899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Oooh that.  Yeah, what you would do if one was so inclined was to add Layer 0 to those screens.  I didnt' draw backgrounds on Layer 1 because some things, namely the ice beam and moving platforms, work in a way that would cause random black squares if I did that.   So, I use a few background tiles very sparingly.

 

The blank black backgrounds do not bug me too much, but I guess it could be redone just with some good artwork and patience.

[newstarshipsmell]

Well, I mean, they aren't strictly necessary... Metroid and probably a bunch of other NES games I can't think of off-hand were similar, but... I think as far as polish goes, it would help to spruce them up.

You could create a tileset for each area that compliments the foreground graphics, while contrasting enough with it to not clutter up the screen and make things hard to see - basically make faraway graphics with maybe darker colors, since if the idea is that this is all inside a cavernous asteroid, it makes sense for things in the background to be dim, but still visible. It might help to further aesthetically associate the corridors with their areas, if you used a lot of graphics in common, though obviously making adjustments for stuff you see from above vs. sideways. I'm thinking about the backgrounds in the Aquarius shooters and how those would look pretty cool in the side-scrolling portion's background, in some of the more open areas.

The problem is, since you're stuck with single-screen rooms, that only scroll on room-transitions, how you deal with the background graphics to avoid looking shitty is tricky. If they simply scroll with the foreground, it ruins the illusion of depth. So I'm wondering if you can finagle them with scripting to do a few things? For smaller rooms, you'd just create a specific background for that room, to imply a less spacious background and make the room "smaller" - and you could cheat, and reuse a template with minor variations for many of them. That would be a single screen in size, and match the room. Then, to hide the ugly same-speed scrolling, if possible, just script it so that when you start scrolling, the background quickly dims to black, and then the next room's background quickly fades in as the room transition finishes. Not the best, but it would look better than just having it all scroll together. The only remotely decent alternative is to just have a generic background that remains stationary everywhere.

Also, for the larger, more open areas, where multiple rooms form a larger "room" of sorts, you could create a special background that is smaller than the total foreground size, and then upon room scrolls, instead of fading it out, parallax it at like, half- or quarter- speed or something, so you get a big background that slowly pans around as you explore.

Done properly, you could really enhance the uniqueness/importance of rooms - and better, you could put in interesting landmarks that add character to various rooms (like, putting actual ruins in the background in Aries, where there's enough open space to see them behind the foreground tiles) and help make various places stand out in memory better, so the player doesn't end up getting so lost (if playing without any maps and going purely off memory.)

In Gemini, outside the surface, you could just have a stationary starfield background, rather than them scrolling with the foreground. If you're feeling especially polishy, you could script it to pay attention to how close to the end you are, and maybe put the Earth far away in the background at some point, and have it closer/larger if you return closer to the end of the game. (I'm not sure what the distances are for the various points in the game, but if you've got that all worked out and are a stickler for details, well, you could have the asteroid pass one or more of the outer planets on its way in to Earth and display one or more of them in the background at various points in the plot advancement...)

ETA: All of this is definitely qualified for putting on the backburner for post-1.0 improvements, if you're interested in putting the effort into it, but want to get the game officially out before you worked on this. The game's still awesome without touching this aspect of it, so whatever.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 04 February 2015 - 12:53 AM.

[C-Dawg]

So Zelda Classic puts things on the screen in layers.  I believe that Layer 0 goes BELOW the current screen.  That means that, yes, I could either draw maps designed to be put below existing maps in, or I could use Drawtile functions to draw backgrounds directly to Layer 0.  If I used the latter method, then the entire background would go blank when you're transitioning between screens; the engine doesn't run scripts there. 

 

So, that leaves us with drawing new maps to put on layer 0.  This isn't really too hard to do.  I make some new tiles, I draw a map full of them, I click a button that universally applies the background to an entire map.  Maybe I do this?  I dunno.  There are more pressing issues.

