Stuff Under the Header

12/23/2010

Achievements

Edit: (January 18, 2011) It's been awhile since I've said anything here. I'm still alive and well. The surprise is still in the works, very slowly. I will not release or say what it is publically until it is done.


Edit: (December 29, 2010) Between work demanding more time, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Christmas, and other misc. things and excuses, the surprise mentioned in the previous post will be released in January... or later. Another excuse is some of my time is being spent in XNA as well.

I hate them and everything they stand for, they are a shit stain smeared upon gaming. That said, I don't hate all achievements, just 99% of them. Things like "You beat Level x", that's not an achievement in the game, you were going to do that anyway. I also don't like grind achievements such as "play this setting 10000 times". This is just my opinion of them though. I don't mind the "Game Cleared" ones. I like the achievements that are more secondary such as clearing it in a certain amount of time or doing things a certain way. Distorted Travesty will NOT have achievements, but if it did, here are a few that it would have:

- Most bosses would have a time limit achievement attached. (Example: Beat the Shroud Lord in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds.)
- Complete the game on Distorted Mode.
- Get 100% items.
- Complete the game while you're still level 1. (It can be done.) (Or maybe not do this, but have an achievement called "404: Achievement Not Found") Basically beating any boss at 4:04 AM. :P (OkageSK idea)
- Defeat all enemies on the train elevator.
- Crush a Goomba, Mario style.
- "1-hit kill" 3 enemies with 1 jump attack.
- Beat the Metallicardian without ever landing on the top platform.

12/10/2010

Surprises

Edit: (December 18, 2010) You guys have probably noticed I've been updating the game practically every day for the last few days. That is because you guys seem to be working over-time in finding bugs (myself included). Not a bad thing. Version 1.0.1.3 fixes a bug with Kudeku that made the animation loop forever and makes a very minor change to two other skills.
List:
1.0.1.2 - Fixes a crash bug caused by a sound on the train and fixes a minor issue with Wave of Awesome.
1.0.1.1 - The big hit detection update, some graphical updates with custom sprites by OkageSK, plus many other small bugs.
Just want to keep the most up to date version on here right now.


Edit: (December 16, 2010) The update that was uploaded has all the changes made below and a few others, I will list the changes. The new hit detection is in place. The Veiled Detritus theme has been changed. Then of course the sprites from OkageSK. He changed the Muffin sprites, and made a sprite edit for Jerry during the Muffin sequences, which have also been changed. Probably best of all is the custom sprite for Jerry during the intro to Black Rock. It was made in reference to the NES Ninja Gaiden sequences when Ryu approaches the fortresses. It looks great and since this is only viewable one time in-game, I have a video of it here. I'll take out that annoying white line on the left of the video sometime... maybe. Oh yeah... this is not the surprise referenced earlier. As far as work done to DT itself, this should be it.


Edit: (December 14, 2010) I made a change to DT that needed to be there since the beginning. Until now, when an enemy takes damage, it cannot be hit again till it is no longer flashing red, regardless of how many attacks you throw at them. This is no longer the case, each new attack you use will now damage the enemy. Attacks can still multi hit the enemy, but that time has been boosted. For example, Mental Insurrection no longer double hits (however it has a slight boost in power, yay cutting through defense :P ). Some skills have been rebalanced to reflect this update. This also does change Metropolis a bit. You can still blast them to bits like you could before, but your attacks have a slightly longer delay before they multi hit. Mental Insurrection still double hits them. Skills like 'Flame Pillar' were made for this type of system. I was just too shitty of a coder back then to do this. (Even though this was incredibly simple to set up.) Overall, this does boost your damage output a bit and truly lets you stun-lock enemies like you're supposed to. Again, that's what 'Flame Pillar' would be used for. You can lock them in that and still attack them with whatever other abilities you'd like. This update will be available sometime later. For the next bit of news... ... ...
Some of you in the rrr community know of OkageSK, he has been fixing up a few sprites, creating new sprites, franken-sprited a bit, and is currently making some nifty custom art for a certain part of the game. Most of it is done, I'm just waiting on one last animation set from him that will definitely be pretty awesome looking in game. A big thanks goes out to him for all the work he's done. (He replaced my awful Muffin sprites too.)
A video showing some of the things you can do with the new system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqJTN26uxA


Edit: (December 12, 2010) Wow, so apparently 'Wind Burst' has been working incorrectly this entire time. It is supposed to auto-destroy when it collides with a wall, something I acknowledged a long while back, but turned a blind eye to. The other is it's supposed to increase its velocity as it goes out. For some reason I made a typo in my code, not enough of one to cause a crash, but enough for the spells effects to be ignored completely. (Even though the actual code for it was correct all along.) I don't really know how I overlooked that this entire time... The difference is the spell has more range and speed with the offset of being destroyed when coming into contact with level surfaces. Anyway, it's not a huge concern to upload a new update for that right now, just something humorous to share since it induced quite a big facepalm on my part.

I've got a surprise for everyone coming up sometime later this month. (It could be next month depending on how busy things get.) It does involve DT and was something that was requested, though I'm very very sure that it is not at all what the requesters thought.

The bullethell is still being made, I'm just splitting my development time. This helps keep me from getting burned out and the ideas from getting stale so fast. Who knows, I may release a tech demo of the bullethell before the thing mentioned above.

Anyway... forget about all that for now, I might make a separate blog for various things. I want to keep this blog to only stuff about DT and stuff related to it. If I happen to make it, I'll link to it from here. That's it for now, no screenshots so this post is fairly boring for those of you that don't like walls of text without supplemental images. Anyway, Christmas is coming up, be safe, have fun, and eat cookies during the holidays.