899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Just nitpicking, but Metroid, as well as Metroid II, don't have an ingame map feature. They doesn't even have a subscreen - Start just freezes/pauses the screen. They added the subscreen menu and map features in Super Metroid, and retroactively added it for Metroid Zero Mission.
 

 

Oh snap, you're totally right.  I had somehow retconned the original metroid into having a map function, probably due to all of the later metroids having one.  And you know what?  That's enough to convince me not to add one here.  I completely understand that slavish devotion to past games risks borrowing the PROBLEMS they had instead of the strengths, but given that adding a map would make some of my coordinate system redundant and I hadn't planned on it anyway... the fact that I can point to a NES standard as backing me up on a decision is enough basis for me to do so.

 

Good catch!

[newstarshipsmell]

... the fact that I can point to a NES standard as backing me up on a decision is enough basis for me to do so.

You can also point out that the original Metroid, due to size restrictions, reused room templates over and over again, leading to many very samish-looking rooms, easily confusing one's sense of location if playing unaided with any sort of maps (either acquired or self-made.) Your game, of course, suffers from this not at all, as you've given the vast majority of your rooms a unique/distinct layout. This aids tremendously in navigating around and memorizing the layout of each area.

Neither of these are bugs per se, but I'm pointing them out in case they were unintentional:

You can no longer grab item drops with your sword stroke, whereas you could in previous demos. (At least, you cannot, in the current demo, pick them up with either the Pulse Hammer or Disintegration Beam. Presumably the Zodiac Weapons work the same way.)

Cancer 3D: Iron 2 is even easier than I thought. If you simply move into the center of the room, and shoot him with a missile as he falls back from his jump to prevent him moving forward, you can simply stand still and shoot him over and over again without moving, and none of his shots/fragments will strike you. Even easier than the first fight with him, where the ground level missile at least ensures you must jump.

[C-Dawg]

Libra is the one exception to the rooms-kinda-look-the-same rule, but that's by design.

 

So, I've updated the Pisces Zodiac Boss so he works more like the others.  He's also supremely vulnerable to the Scorpio Sting, as a charged hit with that weapon will cause his shield to fly apart just like getting hit with a squid rocket.

 

EDIT: Gemini Zodiac boss now rebuilt from the ground up.  He's now scaling, like the others, and he's vulnerable to the Pisces shot.   That weapon knocks him out of several attack modes.

 

Next step, who is gonna be vulnerable to Gemini?  So far, we have:

 

Aquarius (will make vulnerable to Capricorn;will allow Capricorn charged shot to eradicate bubbles, including shield)

Scorpio (If his stinger hits you while you've got an Aquarius Bubble up, the mega attack is cancelled)

Pisces (A charged Scorpio hit knocks its shield away)

Gemini (A charged Pisces shot knocks him out of the "mirror" attacking your image)

 

Cancer would be logical, since it's the next boss you could theoretically reach after completing Gemini.  I want the Gemini copy weapon to distract the boss it seeks.  The twin eyeballs could chase after the image instead of you, and perhaps not close while the image pummels them.  If we do that, then:

 

Aries - Rebuild from the ground up.  Make the bosses' saber attacks more deadly and parries more reliable.  Have the cancer shot stick to the boss, slowing it down and making it's attacks easier to dodge for a period of time.

Libra - Rebuild from the ground up.  Make the boss assemble a crystal shield each time it warps in, which must be broken before it can take damage.  Allow the Aries Saber to smash it in a single hit.

Taurus - Rebuild from the ground up.  If caught in a charged Libra shot, have the boss freeze in place and take massive damage over the duration of the shot.

Virgo - Rebuild from ground up and fix graphics.  Allow a hit from Taurus charged shot to burn off the blossoms in one hit.  Also, add a second mode after all blossoms burnt off.  In this mode, allow Taurus charge to cause burn damage over time.

Leo - Add some additional attack types so it's less predictable and easy to dodge. Allow Virgo whip strike to spin the boss around and knock it back, cancelling attack.  Give him a jumping response to avoid getting pinned infinitely by whip strikes.