 

Here's my current checklist:

 

1. Continue updating bosses to fix graphic glitches, avoid bugs, and improve quality of:

a. Shield Armor - Fix the way the bullets work, tweak damage and death animation and script.

b. Magnet Man Clone -Tweak damage and death animation and script.

c. Computer Core - This could be so much better.  Make a multi-stage robot defense thing.

d. Engine Core - Ditto.  

e. War Machine - Tweak damage and death animation and script.

f. All 11 Zodiac Bosses - Tweak damage and death animation and script.  Scorpio needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, the rest can work as-is with some minor tweaks.

g. Super secret mystery stuff - A few graphical issues with these guys need to be worked out. 

 

2. Figure out what the hell is causing Corridors to close again!  Seriously, no one's ever even seen the sweet, sexy endgame stuff yet because they won't stay closed!

3. Now that the corridor spawner is working perfectly, use it in more places.  This will mix up the enemies you see.

4. Finish manual

5. Finish bibliography and credits.

6. Fix ceiling-cling bug.

7. Consider bomb upgrade and possibly an additional tool.  The Enemy Eraser from TGL, perhaps?  A way to clear bullet hell that you have to pick-up consumables?  That could work...

8. Fix combos representing Pandora in dock

9. Tweak cut scenes.

10. Implement new music.   

 

Question: Do you like the new damage animation and mechanic I've used for the Crabbor, Fanbot, and Iron bosses?  I am thinking of implementing it system-wide.  It makes the Leo Laser FAR less effective against bosses, but it also makes it more clear when you've scored a hit.

 

For those interested, the person who has allowed me to use his music -- and might be doing more for this game -- is HPizzle.  You can visit his website at 

 

http://hpizzle.bandc...gend-of-hpizzle

 

You can and should visit his website and show your support!  He makes some pretty rad NES-themed original music.

 

EDIT:

Work completed:

 

Magnetman themed bosses now functioning with new damage, destruction algorithms.

Edited by C-Dawg, 04 February 2015 - 07:56 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Heh. I was like "which one is Crabbor?" Then I got to Crabbor. "Oh, that is Crabbor." I guess the Shield will no longer be an easy early pickup, lol. Died. Brainfarted and picked RETRY instead of SAVE. Resuming fourth playthrough from the very beginning, lol.

And yes, I like that damage effect. Much better than before.

ETA: Also, from your description of the ZC limitations re: background artwork, I'd say: forget it.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 05 February 2015 - 12:00 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Thou hast discovered Crabbor.

 

So I uploaded a new version.  Other than fixing Magnetman-type battles, all I've done here is replaced the CPU Core with Mainframe, a much more impressive boss.
 

So da checklist is now:

 

1. Continue updating bosses to fix graphic glitches, avoid bugs, and improve quality of:

a. Shield Armor - Fix the way the bullets work, tweak damage and death animation and script.

b. Engine Core - Make better.

c. War Machine - Tweak damage and death animation and script.

d. All 11 Zodiac Bosses - Tweak damage and death animation and script.  Scorpio needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, the rest can work as-is with some minor tweaks.

e. Super secret mystery stuff - A few graphical issues with these guys need to be worked out. 

 

2. Figure out what the hell is causing Corridors to close again!  Seriously, no one's ever even seen the sweet, sexy endgame stuff yet because they won't stay closed!

3. Now that the corridor spawner is working perfectly, use it in more places.  This will mix up the enemies you see.

4. Finish manual

5. Finish bibliography and credits.

6. Fix ceiling-cling bug.

7. Consider bomb upgrade and possibly an additional tool.  The Enemy Eraser from TGL, perhaps?  A way to clear bullet hell that you have to pick-up consumables?  That could work...

8. Fix combos representing Pandora in dock

9. Tweak cut scenes.

10. Implement new music.   

Edited by C-Dawg, 05 February 2015 - 01:00 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Scorpio 30: The enemy on the left is in front of the solid combos, but behind the walkable ones - so as he moves behind the walkables, his top half gets cut off and looks bad.

