Edit: (April 8, 2011) And of course, send me bug reports and most importantly, critiques and comments, and things you would like to see better. I'm sure you'll have some. :)
Just don't post about the ending. Send concerns, comments, or questions about that privately for at least the next 2 weeks. :P
Edit: (April 7, 2011) I lied, the game is being released today, check the side links and you'll find it. Have with this. :D
Here's a screenshot showing my scores. The objective is to beat some of these. Also there's a hidden achievement in the game. You'll know when you find it, you'll see an "Achievement Unlocked". Don't try looking for it. For a clue, it requires 100% (It isn't getting 100%) and has nothing to do with scores.
P.S. You're all going to hate me for the end.
I'm not dead, just been away for the last 2 weeks painting an apartment. Luckily I have a laptop now so I could slip in some dev time for DT2. I would give a release date, but when I do, I wind up delaying it. I'm going to say Saturday. :P I was actually surprised that I was able to get anything done on it the last 2 weeks, they've been SUPER busy. Even if it's not Saturday, it will still be very soon. Sunday? (Sooner than Duke Nukem Forever, which got pushed by back another month.) So yeah, the suffering and numerous death by pitfalls will be able to start soon.
The only cut I made was there is 1 boss fight on the final level instead of 2. (Well it's got 2 parts at least... sortaish.) I can't say it's as epic as DT's final battle, but it will require you to think about it more. The World 3 boss will make up for the low amount of boss fights. :) On the boss note, be sure to scan them and see what your partner has to say about them. (It helps.)
Anyway last week felt somewhat empty. Probably because there was no new pony episode. I need my pony fix. Friday was April 1st, so yeah... And on the April 1st thought, I had an awesome idea for one this year, but due to my being away and having "almost" no way to use reliable Internet, I couldn't go through with it. :( *Really hopes that everyone buys his "lack of Internet" excuse.*
Well I'll see you guys in a few days with part 2. Oh yeah... lets not think of it as a sequel. As we know Jeremy makes fun of sequels. Lets see it more as an expansion... an expansion that plays differently. Or maybe just a continuation... bah, it's a sequel. :(
23 comments:
Good to see you're not dead! It sounds like DT2 (will you be giving that a more creative title, by the way?) will be little more of a puzzle platformer than a twitchy-reflex fast-paced action-packed adventure like the original was. In my opinion that's a good thing, since I like the former more than the latter.
Yes, though this creative title may not be what everyone else has in mind. In the first game Jeremy makes a joke that a sequel would suck and said if a sequel did exist, it would have the subtitle "The Sequel to the Prequel". There's a hidden meaning, but it won't make sense till the end of DT2.
You're correct in saying that it's more a puzzle platformer. The only places that I can see that has the 'twitchy foaming at the mouth' style of gameplay would be the 3rd boss fight and the level before it.
It's almost done now. Just need to finish up the credits roll, (Which is super short compared to DT1.) and fix up some music stuff. There's only 2 tracks that made a return. (3 if you count the title loop, though it may change.) I would like to find one more track to give a bit more variety, but it's not the biggest priority right now.
Autosaving gets me the same message (and a lot of lag) too, but the erroneous event is Create, not Step.
Agh, stupid processing ate my post or whatever. The error is:
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event
for object oWorldMap:
In script saveData:
Error in code at line 62:
tempVar=encryptDecrypt(global.lvlComplete[i],0); ini_write_real(sectionWrite,string("r1") +string(i),tempVar)
^
at position 34: Unknown variable lvlComplete or array index out of bounds
More weirdness: In stage 2-3A, the screen randomly freezes once the moving platform reaches the end for a few seconds, then I die. Any idea what's causing this?
Not sure what that is, but it looks like I'll have to find out. Go ahead and turn off auto-saving till I get that fixed. I know what's causing that just from looking at it.
Hm, oddly, stage 2-3A works fine if I go fullscreen, though it does jump for a split second when I reach that point.
I can't seem to replicate this. The only thing that happens, code wise, when the platform reaches that point is it stops.
I do have saving working properly now. There were actually 2 errors which I see why they weren't triggering for me. It'll have another change to some things you haven't reached yet. (Well assuming you haven't played past 2-3 yet.) Not a crash fix or anything, but makes the presentation of something better.
I'll have it uploaded somewhat soon.
I actually made it past that, since it works fine in fullscreen, like I said. Might have something to do with my computer (which is a Windows 7 laptop by the way, if that matters).
Speaking of, I've pretty much been playing nonstop today and I finally made it to the final boss. I arguably think the final parts are harder than the original -- you're right about the final level (and the colour wheels in 3-2 D:); it made me want to throw my computer against a wall. But the thing is, it wasn't so much the difficulty, it was the having to repeat long levels every time I failed. Over and over and over again. I can understand wanting to make a challenging game -- which DT is -- but sparse checkpoint placement isn't fun or even challenging. It's a test in patience, nothing more. This is true in boss battles too (augh Twin Bloom I was stuck on that forever).
