Distorted Travesty

And I'm Back

2012-01-31T00:16:00.001-06:00

Edit: (February 2, 2012) DT1 was updated today. Nothing crucial, just a lot of minor changes/fixes that I had been making over the last month and a half.
- A lot of the spells and abilities had their costs changed slightly, mostly the Element cost went down for them. A few had their Spirit cost reduced slightly. Of these, can you guess which one was DEFINITELY changed again? That infamous spell that I'm sure hardly anyone uses that always gets changes made to it. It's Water Barrier of course. It had its Element cost reduced drastically.
- The Demon Cursor boss had its App Create ability pushed back a bit. They don't get quite as large as they used to, but it would take a good eye to see the difference.
- Ultimate Phalanx had his guard time reduced quite a bit. On the 2 hard settings, he was guarding so much that it was more an annoyance than anything.
- The biggest change was to the 45 degree slopes. I know everyone has seen how Jerry just runs right off of them instead of sticking to them as he runs down. While testing one of the new areas in DT3, Slaix said that I should really fix how slopes are handled. So... I did. ONE LINE OF CODE FIXED IT! So I went back and changed that for DT1 as well. The character now sticks to the 45 degree slopes when running down them. Which means you can run and jump off of them instead of flying off and not having access to your jump.

Been back for a few days really, but the title seemed... anyway I've gotten a lot done the last few days. If I can keep up this momentum, maybe... MAYBE we'll see a late February demo release. But I'm still thinking it'll be delayed, I'd like to polish up a lot of things. Sound effects are a major thing I need to get on. Music is always thought of with the theme of the area, so music is never on the back burner. But sound has always come last for DT, sometimes to the point where it gets neglected, as I'm sure you guys picked up on in DT1 and 2. I'd really like to fix that for DT3. Its already got more sound feedback than the other two games, but it still isn't anywhere near what I want it to be in that regard.

While the extra Gate levels aren't very long, I'd like to have the first two playable for the demo, as that'll also give some foreshadowing speculation for you guys on what those build up to later on.

Man, finally an update that isn't somewhat dramatic and not really about the game. Hooray! Also a screenshot!

Hooray, a knife motion trail!

Yeah, that's a rope holding something. Useful gimmick for annoying the balls out of players with puzzles. :P

Ouch, Delay

2012-01-18T17:18:00.002-06:00

Edit: (January 25, 2011) Okay, I'm not dying anymore. Just a light lingering cough, which I'll have for the next 2 weeks or so. I'm not really sure what I had, could have been pneumonia, or not. Whatever it was, went for the lungs. Anyway, back into the normal swing of things! :3

Edit: (January 21, 2011) Feeling so much better today. For the past 2 days, all the symptoms have been gone... except for one. That cough, and it started getting worse. It wasn't till yesterday afternoon that it eased up. It's there, but not too too bad today. Though I still dread when I go lay down to sleep, that's when the coughing gets crazy. Now it just hurts A LOT every time I cough. I coughed so much the last few days (especially nights) that the muscles in my sides are incredibly sore. It's not a pleasant experience when a cough occurs right now.

I've been sick for awhile with something bad for the last 5 days and I'm probably going to have this till at least Monday, there's just no getting out of this one quick.

I just can't focus at all with this. I managed to make an add-on to the map system one day that should have only taken 30 minutes, but I just stared at the screen most of the time and it took me closer to 3 hours. Most of that was me laying down and just moving my laptop away.

So anyway, I'm not just working on the game at all, I was hoping to code the boss that I knew would take quite a bit of debugging to get working properly, but I just can't focus. I don't see any way I'll have the content I want in the demo by the middle of February at this point.

Post Title Here

2012-01-12T04:23:00.000-06:00

Winter has finally settled in central Texas. Oh winter, you are a bane on my existence. If only winter wasn't so cold, I wouldn't dislike it so much. Though to me, 50F is cold.

Yay, a large portion of Gate3 has been finished! Now on to the next part, which isn't quite a big. The finale of Gate 3 is almost ready.

I think the hardest part of these earlier parts of DT3 is making sure to keep the difficulty low. A few troublesome moments have slipped into these earlier levels, but the overall feel needs to be somewhat calm for the majority of it, up to the middle of Gate 3 at least. Plot wise, I want to keep things fairly mellow during these times as well.

At least there are the optional levels that open up after the associated gate is completed. :P (I can already see the hate mail generated from these levels.)

That's it for now. Here are two screenshots I used elsewhere.

The skill tree was changed a bit.

Colored numbers and stuff.

An Actual Serious Post

2012-01-05T05:56:00.002-06:00

This post is not about Distorted Travesty at all unfortunately.

If you are not aware of what the NDAA or SOPA are, I HIGHLY HIGHLY encourage you to educate yourself on both of these. (I link to the wikipedia articles because you can find tons of stuff from those pages.)

The NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) allows the US military to detain US citizens indefinitely, without trial. The articles you can find elsewhere online can give much more info than I can, so I will not quote or regurgitate what they state. I'm merely trying to make sure everyone who comes here is aware of these events.

For SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), even if you're not living in the US, it's bad news for you, and would be good for everyone who uses the internet, to know about it. In short, it allows the US government to blacklist any site deemed as a copyright infringement. Technically under that bill, sites like youtube, facebook, deviantart, just to name a few, could not be allowed to exist.

Okay, some light-hearted news
Had the day off... wait... I lied, DT news here. So yeah... I had the day off and got a ton of stuff done on DT3 today. Pretty much all of Gate 3 is laid out now. Just need to finish up some of the tile work, the details, collision, enemy placement, (that doesn't take long (yay paper maps)) okay... yeah I have a lot left to go. Not to mention 2 boss fights that aren't fully scripted.

THIS GAME WILL NEVER BE FINISHED... Well I said that about the first one. Months ago, I said that DT3 would be shorter than DT1. That's not true. It's looking to be slightly longer and bigger. My initial play time projection was a bit... off.

The Apocalyptic Year

2012-01-02T17:00:00.001-06:00

We have until December till the world ends, so here's to having a great final gaming year. :P

I'm definitely behind a bit on Gate 3 progress, but maybe the less busy January can help that somewhat. February is still my goal for a playable demo... We shall see...

It does have the iconic Dracula fight, which is actually fairly easy as it follows the norm for Dracula. It does have a few DT twists of course, though they are all references to other Castlevania final battles. I predict it won't take any more than 5 tries for 90% of you. Here's some screenshots.

Not even going to explain that one.

This is when things get harder.

Another Game (But it's awesome)
Slaix has been wanting me to play a game called Sequence for the past few weeks so I finally decided to play it this week. I finished it last night and I must say, it was a lot of fun. It's a rhythm-rpg hybrid game where you... well go to the site, there's a video on exactly what that means. Again, this is another game that I highly recommend. The only thing I didn't like about it was it got a bit grindy at times, but once you see how the narrative unfolds, you'll see the brilliance in that aspect of it. Speaking of narrative, it's wonderful. The characters are well written and entertaining, yet believable. It has you wanting to get to the next floor to see what happens next and just what that tower actually is. The beginning of it can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you'll eventually get yourself coordinated enough to play it. You can remap the keys if needed as well. (I left it on default though.)

If you like Alternate Reality Games (ARG) then you'll be happy to know there's one hidden in this somewhere. (Btw Slaix, I figured it out literally a minute after you left irc yesterday. Wow my initial thought on that was way off. Clever red herrings are... yep.)

So yeah, get the game, it's only $5, I think it's still $2.50 on Steam. You can also pick it up on xbox live.

Mentally and Physically Exhausted

2011-12-22T02:48:00.002-06:00

Edit: (December 29, 2011) Actually I take back my statement about Skyward Sword, it's a great game, but Majora's Mask still remains my favorite. :P

Something like that. I'm so looking forward to next week. This is just a short post to say Merry Christmas and all that good stuff.

I'm a bit behind on getting that demo out by February, and considering there's a bit of extra content I'd like to put in, it will probably be March. But who knows, starting next week, I'll have more free time.

I've been asked how I play DT, as some are very curious if I'm any good at it. I'll just say that I'm pretty beast at it. (w/e that means) I wouldn't make a hard game if I couldn't handle it myself. That being said, I'll go ahead and come out with something humorous. When DT1 was released, I had not actually beaten the Shroud Lord on the Distorted setting. It wasn't until recently that I was able to pull it off. (Though I hadn't tried in awhile.) I won't be doing that again. If I can't do something myself in the game, then I won't be releasing it. Hopefully if I can get my recording stuff working on this computer, I'll see about getting a video up of me beating that monstrosity on that setting. Oh no... damn it, that means I HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN! >_<

Anyway, there's a recording I have of me fighting the Demon Cursor on Distorted that I made just before releasing the game. The video has been listed as Unlisted on youtube since then, which I will be changing the moment I publish this post.

Here's the video, by the way, as a spoiler, I lose. Which will make you smile. :P
Me sucking at DT

A Game Review... in the sky

2011-12-05T22:03:00.001-06:00

Edit: (December 17, 2011) An update to DT1 was made today. Fixes a crash bug in the menu that may happen after Black Rock Fortress. The exe was also done with GM8.1 so it'll run faster. As always, if there are any issues with the new version, send me an email.

Now that I've finished Skyward Sword, DT has my full attention again. I'm still thinking a demo should be ready by February. This post isn't about DT though, mostly anyway. Since I finished the above mentioned game, I'd like to speak about it, I suppose it would be called a review. Oh yes, my review is just text, there's no fancy screenshots or videos.

Skyward Sword Review
Skyward Sword is bad ass and you should play it. Despite the few downfalls that it has, it is incredible in many ways. The obvious thought on everyone's mind concerns the controls, and I have to say, they were perfect. They were very intuitive and responsive, and gave me no issues. You'll have to calibrate the wiimote plus every time you start the game, but it only takes a few seconds. I typically played in 6 hour sessions and never had to recalibrate the controller during that. Link's sword attacks were simplified into 8 directions, (plus the stab) which I felt was perfect from both a design and gameplay perspective. Seeing Link swing exactly the way you want him to is a great feeling and I don't think I'd want to play another Zelda game without these controls. It reminds me of when I played Metroid Prime 3, I simply can't bring myself to play the first two without those motion controls. Skyward Sword quickly became my favorite Zelda game in the series and kept that all the way through the experience, even topping my previous favorite, Majora's Mask. It doesn't quite beat the mood and atmosphere set in Majora's Mask, but far exceeds it in every other department.

The amount of freedom with the controls might feel a bit overwhelming or too complex at first, but the game does an excellent job of easing you into its world and how to play in it. Before the game was released, the developers said you wouldn't be able to waggle your way through fights and that you'd have to take in the situation and decide from there, what attack would be best. I was glad to see that this was actually the case... with the boss fights. A fair number of enemies can be waggled through, like the Bokobins and their many forms, though not waggling will get you through them faster. Minibosses and anything bigger however, all require you to think about what you're doing. The first boss fight displays that really well and teaches you things to look for. If you simply swing at him without regard to what you're doing, you'll never hit him and he'll actually take your sword away from you if you mess up enough and fill you in on what you're doing wrong. He follows your sword with his hand and will grab it if you mess up. I found that there were two ways of fighting him actually. You can either be really quick about changing up where you're coming from, or you can keep the sword in one position for a short time and his guard will relax a bit, which gives you a lot more time to come from a different angle.

There was a boss that was really bleh, but most of them are great, including one in the sky while you're on your bird, which was easy, but played out in such an amazing way that made it very memorable. The final sequence of bosses are the best as well.

Combat is a huge focus this time around. Aside from the sword play, your shielding can play a huge part in the outcome of a fight. Link's shield can break if it takes too much damage. To use the shield, just flick the nunchuk. If Link simply holds his shield out and blocks any attack, the shield takes damage. Link can also shield bash as well, which is done at the moment Link brings the shield out. (And when you flick the nunchuk again.) If you block an attack during this, the shield doesn't take damage and you can stagger the attacker. The timing for this is different depending on the oncoming attack. Simply blocking also holds the negative effect of making Link stagger as well. More so on enemies that hit hard. If an enemy can combo at all and hits your shield on that first swing, Link will stagger and be unable to dodge or shield in time for that next attack. I found that Link could dodge faster than he could shield, specifically after being staggered.

I don't have much to say about the visuals. They're spot on and never detract from the game. It uses an impressionist style of art, which was nifty to see in motion. The blur effects when seeing something from a distance looked nice and consistent. The music, of course, is great. The main theme and boss theme were two that really stuck out to me. The story flows well and is coherent. While some of the characters are bland, the narrative does a good job of making you want to see what happens to Link and Zelda, what their purpose is, and where their quest brings them. Eh... nothing else really needs to be said there.

This game showcases, once again, that Nintendo is the king of level design. I could talk awhile about the brilliant way this was done in Skyward Sword so... I will... a little. I'll talk only about the dungeons in this one. Aside from the first two, they are all some of the best in the series, with the 3rd one being my all time favorite Zelda dungeon. It revolves around these things called Timeshift Stones, which when activated, send the surrounding area back in time about... 100? 1000? years or so. The place is currently in ruins and most of the devices no longer work. Machines start to work again and things that were long dead will spring back to life when inside these fields. (Shouldn't Link technically not exist inside of them since he wouldn't have even been conceived by that point? Meh, he's the chosen one.) There were two types of stones, some of them would activate a field big enough to encompass the entire room, and the others would only affect the area around them. In one scenario, there is a rail system with a timeshift stone in a cart. The rail currently is broken and mostly non existant. Once inside the field, the rail is back on and the cart would start moving. You'd have to follow the cart closely otherwise the rail would disappear (break) once outside of the area. In the same scenario, there are switches that can't be activated unless they are brought back to the past. I really wish the boss revolved around this timeshift idea, but sadly it did not. The timeshift idea is used again later in the game, but not quite as awesome as this dungeon showcased it. Though there is a stone later on that you can carry around with you, not in your inventory though, which is good.

There's an item upgrade system in place, which was never in Zelda till now. I was a bit apprehensive about this feature at first, specifically when I saw that it revolves around collecting items from killing enemies or found in the field. Luckily it is handled well and none of the upgrades are required. For shields, it simply adds to their durability, but for other items, it adds on new functionality. For example, with the Beetle, it adds on a burst speed option. You really only need (or will want) to upgrade what you'd use a lot. Speaking of items, Skyward Sword had no useless items this time around. All the item's usefulness are shuffled around as you move on, some puzzles and situations requiring more than one of them. Using and switching them is simple and fast, and designed around the fact that you'd be switching them out a lot. Another feature I thought was for the better was limited inventory space. Link has an item belt that can only hold 4 items initially, but can be expanded to 8. This belt holds things like bottles, shields, and crests, which would alter things like being able to get more rupees.

Of course, there were things that I felt were less than stellar. The biggest complaint had to be the fetch quests that seemed to be there for no reason other than to pad the time. There's quite a few of them and a lot of them don't necessarily feel bad since there are usually some nifty scenarios based around them. A few of these shouldn't have been there, specifically some of the events just before the first flame. That was the only part where I felt the game dragged on. Luckily the dungeon and boss afterward is awesome. The game really didn't need this time padding at all, even without these, it would still have over 30 hours. I put in 52 and did nearly everything.

It's nice that this game is helpful, however, this game can be too helpful at times. There are about 3 different ways to get hints. There's the Sheikah stone in Skyloft which will literally show you how to solve something with a video. I never once talked to this stone till the end of the game, out of curiousity. It isn't necessarily bad I suppose. There's a fortune teller who will tell you where to go next if you need. Then there's Fi, who is... annoying. Not the voice, simply the amount of times she wishes to inform you of something obvious. She's basically an faq with a hint system as well. Others have said that her hints start out subtle then get more obvious. I didn't ever use it, so I can't confirm that. None of these things are bad however, because they can be ignored. Though I wonder if all this 'Superguide' stuff Nintendo has been putting in their games lately is worth it as far as development time goes.

No no, what I found annoying was when Fi would pop out of the sword and inform me of something, as stated above, obvious. Here's an example, the dungeon maps show you where chests are and the boss. There's no compass this time around, which I find was better. This map system (which is was improved in this game) has been in every Zelda game. In this, she can mark something of importance on the map with an X. During one such time, she marked an X on the boss room, telling me that something important is in there. But wait, the boss room is ALREADY MARKED BY THE MAP WITH A GIANT FLAME! This was pointless. There are other times when she stops you in front of a boss door and will say something along the lines of "This door is sealed shut, something important is behind it." This happens on two occasions, one of them are in the situation with the map above. There are quite a few times that obvious things are spelled out for the player. This is rather insulting honestly. Does Nintendo really think their player base is this stupid? I completed the Water Temple when I was 13, as did many others, some younger. I'm sure their player base, which is aging I might add, can figure things out for themselves. The issue is the players aren't that stupid as to need all this. The game does an amazing job of teaching you how to play it through both explanation and conveyance. The level design on its own typically leads you to what you need to do. Observation has always been a big thing in Zelda, I don't understand why they need to point things out for us in this game.