Also, fuck, Scorpio is quit a bit more difficult without the Shield. Especially when I keep carelessly walking into the leevers.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 05 February 2015 - 01:07 AM.

[Solairflaire]

Some more endgame bugs. Again these were on the 1/25 build so they may have been fixed on recent builds.

 

Aquarius 7,F Corridor: Same problem as the other Aquarius corridor. You end up in Leo 5,F if you die and continue.

Gemini 2,B Inside Room: In the secret part are a couple screens where part of the walls on the right and left go away when you kill all the enemies. You can Dash through the walls and you end up out of bounds.

Capricorn 6,A: Door goes to a blank room.

Capricorn 0,D: Is there a way to get to that room? Is it just not finished so you aren't allowing access? All the other areas have the map fully filled.

Leo 0,0: Is there any way to actually dodge any of the attacks by these guys? I don't see a way so it's just tank them and hope for survival.

 

Simulation: I really want to like this area, but I feel it's too big. I feel it should be half the size. The teleporting back to the start doesn't help either since it takes too long to get back and try again. I ended up actually activating the cheats here and just looked around and the stuff inside just doesn't seem like it's worth the length of time it would take to get. Getting up to get the Infinite Jump Boots (Space Jump) is really hard. I think a lot of people will just assume it isn't possible. Maybe if I had picked more energy upgrades instead of health, I don't know.

 

The worm boss is really well done though. I almost feel it should be an earlier boss though. Like one you fight after getting the high jump boots. Just shorten it a bit, slow it down some, and lower its damage. Maybe also add some platforms in the room.

 

I also cheated to get through the one door in Aries hidden in the lava. I see that's for the final final stuff. After I did the stuff in there I went to the last shooter thing and promptly died to the laser. I didn't try again since continuing there put me at the very first shooter at the start of the game. That was when I also decided to just start completely over with the most recent build (which was yesterdays).

 

From here on is the 2/03 build (is that 425?):

 

I didn't find Crabbor hard honestly. The refight with him in Pisces... that right jellyfish is a tile too high cause I could almost never jump onto it.

 

The new damage indicator is well done. It probably could be shortened a tad, but it's okay as is.

 

The first and second Iron fights. I don't think he attacked me past the first attack on both fights. You might want to let him recover before his invulnerability wears off. Or you can leave that in. As long as the third fight is an actual fight.

 

Cancer 3,A to 4,A: The right small hole on the bottom of 3,A gets you stuck at the top of 4,A in a little open spot.

Scorpio 0,5: The long jump over the sand (the second jump coming from the left) is incredibly difficult with the High Jump Boots. I think it might be a pixel perfect jump. Jumping off the sand I couldn't get enough height to get to the right.

Scorpio 4,9: Prize in the door is a fairy

Scorpio 6,F: On the left side is a little hole you are supposed to use to jump back up to leave on the left side. Unfortunately, that hole is solid.

Pisces 7,9 and Scorpio 7,5 (corridor): The prize in both of these rooms is the lvl 2 movement upgrade for the ship.

 

One thought I had was if you do make the simulation area smaller, you could add some cutscenes at the start explaining things from Earth's perspective. Like how they detected the asteroid and they are sending a small fleet to destroy it since it is heading straight to earth. You also mentioned that you have a script that opens all the corridors at the start of the game. You could put it in the cutscene and that might fix the corridor issue. Though maybe I misunderstood what you mentioned about that stuff before.

Edited by Solairflaire, 05 February 2015 - 01:59 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Simulation: I really want to like this area, but I feel it's too big. I feel it should be half the size. The teleporting back to the start doesn't help either since it takes too long to get back and try again. I ended up actually activating the cheats here and just looked around and the stuff inside just doesn't seem like it's worth the length of time it would take to get. Getting up to get the Infinite Jump Boots (Space Jump) is really hard. I think a lot of people will just assume it isn't possible. Maybe if I had picked more energy upgrades instead of health, I don't know.

...

