Wall Cling Boots was unintentional initially -- somewhere in the cryptic code I use for jumping, something is checking an X coordinate just to the side of the player and treating that as ground when falling down.  Conversely, the function that actually jumps is correctly checking the block above the player at a slightly more interior point to determine when the player hits a solid block and must fall down.  The result is that if you jump just so, just between the two pixels, you can get under the wall and scoot up the side.  The code reads it as a floor but not a ceiling.

 

This, while unintentional, was actually kind of neat.  I've left it in and attempted to design levels around this being a possibility.  So, you'll notice that most jumps where you are expected to have the Wall Cling, Anti-Gravity Device, Double Jump, or similar object involve places where a ledge protrudes from the wall to prevent you from scooting up it.  

I admit, I had no idea it was possible to scoot up one wall, then double jump with pixel-perfection and manage to scoot up a wall sticking one tile out.  That sounds maddeningly difficult to pull off!  Luckily, the sequence breaks you have found are actually pretty benign thus far.  There is no plot between getting the Comsat and getting to the top of Taurus, so skipping the detour to Libra does not really cost you anything.  That said, I would be shocked if it was possible to get through all of Taurus initially without the Ice Beam.... but you surprised me already.

 

Similarly, getting to Virgo early or getting an extra item along the way doesn't hurt.  Virgo is plot-free; it's all just there as a home for items and upgrades, and some lore background and hints.  What WOULD be a concern is if you could get into Virgo at a point where you can get yourself stuck and have to quit.  That would be a problem, but I haven't heard that yet.  More likely, you just get devastated by the life-forms there.

 

So, then there's the ice beam.  What if, instead of having a projectile shoot out, I had an instant-strike beam just flash across the screen and freeze the first thing it hit?  I could code it to to that and to have 8-directional fire instead of 4.  Would that make it more useful?

 

I invite your suggestions.

 

. I like a lot what I see, but this game need a TON of polish. I recommend to work in polishing this game all the time you can, every little touch can improve the quest immensely, don't rush the release. If you can improve some of the physics, adding new enemies that fit the side scrolling gameplay, balancing the bosses or any detail that you have in mind, I strongly recommend to go for it, don't matter how much time it takes.

 

That's the concept, and your comments are helping me do that.  Fresh pairs of eyes like yours will be drawn to hiccups that people who have played it a million times are overlooking.

 

That said, I'm hoping to get it in version 1 by February 21 if I can.  So far, nothing people are posting by way of bugs sounds like it will take me longer than that to iron out.

 

Some questions for you:

 

- When you talk about improving physics, what are you talking about in particular?

 

- Would you like to see the falling sand improved?  I could probably come up with a scripting solution rather than the combo-cylcing I'm doing now.  Something where a certain combo being below the player in the global script is treated like a floor and ceiling for purposes of jumping, and moves the player gradually downwards?

 

- With Iron's first battle, are you saying you want to see some indication that he's about to fire?

Edited by C-Dawg, 31 January 2015 - 01:12 AM.