Okay okay, gaming has become main stream now and you need to open up to a larger audience to market it more. I'm going to be selfish here and say fuck them. If the end user doesn't get it, they can piss off. Why must everything be dumbed down so much? There's already a bunch of hint systems in the game, why must there be all this stuff being thrown in my face? I'd be okay with it if it was to add to the narrative, but it didn't. It's simply there to tell me that I'm dumb and will definitely need to have my hand held by the master that is Nintendo.

Now that I think about it, there's a part in DT3 where I explain how water works in the game. I'm taking this out. The first time you go in water, I'm sure you'll figure out that something is different. DT3 explains things a lot more than DT1 and 2 did. Even though it's a direct sequel, I treat the gameplay introduction as if someone were playing it for the first time. As far as how detailed the explanations are, whether they are too much or not, I'll see when I release the demo, and will of course change things based on the feedback I get throughout development.

So yeah, Skyward Sword is amazing though and I highly recommend that you play it if you own a Wii. I hate scores, so I'm not going to give one. Dumbing down a large creative work into a single digit feels very insulting to the people behind it. I'm not saying review scores need to go away, but the only thing they are good for, to me, is categorizing things. If I read a few reviews by people that I trust and they give something a 9/10, and nearly everyone else does as well, I can probably tell what they'll say and what the quality of the game is. Even so, screw review scores... bleh, okay, so some people might want one. I give Skyward Sword a 983720, though I forgot what the scaling was. Oh and I took off a few points due to the above infractions.

Stupid Villains

2011-11-18T11:12:00.001-06:00

Edit: (December 1, 2011) I'm not dead, just busy. There will be a post sometime this week most likely, then I'll probably have a game review post after. It won't be a rant post like this one though. The views to the blog have gone up a bit this month as well... even though I said I'd probably be away for most of it. I did notice activity/discussion about the first game picking up a little on various forums. I'm seeing a lot of traffic from fusionfangaming.

There are certain types of villains that I really really hate. I mean HATE! Not from a, "I want to hurt this guy because he's evil" type of hate, but a "I want to hurt this guy because he's completely illogical and impractical in every way and would never have succeeded at this or come even close to this by employing these methods" type of hate. I could talk about a lot of the villain stereotypes and tropes out there, but there is one in particular that has REALLY been bugging me as of late as it has come up quite often these days.

We need a new paragraph to talk about this.

Maybe even a second one. The villain behavior I'm talking about is the one where they kill off their own henchmen when one makes either a mistake, or fails to succeed because the protagonist did something to thwart this minion's efforts. WHY DO THEY DO THIS!? Is it to show how evil they are and that they're just THAT confident with themselves and believe that they can't lose? If that was the case, then why do so many villains do this? It's completely illogical. Most of the time, the minion didn't even do anything wrong, yet the villain is just ready to kill off a highly trained, and loyal follower over a slight mishap. AND THEY WONDER WHY THEY LOSE! The protagonist is already offing their minions for them, (Or rendering them useless in some way.) and the villain is only assisting them by removing his own staff, which is necessary manpower since the protagonist has plot armor. That's powerful stuff.

This also assumes that all henchmen are mindless idiots who follow blindly. That doesn't happen in real IRL. No one keeps followers with methods like these. The minions would unionize or revolt. Seriously, if my manager at work killed a coworker (even one), I can guarantee you 100% that none of us would be working for him. We'll pretend, for this, that the manager could get away with it. You still have the other workers in this scenario, so legalities don't even have to be a part of this scenario.

This angers the logistical side of my brain so much. If there are any writers reading this, I ask you to please PLEASE stop writing these types of villains unless it actually makes sense with the villain him/her/itself, or to speak an important point about the character to the viewer. One that actually has an impact on the viewer. The only thing this serves in 99.99% of media with these types of villains is to make everyone double facepalm at the sheer stupidity that it is.

One of the only characters where this villain type made sense was Kefka from FF6. (If you haven't played Final Fantasy 6, then go get it right now from one of the many many available ports of it. Emulate (Yes I did suggest it (Hell yes triple parenthesis)) it if you have to, every gamer that even slightly likes RPGs should play it.) [/rant] The theme of FF6 was life itself, how appropriate is it that the villain represents the antithesis to that.

Other Stuff
Slaix reported no issues with the last update I sent him. I'm pretty sure that's a first, or at least the first I'm remembering at this time. This is awesome because it means I don't have to stop to fix bugs and it means, you know, things are getting better. He also got a power up (a heart piece) before I was able to get it. (I mean legit anyway.)

TWO MORE DAYS TILL SKYWARD SWORD!! Though I won't be able to play it till Monday, so busy. D:

Also the above rant came about when Jeremy and I were watching something and the above mentioned villain type was prominent in this viewing and I ranted. So he abruptly (and jokingly) said, "Go blog about it." So I did!

P.S. The villain in DT3 does not do the above.

More Delays

2011-11-11T16:33:00.001-06:00

Due to me working full time (well that's normal) on top of working with a studio in Austin on an unannounced title, I won't be having much time for hobby activities. Plus on the 20th, Skyward Sword is released. :P
DT3's production is going on hiatus for a little bit longer till the middle of December when a few things die down. As before, things will still be done periodically, just very slow.

On the bright side, Chapter 5 is done. Yay! 5/21 chapters complete. Not even a third of the way there and the testers and myself have put in on average of about 3 hours of gameplay.

Spikes come in many forms.

Now comes Claire's first big moment in DT3. Her first Gate level is definitely harder than Jerry's first exclusive Gate. This is the last (consistent) moment in DT3 without dashing, so that aspect will be used against you a lot. The first half of Gate 3 plays very close to the original Castlevania style of linear levels, while the second half of it gears slightly more toward the more recent Castlevania games. Though I'm going to steer clear of the thing I hate about them, which is having to traverse half way back across the game world to get an ability in order to move on, and repeat.

101 Bastards

2011-11-04T23:51:00.001-05:00

Edit: (November 6, 2011) I completely forgot it was the end of daylight savings time until I randomly looked at my calendar to visually see the days remaining till Skyward Sword. 2 weeks! Then saw the 6th said it. Good thing to because I would've gone into work an hour early because of that. (It's 4:21 in the morning.) Nothing better to do at this hour than come on here and talk random gibberish about nothing for a few minutes before working on DT3 for a bit. There's no way I'm getting back to sleep now. Already ate breakfast and was ready to head out before Zelda saved me an hour.

This post is a very simple one, it's simply to say to get Stealth Bastard. It's awesome and free. It's an action oriented stealth game and really well made. GET IT NOW!!

NO!! Stop what you're doing, do not click the x to go away, DOWNLOAD THIS GAME RIGHT NOW AND PLAY IT!!

What are you doing? Why are you still reading this and not playing the game? Oh right... You're downloading it right now while you read the rest of this. That's a clever idea, I'm glad you thought to do that. It'll finish soon... your download that is, and then you'll be ready to play something awesome. Unless you're on dial up, that would suck, cause you'd be waiting awhile.

For now, I must head off to dream land. I would've posted this earlier today, but blogger wasn't loading the post page. So here it is. :D

...wtf? Why aren't you playing it yet? And why aren't YOU downloading it yet? Yes you. You know who you are!

100th Post Anniversary

2011-11-01T02:49:00.000-05:00

Edit: (November 2, 2011) Huge derp on my end. Can't believe I didn't have this in the original post.

Happy Halloween everyone! :D

Now for the best halloween song. Hope everyone had a fun one this year. We'll need to next year, cause it will be our last. Remember, the world ends in 2012 which means... hmm, DT3 is released in 2013. This is indeed a problem.

You've read it right, this is the 100th post for the DT blog. Something special needs to be done... well... I don't have much prepared to make it all that special. I'd love to release a demo, but I wanted to release a sizable portion of the game. You've heard it already, just the first 3 gates. Well let's continue on with the blog post and see where it goes.

Split Party
We'll start with a screenshot.

Look out Claire.

I was tempted to not give any context behind this shot. I know that some of you are probably thinking multiplayer, but that is not what this is eluding to. There are times in the game where Jerry and Claire will split off and the normal swap rules will change. When swapped, the character you're controlling will stay where they are (even in the air) and will get a bubble shield that blocks nearly all enemy projectiles. These will be more puzzle driven than anything else. The first instance of this is really straight forward and just introducing its new concepts. Once the characters get more of their unique abilities like Claire's morph ball, that puzzle aspect will open up a lot more. These will obviously only be encountered on non-gate chapters, the first of which will occur in the middle of chapter 5. (Which of course means using Claire without offensive abilities. No worries, I'm not that mean with this aspect.) Expect this to appear periodically throughout the main quest.

Progress
Chapter 6 (Castlevania gate) is almost ready to be started for actual level design work now. Since there's no dashing in the game till just after the gate, it's going to follow closer to the earlier Castlevania games in every aspect. It's still going to play faster than those since Claire moves faster and isn't stuck in a jump direction till she lands.
Note to my testers: (Even though I can tell them without this.) The early bosses in this zone are not going to follow the pattern that the early Gate 2 bosses did. Aside from the last one in Gate 2, which is a new boss, the others are all taken directly from Zelda 2 and are hilariously easy. There are very minor changes done to them to boost their difficulty, though it doesn't help them much considering Jerry is faster, jumps higher with more control, and has a much larger attack range. On a side note (within the note?), that range might change a little bit.

WHY IS IT GETTING COLD!? I hate winter.

Collision Fix
Remember in DT1 that you could jump on top of the map? Then in DT2, I fixed that. I'm sure some of you have noticed in both DT1 and 2, that you could do the same for the bottom, if you time it right, you can actually air dash under the level and even save yourself with Blast Off if timed right. You can even go around obstacles if the dash gets you far enough. Granted, that took pixel perfect precision to pull off without the game detecting you were under the level boundaries, it still creates weird design problems and feels sloppy. So that is fixed in DT3. Any future updates to DT1 and 2 will have this fixed as well. It's literally a 2 line piece of code to fix this. The top of the level deal will not be changed in DT1 as it was part of the level design.

Cancelled Secret
I was going to release a secret demo that had various enclosed scenarios in DT3. Like those Zelda demos that allow you to choose a dungeon, boss, and misc. scenario. Since we're getting close to the full demo that I actually want to release and considering the areas that are available, I don't truly feel are ready for viewing. I figured I'd not spend the time to put that secret demo together and use that time towards more actual DT development. It was going to be a url scavenger hunt much like those web-based puzzles. That other demo is, hopefully, only 2 months away.

Other Random Things
I'm not using the Mega Man 2 Wily theme anywhere. :P

DT3 has some new fun enemy types, such as healers. If a healer is in the area, they can be called out to by allies of the same affiliation as the healer. (So you won't have Wily type enemies healing Mario type) There are other assist types as well, such as one that will create barriers around targets that you're attacking. An enemy will give out a visual indicator saying that they are calling out for assistance. These new enemy types, I feel, create more dynamic scenarios that require a lot more thought on the player end. Their first occurance will be in Chapter 7.

These call outs are also global, an assist bot can be called out to by any enemy of the same affiliation. Some of the more advanced healers are also fully aware of ally HP levels and will heal by priority. The HP levels themselves are not the only factor in this, as some of their allies are viewed as being 'worth more' and will give them priority assistance.

Lots of Fun

2011-10-15T02:31:00.000-05:00

Edit: (October 27, 2011) Just want to let everyone know that I'm not dead. Everything is going great. As I said, not much work was done on DT3 between now and this original post, but November will speed it up... until the 20th when Skyward Sword comes out. I'm going to be playing the hell out of that. And we're lucky I'm not getting Saints Row 3 when it comes out. I could play that game forever. Anyway, I'll make a new post in a few days, talking about some new stuff for DT3.

Well GDC was tons of fun and awesome. Always a great experience with great people that generates a lot of fun memories and stories to tell. I didn't attend any talks this year though since I was working at the IGDA booth on the expo floor... that's as far as I'll go with my stories though. Oh wait, business is good.

Production will still be at a stand still as I'll be out of town for a few days again and after I return, I'll be fairly busy. I'm foreseeing DT3 being put on hold till about early November, though I'll be able to devote a bit of time to it here and there, just not much. I only announce it so if you're following close to check out the demo of the first 3 Gates, you know what the hold up is. Oh, and to say that this will be the last post this month, so check back in November.

As far as DT3 stuff goes, there's not much I want to report on it. The enemy scan window now shows the maximum amount of money that can be dropped. And... that's all I want to say at this time. :P
Yeah, check back early November and till then, have fun. Also a new My Little Pony episode is airing today.

Another Game Recommendation
I recently found out about an interesting game called Descend the Beat. I like to describe it as a musical puzzle game, not to be confused with a rhythm game. I got a chance to play it during a launch party at GDC and had quite a bit of fun with it. Of course since it's somewhat of a musical game, it's got a sweet awesome sweet soundtrack. If you like fun, upbeat music, and puzzle games with a lot of depth, definitely check this game out.

The interface and controls are intuitive and easy to grasp. You have a 5 by 5 tiled board and blocks are thrown at these 25 spots on the board at varying speeds. When they're on the board, you can move the blocks in 4 directions. (90 degrees) However, each of the blocks can only be moved a certain number of times, which is marked in different ways depending on the current block (graphic) style. The objective is to fill an entire row (Tetris style) to clear it. If the blocks stack up to the 8th row, you lose. Pretty simple concept to grasp, but there are a few other nuances. When you move a block, it slides till it either falls down from its current row, hits the edge of the board, or another block. If you move a block that has others stacked on top of it, the entire stack is moved and if it falls or hits the edge of other block or stack of blocks, all but the bottom block will continue on.

There are a few game modes such as; A Tetris like Arcade mode where you play till you lose. A challenge mode with a number of challenges each with specific goals that slightly change a few gameplay aspects. (I was able to beat one of their harder ones at the launch party and got a t-shirt for it!) Then an expansive puzzle mode that starts to get incredibly deep. The idea being to get rid of all the blocks, no new ones fall.

A Week of Absence

2011-10-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

Edit: (October 9, 2011) On the subject on enemies dropping currency in DT3. It is handled differently. DT3 doesn't have the boost from chains, that is now being used for drop rate of any item. Each enemy does have a difference in the amount they can drop, but there are a few new nuances. If an enemy can only drop Green(1), then that's all they'll ever be able to drop. If they can drop up to a Blue(5), then they have a 70% chance to drop the bigger amount, however, there is another clause involved. Blues will never drop if your kill chain is not at least at 3. The same thing occurs for bigger coins as well. It goes through the same process, but slightly different. If they are designated to drop a Yellow(10), then greens are dropped until a chain of 3, where blues will start to show up and once the chain has reached 5, the yellow will appear at a 70% rate. For Red(20), which is the highest in DT3, you'll need a chain of 8.

In the case of a yellow potentially showing up and that 70% not going through, it filters down to the blue chance, then of course if that doesn't go through because you're just that unlucky, the green will pop up. That 70% can be boosted up to 80% from the skill tree and even further with items. (Up to 95%)

Next week I'll be away as GDC Online will be happening. Well not really away, the Austin Convention Center is no more than 10 minutes away from where I live. When that's over, I'll be out of town for a few days. Got a busy week ahead of me.

I'll leave behind a screenshot of course.

Countdown of doom.

Yeah, that's a boss' life meter and that's also a countdown. You get 2 minutes to finish this little encounter. Most of it consists of you protecting that little bot there so it clears a path for you to damage the actual boss, which is currently off-screen. You'll be needing to manage all the things that the boss summons up, otherwise you'll find your bot being destroyed by enemy fire. Time is of the essence in this encounter and you can only afford a few mistakes before the countdown becomes a bigger threat than the projectiles. This is the first boss encounter in DT3 that doesn't lock the camera in place.

A good 1/3 of Chapter 5 is now finished. The next part includes some looking around in Central City, involving getting to know how it works, and story elements. Then of course the search for Gate 3 in DT3's massive world.

Smerbles

2011-10-04T23:18:00.003-05:00

Edit: (October 6, 2011) Hmm, even my deaths are pretty high in my pseudo playthrough. Just after Ch.4.
Gyazo link to my failures (Can't direct link to gyazo anymore. We be stealin their internetz too much.)