One thought I had was if you do make the simulation area smaller, you could add some cutscenes at the start explaining things from Earth's perspective. Like how they detected the asteroid and they are sending a small fleet to destroy it since it is heading straight to earth. You also mentioned that you have a script that opens all the corridors at the start of the game. You could put it in the cutscene and that might fix the corridor issue. Though maybe I misunderstood what you mentioned about that stuff before.

Solairflaire, I finally made it up there when I remembered that Life Tanks also restore your energy, so if you're willing to burn one or two, you can just use the Anti-Gravity Device to get up onto that ledge leading to the Infinite Jump Boots section. Later on, I realized that you can obtain the Grapple Beam 2, once you have Dash 2, and use it to ascend the far right wall of spikes in that pit, then move left past the end of the ledge and use the AGD to get up on top of it, without wasting tanks. At any rate, neither the IJBs nor the Zodiac Changer are actually required to beat the game - after all, you could just as easily use the Grapple 2 to ascend up to the final shooter level. I haven't even attempted the final boss, and he suggested doing it without the IJBs would be really hard, so I dunno. They're supposed to be really well-hidden bonus items for the hardcore completionists. And anyways, if the final game "ships" with a FAQ/walkthrough/maps/etc. it will hardly remain that secret...

C-Dawg, I have to agree that a great deal of the simulation is pretty boring. I mean, on the one hand, this is supposed to be some sort of Paradise, right? So it sort of makes sense for it to be more low-key than the preceding areas, notwithstanding all the -64HP death-spikes lining everything, lol. But large swaths of it feel like you ran out of steam and made long straight lines of spikes and put lots of space to waste with empty air. This is the only place in the game where I was actually disappointed (and surprised, after the rest) with your level design, which is otherwise excellent. I don't think you should make it smaller; you just need to come back to it and work on the weaker sections.

Warps: Agree with solar - don't send the player all the way back to the entrance. Put some warp targets further along in the level for the later areas to warp you back to.

I'm still not sure what the point of that warp gauntlet in the upper-left corner was for - is that another super secret to be finished at the end? (I haven't been back to the simulation since my second playthrough many demo versions ago, so I'm not sure what you've changed recently, if anything, in this level.)

The pit below the ledge leading to the IJBs could be more interesting. If a player tried to ascend it with the Grapple 2, having something besides a straight vertical wall of spikes might be more challenging and interesting.

There's lot's of empty space to the left of that area that seems like it could be put to better use - there's two entire screens of emptiness up there. And you don't need the IJBs to reach any of the ledges left of it, so the space seems pointless.

The area around the entrance is okay, as is the path to the first door/cutscene. Some more smaller enemies to compliment the large, easily defeated custom enemies might generally make the level more interesting.

I liked the maze next to the entrance - I didn't like that all it leads to is an energy upgrade. Are there any hints for passing it, or is the player simply expected to brute force it? I noticed that the arm basically sweeps out the solution, if the player is paying attention, though it is somewhat ambiguous. Whether or not that was deliberate on your part, I don't know - but I was going to suggest a further hint: put special arrow tiles in the centers of the 3x3 blocks of combos in the corners, that are hidden and require an explosion and/or the X-Ray to reveal instead, and put the solution directions in them in counter-clockwise order, starting in the lower-right corner, so the arm sweeps them in order as well. I was actually hoping for more sidewarp maze madness akin to the Libra stuff, considering this is all virtual anyways. Kind of disappointed, TBH.

The green maze in the lower center/right area is obviously the best part of the level, where it feels like you spent most of your effort. I really didn't see any problems there and enjoyed it. Shoot, I mapped it out, and I even consulted the map to look where I was supposed to go to get to where I wanted to be - and I still went the wrong way several times! Heh heh. It's great.

The two big open areas along the bottom? Lots of straight edges of death spikes, and not much filling the space above them. I actually explored through there without the IJBs, because I missed them, due to the lack-of-gravity bug in the room above them when I played through. I backtracked and obtained the Grapple 2 and used that instead. That area could certainly be tweaked to make it challenging regardless of which of the two items you use to explore it - and you could probably make some challenges that are hard with one item but easy with the other, and vice versa.

