899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

The tile-based corridors were no different; they were still just one screen that flipped and replayed again and again.  The only difference now is that the artwork is a bit larger and prettier, so maybe it's more obvious what it's doing.  I'll put further work here firmly in the "maybe" column because drawing these backgrounds with MS Paint and my little mouse is seriously time-consuming stuff.  The Pandora, which does scroll throughout the whole level, took me like a week to draw.  I'm looking into a Wacom to speed up and improve quality of the artwork, but even so, I don't really plan to re-draw these.  Maybe down the road.

 

EDIT: Coded up the cutscenes through meeting --- someone -- in Sagittarius.  I noticed a few bugs related to the movement of the missiles on certain bosses, some lava issues, and a few other things.  Will iron them out tonight and try to get the rest of the cutscenes working.  Lots of the conversations with Dr. Mo are just long walls of text, so it's pretty easy to code.  The cutscene with the big baddie and Iron involves more blocking so that might take longer.

 

Doing it this way frees me up to use lots of more map space in the interior rooms for secrets, so... I'll probably add a bunch.  Previously, each string had its own screen, so lots of conversations took a lot of map space.  I'm trading out map space for code, now.  

Edited by C-Dawg, 16 June 2015 - 11:19 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Not a bug or even a suggestion, but... does it make sense that the concussive missiles will travel through solid combos until hitting an enemy or screen edge, whereas the explosive missiles detonate against the first thing they hit? In a way, it's like a minor downgrade, since you can't shoot through obstacles at enemies with them. Balanced by the fact they explode, of course. Ah well. Gonna play some more and probably add some more bug reports, which'll probably be more helpful to you than what I just posted.

After warping into the Dash Jets boss's room, I tried firing explosive missiles at it (stupidly, while it was moving around and impervious) and my missiles vanished into thin air right after I fired them, without hitting him or his projectiles or any solid combos. I was standing near the center, firing left. After a moment they worked normally again and didn't glitch up like this for the remainder of the fight.

The new momentum screws massively with the standing-on-moving-platform movement. If you don't release left/right before landing on them, you'll end up with so much momentum you slide right off. Even if you land without pressing left/right, your movement with the platform gives you enough momentum that it pushes you forward until you start falling off the edge of the "front" of the platform (direction its moving.) You'll keep hopping back up a few times until you slide out far enough or it reverses direction and you drop down. This makes jumping off them to reach the next platform target tricky. If you press left/right AT ALL before jumping, you'll slide off the corner you're barely standing on. If you wait until after you jump to begin moving sideways, you might not reach the next platform. And if you don't time the jump precisely, you just end up falling off it when the moving platform reverses direction.

M4 S4F: Inside the recharge station, when you purchase/activate it, it does not display an energy field like the others do.
When you exit the recharge station, you warp to Pos 110, and fall down into the room below, instead of warping next to the door.
This room is also missing a combo at Pos 4, and like every room I've seen with moving platforms in them, the combo at Pos 0 vanishes after you enter, so you can still jump up into the hole there and walk into the wall in S4E.

M1 S02: After defeating the boss, the left door still has the bug where if you jump up or fall down into Pos 96/112 (top and middle tiles of the left door) you warp inside the closed door in the boss room, and can walk left into the wall of the adjacent room. Walking right out of the door warps you back into S02.
Also, the boss fight seemed kind of buggy. Once again I had explosive missiles disappearing into thin air for no apparent reason. Also, the 4-bubble ring the boss launches - the second time he dived, instead of firing a rotating ring, he fired a single bubble which just move back and forth along a single row. Is this supposed to happen, or was it supposed to be another ring of 4?

Somewhere along the path from the main Aquarius entrance to the Pisces entrance (not sure where, or what triggered this) my Aquarius Bubble glitched up. Every time I let all my projectiles expire, the very first shot from my Bubble would shoot a bubble straight across the room in the direction I faced, rather than circling in front of me. It dealt no damage to any enemies. Subsequently pressing the button while it was still onscreen would fire normal, circling bubbles that dealt damage. As soon as it move offscreen, the next shot I fired would repeat this behavior. I cannot reproduce it and have no idea what caused it.

Not really a bug nor a big deal, but if you acquire a different ZW with the Bubble Shield active, you get to keep your (temporary) shield while wielding another weapon.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 16 June 2015 - 11:31 PM.

[C-Dawg]

I noticed the same movement bugs you did.  Turns out that momentum as I coded it plays very badly with both moving platforms and things that move the player, like magnets and fans.  Worked on that one tonight.  After a few experiments, I settled on something that seems to work, and now they work normally again.  Basically, I now use my "Link_Vx" momentum variable instead of moving the player directly.  Fans and Magnets have even a lighter touch now.  There may be problems where they both combine in Capricorn.  Conveyer combos continue to be very brutal.

 

While I was at it, I replaced the death traps in the Aries fan boss room with escapable lava pits.  You're welcome.

 

Magnetman needs a tweak the same way. the fans and magnets did.  Right now he's a walking wall of death.