Hard at work on Chapter 5 now. It will reintroduce some concepts from DT1 and bring in new puzzle ideas that will recur throughout more than just Chapter 5. Unlike DT1 where I said all the different platforming elements would... wait, this is the first paragraph, I'm breaking protocol here. The post title is an inside joke word that I highly doubt anyone who plays this would get. If the ones who are in on the word do come here, I'd be shocked and amazed... somewhat... maybe, I don't know. Anyway, I'm hungry so I'm going to end the post here and go eat.

Damn it! I didn't go eat and now I'm still hungry and posting here. Okay, time to continue on where I was... aaand I lost my place, so lets start again. Hard at work on Chapter 5 now. It will reintroduce some concepts from DT1 and bring in new puzzle ideas that will recur throughout more than just Chapter 5. Unlike DT1 where I said all the different platforming/game elements would come together and they really didn't, only half way, sorta, but not really. This time they actually will. But that's not the tangent I was wanting to go on. Wow this post is a cluster of bad in every way, so here's a screenshot.

Guess the game this is from... It's Drill Dozer! So have you guessed yet?

About 1/3 or so of Chapter 5 is spent in that place. The rest is a huge mess of story telling and the player getting lost for the first time in the expanding DT3 main world. Finding secrets and hidden power ups all over the place and then getting lost some more. Possibly seeing Game Over from spikes or attempting to fight things that they shouldn't be messing with. Remember, running away and alternate paths IS an option.

Anyway, I've gone on with random stuff for too long on this post and I'm still hungry so it's time to go fix that with whatever I find...

Laundry Effects

2011-09-29T22:12:00.003-05:00

Another Edit: (October 1, 2011) I derped below on what combat awards do. Currently hit combos and streaks don't offer anything, but chains still give an award. DT1 would cause enemies to drop more money with higher chains. In DT3, they cause the drop rate of anything to boost. Currently the boost is (chain*0.75)% for the drop chance, and will take effect when you have a chain of 2 or higher.

Edit: (October 1, 2011) Wow, it's October already. Time is flying! Just updating with a bit about how hit combos, killing chains, and killing sprees work in DT3... The same. Except, as of this moment, they don't offer any gameplay bonuses. The voices are gone and the screen alerts are minimal, which can still be turned off. They are more, at this time, for the player to use for themselves. There's still records kept about highest on these. Killing sprees have been renamed to 'Streaks'. Here's a screenshot with their on-screen display at this time.

Yes, that is Comic Sans, piss off, it's a nice font. :P

Edit: (September 30, 2011) September just barely took the lead for second most blog views in one month. Still no contender for first though. December 2010 made quite a jump in views. :P

I'm in the middle of laundry, hence the post title.

Gate 2 is finished, and one tester has it at the moment, to find all my mistakes and derps. Going to be adding more effects before I start work on chapter 5, as well as some maintenance and touch ups to things.

If you look at the side, you'll notice that I've added a dropbox download link for both games. I should've done that months ago. No ads, no wait times. I'm big on the 'no ads' part of that. The other download locations have been left intact in case that is your preferred method or you're unable to download from dropbox.

Next Chapter
Chapter 5 is the first non-gate chapter with a decent amount of content (more than 10 minutes worth) and where the story elements pick up even more. If you don't care for the story or dialogue, DT3 has the cut-scene skip feature that DT2 did. 99% of the cut-scenes are skippable. (That's a word because I said so, piss off spell-check.) There are only a small handful of extremely short sequences that can't be skipped.

Just a small post.

Desktop Travesties

2011-09-24T01:10:00.000-05:00

Edit: (September 27, 2011) While this won't really change anything, DT3 can run up to 70 fps. Huge improvement over DT1, which only managed to reach 50. As I said way back, DT3 will remain running at 30, though this does mean that I don't foresee lag ever being an issue. This 70 was reached on a busy map with a moderate amount of effects and particles. On the particles note, DT3 will not be using GM's particle system at all. Most of the effects weren't using them anyway and I have more control doing particle effects my own way. Anyway, yeah, I can go nuts on visuals without any worry on frame rate it seems. The sprite rendering speed boost in GM8.1 combined with all the work to optimize the balls out of the DT engine seems to be a nice mix.

So I saw this weird Desktop Ponies thing. I knew right away what it was and ignored it. Weeks later, I was linked to it... again. So I thought, I wonder what coding and level building in DT would be like if I had a few ponies running around. And how long could I stand it before I go crazy. It went fine at first, I only had 3 various ponies running about, doing their thing on my computer. And then... it started, the thing I knew would happen. Without fail, 1 or 2 of these ponies would always come check out what I'm doing... ALWAYS. I'm trying to do something in the map editor, BAM, they're curious! I'm trying to code, BAM, so are they! They always found it humorous to go right where I'm working!

This is the usual trolling they like to do.

I figured, hey, I'll just have 1 running about, but that just hurt my conscience. The pony was so lonely on the screen. They seem to leave me alone when they're alone... sad and alone in their corner with no friends. I had to give them a friend. BIG mistake, they get mischievous around others. Friendship is getting in my damn way! They had to go...

Oh, Another LP
I found another LP of the game of someone going through it on Distorted. I don't know how much of it he's going to actually do, but we'll see. It's all in German, which I can't read. Though after viewing his channel and translating a few things, it seems this guy almost always does LPs of games on their hardest setting. He also seems to approach DT the same way people do with IWBTG, in that he doesn't cut any footage, at least from what I've seen. Every attempt and every death are shown. He's also voice translating the dialogue as he goes, which is nifty. Another thing to note is he has a second commentator. Hmm, I like the idea of a second person voice commenting. Oh if only I could understand German. :P

Fun fact: I lived in Germany way way way back in my single digit age years. My parents were stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base.

Anyway, you can check it out here.
LudorExperiens Youtube Channel

Progress
I do believe production speed will pick up now. Normally I'd have been able to finish Gate 2 like... at the beginning of the month, but it's been so busy. Gate 2 should be done by this Tuesday, not that it matters for you guys yet. :P It does get my testers excited. A few have already made a run through about 3/4 of Gate 2. I was nice on enemy design and kept the nasty ones out of Gate 2. We'll leave that for Claire in Gate 3. She gets the bad end of the stick in everything... no really, she does. I don't mean to do it, it just happens that way. It's some subconscious scorn for women I think. Since I'm terrible with women, I just make games instead... hmm...

Remember, when Gate 3 is done and the game has been better tested, I'll be releasing a demo of that content. That's still a ways to go though. My testers are always bouncing ideas to me, things they like, dislike, and are concerned about. Sometime I'm gonna have to discuss with them about how some of the little nuances should work. Once they've been able to see how the mainland gameplay works, we'll have an easier time deciding what's best.

Two More Days

2011-09-15T03:46:00.001-05:00

Till Season 2 of what you really don't care about is aired... aside from those of you that do. I think that covers just about everyone right?

Gate 2 (well about 80% of it) was given to Slaix and a new tester, Amatsu. After a few save file compatibility shenanegans, lots of little bugs and mishaps were found. It was a fun evening of throwing newer versions at them every time they found something game breaking. I blame them for saying "Give it to us now!"... or something.

It's looking to be good though. They didn't have any major complaints, despite its incompleteness. (Hey, spell checker says that's a word.) I don't count, "WHY DOES THIS ROOM EXIST?!?!" as complaints. Those are always good signs. They'll have the completed version of Gate 2 hopefully sometime next week. Anyway, I'm sure I had more to post with this one, but I seem to have misplaced my notes... which is unlike me!!

My OCD has been driving me up the wall these last 2 weeks. I can usually keep it under control, but my fixations have been overpowering my psyche as of late. I've been working on an outlet for it, so hopefully that helps. Anyway, take care everyone. Oh... I just had to tell my stomach to STFU, so it's probably a good time to act on that.

Water You Doing

2011-09-09T03:29:00.002-05:00

Edit: (September 13, 2011) I have switched over to GM8.1 now. Everything has been fixed up and it works great. I like all that's been done to it. AND, faster sprite rendering, not that lag has been much of an issue since completing Black Rock on DT1.

That joke sucks and has always sucked. Anyone who uses it sucks too...

So anyway, here's a few things that will be appearing to DT3 to add to your death count. You're all going to love this one.

Water
Oh yeah, DT3 has water. *Everyone screams* There won't be swimming, it's going to take on the standard 2D platformer approach. It works much like Super Metroid, except it doesn't slow you down THAT much. Your movement underwater is limited though, and your dashes are useless for any momentum boosts. The air dash gives you some decent momentum, but your ground dash is almost literally a dash in place. It doesn't negate the invincibility frames. When you're underwater, you can drown. The moment you submerge, a breath meter will be displayed and of course depletes. Bringing your head above water does the intended effect of returning air to you. That leads me to a few small nuances. If you're running or ducking, your head is underwater, which means it will take away air. :P As for when water will start to take effect on your movement, it needs to be roughly 13 pixels up from Jerry's feet. My roommate, Jerry no doubt, says he wants me to put in splashes if you're running through water. (A different effect when it's at your feet, but not affecting your mobility.) Not sure if I'm going into THAT much detail, but we'll see. :3 Aesthetics like that can wait for now as it doesn't add anything to gameplay. (Derp, I add stuff like that all the time, I really can use that argument.)


Oh no, water levels.

Water can also change height. In fact, there is an entire dungeon based around changing water levels to get around. Water affects more than just you. Platforms will float and have a bit of buoyancy, your bombs will fizzle out. Some enemies need water, so if you empty the room, they just flop about like fish on... ugh nevermind. Others can skid along the top of water. There's a few other deally bobs going on with water that you're just gonna have to find out on your own when the time comes.

Gate 2 is getting closer and closer for my testers to try their hooves, err hands at it. Looking forward to that feedback and all the crazy bugs they're going to send me.

More Info Supplied To You

Spoilers!

The new values on the right side display an ability's stun power. This is more meta gaming stuff for people. When scanning an enemy, you can now see their stun resist. It's very simple math for this.
BaseAbilityStun - EnemyStunResist = Frames the enemy is stunned
(Those are not the variable names.)
There's a few other small things factored into it like skills and equipment. This new way of handling enemy flinch times helps balance out your close and ranged abilities. The X-Buster only has a stun power of 1. Many of the enemies, specifically robots have a stun resist of 1-3, which will completely nullify stun. Even without using various equipment combinations, I've seen some nifty stun lock methods.

DT1&2 handled stun in a different way. It was based on the percentage of damage you dealt to the enemy's max HP, which really doesn't work all that well in retrospect. Not with the numbers I used anyway. These two games also reset the stun counter on every hit. In DT3, it is continually added on, making it even more possible to stun lock.

But again, the rest is really up to how you want to play, this stun info is ultimately useless outside of meta gaming. I'd rather have stun time be somewhat transparent/ignored like it was in DT1&2. It's simply part of the flow of the game. I provide this info ingame for everyone because of feedback that I've gotten from DT1&2. A lot of people wanted to see these kinds of things and here it is.

Game Maker 8.0 to 8.1
I am still using version 8.0. I have 8.1, but remember way way back when I said it was having problems? Well it seems all this has been fixed according to the internet. I'll be getting my 8.1 copy updated to the most recent version and testing all that. If I see that everything is in order, I'll start DT3 development in 8.1, which will speed things up. Last time I tried 8.1, it flipped out at all my extensions as well as the fonts and a few other small things. o_O

A New Month, A New... whatever

2011-09-01T06:58:00.001-05:00

Edit: (Same Day) A review of the game was posted here just today. I was asked a few interview questions to go alongside the review found here.

His review style reminds me of something, I can't remember what it was, so... Instead of explaining his review style, just go see, I usually do a terrible job of explaining anyway. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, what would that make videos? o_O Anyway, here's a link to his review site as well.
Gamerzsnark

I noticed that last month, (August) the blog got the second highest view count in its life time. It's been going up ever since April this year, which is right when DT3 was officially announced. No surprise there. March actually got the second lowest since creation and then BAM it spiked back up. The highest month was December last year, right after DT1 was released. Actually it was released early November and the view count nearly doubled... oh well. April and May this year got the exact same view count with June only 2 views higher. o_O That's... special. If you know blogger well enough I'm sure some of you can figure out how to view this stuff yourself, but I won't be saying the actual view count. :P It's really not that high, though admittedly higher than I thought considering I really don't advertise this game anywhere.

Retribution
Anyway, enough with boring logistics. DT3 will make gameplay throw-backs and references to both previous games. I found one usable reference perfect for a certain desert road in Gate 2. You know what I'm talking about most likely. :3 Except this time, retribution is possible. Hard, but possible. I'm sure many of you want it after that part.

Zelda 2 Exploit
If you remember back to Zelda 2, you could get into encounters on the map right on an event spot. This would cause you to spawn back in on it, which would allow you to skip over it. When I was doing a no continue run of the game, (and was successful) I exploited that little trick in various parts. (Mainly the road to the Great Temple) Anyway, this trick was going to be available for DT3's Gate 2, and it was originally coded that way. I decided to change that, it's not longer an exploit. In the event of you going over an event spot and an encounter at the same time, the event takes priority.

A few reasons for this. I really don't want you guys 'cheating' over these things. The event maps are designed for specific reasons. Throw-backs, to teach the player about a certain game mechanic through visual cues. (And to build the death counter of course. It's a sign of how manly you are.) The biggest reason are the hidden maps. They're pretty easy and usually obvious to find, but on that rare occasion for the two that I don't think are as obvious, I don't want the player running over it and getting into an encounter, then thinking nothing of it, and not double checking. (I'm glad there's no grammar or run-on sentence checker/auto-correct.) (wtf 'autocorrect' is too a word!!) That and I really don't want the exploit in there, that's really the bottom line. :P

More Exploits, but not really
I doesn't mean I won't be leaving in small non-game breaking exploits, they'll be there for fun for you guys to find. There is one actual game breaking exploit that I purposefully left in the game. The exploit came about through a design oversight with how one of the levels were built. I found it funnier to just leave it in and have a comment about cheating. (Of course the game fixes up the problems caused after you do so.) I'm going to try and put in little easter eggs like this whenever I can. Normally I'd go eww at the idea of breaking immersion but... well yeah...

Long Awaited

2011-08-29T18:51:00.001-05:00

Just a short post to say that there is a video of DT3 content up now. Some of it is a work in progress, but a lot of people have been wanting to at least see SOMETHING. So here we are, a ponyless post finally.

Here or look below. There's Goomba stomping action and some other stuff!

Oh wow, I just realized that this blog account is connected to my youtube account.

Water Bottles

2011-08-26T16:26:00.003-05:00

Edit: (August 28, 2011) Haven't done an edit update in over a month. These will be pretty rare now it seems. Anyway... Yep. (No it's not a screenshot.)

I'm not dead, I simply had my birthday on the 22nd... which doesn't really mean anything for this blog or delays or lack of delays in posts. It was fun, with lots of cake eating. On an unrelated note, the update coming to Lineage 2 this fall has me wishing I still played the game. (Not really.) But the content sounds pretty awesome. Lineage 2, to me, is actually a really bad game, just with an awesome atmosphere, and a game world that isn't watered down for the masses. Mainly the open world pvp and how unforgiving it is with that aspect. The soon to be applied update seems to encourage more of this pvp. Hopefully the world of Lineage 2 becomes a crazy war zone... More than it was before. On yet another unrelated note, the magic of friendship returns on Sept. 17th. And you guys thought the ponies would end. :P

Gate Design Magic
Like I did with Gate 1, roughly the first 1/3 to 1/2 of it was trying to stick closer to how the original would set up their levels. It worked out really well for Mario levels. Straight up platforming translates well regardless of the previously mentioned sprite size differences. For this Zelda 2 clone, (at least for the first part) it didn't go as smoothly. The biggest difference is Zelda 2 is not really a platformer. Practically all of its difficulty comes from the enemy encounters. DT and Zelda 2 do not play at all alike, their combat is radically different. With my enemy choice, this made the first dungeon in Gate 2 laughably easy. It actually works out well as a tutorial level for the basics of combat in DT3. (Hit the attack button.) But it lets the player understand the nuances of it at that level. Of course it will continue to evolve...

Like DT1, this will eventually bring back air dash chains and like DT1, they will be required. Staggering your aerial momentum will still be a part of combat. Just not in Gate 2. And of course more refined and less clunky than DT1.

On an ending note, a lot of content was completed.