Using luck-based mechanics also infuriate me. Those meteors in the semifinal level were basically saying, "Sorry, you were unlucky and just wasted all your time in this level! Try again!" When I hit those meteors (or they were blocking key jump spots) and I dropped like a stone, I didn't lose because I lacked skill, or reflexes. I lost due to pure random chance. I'm sorry, but that sort of thing is a terrible, terrible idea if you want your game to be based on player skill...
I was also somewhat disappointed that there were far fewer cutscenes; they only seem to occur in boss levels and the final level (Also every single boss is a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere, but eh, that's okay in a game like this). I was a little disappointed since in DT there was dialogue almost every level that helped to flesh out the characters and whatnot. However, I realize that storyline isn't this game's focal point, so it is kind of a minor objection in that context.
I did like the game as a whole, though! Even though I couldn't do the wall jumping puzzles because I suck at wall jumping... x_x
(Oh, and if it matters at all, I'm the anon who gave the sort-of review of the original a while back... I really need to get a Google account...)
Oh hey, I can make a name even without an account! Isn't that nifty.
By the way, possible bug report: In the Twin Bloom battle, the green lifebar extends out of the bar's outline a bit, so it's longer than the red one, and looks kind of weird. Is this intentional, or a glitch due to the way its health is scaled?
And agh, forgot to add this to my last post: Have you ever played the game Braid? It's a puzzle platformer that critics have been raving about. Even if you can't spare the $20 for the full game, I'd recommend getting the demo, because it has a very interesting game mechanic: you can't die or lose, ever. You can rewind time at any point if you make a mistake. The focus is on puzzle-solving than reflexes, so I know that exact feature of being able to redo every single mistake isn't applicable to most platformers, but I think it's something to consider. The game is still challenging, but never frustrating.
Oh wow, thank you for that review, I definitely appreciate all your comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it overall. :)
I agree with you on the meteors. I will probably (no actually I WILL) go back into it and have them all completely scripted. You can't turn back and there's really no need to have them randomly falling. Some of them were scripted anyway. In the future, I'm not going to use random chance like that in anything else. That was a bad idea on my part.
It's crazy that I didn't catch that life bar bug for Twin Bloom, it extends way out. *fixed*
Twin Bloom is an odd boss. When I was done with it, I was very close to just cutting it completely and replacing it with an extended cutscene. I didn't because it would've broke the flow and probably would have felt cheap on the player's end. (Fun fact: There's a bug I haven't been able to fix for them where you can get them to get stuck doing nothing and completely vulnerable. It is really hard to trigger, but I can't seem to make it go away completely. Well I could if I rewrote the code for the boss.) >_<
I understand what you mean about the lack of cutscenes and it's interesting to me that people seem to have been more concerned about the narrative in the first DT than any of the jarring issues with it. I haven't gotten bad remarks on the narrative, but rather more comments on it. (Well when the final version was released that is.) It's interesting to me because the story was really only there to supplement the gameplay and give some reason for going from point A to point B. It's something I realized before finishing DT2, but I didn't act on that thought as you saw. It is something that will be taken advantage of in the future.
I have played a bit of Braid, I really enjoyed what I played of it. There are technically ways to get yourself stuck and having to restart with the way the keys work, but I only saw that being possible on 2 of the levels I played. A big challenge for me is balancing the checkpoints. I want the game to be challenging, but I do want people getting through it. I don't want a checkpoint every 2 steps, but not too far apart. I think the best answer to this is more play testing from other people. I can't fully test what is too much when I can do a perfect run of many of the levels almost consistently. (You get really good at your own games.)
If you're not good at wall jumping, then Section 5-B must've been a beast for you. That to me was the hardest part of the game.
Anyway, thank you much for the review. Things like this help improve everything I do. I take many of the comments I receive into consideration.
You're welcome! I'm glad you're willing to listen and not all "RAEG how dare you insult me you ungrateful idiot" like some authors do.
Ah yeah, I noticed that bug. I don't know what triggers it, but sometimes, when executing their special attack, they'll just freeze up and do nothing. I did also notice, however, that if you pause while they're teleporting, they'll fall through the platforms and never show up again.
5-B? Was that the one with the tiny platforms that you had to cling to the sides and then frantically air dash/hover your way between them? Oh gods yes. I once got all the way to the end but impaled myself on spikes before I could enter the door. ;_; I also spent like an hour on sector 4, I eventually just said "screw this" and did a continuous dash to carry myself through the spikes once I got halfway through, or used Blast Off or something.
I think that a key thing to note is that wall jumping puzzles like those are really difficult because it's hard to stay in one spot. You need to be jumping constantly, and it's really easy to mess up that way, especially on a moving platform. Most games I see that do that kind of thing allow you to actually stick to a wall and not move until you let go or jump off.