 

Can't figure out what's going on with the missiles, but it's not just Catawhirl who does this.  Pisces Zodiac Boss does too.  It must be some pointer from the boss code somehow pointing at the same thing as a the missile.  Shouldn't be possible for both to grab the same FFC, since either one will change the Data field when it gets ahold of it.  Pisces boss behavior is worse, actually; missiles don't disappear, but they suddenly are affected by gravity.  Annoying.  I'll get back to this one tomorrow.

 

I imagine the Aquarius boss behavior has something to do with running out of FFCs.  Were you spamming missiles like crazy?

[ShadowTiger]

Is there anywhere that actually mentions the names of all these enemies? It would be really interesting to be able to see a little placard with their name during the boss fight so we all know which bosses we're talking about after they brutally destroy us.

... he says with a smily face.

[C-Dawg]

They don't have names as such that the game cares about.  They just have names I gave them in the code.  If you're interested, here's some of them.  They're very creative, as you can tell:

 

1. First starflight boss: Star Tank

2. First miniboss in Aquarius - Pheagon

3. Big ol' dragon thing guarding the Pulse Hammer - Mega Pheagon

4. Big Ghoma = Big Ghoma

5. Ship deployed by Dr. Mo when you find her at high-jump boots - Ray Crystal

6. Boss of Aries Corridor 1 - Mechacrab

7. Crab guarding the Armor upgrade in Aquarius - Crabbor

8. Miniboss guarding Disintegrator in Cancer - Eyefull?  I dunno, I forget.

9. Miniboss guarding Dash Jets in Scorpio - Cactawhirl

10. Boss of Pisces Corridor 1 (where you get Stun Beam) - Squid.  Most creative one.

11. Boss guarding Grapple Beam in Gemini - Shield Armor.

12. Big ol' thing blocking your path to Leo from Aries - Fanbot.  Fanbot is your God now.  (You will understand when you face it.)

13. Robot that looks like Magnet Man in Leo = Magnet Man

14. Central computer defense system in Leo = Mainframe

15. Engine defense system in Taurus = Beam Defender?  I forget actually.

16. Big tank thing blocking way to Pandora in Leo = BigTank.  

17. Gumby-looking thing guarding explosive missiles = Wiggler

 

There's a bunch of other side-bosses and, of course, the 11 Zodiac Bosses plus final boss, and about a dozen other corridor bosses on top of that, but you get the idea.  Bosses, bosses, bosses, and more bosses.

Edited by C-Dawg, 17 June 2015 - 12:53 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Okay, I finished fixing Tentaplus and Cactawhirl. So the problem here could occur on any boss. Basically, if the boss code ever allows one of its projectile FFCs to hit "0" but remain in use as a pointer, then the missile code can use one but be overridden. That's causing the strange behavior. It shouldn't be an issue for newer bosses that use 0 as a non-in-use state like the missile code does, but early bosses might have this problem. I'll dig around some more to find examples. Hopefully I can finish cutscenes up to the final encounter and this fix tonight.

Also fixed the Magnet Man pulling.

Fixed Fanbot to work the same way. Much less brutal now.

EDIT: I think I've fixed the bosses who interact badly with the missiles. If there are more, Im not seeing it.

I also tweaked the charge code to clear up a possible strange behavior where you used the charged Zodiac weapon in the B slot while needing to hold down the A button.

EDIT2: New version updated.

Edited by C-Dawg, 18 June 2015 - 12:16 AM.

[C-Dawg]

I started playing through from the first trip to Pisces to see if the midgame needed some tweaks.  It did.  Here's what I accomplished tonight:

 

1. Changed the way seaweed works.  Now, instead of knockback, it shocks the player and causes damage over time while and for a short duration after touching.  Might be too brutal if you stay in the seaweed.  Is meant to remind the player of the horrible TMNT underwater stages from the NES game.

2. Figured out why missiles were still acting weird around custom enemies sometimes, squashed bug.

3. Made recharge station outside of Pisces corridor 1 free.  You need it.

4. Changed fairy to a 5 Heart drop and made it droppable inside corridors.

5. Reduced damage from Squid boss' projectiles.

6. Fixed door out of Aries Zodiac Boss.  Wasn't opening.

7. Removed erroneous (and wildly unfair) monster at Leo 38.

8. Fixed grapple.  It was not letting go if you held any button, not just the one you activated it with.  YOu can still get into trouble by swapping out the items in your inventory while holding the grapple button, but oh my stars is someone really going to try to do that just so they can not be able to let go of a grapple while they charge a shot?  I can't see an exploit here.  I suppose I can make a constant check for what is equipped if it comes to that.  Anyway, the upshot is now you can charge your shot and grapple independently.  This was a huge pain in the ass previously at fanbot, now, less so.

9. Tweaked momentum so even if the player can't move while turning around, player does change direction.  This allows you to fire upwind in rooms that mess with your momentum.

10. Fixed Magnetman's music.

 

More tomorrow.  My goal is to work on the game nonstop tomorrow, in the hopes of finishing the current to-dos and leaving me with only extra stuff and whatever punch list we come up with to do.