A Blurb

2011-08-15T06:41:00.002-05:00

What the hell you guys? Play Catherine, I know all of you have been avoiding it! :P

So I play Spiral Knights from time to time and every time there's an update to the game, there's a bug fix hours later. EVERY time. Sometimes a secondary bug fix a day later. Seriously, they break half their game with every update. (That's only a slight exaggeration.) So the other day, I came across an interesting bug. Suddenly my shield stopped working. It just... stopped working. Not just mine, but the entire party's shields stopped working. I've heard that this is in response to players setting up anchor points for the arena levels and repeating them for easy money, however, this was a normal run that wasn't anchored... so wtf? The shields remained broken for the remainder of the dungeon run. I tried their pvp, but often times I'm fighting with the latency more than I am other players, so that's a no go. I think I've found a group of devs that are just as bad, if not worse, programmers than I am. I think that's an achievement there. If you ever want to play with me, my in game name is 'Zephyrcrash'. My time that I play is typically between 6pm - 9pm. I don't play it very often though. If you do send me a friend request, be sure to put a message with the request, just something so I know you're from here. For some reason people like to send random friend requests in that game. I delete these, so if there's no context to the request, it'll just be ignored.

Design Issues
A problem that came up with DT1 and again with DT3 is using tilesets and level ideas from games where the world is scaled down to fit to the character sprite size. To explain, Mario and Link's sprite size in their NES games are 16x32 pixels. The enemies and levels in those games were designed with that in mind. Jerry is 24x52. This becomes a design issue very fast. Now his actual collision (remember, world collision and hit detection for damage are different) is a bit smaller than that, but still much bigger by comparison to the worlds that I'm mimicking. The other MAJOR difference here is the jump height in relation to their sprite height. During this explanation, we're going to always assume Mario is big. From a standing position, Mario jumps at about 64 pixels (4 tiles), which is twice his sprite height. Jerry jumps about 72 pixels high (4 1/2), which isn't even close to twice his sprite height. (38% of his sprite height) Now later on in DT3, you'll be getting a jump boost that will let Jerry jump to about 88 pixels (5 1/2). Roughly the height that Claire jumped in DT2. And yes, I did just give away that you'll be getting a more powerful jump later on. This is closer to Mario's jump height to sprite height ratio. (69% of the sprite height)

This presented a few challenges and is one of the major reasons why I don't have the AI mimic their original source perfectly. And why Bullet Bill Blasters are often a bit taller than normal, so Jerry can duck under them more often, rather than being forced to jump over them every time.

Nearly every choice is deliberate. (I admit, I'm a bit haphazard with a few things, but I'm trying to cut that way down with DT3.) As I was telling Slaix earlier, the HP values in DT3 are set for very specific reasons. Such as an enemy that has 105 HP as opposed to 110. The player's damage output is much easier for me to predict this time around, especially during the first half when they don't have access to many damage boosters. The base damage for Link's Master Sword in Gate 2 is 100. The Master Sword gains a base of 5 power per level up. After that first level, those with 105 will only take 1 hit instead of 2. This means the player will only have to (theoretically) stay around that enemy for half the time. The longer the player is fighting an enemy, the longer it is a threat, or more specifically, the bigger the threat that the level design presents.

This is also why I went with fixed damage modifiers for weaknesses and resistances. Not only is it easier to understand on the player side, but it's easier to design around and for me, just flows better.

Wall of text!!
Here, we need an image to offset this... at the end of it!

Links

2011-08-11T04:01:00.008-05:00

It's kinda relevant since I'm still making the Zelda gate.

So suddenly I've gotten a spike in downloads and page views. Hooray for being able to view sources. The most notable is Fusion Fan Gaming...
And from two trailer videos for DT1 and DT2, by Hadriex.
I really really like the one for DT2 as the death count increase starts to rise very fast after awhile. It's a death montage, pretty much summarizes a player's experience after awhile.
I wanna give thanks and a thumbs up for making those. I still get this weird surreal feeling when seeing stuff people make based off DT.

I also wanna say hi to all of you coming in from Fusion Gaming, I see you. O_O
I've actually been somewhat following the Mario Fusion game for awhile. I don't remember how I stumbled upon it. It is definitely an interesting and very ambitious project. I've never voiced a suggestion for it before this, so if anyone from the dev team is reading this, I would love leader boards. That would be awesome! See Super Meat Boy for what I envision there.

The funniest source is from a video porn site, I didn't backtrack it to see how it was linked to this blog (I'm always afraid of possible spyware and viruses, plus porn is bleh to me. Suggestive is awesome though. :P), but I did giggle.

Again, I'm not saying much about DT3... well nothing at all. I will get a video up sometime though. NO, I'm not setting a target date for it! You guys know I can (almost) never honor the days I set for releases of things.

Okay, why not? Since you ask, here's a screenshot. :D

Castlevania tiles.

Oh yeah, not that it matters for anyone in the long run, but development will stop until near the end of August. Gonna be busy with life... again. :( Well, it does matter for those that are testing the various sections of the game... like Slaix. Yes, you have to wait even longer to test Gate 2! :D I'll try and make a map every other day or so. :P

I think this post wins on smiley count.

Alundra was a Cool Game

2011-08-07T20:08:00.002-05:00

So I had this awesome dream the other day that I can recall really well. It had to do with ponies. Yeah I know, most of you are probably going, "STOP TALKING ABOUT F$&#ING PONIES!!" The dream actually has about 5% to do with them, the rest... well read on if you don't mind my nonsense.

The Dream
Me and my brother (I know, 'My brother and I', but I like the way the other sounds. Take THAT grammar!) were watching TV and it happened to be the first episode of season 2 of My Little Pony. (My brother refuses to watch the show irl.) Now to set things up a little more, it is well known in this dream that Pinkie Pie died either at the end of season 1 or in between seasons, this will come back into the story later. So we're watching the episode and it starts off with a camera shot panning across this huge windowed corporate building. All is quiet, but there's a large machine inside, that isn't running, with a cupcake symbol on it.
It then cut to a scene at night on a deserted city highway with a hooded figure trying to get away, on a bike, from three mice on bikes. The setting gave me a post-apocalyptic vibe. It's a normal action packed chase scene, they're lobbing grenades and other weaponry at the hooded person. At one point, he looks over at the mice and hurls a lightning bolt, knocking one of them off their bikes. Another bit of chase scene later and the two mice that are left, jump off their bikes, which then combine and transform into a humanoid mech with a huge Gatling Gun for a right arm. Which, by the way, is also bad ass. It starts firing this huge ass gun and hits the hooded persons back wheel. He then did a crazy backflip off of the bike and landed on the back of the mech's neck. It was a pretty epic flip. Now remember, it's me and my brother watching this. So I turned to him and said "I really hope this guy pulls out a light saber." I don't really care for Star Wars that much, but I have to admit, that would've been awesome. Instead, the hooded person jabs a wrench or something into the back of its neck and sends a lightning bolt (man this guy likes lightning) through the wrench, then jumps off. This short circuits the mech and it falls over and shuts down. Me and my brother have decided that this hooded guy is pretty bad ass. The two mice approach from behind and jabber on about something that I don't remember. Something about not being able to save their friend, and then run away.

There's something my brother said that I remember would have been humorous, but I don't remember what exactly he said. The scene cuts again to some factory. This is your typical nuclear plant letting off gases type of thing. Again, it's at night, but the sky is overcast with a thick layer of clouds and smog. The camera pans across the factory, at one point, it looked like a hooded figure ran in front of the camera. Looks like our bad ass hero is back. We were expecting more badassery from him and oh did we get some. As the camera is panning, it shows four guards in full body armor patrolling. Think of how the Crimson Lance were geared up from Borderlands. Wait... this is My Little Pony? Anyway, the camera slows down to find the hooded guy looking toward the factory from a nearby cliff. (Wow my subscience sure does like cliche stuff, but at least it was entertaining for me.) He was standing there with a cloak blowing badassly in the wind. That type of scene, and yes, there's that low wind sound alongside this scene. The thing is, the hooded guy from before didn't have a cloak and the hood was clearly a different color. Okay, so now we have two badasses. At least me and my brother were hoping anyway. I had made a comment about how this one wouldn't be as awesome as the one on the highway. I'm quickly proven wrong when the hooded guy kicks something in style (imagine someone doing an awesome kick, idk) and then propels himself at the factory in a burst of light. Whatever the guy kicked at the factory, it smashes into two of the four guards and they're taken out. Oh yeah, they're outside on the building itself, there's a railing. A second after these two are taken out and the other two are alerted, one of them gets bashed into by the hooded guy. He goes flying and the other guard left starts shooting. Of course, as we all know, Badassness > Guns. Again, I was hoping for a light saber, but there was none unfortunately. I mean seriously, this needs a damn lightsaber! So the overly armored guard is firing absurd amounts of bullets at our hero, in vane of course, as he is doing this crazy speedy run/teleport/flash... thing. I don't know wtf he did, but it was awesome and suddenly he's behind the guard and he does his awesome kick from before, except he did it directly to the guard. Seriously, if he can kick two... whatevers at two different precise locations fast enough to knock out a heavily armored person, this guard is SO screwed.

The guy then rappels down a floor and breaks through a window. Wait, why does he need to rappel down, he just jumped from a cliff that was a good quarter of a mile away. Whatever, he's just showing off I guess. As he breaks into this office space kinda room (cubicles and everything), he throws something from his mouth, what? It looked like a shuriken, but he threw it fast. Anyway, it lands in the chest of a guard in front of him. He's bombarded quickly by bullets on his flanks and he backflips directly up as the bullets fly right under him in slow motion. The guards, because they suck, take each other out. Remember, they were at his polar flanks. I love this show so damn much already. He then lands and strikes a pose before hurling something at this huge blast door in front of him and begins running toward it. This thing he threw at the door, blows it down with ease. (Where are they getting this stuff?) It creates a large smoke cloud and he runs through it. The camera cuts to the room on the other side. It's got cold metal walls, made apparent by mist coming off of them and some terminal in the center of the room surrounded by two steps up in a circular fashion and two unfortunate guards awaiting a beat down as the hooded guy comes front flipping into the room from the smoke. He lands on a guard and knocks him over and then kicks the other guard in that same fashion from before. Of course, he goes flying to the wall. Then the guy pounds down on the guard he toppled over, knocking him out. He looks over at the terminal, approaches it, and pulls a lever down. It seems to start up... something. He then turns to the side, and in a female voice, wait... whoa, this was a girl the whole time. She says something like, "It's up to you now."

The scene cuts to that corporate building from the first scene and the first hooded guy we saw on the highway is standing in front of it. He takes a step forward and behind him, those mice say something to get his attention. There's only two of them, I guess they didn't stop for their buddy. The hooded guy turns around and gets into a fighting stance. The following fight scene is just too bad ass to even describe. There's no possible way to describe to complete and total awesomeness that was this scene. You know how it ends though. The hooded guy beat the mess out of the two biker mice... who may or may not be from Mars. Oh yeah, it's overcast here too, forgot to mention that.

After giving the beating, he turns back to the building and approaches the double door. He opens the door, but not with his hands, but with magic? The doors flew open on their own. He walks in and the camera shows the machine from before. Suddenly the guy takes the hood off and here's where the surprise comes in. It turns out to be Twilight Sparkle. Wait a minute, WTF?! Okay, so at least now we know that we're watching MLP again. So who was the other hooded figure? It was never said, but I'm going to guess either Rarity or Applejack. I'm leaning more on Applejack. Remember that stylish kick I mentioned she did? That was actually a buck. (Maybe both of them were there and the camera was just tricky like that since the odd teleport thingy was more unicorn magic like and the buck was more Applejack strength. Could have been Rainbow Dash, but I don't recall any rainbow trails.) Twilight performs some magic with her horn and the machine starts. This machine began creating cupcake with pink frosting. A moment later, a song starts up... in Pinkie's voice. The camera pans across the extensive machine and these cupcakes begin to materialize into Pinkie's form and it is clear she is singing. About what, I don't know. Suddenly the show ends and I woke up.

Holy shit, season 2 of My Little Pony is going to be f*$&ing awesome! For extra fun, go review the dream with the fact that the 2 hooded people were ponies.

Distorted Travesty News
Oh right, this blog about my game. Gate 2 is still coming along flawlessly and really well. I still gotta give Chapter 3 to my testers, not that Chapter 3 is all that much. It's maybe... 10 minutes. Super short chapter between Gates 1 and 2. The main world chapters will start having a lot of content after this though, considering the player will actually have a way to fight back at that point. Hope everyone had an awesome weekend while I was away.
Here's a screenshot since I don't want to reveal too much. This isn't the enemy type I mentioned in the previous post.

You actually won't be fighting 2 this early.

To The Past

2011-08-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

Work on Gate 2 has begun and is coming out great. This is the Zelda themed gate area. Note for the future, I'll only be revealing stuff up to Gate 3. A few screenshots here and there will be released, but they won't contain spoilers nor will they be in context.

About Gate 2
With some suggestions from people, I have put in the Zelda 2 overworld map for getting around Gate 2 and plays exactly like the original with the 4 directional movement limitation. The only change I made was the faster movement speed on the map. I wanted to keep map travel fairly quick, especially for those who want to explore every nook and cranny. There's quite a bit out there too. The map design itself is obviously different and is also a bit smaller, despite the faster travel speed. Zelda 2 isn't THAT big of a game, but I still don't want to be putting an entire game within a game... (within a game? o_O) The gate chapters are typically longer than the ones that connect them, but I didn't want the player spending a bazillion hours here. Though this is easily the biggest of the Gate levels. There are 3 palaces (oh look, 'palaces' IS a word, it just sounds so wrong) which will lead up to the Great Palace at the end. (New set of tiles though, the entire gate won't be using the Zelda 2 tiles.) So that's 4 areas that the player is going to go to. In addition to the small places they'll be going to to get to these dungeons. There's no sidetrack areas like getting the hammer though. (Man that place was torture.)

There is an enemy type that is somewhat on par with the Shrouds. I had a very hard time NOT putting one in as a boss fight for one of these dungeons. Basically it's a heavily armored guard with a huge arsenal. It can shield projectiles and if it's not off-guard, it can block melee as well. Shielding a projectile will power the shield which it can use to make a nasty little shockwave attack. It has charge attack, (like a shoulder bash) a ranged sword beam... and there's more that they can do. Their base damage is 2 hearts and at this part of the game, that only gives the player 2-3 mistakes for an enemy that can counter their moves. The player also doesn't have the dash at this point. These are actually a normal field enemy that appear in later parts of the game, but an encounter with one when the player has almost no defensive options seems a bit too much.

Catherine
If you thought about playing this game, do it, it's awesome. I don't like a lot of stuff that Atlus puts out, but this is a rare exception. The themes in the game are handled brilliantly and with finesse. It's about your average guy in the US. (I believe it takes place in Chicago, but don't quote me on that.) He's 32, has a girlfriend he's been with for 5 years and a job that gets him by. He doesn't want anything to change and is happy with how things are. But of course, normal lifestyles don't make for interesting storytelling... most of the time. Things change when his girlfriend starts bringing up marriage a lot more, which he doesn't want. He starts having nightmares that cause him to feel restless. The nightmares are what make up the actual gameplay in the form of puzzle solving where you must climb a tower of blocks. It's a simple, yet cleverly designed game in that regard and flows well with the narrative. Even more of a change is when he wakes up one day and realizes he's cheated on his girlfriend, which starts an interesting chain of events.

The theme is pretty obvious, but it's pulled off so well. Everything in the game fits into the narrative, making the whole thing amazing. It's one of the few games where I can say that the rating M for mature can actually mean 'mature'. I find that rating rather misleading and inappropriate as I don't find games with silly amounts of gore and swearing, simply for the sake of it to be mature, but rather the opposite. Catherine is, in a sense, a psychological thriller, not in the same way as say, Silent Hill 2 though. Still, definitely check it out, I highly recommend this game.

Musical Chairs

2011-07-23T05:29:00.003-05:00

Edit: (July 24, 2011) I forgot to mention this, Mega Man Legends 3 was cancelled! WTF?! :(

This is the 85th post to this blog. You guys know what that means right?

Chapter 2 is done and Slaix has tested it. Got some good feedback from him and am awaiting another report from someone else. Meanwhile, the next section of the game is coming along.

Music is now loaded into memory as it's needed in the game. I haven't seen any hiccups or points when it needs to stop to load the music resource going into memory. They are also removed from memory when they are not needed, as opposed to DT1 which did not manage this at all. The resource loading time after the game launches is almost non-existent. The overhead is... super low now. I think I said this once before too, but saving is practically instantaneous too. DT3 has much more data to store than DT1 too. Everything is working great, despite me being a horrible programmer.

