Stuff Under the Header

1/30/2014

Streaming Games

Edit: (Jan. 31, 2014) This project just needs a few more supporters on Thunderclap. At the time of this posting, it only needs 5 more and 13 hours to go. It isn't a kickstarter, on Thunderclap, you simply use one of a few social media networks that you're on and if this support page gets to its goal, it will post about the project, Positron specifically in this case, to that network you chose. If you can, that would be great. (I am not directly involved with this project.)

I gotta get some new pictures and/or videos of the birds soon. All this talk of grackles and no media makes for stuff not being as entertaining.

Gate 6 Progress
It's coming along nicely, especially now that I have more feedback from the testers about some of the finer nuances of its mechanics. Some fine tuning will need to be done. There was a thing where, as Claire, you could get 2 attacks in after a parry and get that 3x damage twice if you attacked at just the right time. I was uneasy with this, but left it in to see if any of the testers made comments on it. My thought was, if even one person mentions this feeling weird, the timings of Claire's attack and parry phase will be adjusted to not allow this. I got a comment on this phenomenon that mentioned it felt weird and inconsistent, you know what will soon follow. Another note to make about the Gate, that isn't really a spoiler, is that both characters only get 2 offensive abilities. (And their own version of Guard.) The second ability for each character comes later in the Gate and is set up to be utilized far less than the first that each character obtains. Both of them are fairly indirect methods of attack, though Jerry's has lock-on capabilities. Their use is also fairly limited, which will be immediately noticeable after its first use. There is no cooldown, but something else keeps them from being abused. They also don't benefit from the 3x parry bonus. I think I've gone through 5 iterations for each of them until finding something that I felt was right.

Streaming
I've been toying around with streaming a lot more ever since I got a second monitor, and I've finally found good stream settings for my computer and connection speed. I don't have specific times that I stream, but it's usually in the late evening. There may be times that I call it out on twitter now. If I'm playing a game on my PC, I'll most likely be streaming it, partially because it will be recording as well. I'm typically playing Planetside 2 or Dark Souls. Other games will definitely show up. There are also times when I'm streaming DT3 content to someone for various reasons. If you happen to see that, you may get to sneak a peek at my terrible coding practices. (And more in depth when I release the project file after DT3 is completed.) I can't lock my stream, so yeah. :P
It is here!
http://www.twitch.tv/zephyrburst83

1/23/2014

It Might Snow

Oh man, the birds have finally come back after their winter moving about business. After weeks of absense, they've shown up and immediately demanded, by standing at a fairly close distance, that I feed them. Luckily I always bring food, just in case of days like that where they will suddenly show up again. The birding will soon begin again!

Gate 6 Questions

Question 1
The question that popped up the most after the last blog post was: "Is the parry mandatory in the game?"

There is very rarely ever a case where I'll put in a mechanic that isn't necessary at some point. However, I am trying to make sure that for most scenarios, there are other options. All the non-boss enemy types with shields, even the one that doesn't put the shield to the side when attacking, have other methods the player can use. That said, most other methods are not optimal to parrying, and the beginning of the Gate when the player has very little offensive options, parrying is super useful there. I've made sure that it's not too hard to execute and counter afterward, since the usefulness of the parry is in the counter. There is a boss fight that will require the parry, and Nightmare Gate boss will definitely require it from both characters.

So for the tl:dr answer; yes it is absolutely mandatory, but only in a small number of scenarios.

Question 2
Another question that I thought I had already answered, but I was probably too vague on was: "Is the Gate 6 ability set useable outside of the Gate like the other abilities?"

No, this ability is exclusive to this Gate and its Nightmare counterpart. It doesn't work well alongside the other ability sets, and it was never the intention after the Gate redesign to make it that way. Althrough, there is a mobility based action that is gained within the Gate that is usable outside once the Gate is complete. Since dashing is never usable in Gate 6, the player is given the chance to become familiar with this action without dashing/air dashing.

The other abilities are also not usable inside the Gate even after it's completed. This isn't a technical issue, this is by design. I'm finding that the number of technical limitations I run into that are brought on by my own inability to code something properly, is declining by quite a lot.

And now for a screenshot! Claire may have dealt damage, but at what cost?

Wrong move Claire!

1/04/2014

Editing Games

One More Gate 6 Thing

This is another segment of the game where there is no dashing, and enemies cannot be stunned. For this Gate, both characters have access to blocking.











Ignore everything about that UI element except for the bottom right meter with the shield icon. As you guard, that meter depletes and while you're not guarding it regenerates. The shield breaks if that meter is fully depleted and will recover in a few seconds. That's pretty straight forward, but DT has a few extra rules attached.

While the shield is broken, the player takes double damage from all sources. When the player successfully blocks an attack, the attack takes a chunk of the shield energy away. However, if the player blocks just as an enemy attacks, they'll parry, which removes no shield energy (you get some back actually) and the player is invulnerable for a very short moment and deals triple damage during that. This is how Claire works. She can only block close range attacks.

Jerry however, can block ranged attacks, like projectiles, and can parry from those. Jerry doesn't get an invulnerably state, but his damage is tripled for much longer than Claire. Claire is primarily close range in Gate 6, while Jerry is all ranged attacks. The rules favor Claire over Jerry. At least I think so, and I'm fine with that. Of course there will be scenarios set up to make use of both characters, but what I have set up, Claire seems to benefit the most. She needs more screen time anyway.

I know what some people are thinking. Spam the shield!! That doesn't work. There is an initial cost to using the shield, and spamming it to attempt to perform an easy parry, will significantly increase that initial cost during the spam fest, usually ending up in breaking the shield, and the player taking double damage from a giant sword. The player cannot use Claire and jump themselves onto an enemy to perform a parry either. The enemy has to be performing an attack.

I've yet to allow the testers to use it, but I'm sure once they get a hold of that build, I'll be tuning some numbers. And that's the end of any more info on Gate 6 till you experience it for yourself.

DT1 Debug Mode

Remember when Negative Zero Z did an S Rank Run of DT1? The game tells you how to unlock its debug mode when you achieve that rank, which he has shown how to do here. You don't actually have to have a save with an S rank, the code he gives works at any time.

On this debug mode stuff, DT2 does not have one available in the final build. DT3 might have something like that hidden away... probably will, and it'll be just as obscure to unlock.

Frozen

The Disney film that was released in November. I won't say anything about it other than it was enjoyable for the most part. Could use a few less songs though. There is one song, that luckily Disney has up on youtube that I found amazing, easily my favorite Disney song, topping even 'Hellfire' and 'Make a Man out of You'.

Phantasmaburbia

If you haven't played this game yet, I think you should. It's pretty damn amazing. Slaix brought my attention to it recently. There's not much I can say that isn't said on the game's site or from various reviews found. What I found odd though, was that almost no one mentioned the game's story, or simply glossed over it. Maybe so there's no room for spoilers, but the narrative is what I'm most fond of from the game. Very well done, and quite dark, so prepare for that if you are interested. The site linked below will tell you what the game is about. Spoilers, there's ghosts.

http://phantasmaburbia.com/