[newstarshipsmell]

Demo 527

At the very beginning, as the screen pans down from the Zodiac, you can fire both your Sidearm and Ship Cannon with A/B until the mothership begins scrolling in from the left.

If you gain the Pulse Hammer before reading the intro message from the spy, the next message you get from him will seem confusing without an introduction/explanation.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 21 June 2015 - 04:41 AM.

[ShadowTiger]

I wonder what would happen if there were little electronic "gates" that would only open after you hacked a message terminal to get your next instruction. Early on in the game, it would be an excellent "check" to make sure the player understands the importance of the game mechanics of checking messages frequently.

[C-Dawg]

Okay, okay, I will put in a message check out door blocking the megapheagon so you can't miss your initial messages.

 

EDIT:  Fixed this.  Now, if you totally ignore terminals, the spy's first message is different depending on how many items you've picked up.  The spy will get progressively more aggravated with you for not bothering to do your primary job as a communications robot, which is, you know, to communicate.  Right now this behavior stops after you go to Leo the first time.

 

 

I wonder what would happen if there were little electronic "gates" that would only open after you hacked a message terminal to get your next instruction. Early on in the game, it would be an excellent "check" to make sure the player understands the importance of the game mechanics of checking messages frequently.

 

On consideration, I opted against this for two reasons.  First, I detest game mechanics where you can't progress until you talk to all of the villagers and so forth.  Second, since there is no other part of the game where you ever have to talk to a terminal to make a door open or something, I don't want to "teach" the player that this is a game mechanic so early.

Edited by C-Dawg, 21 June 2015 - 12:00 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

I was going to hold off until I'd heard all the music ingame, but... just wanted to mention, for me, the Cancer music plays a bit louder than the previous levels, and the Iron fight music completely drowns out the sound effects. Is it like this for you or anyone else?
(I'm still playing with the sound effects dropped to roughtly 50% of their default level, and music at 100%.)

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 21 June 2015 - 02:04 PM.

[C-Dawg]

This is why I was messing with the amplitude of the tracks; they seem to play at different volumes. I'd rather they were all loud enough to play at default, but if I crank up the amp any more I'll clip the tracks. So... which ones need to be quieter as far as you can tell?

 

EDIT: Plot update completed through the arrival at the Pandora.  Just two cutscenes and the credits to go. 

 

EDIT2: Added different music for each corridor.  They're all HPizzle, so there should be some uniformity in the corridor music.

EDIT3: Cutscene with Iron confronting the big bad right before the hour long final battle finally updated.  This one really is a CUTscene.  How droll of me.  Onward to debugging the final battles!

EDIT4: Updated music for last boss and earlier encounters.  Getting too late tonight to repackaged new .ogg files and make a download, so might update tomorrow.  Here's where I am at on the to-do list:

 

(1) Game ending cutscenes; improve and add artwork, credits to music artists to the credits.

(2) Enlist help of some other Zquesters in understanding continue point strange behavior, and the strange warp behavior in some Scorpio doors and the entrance into Aries.

(3) Follow up on e-mails to artists for permission to use music.

(4) Make final FINAL battle better. Given the upgrades on earlier bosses, this one at a minimum needs a clearer indication when you've seen through the misdirection.

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

Edited by C-Dawg, 22 June 2015 - 01:28 AM.

[C-Dawg]

I changed that difficult jump at Aq 4B.  It was on the bad side of too difficult for the start of the game after momentum changed. 

 

Did some bugchecking on the final boss - there were some modes that were still messing with your new missile weapons.  I think I've fixed it, but given the random nature of the battle, I can't be sure.

 

And... new version uploaded!

Edited by C-Dawg, 23 June 2015 - 09:26 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Hey it's your friendly neighborhood pest back to remind you of some trivial bugs since he can't find anything more substantive at this point. (At least, not this early in the game, anymore.)

You can still unload your weapons while the screen scrolls down at the beginning.

The mothership still has transparent black lines on the left half of it.

The Pulse Hammer boss still plays the Blaster Master music for a second or two while his head's flying into the room.

The Commander's first message inside the Zodiac still needs a period after "ALL WE HAVE IS YOU" to avoid a nonsensical run-on sentence:


Also, the Spy's second message needs a period after "EXPLOSIVES":


The gate doors/frames at Aries 22/23 are Cset mismatched - doors are seagreen and frames grey-blue when open in 22, and both when open and while opening in 23.

Game-ending bugs all of them, I know.

That moment when you pull the subscreen up with a sliver of health left and a bullet directly next to you, hoping against hope that after arming your Life Tank you can pummel the button fast enough after returning to the action, is the moment when you suspect that C-Dawg has already won. *sigh* And then your suspicion is proved correct. *double-sigh* I'm calling it a night.

[C-Dawg]

Thank you for your dedication! I will fix each of those issues tonight. That, and continue drawing art for the ending.

Lame endings are traditional on the nes, but that's one trope I hope to improve.

 

EDIT: Fixed all your issues in the last post, NewSmell.

Edited by C-Dawg, 24 June 2015 - 12:00 AM.