So I don't really want to show any screenshots. I'll show one of how the map screen looks sometime, but for now, here's a boring chart that describes how I'm handling difficulty in DT3.

DT3's download (you know, in a few years) won't be hosted on adware spamming sites, I'll be hosting it from a dropbox. Later on I'll be adding a download for DT1 and 2 to dropbox as well. No more waiting pointlessly on that timer and no more ads. The next post might be a rant... maybe, depends if I can gather my thoughts on the topic properly.

Also ponies... because I can. :P

Hannah Nebraska

2011-07-12T03:46:00.000-05:00

If you play Metal Gear Online (MGS4), and run into a character in it with the above name, that's my roommate Jerry. He wanted to name her Hannah South Dakota, but it wouldn't fit. So life hasn't allowed me any time the last few days to work on DT3. Actually it has, but during the times I had free, I was either hanging out with my roommates, (this happens a lot, we're high school friends actually... well not Jerry and Jeremy, I'm just the bridge) playing Borderlands, (SteamID/gamespyID: ZephyrBurst) or RPing. I role play from time to time, it's fun and it gets the creative cogs turning. This lack of free time, err, free time given to other activities is also why there's no video. :D (No I lied, there's also real life and all that, wait a minute... the above still applies, so it's not a lie.)

Project CAS
There's a nifty little project that I've watched for the past several months. It's been interesting watching it grow and expand in every way. The engine, gameplay, and art, especially the art, have come a long way and seen a few revisions. You can see the progress that's been made on the art throughout the blog that's been set up for it here. Check it out if you have the time, it's had a lot of work put into it.

Nothing to post about DT at this time.

Experimental Spiders

2011-07-07T06:49:00.003-05:00

Edit: (July 11, 2011) No video of DT3 it looks like. I was busy with IGDA stuff most of the weekend and then hung out with the roommates the rest of it. Instead of announcing a soon-to-be-released video, I'll just skip the partial hype and suddenly pop it out of nowhere.

Edit: (July 8, 2011) I might actually post a video this weekend! It will be short, but hey, it's a video! :D

Meant to mention this two posts ago. I finally found that spider again! It was crawling along the side of my bed. You know what this means? IT COULD HAVE CRAWLED ON ME IN MY SLEEP! Anyway, I removed it from the premise, so that is no longer an issue, and my window spiders are safe!

The Claustrophobia Test, (but not really)
I periodically use random DT players (you guys) as guinea pigs in obscure tests. They're mostly oddball ideas that pop into my head, but some of them produce interesting results. For example:

Shot A

Shot B

These two shots are, gameplay wise, exactly the same. You could argue against that for some situational things in DT with its utility spells, but for 99.99% of the players and time, this will present the exact same gameplay. During the following examples, I didn't bring the above point up, I merely showed the shots and asked a question with no other context, so with that...
Question 1
I showed these two shots to a number of people and asked which one they felt more threated in. That question left things somewhat mixed, 7/10 of them said they felt more threated in Shot B.
Question 2
Then I asked which one they felt more likely to fall off the platforms in. And this was the surprising part, every person said Shot B.
Question 3
I followed that question up with which one they felt safer in. I know it's sort of asking the opposite of question 1, but again, I was surprised to find that everyone said Shot A.

I derped a lot of things with this test though. I should have been documenting their responses and explanations for their answers. Though I do think the results explain themselves, I see it as inconclusive since I failed to record and document everything properly. The only accurate part of it are the tallies of what people chose.

There are some other little tests like this that I've done and will continue to do in the future. I'll be making them more public from now on though.

Design Decision with Gate 1
Gate 1 is the first major gameplay point in the game. It is reached within minutes of the game's beginning and is where the Mario levels take place. Since it's essentially the first level in the game, I wanted to keep things simple and straight forward. I thought about having a few branching paths, but I didn't want to add that sort of complexity for this part of the game, so went with a simple Mario approach. There is one spot where you'll backtrack through 2 maps, but that is all. These maps are set up to be a very different feel both ways and are designed with the backtrack path in mind. That aside, it's a simple stroll through various Mario themes mixed with some DT elements for the second half of it. I feel it's a good beginning level that will have the player seeing the Game Over screen only a small handful of times. For the optional pick ups like Heart Pieces, Chests, etc, all of them can be obtained on the first time through. Some, no, all of them are obviously easier on return visits. Some of them may look impossible to get, but with enough observation, you can get them. Most of them don't take a lot of finesse to get.

One thing which may disappoint people is the big major bosses at the end of the 7 gates do not offer a full heart container like Zelda bosses would give. I'll be designing the damage enemies deal to the player as if they collected 80% of the heart pieces up to that point. (That are reasonably obtainable.) But really, you shouldn't be getting hit. It's not like DT has difficult to dodge attacks or anything. :P

An Update The Day After An Update

2011-07-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

What is this madness!!

This update is about one thing only, and that is to tell you to watch the series Firefly. If you've seen it, you know why I'm posting about it. If not... go see why! :D Also go watch Friendship is Magic as well.

I Lied
This update is actually not about the above. Significant progress has been made on the project. The item shop interface and equipment sub-menu are all fully functional. Shop owners can all have unique items instead of DT1's static shops. (Like it should be.)

The Item Shop Window, fairly standard.

I'm really happy with the whole thing. (The project in general.) Everything is nice and optimized. There's more going on with DT3's system and it runs a whole lot better than DT1 ever did. I look back on DT1's code and I wonder how the game even ran at all sometimes. The code was inefficient (and still is in some aspects) and was sloppy. Slaix knows about a few of my coding atrocities with it. He probably cringed hard at how collectibles were handled, and that wasn't even the worst part of it. I dare not tell you how some of DT1's systems were handled. Luckily DT3 has none of that. I leveled up throughout the first DT project. :D

Well I guess that's it for now.

Better Than Terrorism

2011-07-03T07:17:00.005-05:00

Ignore the title, it's an obscure reference having to do with ponies. It doesn't let me post an update if it's blank, believe me I tried.

Part 2 Update
Part 2 has been updated, which should have been done the day after the previous update but... I have excuse, I just suck. It's what the previous update had, but with sound. Yes, you're reading this right, I left a broken version up for 2 months. :s

Duke Nukem Imposter Review
So I said last week I was possibly going to review this game and it looks like I'm just going to give my perspective on it. My first observation was regenerating health, not TOO big a deal, we'll see if it doesn't create hide & heal gameplay. Then suddenly I'm hit with a 2 gun rule. ......................................................... See now we're getting into modern shooter gameplay a bit too much. I find that unnecessary for this game. There were quite a few times when I found myself wishing I could hold that other gun lying there, but don't want to trade out my pistol and rifle. I'd grab a Shrink Ray, but that leaves me with 1 useful gun. Or at least 1 gun that doesn't run out of ammo in 5 shots. (Slight exaggeration.) I actually ran out of ammo once. Maybe I just suck, but this shouldn't be happening. I never run out of ammo in FPS games. (That's a lie, I did on the Perfect Agent setting in Perfect Dark on occasion.) I wanted to scream at the gun balance so many times. 2 guns worked in Halo because the devs had that rule in mind when they were designing their levels. What happened here? It never felt like game balance, it was just annoying. A bit further in and I find that the regenerating health is indeed annoying and encourages hide and heal gameplay. There are these lunging enemies that seem to gravitate toward Duke and take 2/3 of his health with each hit. o_O They would always come in pairs. I'd shoot one, the other would hit me, I shoot him and hide. This was 99% of the encounters with them. It's why I don't like regenerating health. I never felt threatened, just annoyed that I had to hide for 5 seconds yet again. Melee attacks that killed its target would fully regenerate your health, that was the only good idea that I saw and it actually helped some encounters flow well.

The worst part for me wasn't the atrocious gameplay elements, the lag, the long loading, the horrendous amount of bugs... nah, none of that. It was something I thought would save the game since the rest of it sucked. But it's the diarrhea icing on the shit cake here. The writing... The old Duke Nukem games had cheesy humor mixed with satirical puns. Lots of one liners, but humorous ones on par with Star Fox 64. This game was just flat out offensive and shallow. Some of you that know me from forums or chat rooms (or in person) know I love a good misogynistic joke here and there, even to the point of pissing off every girl around. But even this offended me. It got tiring very quick. The jokes weren't funny, they were just hateful with nothing to back them up. There was no satire, build up, or any hint of clever writing behind them. I didn't actually finish the game and I never will. I just couldn't stand it anymore. Also the levels were super linear and not reminiscent of earlier shooters.

Other M Thingy
Here's another game that got a lot of hate. I don't quite understand why though, since it was a brilliant piece of work. It was a good light-hearted joke at the Metroid universe in general. A comical look at Samus' character and the inferiority of women. Seeing Samus take orders from a somewhat unknown and unanimously hated character, to the point of blind stupidity, was a perfect look at the optimal roles women should and can serve in society. The point when Samus almost literally crawled into a fetal position over the sight of Ridley only backed up the satirical nature of the game and really helped drive the point about, as stated before, women's inferiority. We had a downer ending that completely missed the point. There was a weak and disappointing final encounter, but this only helped to amplify the main point of the game which continually bombards the player with bad dialogue, forgettable characters, and endless plotholes. That's exactly what made this game the wonderful gem it was. We see the brilliance in the writing by it being consistently bad. What we're left with is not a terrible game, but a misunderstood and wonderful satire on a game series we all know and love.

So now onto what this blog is about...

Progress Update

2011-06-28T03:54:00.005-05:00

I'm back from being away again. (Wow I'm away a lot.) Oh yeah, remember the spider I mentioned from the last post? Well he's back... WHY?! It stayed in my room the entire 5 days I was gone. As long as it doesn't mess with my window spiders. I have a few spiders that live along my bedroom window. They never leave the window and yes they're on the inside. They're small and as long as they stay there and don't go on my bed, I'm cool with them. I never see any other critters so they must be doing their job. Plus they keep me company.

Stuff on the Game
A lot got done on the game's systems while I was gone. Since I don't have internet or any other distractions at night where I was, I can get a lot of busy work done on the game. Interface code is really tedious, so that's mostly what I worked at this last week during the moments I got to work on this. The map system has been revamped, it gives you a lot more feedback, info on the world, and where you are much better than before. No screenshot for it, it's a secret to everybody. There's a page in the menu that displays all your character stats like charge times, recovery rate, and such for your abilities. It's probably unnecessary to show it for 90% of you, but I figured there's no reason to hide those numbers. There's quite a mixture of effects you can have on these stats based upon your skill tree and equipment.

On the equipment thought, both characters have their own slots for them, yay. If you like to metagame, the end game of this will interest you, there's quite a bit to explore in the stats department if you're that type that loves to optimize everything. (Though like I said, it's not necessary, most of you will probably go, "I like bombs, so I'm going to equip everything I can for those." Change 'bombs' to whatever you're into.) That's a good thing. Anyway... :P

Internet Stuff
(Oh yeah, the currency is still called "Internetz" because... I have no reason other than because I said so.) Anyway, internet stuff. I periodically google "Distorted Travesty". I've only posted/advertised the game on 2 sites (RRR and Shy Guy's Toy Box) and I always notice that the game is posted around various forums, which is totally fine. That's cool that the game is liked enough for people to do that. :)

Imposters
But I came across something interesting while I was gone last week. I found a place where it was posted under my name. (I don't have the site url, when I find it again, I'll link to it. I wasn't on my computer when I found it. It's not in the google searches anymore.) o_O It's totally cool when others post the game in other places, though make sure it's an appropriate forum, but I don't get why someone would post it under the "DarkYoshi" name. If you see DT posted by "DarkYoshi" anywhere but the 2 places I mentioned above, that's not me. Oh well, someone loves me enough to impersonate me. :P

I've more recently been referring to myself as "ZephyrBurst" online. It's a lot more original than DarkYoshi and I kinda like it more. If you see someone online with that name, it might be me... or not. The Internet is a strange place like that. Man I'm boring, no screenshots this time. Oh yeah, to summarize this post, I hated the Duke Nukem imposter game that came out a few weeks ago. I guess Duke Nukem Forever is never actually coming out. :( I might give my opinion/review of the imposter game in the next post.

Simplified... and Spiders

2011-06-22T05:00:00.001-05:00

You ever had those moments when you see a spider or another kind of creepy crawly on your desk and then it runs behind something out of view? Then every time you feel any movement on your arm, no matter what it is, you quickly look down at it thinking, "OMG IT'S ON ME!". That's me right now. There's a medium sized dark colored wolf spider somewhere on my desk. I have no idea where it is. Last time I saw it, it went under my laptop, or at least that's what it appeared to do. (It wasn't there.) I'm just waiting for it to jump out at me, or at my hand on the mouse, at any time now. If this post feels a bit edgy, this is why. WHERE IS IT?!

DT3 News
I'm happy with how DT3 is coming along. It's going even better than I hoped actually! The Mario area is almost complete. Sorta... the first pass is almost complete. Once all the levels are laid out and all gameplay necessary assets are in, I'll be going back through the entire thing and making things pretty with background effects. Clouds, birds... Jerry and Claire's bantering, and more humor. The main enemy type that you'll come to love/hate are the Bros. Hammer and Fire, I removed the Boomerang type unfortunately. (omg I just saw it again... and it hid again) Maybe at a later time, I'll give them some love and put them back in, but they just didn't go well with the other two. Hammer Bros spam the sky, Fire Bros spam the ground. The Boomerang Bros just got in the way and didn't mix well with the other two. You'll be seeing a lot of these two enemy types and the dynamics between the two work really well. They create interesting situational puzzles in a sense. And their differing personalities work well. The Hammer Bros show empathy for their fellow Bros, the Fire Bros are dicks. You'll see what I mean when you get to play it when it never comes out. (omg this game is going to take so long to make.)

(omg where is that spider? O_O)

Slaix will get to experience the horrors they create later this week, since he's my bi-, err tester, whether he wants to or not. >:3 Hey, if it wasn't for Slaix and a small handful of others, levels like the DT1 Data Segment would've been MUCH harder. Remember, I can only test difficulty so much. Difficulty is the main thing that I need worked out by others. (There were a few times when I said "NO, IT WILL BE THIS PUNISHING!", but those were rare.)
Oh this song.

Slaix has actually played about half of the Mario area. He got a pretty crude version of it and the game state. (It didn't even notify you of when your AP Level increases. (Not that AP Level means much. (omg I wish I knew where that spider was.)))

Gameplay Simplified
I've simplified some things. I removed 2 attack types from the game. Link's Boomerang had a unique "Boomerang" attack type, which was unnecessary. Actually the Boomerang will probably be removed altogether. Samus' Missiles also had a unique "Missile" type, which was changed. It went against how the gameplay flowed and made things more complex than they needed to be. There are now only 6 attack types and they're really easy to identify and they make more sense now.

Back on the, omg this game is going to take so long to make, note. It is... really. I won't be releasing it the way DT1 was done. It will be all at the end, BUT, once the first 5 or 6 chapters are done and I'm happy with the game's state, I'll release a demo. When that's happening... I don't know. Only the first one is done. I'll end here and with a screenshot.

(As soon as embedding works again...)

Super Jerry World

2011-06-15T05:12:00.005-05:00

It's been 8 days since the last post, but it feels like it's been much longer. The game has been coming along awesomely, despite not being able to work on it very often. For game content, it is playable up to and through the first boss fight. When you see it, you'll see right away that the bosses in DT3 will have much more variety to them than the first two games. :)

That star does what you think it does.

Checkpoints & Saving
Checkpoints work the same way they have been and bosses will still allow you to retry. The checkpoint system works wonders in the main world for when you're traveling around looking for stuff. Random deaths are fairly meaningless out there since it starts you at the last map entrance. As for exploration and hidden items, the main world are littered with them. There are WAY more hidden maps and items than the first game. Once you have 2 or 3 Abilities Sets, your options open up a lot. (And especially after the mid-game chapter.)

Game Over Screen
You will be happy to know that it has returned to insulting you. There are a few differences...

This screen will become a common site.

It always says "GAME OVER" at the top with the insult below it. Under that are the typical 3 selections, 4 if you're in a boss fight. Below that are situational hints... or useless garbage. You're bound to see a few of them, but doubtful that you'll see them all. You'd have to die at some strange times to see them all. Also, guess the reference. It's very identical to another game's Game Over screen. (Though to be honest, those games were really easy and it was unlikely that you saw it often or at all.)

I should have more to say, but I don't. Maybe I'll review a game next time...
Infection of adorable!