And the vertical ascent to the Zodiac Changer - boring. Needs work. It could have more obstacles to pass, but to reiterate: it shouldn't punish the player by warping them back to the level entrance. Maybe somewhere in the green maze leading up to it?

Does it really make sense for the alien simulation to simulate Allied terminal caves? Maybe you should replace that with some weird alien tech, that still serves the purpose of providing a point for Dr. Mo to talk to you about what she's discovering. The level might be more interesting if you maybe doubled or tripled the number of caves like that and had her give you a lot more info on the aliens (or at least, speculation about them.)

I was also wondering... the alien talks to her, but would he have any reason to address you directly? You're a "mute" AI/robot, forced to communicate via data accesses and facial expressions/gesticulations, right? Wouldn't he be able to offer you a closer semblance to (human) life, albeit a simulated variety, if they can presumably alter themselves pretty much on a whim? So like, he could tempt you with the chance to become a "real woman" or something, I dunno... just a thought. It would make sense if you came back to his room later and didn't have the same cutscene with Dr. Mo - or just an empty room - and presumably it would be within his power to hold a private conversation with you and cut her out of the loop, right?

Also, yeah, fuck that door in Scorpio that is super-hard to reach and after beating the enemies within rewards you with a goddamn fairy heart. That's a kick in the balls, man.

Libra Crystals/Zodiac Changer: When you fire the Libra Crystals, then switch weapons and fire, the following occurs:

Aquarius Bubble: Up to two shots can be fired onscreen simultaneously, so the first crystal disappears with the first shot; if the second shot is fired before the first ends, the second crystal disappears. The third crystal remains indefinitely.

Scorpio Sting: Up to three shots can be fired onscreen simultaneously, so the first crystal disappears with the first shot; if the second shot is fired before the first ends, the second crystal disappears. Same goes for the third.

Aries Saber: All three crystals disappear with the first stroke.

Pisces Something: All three crystals disappear with first triple-shot.

Cancer Charge: Two crystals will disappear immediately upon firing/charging. The third crystal will disappear if the first charge completes and the second charge begins growing on top of it.

Gemini Twin: All three crystals disappear with the first triple-shot.

Leo Laser: Up to two shots can be fired onscreen simultaneously, so the first crystal disappears with the first shot; if the second shot is fired before the first ends, the second crystal disappears. The third crystal remains indefinitely.

Taurus Torch: Up to three shots can be fired onscreen simultaneously, so the first crystal disappears with the first shot; if the second shot is fired before the first ends, the second crystal disappears. Same goes for the third.

Virgo Whip: All three crystals disappear with the first whip.

Capricorn Wave: Hopefully you enjoy continuing to have three Libra Crystals onscreen, rather than using your Capricorn Wave. The Wave ain't comin'.

(Not really a big deal. Any crystals remaining onscreen will eventually hit an enemy. Each one that disappears frees up a shot for the Wave. And scrolling the screen with another weapon selected will immediately clear any remaining crystals upon entering the next room. So, polish item, if that even.)

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 05 February 2015 - 06:43 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Re: Sagittarius

 

I don't think I will make it any smaller.  It's the last of the Zodiac zones, so there's a sense of symmetry in making it the same size. Besides, I need that space to make the passages to the two optional items as grueling as possible.  

 

I understand your comments about large dead or open areas and the warp tiles.  I can re-think that; I'm open to suggestions. Before I do, though, let me explain why I designed it the way I did:

 

You are supposed to have Grapple 2 before attempting those passages.  Grapple 2 lets you go basically anywhere you want to, it's just a little tricky to use.  The large open areas and the warp blocks are easily avoided if you can do a decent Indiana Jones impression and swing along the room with the Grapple.  The big open rooms, while they seem dead, are places where you can really go nuts with the Grapple.