Capricorn - Leave it as is!  This boss is already massively vulnerable to the Leo laser since it takes damage over time from the blast.  Change the way damage is handled so if you're using something OTHER than the Laser, it doesn't take damage over time that way.
 

EDIT: Okay, Aries has been rebuild and given a massive upgrade.  His animation isn't perfect, but it's doable.  Centaur-type creatures are actually really freaking hard to animate smoothly.  I had to learn how horses walk any everything, and even then it doesn't look smooth.  Lining up the top with the bottom?  Fergetabboddit.

 

Cancer is giving me problems because the number of FFCs it uses is so large that I have no room for charged shots.  Gah.  Well, I can fix that!  Gotta re-vamp the way that boss generates blood sprays and I should be good.  Will upload new version once both these bosses are working.

Edited by C-Dawg, 09 April 2015 - 11:13 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Cancer is giving me problems because the number of FFCs it uses is so large that I have no room for charged shots.  Gah.  Well, I can fix that!  Gotta re-vamp the way that boss generates blood sprays and I should be good.  Will upload new version once both these bosses are working.

Will I need to start a new game? I started my last run on 471, and swapped midway to 477. I downloaded 481 but hadn't swapped it in yet, and figured I may as well wait until the next update. Unless it screws things up, in which case I'll start over again. (I just got the Dis. Beam so I'm not that far in.)

[C-Dawg]

Nah, I wouldn't think you need to.  All I had to do with Cancer was change the way it used projectiles.  Originally they were static and set immediately, which used up all the FFCs.  I made it dynamic and now it's fine.  I did add some global variables to handle how Gemini works with Cancer, but they're all dynamic so I think you're fine.

 

I just uploaded a new demo- Cancer and Aries bosses are updated.  Aries in particular took me a long time to draw and animate.  I'm still not super happy with it, but eh...

Edited by C-Dawg, 09 April 2015 - 10:20 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Well, looks like I ought to start over. I entered Scorpio 74 from the right/bottom (after gaining the Disintegrater Beam) and it triggered the +Iron script. With the corridor still open, obviously - and only Aries 00 beaten up to this point.

This was done with a game started on 471, swapped to 477 and then 483.

Also (in 483) that giant skull in Scorpio 6C is still missing his lower-right tile.

The shell enemies in Aquarius - the red ones do not shade properly underwater, while the green ones do:


(New save on) Demo 483

Scorpio 65: You exit the cave in midair instead of on the ground.

Aquarius 54: Still has buggy warps as reported previously. I believe you end up stuck in an infinite boss fight loop unless/until you jump up above the row that's triggering the warps and defeat him while on the top half of the room - and even then, it still glitches and warps you back/forth quickly when you cross that row.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 10 April 2015 - 11:37 PM.

[C-Dawg]

The shading has to do with how transparency works.  Basically, when you put a color under a layer, the engine looks for the color available in the palette for that screen that most nearly matches the color created by layering the two together.  There are not enough reds in the palette for the engine to put a darker red or purple there, so it finds what it can.  

 

It's fixable, but minor, and requires re-tooling the game palettes, soooo...

 

EDIT: Tinkered all night with redoing the Libra boss.  You know, the tribute boss to everyone's favorite evil brother?  Anyway, he's re-drawn to be way more badass now and he's fully functional.  Animation and graphics are probably the best I've done in Zodiac, so that's nice.  He currently does what he used to do - warp around and cast spells.  Tomorrow, I need to add the difficulty of the crystal shield, and the vulnerability to Aries. 

 

EDIT: Completed update to Libra.  He's pretty sweet, too, I think.  On to drawing better graphics for Taurus, then Virgo.  After that, Leo and Capricorn are pretty quick since I don't have to redraw anything.  Then the boss update will be done, yaaaay.

 

EDIT3: Finished update to Taurus.  Works great, freezes with Libra charge.  Very impressive looking, particularly compared to how boring he was before.  I have begun redrawing Virgo's boss, and I'm going for something a little more... Eldritch on this one.