Treats

2011-06-07T05:33:00.001-05:00

Edit: (June 8, 2011) It's Jerry's birthday today! :D

I like treats, I just got a bunch of Easter candy. (Hey my family does Easter late sometimes.) My brother found more candy than me this year during our annual hunt. I'll get him next year...

Oh right, game stuff. Small post today, mainly saying hi and giving out a bit more information about DT3 stuff and development.

The Map System
It only shows where you've been. Each box is not necessarily 1 map. Most of them are roughly 3-4 maps each, give you an idea of how big that area is, and also show you how many items you have left to find.

Pointless Records
Entries you have not discovered will be hidden now.

What to do?
Jerry can't jump yet, looks like he'll have to find a way around this.

Doomed
Whoops, had a small mishap.

Area Names
When going to a new area, the name is shown on the bottom-left.

These are all from the beginning area before you get the Jump Boots. (Aside from the last shot.) They also feature the dash icon lie. It'll get removed when I feel like it. That's it for now.

Game Content Started

2011-06-02T05:41:00.007-05:00

The game itself is now being worked on. As of this moment, there's a whole 5 seconds of real game-play. (If you don't count the short intro.) They're an awesome 5 seconds though, I swear! How about a screenshot?!

This is the second screen you'll see in the game. At this point, you can only play as Jerry and he can only run and duck. That's a moving platform he's running to with a little dust being kicked up as he starts a run from an idle pose. This brings me to the small topic of effects. DT3 will be visually superior over the first 2 in regards to effects and particles. There's a lot more of these to go along with all aspects of the game from your own abilities and attacks as well as the enemy actions to the environments for aesthetic and practical reasons.

Moving platforms have been changed. You can no longer affect their pathing by getting in the way. You'll still stop them, but it won't affect anything. Some of them, like the one in the screenshot, will stop momentarily when they reach the end of their path, giving you time to get from platform to platform. Not all of them will do that little trick though. :P

The only thing that lies in this screenshot is the green icon that was used in DT2 that let you know if you had an air dash. It won't actually be there. It'll still be used, but not at this point in the game. There are still a limited number of dashes.

The cell phone reception icon next to it is something new for DT3. This lets you know what your connection to Jeremy is like. Losing your connection to Jeremy will result in him not being able to communicate with you, (obviously) and various things he offers won't be accessible such as scanning enemies, your map, and in some cases some of your abilities will stop functioning properly. If the connection starts to drop, it means something in that area is trying to block him... or you're about to enter a special area. (Like those times when you can't dash.) The reception icon, for the most part, can be ignored. Its main purpose is for me to relay information to the player about what is not going to work without having to state it every time it happens.

Rose

I Am Not Error

2011-05-29T17:23:00.002-05:00

Edit: (May 30, 2011) Correction about the screen size. It is 480x352. (Cut out 8 pixels to maintain the grid I had.)

Another meaningless title.
I'm back and I hope everyone had a great week. It was a busy one for me, but I finished the writing for the entire main game sequence. Now I know what the game actually needs and doesn't need. The story is divided up into 21 chapters. Chapter changes are noted on-screen and is usually a mark of a new story direction. The length of each chapter varies, but expect each to average around 45 minutes of gameplay. This puts the game length right around the first DT. It's longer than the first though due to the gate chapters, which there are 7.

The gates are, as stated before, where you get new ability sets, and lock you into the new one until you complete that gate. (Unless you leave, but you can't take the new one with you until you complete the gate.) The first gate starts at chapter 2, and there are usually 1 or 2 chapters between each gate in the main overworld. These usually consist of the characters trying to track down a way to the next gate and solving problems in the main world. There's a fairly lengthy end-game after the 7th gate, this is when you'll have access to the entire game world and all abilities.

The game functions are introduced at a fairly slow rate. You won't be able to swap abilities till chapter 9, and dashing doesn't come into play until chapter 7. It's a good chunk of the game that you won't have the normal DT abilities. However, nearly every chapter changes the way the game is played. This constant change, I think, will assist in keeping things interesting and fun. More game genres will make small appearances, for example, there is a tower defense section. I think I'll hold back any more details.

I'm sure with the chapters idea, some of you are thinking that this could be episodic. I'm really unsure about this. The game world is fairly persistent. I know a save file you guys could keep would work, but as you saw with the first game, there are times when things broke in that due to changes. (I also don't want people to have to do that.) And it's not really set up to be episodic. Aside from the gate chapters, they aren't independent pieces of the game. But hey, if I'm suddenly enlightened and I find a solid way to release the game episodically as it is developed, then I will do so. If not, nothing aside from a demo displaying the first 3 chapters of the game will be released until it is done. (And possibly a small scenario in a later part of the game.)

This is entertaining and no, it's not fan-made.

Short Post & Screen Sizes

2011-05-23T01:08:00.003-05:00

I'm far enough along on the system to start actual game content now, though for the purpose of finding more design flaws that slip through on paper, I will not do that yet.

A big design change will probably happen that will affect everything. I will most likely be changing the window size in the game. Right now it is 512x384. (Screen size for DT1 and 2.)
If it is going to be changed, it will be one of the following:
480x360 (Probably what I'm going with) Edit: I changed it to this. It works just right.
440x330
400x300
All of them work well and provide easy numbers to work with. I'm not sure how often people use the 2x window mode. But due to this change, it will be highlighted more. This change will be made due to design issues I came across in both previous games. I often times had too much screen space to work with. For getting a nice view for bosses, the area was much bigger than I needed 90% of the time. There was often times too much dead space as well. The smaller area will allow me to provide a better visual composition as well. (Which is a big reason for this change.) Level layouts will be better like this too.
Keep in mind, the actual resolution is not changing, just the game window size, which means a smaller view.

I am also going to be away for the week. Going out of town to help out family with some things.

To keep with recent trends I've had. She's waving for me, though it looks more like a hello rather than a goodbye.

Bad Fan

2011-05-18T01:13:00.005-05:00

Edit: (May 22, 2011) Slaix mistyped the url for the blog and came upon this. I laughed.

Edit: (May 21, 2011) All the ability sets except for one are set up. (Small nuances aside.) One was removed, or rather replaced today. All the sets have distinct advantages and drawbacks based on each other, but the removed set didn't flow well with the others. The set in question was a Contra set. It doesn't mean I won't have a Contra themed level though. The replacement has been decided and is being coded now. It looks good on paper, whether or not it actually plays well with others is another story. I'll know very soon.

The bad fan is me. I was generously given a copy of 'Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble' this last weekend and I didn't know it was the third game in the trilogy. I saw the title of the game and assumed it was another spin off to the series like Red Hot Rumble and didn't research on it. This whole time I had been looking forward to finishing the trilogy and it was out THIS WHOLE TIME!! >_< As soon as my roommate lets me use his DS, I'm going to play it cause I'm cheap like that and I don't have a DS of my own. Viewtiful Joe (along with most of Clover Studios games) is one of my favorite games of all time. My top 5 if anyone is curious are:
1. God Hand
2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
3. Viewtiful Joe / Okami
4. Yoshi's Island
5. Ikaruga

Distorted Stuff
I'll start off with giving screenshots of stuff. Yay!

Both shots actually show works in progress. The first is of the abilities menu which displays info about your eh... ability sets. :P As you can see they have levels per ability and level up the more you use them. (I think I said that in a previous post.)
The second shot is the skill menu. (or Spend AP as shown ingame) It's pretty self explanatory for the most part. The red circles are locks and are unlocked through story progression. The skills attached to the locks are not only unattainable but what they do are also obscured until the lock is undone. All the locks must also have a point or two in the skill they are linked from to unlock as well. The blue ones are the unlocked ones.

So there's a little bit to look at and speculate on for now. The way it is planned out, the player will not be able to max everything out by the end of the game unless they go for the extras. (Or grind, but who does that?) :P

All of the writing is almost done and I think for those of you that want more story focus will enjoy what I have prepared.

Other Games
I got a chance to play a really obscure PS2 game this last weekend called The Red Star. It was shown to me by a friend. (Same guy who gave me Viewtiful Joe.) If I had heard about this game online or seen it on the shelf, I may not have thought much about it considering it's based off a comic book and I generally have low expectations for licensed games. But seeing how said friend has the same taste in games I do and highly recommended it, I knew I was in for a treat. It's an action game mixed with shooter mechanics (think bullet-hell). Generally the levels with the (sometimes) swarms of enemies are brawler action based, where the bosses change to bullet-hell. It sounds like it's a genre mix gone wrong, but it actually blends together rather well. It's a difficult game and if you're not good at bullet-hell games, you may not enjoy it. Then again, if you're here and playing DT, then you'll probably enjoy The Red Star.

I really shouldn't let the licensed game fact get in the way of my first impression of games (or anything). Getting past that sometimes reveals rare gold mines. Like this game or the new My Little Pony. (Yeah I know, I slipped in yet another mention of it.)

Production Started

2011-05-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

Nearly all of the pre-production work is done for DT3 and more time has been put into the actual production. I have been building all the systems and ground work for the game as well, which is also, surprisingly, almost complete. Surprising because I'm often not given much time to work on these things. Though the time I do work on it is very focused.

Design Challenges
Periodically I'll be talking about the challenges that come up during development for the game, the first is here.
While the game doesn't start off in a Mario styled level this time around, one does pop up fairly early on. The difference with DT3 is that the worlds will work a lot closer to their original format. (Those that are not part of the main overworld that is) You already saw near the end of DT2 on the airship that you could stomp on the projectiles the ship threw at you. The Mario area works like this as well. The design challenge with this segment was figuring out an effective way of handling collision. It's not enough to just have the stomping work exactly like Mario games. The physics involved with them highlight and work with the ability to jump on enemies. DT isn't quite like that. The movement is not set up for that type of gameplay, resulting in a lot of fumbling on the player side. I thought about changing the physics for that area, but it felt inconsistent. These enemy types also appear in other areas of the game, so that awkward control will just resurface. Plus there's too much else for the player to learn how to do in the game without having to try and figure out yet another movement style. My method comes in 2 parts. The first is the amount of leeway given when stomping on enemies. In DT2, you may have seen cases where you were able to stomp on an enemy even when hitting from an area like this:

This is due to how the threshold works, which is largely based off of your downward speed. (This threshold was scaled down a bit and changed for DT3) It is very possible with enough downward speed, that hitting an enemy from the side half way up your character will still result in a success on your end. The other minor part of this is how the character bounces off of enemies. In DT3, you are given a lot of slow air time after bouncing off of them. That is if you don't hold the jump button on contact. Doing so has the effect of giving you a rather large lift, but it doesn't have the slower motion the low bounce has. These 2 changes, specifically the hit detection, make things feel a lot more fluid.

An Interesting X-Box Live Game
I was recently shown an interesting game that can be bought on Live called Chime. It's a musical puzzle game... No really, that's what it is. Basically you put 5-blocked pieces on a board to create rectangles, the larger the better and try to fill a board with these completed rectangles. The concept is simple, but where it becomes awesome is how the music dynamically changes. Where you place the pieces, where the completed areas are all change how the music plays and it's interesting to out how the music evolves as the board is filled up. The beats always start simple and build up as the board is filled, which flows nicely with the gameplay.

The game was released in February last year and is very cheap. Only 400 points ($5). Even more awesome, 60% of this goes to charity. All of the music in the game was written for it and given free. I have a soft spot for things like this. If you enjoy puzzle games with a lot of meta-gaming potential, pick it up.

Ponies
The entire first season of Friendship is Magic has finally aired and now Hasbro is stating that they do not have plans to release a DVD/Bluray set of Season 1. The fans have expressed their displeasure to this statement, me being one of them. There is a lot of interest and demand for a physical copy of this show. If you're a fan of the series and wish to see a DVD, I suggest expressing your interest to them in some way. Online petitions typically hold no merit, so that is not a good method. Writing a letter directly to the marketing team, or customer service, (probably the better choice of the two) expressing your interest can be effective. Another, somewhat surprising method to me, is Twitter. There are various ways through Twitter to voice yourself to Hasbro.

Lots of Work & a Choice

2011-04-30T05:04:00.006-05:00

Edit: (May 3, 2011) I'll be out of town for a few days. Be safe and have a great week. Also wow, you guys have added a lot of tropes to the trope page. Thanks for keeping that going. :)

Edit: (May 1, 2011) Feel free to suggest ideas for levels too. Also the GM8.1 update broke the supersound extension. I thought it was me, but it seems plenty of others are having the same problem. It's weird because I'm sure the sound was functioning 3 days ago in 8.1. Luckily sound isn't important right now, but this is still an annoyance.

DT3 is proving to be a lot to handle. No worries, it's nothing I can't handle. I knew it would be a lot going into it and I've prepared myself. (So many notes and spreadsheets. Excel is God's gift to organizers.) No really though, there's A LOT in this. O_O What Applejack said.

Suggestions for one of Claire's Ability Sets
One of Claire's Ability Sets are still in the planning phase, so here's where you guys can have some choice on what you'd like to see in the game. Either email me at "the_happyfungame@yahoo.com" (without the _) or leave a comment here on what game or character's abilities you'd like to see in the game. You can suggest just the overall idea or even ideas for the abilities themselves.

All Ability Sets have 3 main attacks and/or abilities and some have an extra active or even a passive ability as well. (Such as being able to block frontal attacks while in the Link set) The attacks are all set up as projectiles, though I won't rule out close range. This is for Claire, all of Jerry's abilities at this point are set. I may or may not announce which suggestion I choose. I probably won't as to keep it a surprise, though I will note who's suggestion I used for credits purposes. :)
Currently announced sets: Mario, Link, Samus.

Viruses and Updates

2011-04-24T23:59:00.007-05:00

Edit: (April 26, 2011) After testing GM8.1, I've found that it renders roughly twice as fast as the old version, which is awesome.
I can finally zoom in and out in the map editor. The maps look so small when zoomed out.
Click me for image (you know this place)
Oh yeah, when DT2 gets another update, it will have the anti-aliased text fixed up. GM turned it all the way up for every font. Whoops.

Bleh, I got one last night. Luckily my virus protection got rid of it in the blink of an eye. Unluckily it didn't catch it soon enough and it destroyed all my file-type associations. Couldn't even get System Restore open. Luckily I managed to get Firefox open and found something to restore everything back to normal. So it was a short lived chaotic computer moment.

As you might have noticed, I've started changing the blog around. The downloads for the games have been moved up a section, I like it better this way. DT2 was updated with the changes outlined in the previous post. The file size was boosted by half a MB, oh no! D: I remade the exe with Game Maker's update. The exes are a bit bigger with the update, but I didn't see any changes to the loading times. The game itself will run faster now. Yoyogames sped up the sprite rendering, yay! I haven't actually tested how much better it is yet. I'm going to do a stress test after this post. They said they fixed the font issues, so the jumbled font issue SHOULD be fixed. I finally have more font options, like making the anti-aliasing better or turning it off completely. The update doesn't have any changes in that regard yet. Whether or not there's a significant boost in performance, the first DT will be getting an update from this too. I gotta fix those sound bugs anyway.

Won't be a spoiler if you finished DT2.
***** SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW... I THINK *****

So you all saw the end of DT2 right? As you saw, it left on a cliff... hanger. (Wow that's a bad joke.) This does mean that there will be a third and final chapter to the game. It's not going to be finished for quite some time. I'm thinking 2 years. I won't have too much time to work on it for the next few months. That and it's a fairly ambitious project, at least that's what I've been told. If you got 100% in DT2, then you got an extra room that shared a bit of info about the third chapter... and an endless enemy gauntlet where you have infinite health and energy... because uh... I said so.

So here's some more info to add onto that.
The third part, called "Saved Game", picks up right after the events of the second. Both Jerry and Claire are playable throughout it. (They can be swapped much like how Viewtiful Joe 2 was done.) The narrative will be receiving a huge boost, so those of you that enjoy that aspect will definitely enjoy this. The story centers around a city in the middle of the large game world in DT3, where Jerry and the group focus on gathering others to assist them in their fight against the virus that is consuming the world.

The elemental attack system has been removed. The virus strips away everything that Jerry and Claire could do from the first 2 games. However, they are able to equip ability sets. For example, Claire will get access to a Samus ability set, which lets her use Samus' cannon, missiles, and bombs, which of course means the Morph Ball. Jerry will get access to a Link set. The others will be kept secret. None of them, aside from one, can be used by both characters. These abilities are gained in separate zones and until that zone is completed, it can only be used in there, and is also the only set that will work in that zone until it is completed. Once that zone is complete, the abilities can be used in the main world. While each set has its own play style, I'm doing my best to keep things as simple and intuitive as possible. I understand a concern with the first two games was how fast all the game mechanics were given out. DT3 will bring players into the game world at a much better pace. Dashing will make a return, but it is also taken away at the beginning. In fact, the only thing you can do in the very beginning is run and jump... actually you can't even jump, wait... you can't even move. Jeremy will assist with these issues at the start of the game. :P

The health system will take a simple approach. Jerry and Claire will share the same health of course. This screenshot will show what I mean. The HUD is super incomplete as you can see. (Free Internetz if you can guess the game that background is from.)