 

Touching the warp blocks is irritating, but it's supposed to be.  At this point in the game (just like in Dreams of Yesterday, incidentally) just doing damage to the player really isn't a sufficient deterrent anymore.  You've got oodles of hit points and Life Tanks galore.  Plus, you've died so much that croaking just elicits a shrug and Continue.  But, grabbing the player and forcing them back to the other side of the map... THAT is a punishment they'll feel.  That's a punch in the gut.  

 

Nothing in Sagittarius is required to finish the game.  You can climb to the Pandora using the AGD, if you want, and skip even the Grapple 2.  But the endgame is designed to be easier (beatable?) with the Infinity Jump boots and Zodiac Changer.  That's because the added mobility of the Boots makes the final showdown markedly easier (we're talking a fight that costs you 3 tanks versus 9 tanks) and the ability to swap Zodiac Weapons plays a pivotal role that I can't really explain to you without spoiling the endgame.  Suffice to say that while you can finish the game without them, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

I invite your comments on this, particularly if you think my goals can be met AND the Zone can be improved at the same time.

 

I was also wondering... the alien talks to her, but would he have any reason to address you directly? You're a "mute" AI/robot, forced to communicate via data accesses and facial expressions/gesticulations, right? Wouldn't he be able to offer you a closer semblance to (human) life, albeit a simulated variety, if they can presumably alter themselves pretty much on a whim? So like, he could tempt you with the chance to become a "real woman" or something, I dunno... just a thought. It would make sense if you came back to his room later and didn't have the same cutscene with Dr. Mo - or just an empty room - and presumably it would be within his power to hold a private conversation with you and cut her out of the loop, right?

 

What makes you think the Guardian has any interest in playing the Pinocchio role?  What would motivate an artificial life form to want to be anything other than what they are?  Sounds to me like you're projecting a mammalian desire to belong to the herd to a life form that was not designed with that motivation in mind...

 

The Guardian is a passive observer, and yet also the prime mover behind everything going on.  She's more like a force of nature, or a virus, than a character.  There's a parallel between the development of biology run out of control and the Guardian's power -- the alien biology starts out under control, if not entirely benign, just like the Guardian starts off as a pest quietly skulking around the asteroid.  Then, the biology gets out of control and takes center stage as the primary threat.  The Guardian does the same thing, suddenly becoming this horrible destructive force.  Iron realizes as much and tells you so.  Even the Commander loses control eventually.

 

The only real difference between them is that the Guardian never really loses her primary motivation, which is to defend the homeworld.  Dr. Mo understands this, and uses it to her advantage.  Well, in furtherance of her goals, anyway.

 

There's another theme I've got in here, working very subtly at first, and that's a challenge to ideas of differences between life.  Different groups of humans are at war, but as you read the terminals, you are supposed to start wondering how different they really are.  A common threat eventually threatens to consume them both.  Then there's the theme of gender roles, presented and challenged by the Guardian and Iron, again asking "what's the difference?" Finally, the theme gets expanded to non-Earth life and the to non-physical life, all building up to the concept of life as nothing more than a properly recognized pattern capable of self-reference.  By stripping the Guardian of any human characteristics, the idea of her character as "female" or even "human-like" should hopefully melt away as the game progresses and that identity is seen as unimportant.  It's the pattern, not the classification, that ultimately matters.

 

By the endgame, I'm basically taking the theme and smashing the player over the head with it repeatedly, so it should be kind of hard to miss.  "DID YOU GET IT YET OK HERE LET ME TELL YOU AGAIN."  I'm actually a little worried some of the late game terminals and character discussions are TOO blunt in this regards.

 

So... perhaps it's bad storytelling, but that's why the Guardian doesn't talk and doesn't really have human-like motivations. That's why there's a cast of humans and human-like robots involved in the story.  It's no accident that I make sure there are always other characters around to talk to each other at particular plot points.

Edited by C-Dawg, 05 February 2015 - 11:29 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Fair enough, re: Sagittarius. Like I said, I haven't made it back there recently so I'm speaking from memory. Opinion might change when I actually replay it and compare my complaints to actual immediate experience playing it. Like I said, I passed through those large areas with the Grappler 2/without the IJBs.