 

EDIT4: Still working on Virgo.  This one's a beast to keep track of, even if the code is kind of simple.  Since it has lots of different moving parts I need to keep careful track of, it took me two days just to draw graphics and allign them correctly in the initial draft of the script.  It's moving correctly now, but I have more allignment work to do and then I have to get it doing everything else right.  Another day on this, I think.  Hopefully I can update with Virgo and Taurus in working order tomorrow.  After that, just two more to go, and they're easier!  Yay!

 

EDIT5: New version uploaded.  Finished Virgo.  Taurus and Virgo are now completely reborn and better than before, scaling with your levels and having the appropriate vulnerabilities.  Next up: Leo, Capricon, and adding vulnerability to Pisces.  Should have this done by the weekend, and then it's on to... gosh, I've been working on the boss update for so long I forgot the rest of my list!  That's okay, it's in this thread somewhere.

Edited by C-Dawg, 15 April 2015 - 11:33 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Updated quest file.  All the Zodiac Bosses have now been updated; they all scale with your upgrades, they have appropriate vulnerabilities, and those that were lame are lame no longer.

 

With that, all the main game bosses are in a good shape.  Hooray!  

 

Let's take a look at where we're at, to-do wise:

 

(1) Figure out how on Earth to allow the stun beam to work with custom enemies.  Stunning weapons don't actually deal damage, I don't think, so how am I going to detect when the ghosted enemy takes a hit from one?  Perplexing.

 

(2) Deal with outstanding bug reports and new ones as reported.  (Includes sidewarp issues in Libra)

 

(3) Add more recharge stations (requiring payment) in key areas.  Previously, recharge stations start drying up around Leo and don't exist at all after that.  The new enemies and lack of continue points make it very likely you'll be bleeding out as you reach the end of each area, so I should put pay-to-refill stations in more places.  

 

(4) Figure out continue warp problems with Aries.

 

(5) Clean up Corridors to fix strange graphic issues, fix timing issues related to boss chimes, make warps more natural, etc.

 

(6) Change how the "freezing" statues work in Libra so it looks better graphically and doesn't interfere with secret combos.

 

(7) Fix outstanding CSet issues with some Zodiac weapons.

 

(8 ) Add special continue point to endgame

 

(9) Continue to update cutscene code for back half of game

 

(10) Fix ceiling bug

 

(11) Implement new music (I can't get mp3s to run AT ALL so far. :/ )

 

(12) Super Secret Mystery Stuff

 

(13) Endgame cleanup (including final boss and credits)

 

For those interested in timelines, the only significantly time-consuming stuff left is the plot stuff and mystery stuff.  Plot will probably include more interesting, full-screen cutscene stuff at the beginning of the game, when the nukes get to the Zodiac, and when you finally escape the asteroid.  Think Ninja Gaiden's cut scenes on the NES.  Secret stuff will include some doing.

 

EDIT: The fine fellows over at the PureZC podcast put up the interview with me yesterday.  Check it out if you're interested in rambling answers to questions about ZClassic and NES trivia!

Edited by C-Dawg, 19 April 2015 - 10:24 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Updated quest file. All the Zodiac Bosses have now been updated; they all scale with your upgrades, they have appropriate vulnerabilities, and those that were lame are lame no longer.
...
(1) Figure out how on Earth to allow the stun beam to work with custom enemies. Stunning weapons don't actually deal damage, I don't think, so how am I going to detect when the ghosted enemy takes a hit from one? Perplexing.
...
(4) Figure out continue warp problems with Aries.
(5) Clean up Corridors to fix strange graphic issues, fix timing issues related to boss chimes, make warps more natural, etc.
(6) Change how the "freezing" statues work in Libra so it looks better graphically and doesn't interfere with secret combos.
...
EDIT: The fine fellows over at the PureZC podcast put up the interview with me yesterday. Check it out if you're interested in rambling answers to questions about ZClassic and NES trivia!