Oh, you have played Braid? Yeah, I agree with what you say about checkpoints -- but I think that one every one or two challenges would be better. For example, in sector 4, there are ludicrously difficult gauntlets of spikey wall jump puzzles interspaced with safe platforms. It would make sense to put checkpoints there -- if I was playing DT on an NES emulator or something, I would definitely save state there.
addhfajksd; How do you beat the final boss??? I can usually survive until its final stage, at which point I die because it is impossible to dodge, since apparently the moment you hit it it realizes you're higher priority than Chao and proceeds to blast off what little health you have remaining. I suppose one could theoretically tank it to death if you had enough health left (heh, "tank to death", never thought that would be possible), but I haven't managed to do the rest of the battle perfectly yet. Seriously, do you need a third hand to operate the directional keys, function keys, and mouse at the same time? >_>
I don't want to give it away too much. You're doing it half right. You do need to make Core look at Chao, but scan him again and specifically read the "make him dizzy" part. Core follows Chao's speed perfectly.
I highly doubt you'd be able to tank him, I've attempted it just to see and I can do some spins around him with a combination of dashing and Blast Off, but you'll be dashing too fast and will inevitably run out of dash points.
Aghhhhh something is wrong with your blog it's eaten my posts at least two dozen times now. -_-
Yeah I was wondering how that works actually. It clearly looks at Chao, but I spun her around it in circles and nothing seemed to happen. :/
By the way, you were ranting about achievements earlier, and I was wondering if you might want to see this. The people who make the series are highly knowledgeable and bring up good points; I would recommend watching all of their videos.
I've seen numerous of the Extra Credit. I like most of their stuff.
About the comment thing, I just found out that blogger filters messages as spam sometimes. This is really annoying and I'm going to find a way to turn it off.
There is no way to turn it off. They want it a non-optional part of the software. From now on, I'll check the spam box that they never told me about. I caught your last message in there the dozen times you said you posted it.
I watched the Achievements video. Had not seen that one yet. He took the words right out of my mouth. I gotta ask, do you also design games? (or want to) You've always specifically pointed out many of the design aspects that you liked/disliked about DT. After looking through the spam filter, I noticed you had also sent me an article on writing female characters. (I assume that was you.)
Ergh, forgot something. Spin Chao faster. I suppose I should turn down the threshold. Again, I needed more testing for this. XD My usual testers were not available. For future projects, I'll ask more people to do testing. I know where I can find them. I shut this project in and it shows.
Ah, glad that's resolved. And yes, the female characters thing was sent by me.
I'm glad you watch EC, in my opinion it's something every game designer should watch.
I am not a designer, but I do want to be. I've been taking a basic programming class in school, but that's about it. I have the same problem with games that I do with other types of art; I'm very right-brained, so I tend to know tips/tricks, the structure and mathematical side of how to construct things, etc., but when the time comes to actually make something, I have no creative fuel. (Or if I do, it's not enough to make something longer than a short story.) It is maddening.
Also, I find pixel art to be impossible (curse you, involuntary body movement! DX), which is kind of a problem because you can't really do anything without sprites and I really don't want to cop out and use ones that have been ripped and posted on the internet that everyone's probably seen before... :/
I'm the same a lot. I tend to figure out the math and mechanics behind something. Keep going down that path and do research. I actually suggest not going for a game design degree. If you want to be a programmer, take computer science, and if you want to do art... learn traditional alongside 3D. Understand anatomy and color theory. All the basics, it comes up a lot more than some might imagine. If you want to be a game designer. Get into the industry first, or build your own game. I do think some design can be taught. But most of it should be from yourself. I'd don't know how to explain it. I'll need to come back to this subject later...
C++ was the first language I was taught to use, then I taught myself some Javascript when I modded Unreal 2003/2004. That was mostly map design, but periodically I'd need to script something new into the game. When I was taught C++, they tried to teach classes, and way too early. I could barely wrap my head around structs and arrays at that time. It wasn't until years later when coding in Unreal that I saw how classes and beauty of object oriented code.
I understand that people frown upon using rips and I do myself to an extent. DT is a hobby project for myself for code and design. I can do programmer art, but I'd rather spend more time thinking about the design and code aspect. DT (well the graphics side, and story as well) was built around that in mind. If I'm going for profit and such, I'd be doing the art myself or finding someone else to help with it. That said, even doing simple programmer art is still fine to do. To me, the pixel art only looks bad when things clash. (Like DT.) XD
Oh, no I don't plan to make game design my professional job or anything. I intend to do game design, creative writing, etc. as a hobby. I plan to get a maths or science degree. Thanks for the advice though, I will keep it in mind.
Agreed on the sprite rips thing. I hate it when there are extremely jarring art styles, like in the early Final Fantasies (and they don't have the excuse of ripping it from another game!).
Back-ish on topic: Now that DT2 is out, it obviously needs a TV Tropes page. I was wondering if it warrants a completely separate page, or just a horizontal line at the end of DT's tropes and starting there, saying "examples of tropes in the sequel" or something? I've seen both options used.
I'd say keep it on the same page with a divider. Especially since it's a very short addition. I noticed that the second part was mentioned already.
Post a Comment