The engine has received a boost in performance. (Not counting the faster rendering that the Game Maker update provides. I only just got that yesterday.) The target fps is still 30. Right now I have no plans to bring it up to 60.

RPG elements are coming back. Enemies give out points (AP) which can be assigned to skills in a skill tree. (It actually looks like a tree this time.) They're quite a bit different from what you saw in part 1. Each of your abilities can also level up through just using them.

The game physics have been changed. The characters both control relatively the same, Claire runs a bit faster and is a bit more slippery. Jerry has a tighter Mega Man like feel. Their dashes both work differently. Air Dashing will make a return as will wall jumping, though with the wall jump, it is limited to only 1 of the zones. It will never be usable in the main world. Wall sliding however, may possibly be available everywhere. That hasn't been decided yet.

As far as things like Link's arrows and Samus' missiles. They are consumables, and at this time, are the only consumable attack source. The others work on a recharge, including Link's bombs. (Actually if you have 0 arrows or missiles left, they will recharge to 1 after a few seconds.) There is a single pickup that will recover these. If the active character is Jerry, the arrows are refilled, etc.

Well I hope this excites you guys. Feel free to ask questions about it. As far as game length, it looks to be a bit shorter than the first, though only for the main quest. The third part, by far, has more optional things to do.

Biscuits

2011-04-18T03:30:00.002-05:00

Edit: (April 23, 2011) Going to release an update to DT2 soon.
--Changes--
-Twin Bloom's threshold for hiding was boosted so they don't hide quite as often. The target time was reduced by 2 seconds due to this.
-The spin threshold for the end of the Core fight was slightly reduced.
-The random meteors in the final level were removed in favor of a more scripted sequence.
-A new enemy named "Dopple" was placed in levels 2-3 and 3-1 so now all levels are completely chainable. Dopple doesn't do anything aside from be pathetic. Everything is a 1 hit kill to it and if you manage to take damage from it, it's only 1 damage. The target score on 2-3 has increased by 200, and 3-1 by 100. Dopple is worth 10 points on its own.

This really has nothing to do with biscuits.

Well if you've beaten part 2, even without 100%, then I'm sure you've figured out what's coming up. In the next blog post, I'll talk about how it's going to work. I can say right now though, that you shouldn't be expecting it within the next year... most likely even next 2 years. It also looks like my attention will be drawn to a small group project for a bit of time, this isn't confirmed yet, but the project sounds really fun. It wouldn't be right of me to say what it is right now. I can and will say hoverboards and being awesome. That's all I should say on it.

The fixes to part 2 are still in the works. I'm thinking Tuesday. (Argh, I really shouldn't say a date.) Oh and by the way, Portal 2 will be released tomorrow around this time. That is unless the playing of the games quota is met. Doesn't look like it will. I'm sure a lot of you are looking forward to it, I know it's going to be awesome. Yay for calling out of work 'sick' to play it. Take THAT corporate manager whom is the bane of everyone's existence within the office! Hooray for being irresponsible with sick days!

Have fun, happy easter, and something else which I'm sure I'm forgetting. Go ahead and comment on the ending here if that is your preferred method. It should be safe now. Plus this line acts as a spoiler warning... or something.

No pictures with walls of text are no fun. So I'll once again post an image related to my latest obsession.
Apparently she was so insulted by Rarity's comment, she changed her mane color

Version 2 of Part 2

2011-04-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

Huh... It definitely needs one after the feedback I've gotten from various people. It's been very consistent feedback which is a good sign to me. At least from the perspective of things that I did right, people really liked and didn't feel the need to mention. Nearly all of the concerns are about the final area. Surprisingly, no one raged at me for 3-1. I'm pretty happy about it. That level went through way more iterations than all the others. It took a lot of revamping to get the pieces spaced out just right. The version before the final had 4 more Fire Eyes spread out among the first map alone. This quickly proved too much to handle, specifically for attempting high score runs.

The levels are laid out in a way that the player can chain from enemy to enemy without running out of energy. There are only 2 spots throughout the game that will break a chain. I'll go ahead and mention them, 2-3B during the narrow spike wall section, and 3-1A when grabbing the second Gem. It's possible that the 3-1A one is chainable (I know that's not a word Firefox) and I just suck... or something.

If you guys have ever looked at the "Special Thanks" section and noticed the name "Dave", then... uh... you've noticed that name. Anyway, he was one of my roommates in college whom I bounced ideas off of quite often. We've had numerous design discussions, even now. I mentioned the 2 breaks in chaining to him last month and he suggested to have an enemy that is there just for continuing a chain. Basically making it a very pathetic enemy that does nothing but stand there being cannon fodder. I will probably put this in for the next update for DT2. If I do though, it is going to change the score requirement for both levels by a tiny bit. If you've gotten the target score on these 2 levels and then fall under that score for the next update, it will take away the award. Though I doubt it will affect much, it the target score will only increase by 100 or 200. The target score is based on the points given by all of the enemies in the level. This does not include chaining bonuses. Technically the later levels are easier to get the target scores on. Though with the easy chaining in the early levels, this isn't true. :P The later levels give a bit more of a grace period for the target time as well. (Aside from 2-3, you'll have to play that level a lot different if you want the target score.)

I really think a color change is needed for the blog. White on black is starting to bug me, so if you see a change to the layout or anything else here soon, don't be surprised.

No image to break up the wall of text, so I'll just link this.

Part 2 Coming Soon

2011-04-06T01:51:00.009-05:00

Edit: (April 9, 2011) Released a small update for DT2. Fixed a saving bug and made the auto-save not save EVERY time you come to the world map. A life bar bug with the second boss was fixed. A music glitch on the final level was fixed as well. (It didn't crash, just something presentation related.)

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. :(

My Little Travesty

2011-03-09T05:36:00.009-06:00

Edit: (March 17, 2011) An update to DT. It includes a low detail mode for any of you that the game crashes on when drawing surfaces. If there are any issues with this, leave me a comment on where the issue occurred.
NOTE: When updating to this, low detail will be on by default if loading a previously saved game.
Other changes, the game priority is now saved, so if you play on a higher setting, you won't have to keep setting that every time you start the game.
A skill submenu has been fixed up. All those lines weren't connected, which drove me nuts. It displayed properly on my other computer, just not on anything else.
A few small balances have been made and mainly tweaks to 2 bosses. I recommend getting this update for those tweaks.

2... no wait, 3 things to say in this update. (It's about time too.)

The first is I'd like to point you guys to a friend of mine I met at the Global Game Jam who recently started blogging. He did a blog of his thoughts on Gamification that I found interesting. Take a look at it here if you have some extra time. And hey, if you like what you read, take a look at some of his other blog posts. He doesn't have many up yet, but what he does have are nifty reads and he's sure to update with more thoughts in the future.

The second is about DT2. I know I said in the last post that I was aiming for an early March release, but February didn't give me much time for this. But I'm definitely getting closer. Only 1 level left to make and tweak. The rest of the game is finished, so it will, err, should be sometime later this month. Hey, I recently saw that Skyward Sword was delayed from April to November. A few weeks delay won't hurt for this. (Actually I'm sure I said I wanted a January release.) No new screenshots or videos. The next time you guys see any content on the game, it will be running on your computer. :)

The last thing I want to say has to do with the title. A few weeks ago I was told about a new My Little Pony series which started airing in October of 2010. I decided to give it a try and watch an episode of the show. Now the old 90s series were terrible in my opinion, and that was going through my mind when this was first recommended to me. However, after watching the pilot, I was amazed with every aspect of the show. The characters are all very diverse, well written, and voiced amazingly. The animation is top notch with tons of little secondary motions that add so much, such as the ears which added to the pony's extremely expressive faces. The most amazing aspect of the show though, is how well written it is. The writing is superb and clever and doesn't rely on cheap humor and jokes. Most of the episodes are set up to relay some sort of moral to the viewer, which is handled great in many of them.
Something nifty about the show is its huge fan base outside of the target demographic. In fact, this age group (males ages 20-32) is the largest audience for the show and has spawned off tons of fan work in the short time it has been airing. You can catch all the episodes on youtube and many other places. The animation studio has actually given an unofficial "okay" for people posting the show online.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Episode 1
Video info has a link to all the available episodes to date.

I'd talk about the people behind the show, but if you enjoy it, I'm sure you'll find out.

Distorted Travesty 2 News

2011-02-11T01:53:00.013-06:00

Edit: (February 28, 2011) Here's a small boring update to show that I'm still working on it. I think I might go back to regular weekly updates soon. Since this is just a small edit, here's a screenshot.

Edit: (February 17, 2011) Looks like I will be done by March, yay. Almost everything except the last area is ready to play. This project was meant to be a lot shorter, was only going to be a 10 minute game, but wound up making a completely new game out of it.

I'll talk more about the game differences from the original DT. Aside from it being the same game engine behind this, it's a fairly different game. The focus is much more on platforming and level obstacles. A lot of your spell usage may not even be for offensive purposes. Most enemies can be defeated with 2 or less attacks, so the levels move along much quicker. That said, you will be pretty much forced to understand elemental weaknesses, much more so than DT. Using an element that an enemy has even a partial resistance to will quickly run you out of energy. As for the enemy cast, some are borrowed from DT, but it has mostly its own cast of them. The only returning enemies are the Mario enemies seen early on in DT.

Damage and element resists are handled much simpler in this. No more negative values to indicate weakness. (that was kind of a bad idea in my opinion, I could have used a much better way to show that.) Instead, an enemy only has a resistance to a specific element instead of a weakness. There is no leveling up or weapon upgrades, so the base damage will always be 20. If you dealt less than that, you're not attacking with the right element. That or you need to do something to drop its defense. Although this is RARELY the case and will only take effect in boss battles.
Anyway, back to creating these levels that make me cry.

Edit: (February 15, 2011) Happy Val... oh screw that. Here's a random screenshot of a rather nasty situation. :D

I'm feeling nice today, so here's a little teaser video of some gameplay footage in DT2.
DT2 Teaser

As it says in the video description, I'm aiming for an early March release of the game. I think I can make it. So far the game is coming along great. Though playtesting the final builds of the later levels and trying to get the target scores is making me cry, you will understand when you play them. Remember, every pain you feel from playing these levels, I have to feel it even worse. T_T

Since the game is short, the difficulty will curve quite fast. There is a very noticeable difficulty spike at each new world. Worlds being 3 levels plus a boss fight. There are 3 worlds, plus a special set of 2 levels. Each level aside from the final one can be completed in 1-3 minutes.

~~No screenshot, you got an entire video this time!~~

Game Jamming Fun

2011-01-30T23:42:00.010-06:00

Edit: (February 8, 2011) Yay, got my HD backed up.

Edit #2: (February 7, 2011) Nope, not the power supply, it's the mother board that died. It had a long nice life though. But everything is fine. It's dead, but I'm moving on to better machines.

Edit: (February 7, 2011) Development on the game may stop for about a week. My desktops power supply decided to die. Well... it has been dying, it finally decided today to refuse to let the PC to boot up completely. I would have gotten a new one today, but I know someone who has a bunch of extra computer parts just laying around so I just need to see if he has an extra power supply. I'm surprised it lasted this long, it's 6 years old. It gives 300 watts... I don't think they even make those anymore. If I can get the pro version of GM working on this laptop (whenever softwrap decides to get back with me) and if I can get the desktop to boot just one more time, I can get the recent build off of it. I was dumb and decided not to back up the most recent even though I knew the PSU could crap out completely at any time. May just slave it to another PC later.

Edit: (February 4, 2011) Almost forgot, the game I contributed to at the Global Game Jam is in the link below. My best time is 1:27. One of the other guys on the team has done it in 0:53, so that's the goal here. The concept is very simple, I don't even have to explain it, you'll see. If you use the [Website] link in the description (or the link I provided in this sentence), you can play it over the web, you'll only need to install the Unity web player on your browser. Not bad for a game done in less than 48 hours. :D
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/aliens-vs-bunnies

The 2011 Global Game Jam ended today. If you don't know what that is, more info can be found here. I had an amazing and fun time there. I'll link to the game we made a bit later. The game we made was done in Unity, which is a fantastic engine. I never really gave it a very good test run before this. Remember a post ago when I said I was studying up XNA... yeah, screw that. I don't do well with low level programming which XNA will inevitably require at some point. That and Unity is, in my eyes, a much better game development package. Not discrediting XNA, it's a nice tool, but Unity fits my uses much better. I was able to jump right into its C# code with very little trouble. The development pipeline is shorter and testing within Unity is efficient.

The team I was in consisted entirely of coders, and are much better programmers than I am, so I was primarily the artist. Quite a surprise and change from what I've been doing lately. I enjoyed it a lot and will definitely be doing this again next year. I also highly recommend those of you that love game design to participate next year as well. Don't feel like you won't be able to contribute or underestimate yourself, you will find a place for yourself among the groups that form. I felt really lucky to be in the team I was in. Everyone was nice and accepting. One of the guys worked on Rift (I believe he did work on the server side of things) roughly a year ago, definitely glad to have him. One thing that felt really great was that no one was indispensable, everyone had and did something significant to contribute. So to reiterate, I had an amazing time and highly recommend to everyone who is a designer to participate next year.

Also something I've been a part of for over half a decade is the International Game Developers Association. (IGDA, site found here) Sign up, and check if there are any chapters near you, be a part of this stuff. There's a membership fee, ($50/yr last I checked) but that isn't required to sign up on the forums or to attend events hosted by the IGDA. It's typicallyonly if you want to be on the board committee as well as attending closed events, which don't happen that often. Most are open to the public. (I haven't been a paid member in a few years, shh.)

-------------------------
That's really it... or is it? I shall now announce what this secret/surprise is. This is going to invalidate a trope or two, but here we go.

Due to demand and partially a joke, I am making Distorted Travesty 2. Whoa, wait... WHAT!? I wasn't going to make a sequel though!! But I am. However it is a very very short game. It is planned to be completable in 30-60 minutes. It takes place right after DT and will contain spoilers. All cutscenes, no matter the length, can be skipped in it though. It features independent levels set up more like Mario games. There's a score and timer (counts up) for each level and little collectibles. (Which must be obtained in one playthrough of the level) There are target times and scores for little bonus things on each level. There are boss levels as well, all of which can be replayed at your leisure. (Bosses will only have a target time.) I may try to set up leaderboards for this at some point, but I am focusing on the game itself right now. Despite it being very short, about 10 levels, all of which can be completed in less than 2 minutes, I am not working on it too much. It's not going to take months or anything, but don't expect it next week. Here's a screenshot.

As you can see, you will be playing as a different character, named Claire, in the sequel. If you played through DT, you probably know who this is (she was never referred to by name), if not, you will when you play this. I am using the same engine as before, but tweaked a lot. Claire is a bit floaty and more mobile than Jerry. She can't use physical attacks or techs, but can cast spells much better than Jerry could. She has all the mobility options Jerry has, to add to it though, she can wall jump, which will renew her air dash, even if she hasn't touched the ground.

The spell system works a bit differently, elements are not swapped anymore, instead an element is accessed through its own key, each of these have some context sensitive commands like holding a specific direction. For example, if you're in the air and hold up while using Fire, you will create Jerry's Blast Off effect. Some of her spells mimic Jerry's but she will have a few of her own. The game, overall is (at least in my opinion) a bit easier than DT, but you should still be expecting DT style difficulty. The first 2 levels are very easy, but I ramp it up very fast from there. I recommend that you have played some of DT, at least to the point where you understood its air dashing mechanic, as this game doesn't give you very long (2 levels) to get used to its mechanics before the difficulty goes to roughly the Dusty Ruins level of difficulty.

Oh yeah, one other thing before I end this... the Navi sprite that you see. No, there are no Navi sounds in this except for one time in the opening cutscene. She works like Jeremy's identifier ability in DT, however, if you leave the mouse alone, she will fly around on her own. (The object just detaches from your mouse while it is inactive, no worries, I don't actually mess with your mouse cursor position.)

Anyway, long update is longer than other updates have been in a long time... ... ...long.