As far as Guardian's motivations? I didn't mean to imply that she'd want to become human, or that she'd even be susceptible to any such temptation... just that it might be interesting to have the alien address her directly, perhaps due to its misunderstanding her motives/desires and mistakenly believing she might be swayed (to stop trying to blow up the asteroid/permanently entering the simulation/etc.)

I was just throwing ideas out there. Honestly, I'm not sure how well that would work with your existing plot framework. So if it's a bad idea, fair enough.

Also, did you move the counters for the Sidearm from something the player can manually edit via the cheat menu, to something they can't, when you added the subscreen display for them? I remember another member mentioning giving themselves an obscene number of upgrades to see how it worked, but when I go through all the editing stuff on it now, I see nothing related to Sidearm upgrade levels. Not really necessary to have access to, but it does rule out the possibility of starting a new game and giving yourself everything you should have before warping to a certain point (i.e. outside some boss's room) to avoid playtesting through the entire quest to get there. If I can't manually edit them, I suppose I may as well stop tracking where and with what I'm gaining all my items, if I can't put that info to use later.

[ShadowTiger]

Spelling 'n stuff:

741 - definitely
807 - vengeance
830 - haven't
832 is superfluous, and leads to the blank string 320.
836 has an extra "D" in there.
839 - fission
856 - serviceable
859 - symbolize
876 - sufficiently (Sorry if you may have to expand the window by 8 pixels.)
882 - believed
886 - The pilot's name is "Jerald" here but later on, in 863, Jenkins makes his triumphant return. Has his face healed yet?
906 - Margaret
893 - Needs a space after a comma on the first line.
867 - uninhabited
913 -> 914 - An extra "you" between strings.
914 - devastating
915 - traveling --- Then, it may be best to add the word "It's" at the end of this string so the next string would make a sliver more sense without having to realize what the sentence is trying to say.
918 - galaxy

Very nice ending. Parts of the ending credits are mirrored horizontally, but for all I know, that could be intentional to mark it as a beta tester version.

I feel this is vague enough as it is, but I'll spoiler it because endgame stuff:

Spoiler

So how does one do damage to the slimy green boss in the engine room after the battle against Victor, anyway? The boss's health keeps regenerating at viciously remarkable rates. I was able to deplete two vertical health bars with rapid explosive missiles and ridiculous dodging, but then I ran out of ammo.

Also, ... Douglas Horfstudder. Big Bang Theory?



40:52 - In the lower right corner of the screen, there's a tile that could feasibly be phased through with the L2 Dash Boots to a non-existent screen to the east.

40:71 might have the same problem behind the console, if you're so inclined to willingly get yourself stuck.

[C-Dawg]

Nice ending?  It's not even there yet.  Some dialog, some credits.  No epilogue, additional challenges.... 

 

Anyway, to your question.  I'll spoiler it (as you should) so casual viewers are not exposed to it:

 

The Abomination, the final boss you encountered, cannot be killed.  Didn't you hear Victor?  He exists in every cell aboard the ship.  Doing battle with it is fruitless.  But, then, you didn't go to the engine room shoot monsters, did you?

 

And, no, I don't watch Big Bang Theory.  The name is just a messed up version of Douglas Hofstadter.  

 

http://en.wikipedia....glas_Hofstadter

 

His published books are a big source of the philosophy employed in this quest.  Check it out.

Edited by C-Dawg, 05 February 2015 - 07:36 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

I'm glad there was a better alternative than a reference to the fictional physicist Leonard Hofstadter. Happily irrelevant to everything now, though.


So I see. Taking a look at the final boss there,

Spoiler

I would have honestly expected to see a bit more of Victor's blue hair on that green abomination. It would have done a lot more justice to what you said, and what Victor himself says repeatedly. If Victor is all, and all is Victor, to whatever degree applicable,

There was an old adventure game that pits you against a locked chest. The solution is actually not to find a key, but to somehow fabricate a crude crowbar to open a chest. That is a vastly different solution than what the player would have expected to have to come up with, given that a locked chest is usually opened with a key or a lockpick, and almost never a crowbar.