I took a break from playtesting waiting for you to finish up the Zodiac Bosses, so now that you're done I'll try another run, without having to swap .qst files midgame. I am still concerned about the +Iron script trigger bug I observed in Scorpio 74, near the beginning of the game, but since I'd swapped .qst files on that game save and cheated profusely, I wanted to try playing through on a single .qst without cheating at all, and see if the +Iron script works normally, before making you waste your time re-examining the code for a problem that isn't really there.

On that note, have you fixed Aquarius 54 / Craboor #1 yet? That bug is really frustrating, and so far I've cheated every time to beat him a second time. I think I could get up on top with him trapped below without cheats and get the item after killing him the first time, but I haven't tried yet. It would be easier to just wait until you've fixed the warp glitches with him.

1) I mentioned the stun beam hoping this would entail a trivial fix, but expecting otherwise. If it's that problematic, may I suggest the super-lazy solution? Edit the dialog/terminal messages regarding the stun beam so that it explicitly states that most of the Zodiac lifeforms seem to be impervious to it (and hence, perhaps, why no one's terribly upset that it's gone missing, if it proved fairly ineffective.) It still works on all the soldiers, because they're TLOZ enemies, right?

4) I haven't seen any other Labyrinth-to-Labyrinth warps screw up like Aries/Aquarius does, and I tried replicating it with the rest of them, with various combinations. My only guess would be that it has something to do with Aries and Leo being connected by two different warps, and/or Aquarius having multiple other warps, and that somehow triggering convoluted and obscure problems with how ZC handles it all. But I have no idea. That's the only difference I see between Aries and the other areas. I intend to manually test the F6/Save/Resume and F6/Continue points for each and every Labyrinth entrance and Corridor (upon completion) on the next play, so I'll report any that still don't work properly. (If only ZC had a savestate feature - really looking forward to playing each corridor TWICE, lol.)

5) The Corridor intro/exit screens do look rather boring, so I'd suggest sprucing them up. Maybe come up with a tileset that compliments the blue piping/Labyrinth entrance tiles, and make it look like a giant conduit or something you enter/leave each corridor through. And if you don't figure out how to deactivate the weapons during the intro/exit, some poor fool is going to beat a boss with his Life Tanks equipped, and absent-mindedly drain them all idly pushing the button impatiently waiting for the exit to finish, and then rage when they're missing.

6) Not sure what all you can and want to do with revamping the freezing enemies, but I'd had an idea - about making the Remote Explosives not only useful, but required. If you can have special cases of the freezing enemies that trigger their freeze when you reach a spot on the screen, rather than freezing on a timer, you could (slightly) redesign some rooms in the final area of Libra so that they have these special freezers, with the triggers across a spot you must jump across. Then, have them susceptible to bomb explosions, so they "die" temporarily and respawn in a few seconds. You'd have to plant a bomb on them, and then blow it up, while jumping, just before you reach the trigger spot, so you don't freeze, lose your horizontal momentum upon unfreezing and miss the jump. (I think you start falling straight down after unfreezing, regardless of your horizontal movement upon freezing, yes?)

Lastly, where is the podcast posted? I looked around and could only find the older podcasts...?

[C-Dawg]

I did fix the bugs you reported over the last few pages... since the last update.  So Crabbor's warp is done, just not in the build you have!  Sorry!

 

I've replaced the corridor intro-end screens with better and more interesting graphics.  I also did a play-through of all the corridors and made myself a looooong punch list of things to fix.  Many of the little graphical problems can be fixed by revamping how my code handles the corridor enemies.  See, when I coded it originally, I used multiple FFCs to display graphics instead of drawing tiles directly.  I can switch that up now, and by doing so, I can avoid a lot of the CSet and missing tile issues you sometimes see.  By moving to a master script that assigns scripts to combos as well, rather than setting them all to begin with, I can make the corridors more stable and hopefully fix some specific problems I've seen.

 

I will also see if there is a realistic way to get the ship gun to work with your Zodiac Weapons and Missiles without conflict, as that's kind of a strange mechanic that was a hold-over from how I did the ship weapon.  Anyway, lots to do there.

 

EDIT: Fixed bug that was preventing small enemies from doing any damage at all on impact.  Fixed bug with movement of Firelord and Eyeball Cluster enemies. 

 

EDIT2: Had to work late late night, didn't get much done.  Fixed warp type into bosses in corridors so that the transition is smoother.  Began work on fixing issues with bullets "stacking" when fired from a few types of corridor enemies.  Re-drew background for Aries corridors to be less ugly and lined up correctly.  Added code that deactivates your A and B buttons from working during corridor intros and exits.

Edited by C-Dawg, 23 April 2015 - 10:26 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

I made it to the beginning of Cancer on Demo 486, not much to report.

Scorpio 65 - The exit warp from the cave room is a row off the ground.

Aries 00 - After beating the corridor, whether you F6 and Continue or Save/resume, you resume from the level entrance at Aries 77 rather than Aries 00.

I mentioned previously that the ability to grab item drops with your sword strokes seems to have been removed recently. Was this intentional? It's kind of annoying now because you can frequently kill enemies partially inside walls and be unable to grab their item... is it possible to extend the area around you that you grab items from?

I'll start over on Demo 489 this weekend.

[C-Dawg]

No reason to start on that new demo and screw up your file just yet; all I'm doing is work in the corridors and making a few teeny tiny tweaks in the labyrinth as you report bugs.  

 

Also, I have no idea what's up at Scorpiot 65; all flags and warps appear set properly.  Go figure.

 

EDIT: Fixed Grimgrin pause prior to death, made new background for Cancer corridors, fixed some gaps with spawning enemies in Cancer. Revamped how Missiles work so that you can use them freely in corridors without being cancelled by the ship cannon.  Sheesh... these corridor fixes take waaaaay more time than you'd think!

 

EDIT: New backgrounds for Pisces and Taurus Corridors done, new artwork for the fish boss that you fight in Pisces Corridor 2, and more work to make the Mazer enemy less spastic.  I need to revamp the Squid boss (it's currently a frankenstein hodgepodge of different smaller scripts) and overhaul how enemies get assigned by the script for each corridor and then I'm officially halfway done with the corridor update.

Edited by C-Dawg, 27 April 2015 - 10:24 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Okay, almost done with the work on the corridors.  New upload available.

 

EDIT:  Well, I gotta say, eleven years in and this thing is starting to actually feel like work.  I've been slacking off a bit and only putting 1 - 2 hours in each day instead of the 3 - 4 I was averaging earlier.  Sorry about that!  

 

Okay, so I'll have all the corridor fixes done this weekend.  I do not mind the corridor graphics now, but if anyone really thinks Scorpio, Aquarius, Capricorn, Gemini, or Libra could use a facelift, speak now or forever hold your peace.  After that is done, let's noodle a bit about how long the rest of this will take.

 

TO-DO LIST (May 2015)

 

(1) Figure out how on Earth to allow the stun beam to work with custom enemies.  I got some comments on the Scripting forum that I'll try to implement.  If that works, great.  If not, worst case scenario, I just code another custom weapon and work with it that way.  Either way, this is probably a 1 night job.

 

(2) Fix sidewarp problems in Libra.  Basically I have to replace the sidewarp trick I'm doing now with a script.  Thats like one hour, tops.

 

(3) Add more recharge stations (requiring payment) in key areas.  Previously, recharge stations start drying up around Leo and don't exist at all after that.  The new enemies and lack of continue points make it very likely you'll be bleeding out as you reach the end of each area, so I should put pay-to-refill stations in more places.  This is a half hour job, maybe more like 1 or 2 if I make secrets off of the new rooms.

 

(4) Figure out continue warp problems with Aries.  I don't know what's causing the problem so I dont know how long it will take to fix. 

 

(6) Change how the "freezing" statues work in Libra so it looks better graphically and doesn't interfere with secret combos.  This is a one night fix, same as the sandfall correction.

 

(7) Add special continue point to endgame.  One-night fix.

 

( Continue to update cutscene code for back half of game.   This one might take awhile.  So, I have at least the following cutscenes to revamp:

 

a - Encounter following the big tank boss in Leo guarding the Pandora.

b - Encounters with Dr. Mo and Iron in Capricorn

c - Encounter with ???? in Sagittarius 

d - Encounters on Pandora

e - Game intro 

f - Game conclusion

 

All in all, this is probably a week of work, I think.