Because as a player, I would have had to rule out the possibility of a "weak spot" that stops the super-regeneration. This appears to have not been the case, and I would have had to find that out the hard way, again, as a player that doesn't have that much time to think about things. I'm just sharing my train of thought, if it helps. The eyes of the green stalk guarding the engine core don't necessarily have to be a weak point. An abomination can have whatever organs anywhere it wants. It's one of the reasons it's an abomination. It's either an actual weak point or an actual decoration.

The wall of flesh in Leo, on the other hand, may not have had, or even needed any weak points, and was extremely obvious to the player, because there were no gaps at all in the giant wall of flesh, and the floor beneath the player was very thin. It was obvious what to do. But here, the focus of the player is on the boss, which has a health meter like the rest of them, does attacks like the rest of them, and appears to take damage like the rest of them.

Yes, if the player gives up and goes around the screen to do other things in a blind panic, they might eventually find their hitting of the eyeball to do things, (hopefully...) but if not, they'll be stuck on the attacking portion of the abomination, and on killing the victors that spawn. If this is intended, fantastic then. If not, here we are.

[newstarshipsmell]

Awww... my name's in the credits? I feel special now. But please either capitalize the S in "smell" or put it in all lowercase - I never capitalize any of the letters since it's just a username.

Anyways, I'm messing around in ZQ, and noticed that out of all the Labyrinth DMaps, only Leo (Dmap 26) has "Use Minimap Foreground Color 2" checked on the Edit Dmap window/Flags tab. A bunch of other DMaps have that checked too, but none of the other Labyrinth maps. I have no idea what it does. Is that intentional? If not, does it matter?

/bug reports - playing demo 426

Aquarius 54: Crabbor got himself stuck in the ceiling here and kept angrily crashing against the ceiling tiles. Made him easy to kill off - thank God for that, looking at my health bar.


Scorpio 17: Exiting the cave warps you way over on the left side, where you're immediately and unfairly attacked by that spastic bird thing whatever. More reasonable would be moving the warp return to tile 77 (two left from the door, far side of the block next to it.)

Aries 60: Boss froze like this after "killing" him with a missile - the missile hit, his life bar disappeared, and he stopped moving. Nothing damages him - tried bombs, sword, sidearm, more missiles. F6.

This happened attacking him solely with missiles. I returned, and fought him again, to see if it would happen again with a missile-only attack, and if so, see if shooting him with my sidearm instead at the end would avoid the bug. When I dealt him the lifebar-removing missile damage, he froze again, near the left wall, slightly below the center row. This time, when I shot him with another missile, he exploded and I was able to proceed. He's dead; not retrying to check the sidearm.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 05 February 2015 - 09:46 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

Aww, sick Guardian is adorable. But that's something I wanted to talk about - Guardian's face on her sprite.

Take note how she has a ring of purple lining her face between her face and the helmet on her portrait. Now look at her character sprite when she faces sideways or downward. All we see is some facial protrusion, almost akin to a giant nose, and no purple ring. It's something that I've noticed from the very start, and honestly, I can't seem to shake it or "unsee" it.

When I first saw this quest in 2007, I was this close to calling the Guardian Mario due to that sprite. Although I know that my spriting talents aren't quite up to par with C-Dawg's, but I'm not entirely sure how I would go about fixing that to make it clear. The shading does effectively match her portrait's. I just wouldn't know what to do about that black border under her eyes and chin. Those are the offending areas here, IMHO.


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By the three fights against Iron are amazing. They probably make me wish for a "boss rush mode" of some sort. It's not even like a bullet hell sort of thing. It's a legitimate toe-to-toe contest of outmaneuvering him. You should be damn proud of yourself, sir. They are absolute masterpieces. I've never seen such beautiful wall-jumping, and landing in a twin jet of flame. Elegance.