 

(10) Fix ceiling bug.  Probably a day's work, based on how long it took me to figure out and fix the wall cling bug.

 

(11) Implement new music (I can't get mp3s to run AT ALL so far. :/ )  I have no idea.

 

(12) Super Secret Mystery Stuff.  This is major, and will require another month to do.

 

Looking at all of this, it appears that I will have finished my current to-do list by August.  I could use help, though.  Specifically, I could use some help in getting MP3s to run properly and bug-testing the later areas of the game.  I suspect that bugs get rarer as the player progresses because, the more mobile you are, the less likely you are to get stuck.  I dunno, though.  

Edited by C-Dawg, 01 May 2015 - 10:18 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Okay, I got some stuff done. I did all of the low-hanging fruit. Uploading a new version in a second.

Finished corridor tweaks for now. Leo 2 might get more tender loving care in the future, but it's okay for now.

Added recharge stations to various points just before bosses. Now, only Sagittarius lacks them.

Sidewarps in Libra are fixed, though the fix is kind of sloppy. Eh, it was easy.

Got the Stun Beam working now against all enemies, custom and normal. I did something round-about to make it work, but I think the result is a lot cooler than what I had happening before. Totally worth it. Please note that most enemies STILL DAMAGE you when stunned with the Stun Beam. This is to ensure that the Ice Beam is a superior option (ignoring the platform-creating element, even.) Note also that the Stun Beam won't work against stronger enemies until they're damaged, and some are totally immune.

Freezing statutes in Libra now just freeze you solid for a moment. You don't keep your momentum and you can't jump a second time.

UPDATED TO-DO LIST:


(1) Figure out continue warp problems with Aries. I don't know what's causing the problem so I dont know how long it will take to fix.

(2) Add special continue point to endgame. One-night fix.

(3) Continue to update cutscene code for back half of game. This one might take awhile. So, I have at least the following cutscenes to revamp:

a - Encounter following the big tank boss in Leo guarding the Pandora.
b - Encounters with Dr. Mo and Iron in Capricorn
c - Encounter with ???? in Sagittarius
d - Encounters on Pandora
e - Game intro
f - Game conclusion

All in all, this is probably a week of work, I think.

(4) Fix ceiling bug. Probably a day's work, based on how long it took me to figure out and fix the wall cling bug.

(5) Implement new music (I can't get mp3s to run AT ALL so far. :/ ) I have no idea.

(6) Super Secret Mystery Stuff. This is major, and will require another month to do.

 

(7) Make moving platforms move the players

Upload is there, mods are he just busy and have not authorized the download.

Edited by C-Dawg, 16 May 2015 - 09:21 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Chipping away at some of the game intro stuff.  I have the initial sequence where you're part of a larger squadron that gets picked off one at a time working, but it needs some fine-tuning.  I need to a little cinematic before that.  These are graphics-intensive things, so it will probably take me a few more days to finish.  But, hey, since it's the very start of the game, it'll be easy to see the change once I update the qst file!

 

EDIT: Uploaded new version with a skeleton of the intro stuff.  I plan to spice it up a little more with more ships running around to give the player a better concept of what they're flying into, but it works for the moment.  Also, the tiny ships are super cute!  

 

Now that I have a graphic for the Zodiac floating in space, I can do more cutscenes with the nuclear strike and the final destruction of the station, too.  So that's neat.

 

EDIT2:  Not that I mind the lack of bug reports, since I have tons of other things to do, but no one has posted any bugs lately.  I would be surprised if there were not still bugs or other issues in the game.  Have people simply run out of steam/interest in testing? This is understandable, but I've been having very little luck getting non ZQuest people to come in and pick up the slack.  It'd be great to have the bugs smashed at the same time that I'm done with all this other enhancement stuff Im working on.  So, if people have suggestions, I'm all ears!

Edited by C-Dawg, 09 May 2015 - 03:30 PM.