Silly Dreams

2011-01-26T01:53:00.000-06:00

The other night, I had a really odd dream...
[In Dream]
I was at work, it's a print shop by the way, with my roommate Terry, and we decided to take a break in the next room. Apparently the break room (there actually isn't one in the real world, but in the dream, we associated it as that) was a low-lit room and had a club-like atmosphere. I remember a pool table being on a far side of the room with a light hanging down above it. There was a couch that Terry and I decided to sit on. We were there for a moment just chatting about nonsensical stuff and were overhearing gibberish in the background from other people in the room. Suddenly Miyamoto walks in from a door next to the couch and sits between us. He doesn't say anything except for "Hi" and gave a little wave to me. I remember him looking at me straight in the eye when he waved which made me kinda nervous, I mean... this Miyamoto who is sitting next to me. I still recognize him as someone awesome in my subconscious apparently. We sit there for a moment or two when we see this clock over on a shelf nearby that seems to not be working properly. Terry walks over to the clock to attempt to fix it, but was not having any luck. Miyamoto looks over and says (in very fluent English) "The battery is probably open, just close it." Terry looks closer at the clock and says "Oh I think you're right." He struggles with it and Miyamoto walks over, does something with the clock that no one seemed to be able to see, and says "You close it like this." The clock started working again. I stood up to go and see this clock when suddenly, my roommate Jerry walks in and loudly says, "What up guys!". Then I woke up.
[Out of Dream]

I told this dream to Jerry who said, "You shared a dream with Miyamoto. In 2 years, we'll see a game about clocks from Nintendo." So remember, 2 years, Nintendo, clocks. And apparently AA batteries can be opened and closed fairly easy.

A bit of news for DT... wait, there is none, sorta. Not a single bug has been reported between new and Jaffe's comment. Definitely the longest in a year that I've gone without a bug report. This little secret thing involving DT is still coming along. Slaix and OkageSK have been my bitches... err, my unofficial testers for it. Maybe in a week, I'll show what it is. :) As I said before though, it will be completed before it gets a public release.
I know!! Here's a screenshot from it! :D

Achievements

2010-12-23T15:48:00.005-06:00

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.

Surprises

2010-12-10T10:03:00.008-06:00

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.

Fun & Stuff

2010-11-20T02:08:00.001-06:00

Edit: (December 9, 2010) That crash bug I mentioned in this post... well the fix is finally released, along with another bug that was reported about the game crashing in the control setup window of the menu. A null sound was returned and crashed the game. This update fixes those 2 bugs along with a slight efficiency boost in one of the submenus. (Found that while fixing the sound bug with the control setup.)

Been working on the bullet hell very very slowly. Actually got a small playable prototype out to 4 people. All positive comments, but then again, it was a tech demo of sorts and wasn't much to comment on. People said the idea looks promising though, so yay.

Well I've had a fun and interesting week. Some of the activities include a few unexpected job opportunities, seeing family again for the first time in over a month, being held at gun point, etc. You know, typical daily stuff.

The next game I am making is of the bullet hell variety. It's an idea that I had made a prototype of even before starting Distorted Travesty. When I get something that I feel is worth showing, I'll... well possibly show it. If you couldn't tell already from playing the second half of DT, I like the bullet hell sub-genre. I've just never made a full game from it. The two shooter levels in DT were very basic and easy for bullet hell and this game is nothing like those two levels. I won't give away what the gameplay mechanic is yet. A few know what it is already, but I'm not publicly giving those details out yet. As for progression, it isn't going to be like standard bullet hell, but more like Star Fox where you can change the story path as you play. It probably goes without saying, but I will not be using sprite rips. That was specifically for DT due to what the game world was.

On the mentioning of DT again, a crash bug was found by Slaix when you try to save. It occurred for him when he tried to save on the 4th map of the West Side Jungle. (The map titled "...What? I couldn't think of anything.") It doesn't bug up the save data. This bug should actually happen 100% of the time any time you save, but it seems to be incredibly selective. I fixed it, and will upload the fix for it sometime. It will only be the EXE for now, and remember it is only for the completed encrypted version. (I can make an update to the older version upon request though.)

PS. I need to remember to print an updated copy of my car insurance, it's out this month.

Read If You Update

2010-11-05T04:03:00.006-05:00

Edit: (November 10, 2010) A few people have had some trouble with the sound extension. It doesn't seem to be loading in the sound effects at times. For those of you that this happens to, you're SoL... okay not really. It seems to be a sound card issue. Your best bet is to update your sound drivers. On the note of drivers, if you get an error message the moment the game starts saying something close to "Failed to initialize surfaces", you may need to update your video drivers. These and/or a restart, I hope will help out some of you.

For what I'm doing next, this screenshot sums it up nicely.

This is it, this should be the last update ever. (Aside from bug fixes that are reported.) It has the new sound system fully in place. The sound changes cannot be turned off anymore, there's no need for it.

The game loads a bit faster now since it streams all the music files into the game, which means it doesn't take as much memory to run. It will stream them in and out of memory now. (I have yet to see any loading breaks in the game due to this.) The sound effects are not streamed however, they are loaded in the same way they were before. The memory leak mentioned earlier has now been completely fixed, yay!

The encryption on the save files is done... it is not "real" encryption. The values are just mixed up when they are saved to the ini file and converted back after the game loads them in. But it does hide everything now. (Feel free to try figuring out what I did, it's probably not that hard to crack.)

-----------------------------------------------------------

----- READ ME -----

Note: This version is NOT compatible with previous versions of the game. The save files are still read, but your data will be loaded incorrectly. It keeps your progress, but all of your stats will be screwed up and most likely lower. (Some may magically be higher.) Another note about this, since the game no longer uses mp3s, the older EXE versions will not load the new music files. So do not update your music folder, treat this as a separate game now if you make this update. If you are starting over or this is your first time playing, ignore this.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I ran through all key points in the game and made sure all the sound changes work. All that should be bug free. A few other minor bugs were found and fixed as well as one crash bug with a boss in Black Rock.

As always, have fun and thanks to those of you who have followed this project for so long and put up with my numerous bugs, delays, and other shenanegans. Oh yeah, file size only went up 8 MB.

Reminder: Slaix is doing a play-through on Hard and posting it here.

Progress Was Made

2010-10-26T19:32:00.004-05:00

Edit: (October 31, 2010) I think I may release an update soon with the new revamped sound system. Everything, including the music will be changed. I'll include an option to turn the sound changing system off if you don't want the various effects from it. This only includes the low health changes, the rest will stay on.

Anyway, this little edit is mostly about Slaix' play-through of the game on Hard mode. He's done a lot of other play-throughs of underground games and Distorted Travesty is his next game. He is actually taking a break on posting his current LP ("Let's Play" for those that don't know the term) as it is a very large game and is now posting Distorted Travesty. He will probably take a break from posting this one about half way through and continue with the other to another major point, then finish up this play-through. Anyway, the link to the playlist is here and on the sidebar now.

Edit: (October 27, 2010) The new version with the updated sound has been uploaded. Since the sound buzzing was the last of the major bugs, I've decided to call it complete. It is no longer considered beta, it is done. I will still fix reported bugs and all that jazz though, I definitely won't abandon the project. The music is still not using the new sound though. It's going to be a bit tricky to get the music to work with how I have the code set up. Gonna have to rewrite a few things, which will take some debugging time. Working with it kinda killed my inner child a bit, so I'm going to put that on hold for now.
On the changed noted below about the sound changing when your life is in critical range, that is disabled if the low health warn is turned off.
Oh yeah, save files are still not encrypted. :P

I did something on the game today. I fixed the sound buzzing bug, yay! The game is now using the supersound extension, however only the sound effects are using it. The music is still using GM's default sound system for now. Until I can find a method for converting the midi to ogg files without a huge spike in file size, it will remain this way... Unless everyone doesn't mind a 20-30 MB increase to file size because I'm estimating it to boost by that much. That really doesn't seem so bad. I'm going to play around with things and see what I can do. Once you see an edit to this post, the new version with the new sound system will be in place.

Note: There might be a few crash bugs that slipped through while I was converting the game's sound. Luckily most of the sound plays through one place in the game code.

Game Changes
The new sound system has allowed me to do something I've wanted to do since the beginning and that's change pitch of some of the sounds based on what is going on. Your attack swing will change pitch based on your hit combo, the higher it goes, the higher the frequency. When your life is in the danger zone, all the sounds will slow down. (When/if I get the music converted, it will do the same, it's quite a humorous effect, especially when you get hit.)
Some of the sound effects will sound a bit different, in my opinion everything sounds much better.
The game runs a bit more efficiently now, GM's sound functions, including the loading calls, eat up more memory than supersound's functions.
Remember the slight memory leak I mentioned before. Well it's gone now... well sorta. It's even smaller, once I have the music converted to this system too, all the memory leaks will be gone.

Away + [Insert Title Word Here]

2010-10-20T00:51:00.002-05:00

Edit: (October 23, 2010) I might give out the gmk file sometime if anyone would like to see and edit the game code. Then you all get to see my terrible code. A note on that. You can see the code with any version of GM, but if you do not have GM8 Pro, you can not edit it. You could technically with GM 7 Pro, but you would need to change a few things... a lot of things.

Another note, I'm sure some of you may have already caught on, but Distorted Travesty has a minor memory leak. It's been around since version... I don't even remember anymore, it's a memory leak that's over a year old. It's minor and I probably won't fix it, but I just wanted to make everyone aware that there is indeed one there.

Two other things that are actually unfinished. The main one is encrypting the save data and the other is a sound bug. The sound will start to buzz on probably 99% of sound cards out there after you have played DT straight for an hour or so. Restarting the game will fix it, but I don't like that. Sounds like Nintendo's way of dealing with bugs. I may in the future convert DT to use the supersound extension as it will most likely fix the sound buzzing. It will also make sound... sound better, give me a few more tools to edit sound, and lower the file size since I will have to convert the mp3 to ogg. I should not have been using GM's default sound functions as they are shitty at best. To anyone using GM for ANYTHING, do not use the default sound system, use something like bassmod.dll, supersound.dll, or FMOD.dll. Most of them have an extension package you can use so you don't need to mess around with the messiness that is dlls. A google search will reveal their locations to you. If I do convert it, I will use supersound because I am familiar with how it works and it is very reliable.

For those concerned, I haven't been ignoring you, I've just been away and working all week and been without a computer or Internet. (for the most part) I'm back now with nothing TOO much to say on the game. No changes have been made the last few weeks. Looks like the project is at an end now. I'll put in the save file encryption sometime and remember that they won't be compatible with older saves once I do that.

Hmm, now what else to say...? Oh, I doubt I'll be making another level. The Spire seems like enough. Maybe one day there will be a Directors Cut version or some pretentious thing like that. :P Also the suggestions will be considered if that day does happen to come around.

For future projects, I'll keep them posted here or if they get their own blog, I'll link to them. All my blogs are listed in my profile here. I am still working on stuff, but it is mostly generic prototypes for now.

No Changes To Water Barrier

2010-09-28T16:27:00.002-05:00

Edit: (October 11, 2010) GDC is over and was tons of fun. Not quite as good overall as other years, but had more fun than any other year with the night parties.

Edit: (October 1, 2010) Newest version (0.0.14.5) is out now. The content said below is available now. A change was made to the Distortion 2 boss. The room is a bit taller so you don't bump your head at the top. During its bullet storm, Jeremy will warn you a second before it changes direction. This will be the last update for awhile unless someone finds a major bug. Enjoy the game. :)

I will not be around next week as it will be the week of GDC, but that's next week... Sometime this week I will be releasing the not-really-final version of the game. It will have the finished up ending as well as a ranking at the end. The rank you get is determined by a few things such as death count and the rest you'll have to see. The rank only affects one thing at the end and you don't need a very high rank to "unlock" what it is. I like unlockables, but at the same time, I don't. If this were a much shorter game, I would put in more of these types of things. The ranking (and extra scene) is after the credits, so be sure to stay for them. Once the game returns you to the title screen, your save file will be flagged as having completed the game. Keep that file since, at a later date, I MIGHT release a bonus dungeon that is unlocked after the game is completed.

Other than that, the changes are quite unnoticeable.
I may post some pics from GDC.

Hmm, this post is too short and I don't seem to have much else to say right now... (This is why I should write down the things I want to say here since I tend to forget half of what was going to be said.)

Well I'm on the 5th generation of Agarest War, suddenly the difficulty spiked up. I figured I had overpowered my characters in the previous generation, but apparently the developers knew that would happen. That's okay, I just reoverpowered them, so I'll see how that works out for me. (Had my first loss on this generation aside from a really cheap death that happened early on in the game.) Oh yeah, to gauge how long this game is, one generation will take, on average, just as long or longer than it does to get through all of Distorted Travesty. (Well I did it in 12 hours.) Here's a screenshot of my stat window after playing all the way through the beta. Item % is 99, I missed 3 items.

Stuff I'm Doing Now

2010-09-19T02:53:00.008-05:00

Edit: (September 21, 2010) Slaix was kind enough to write a TVtropes page for the game. :) You can find it here and on the side bar.

Edit: (September 20, 2010) Version 0.0.14.3 (now 0.0.14.4) 'should' fix the rare loading issue for those who are using Vista or Windows 7.
It also makes a very important mechanic change. You can now execute the jump attack at any time when you are in the air, not just when you are falling. It also gives you a bit less upward momentum when used, but you can actually go a tiny bit higher than you could with the original jump attack mechanic.

Well the game is almost done now. Most of the things that need to be fixed are small things. I still need to fix up the very very end after the credits, but really that's all I "want" to do. Here is what I mean. It's gotten to the point where I hate the game now. I don't want to look at it anymore. I've heard this is both a good and bad thing. You're never truly done with a project until you can't stand working on it anymore. This doesn't mean I'm going to abandon the bit of stuff left to do on the game, but it may take some time. I'd like to do other things. Give myself a break from Distorted Travesty for awhile. (I spend a lot of free time with it.)

I'm going to play around with a game I had started making about 3 years ago. Not going to spend too much time with it, just going to play around with some concepts. In the future, I'm going to take more breaks from game design. At least with one project anyway. I feel my creativity starts to burn away if I put myself into one thing for too long. I definitely feel like some areas in DT suffered from some of this.

Overall, I'm happy with how DT turned out. It's the best project I've made, I think I've made something enjoyable and that's all I was aiming for as far as for other people. For myself, I've learn a lot from the project and I know it will show into future works of mine. My advice for anyone with a project of any size is to properly plan all the game details and mechanics out. I'm a total hypocrite with that, not "every" aspect of DT was planned from the beginning. Though feature creep will happen with almost any project, I just like to keep that stuff from happening as much as possible.

Again, the main thing left with the game is finishing up the bit after the credits. I may make the tutorial section have a bit more graphical representation for pointing things out, such as when the game explains what the element meters are for. (Or not.) One other thing is making a semi-transparent change (transparent to you anyway) to how it loads external resources. On some computers, (specifically Vista and Windows 7) the game doesn't properly load the audio resources in which causes errors and makes the game not start. Apparently I was not forcing Game Maker to look in the root DT folder. If I don't tell it to look in the working directory, Game Maker typically assumes that is the path... just not always. Luckily Game Maker provides this function for me so it's not really a problem.

Long posts are lo... anyway... I think I'm going to actually sit down and try to enjoy some games. I want to finish playing through Season 2 of Sam & Max. I was recently given a laptop that is better than my Desktop. (the one I'm typing from.) So I can use that to actually play the game without it freezing and lagging a lot.

Possibly finish playing Agarest War. Don't play that game, it's good and it sucks, my roommate Jerry convinced me to play it again. It's a strategy rpg with a fairly weak dating sim aspect. You play the story through 5 generations of characters, each one lasting about 15-20 hours, I kid you not. I just started the 4th generation and I can see that the developers were not lying about the 80+ hours of gameplay. I've been playing the game for months on and off. I've found that I hate the start of each generation, I finally get used to all the characters and the interactions between them and then at the end of that story arc, most of them have to say good-bye and then we're onto a new generation with new people I must become acquainted with. (Some characters carry over, such as the "immortals" like elves and such.) The end of the 3rd generation was the worst as that generation had the best character interactions and I didn't want them to part ways at the end. The battle system is repetitive, though rewarding and fun at times, especially when you manipulate the field the way you want. It's actually a very deep system with a lot of choice. I play it now for the story and mostly to see the interactions between the characters since that is done fairly well. (Plus I've already put 60 hours into it, might as well see it to the end.)

Well that last paragraph went on too long. My roommates and were talking today and I mentioned I might have a little thing at the end of DT that changes depending on your item %, much like how Metroid Prime went. The more you have, the more content at the end there is. Prime had 3, below 75%, above 75%, and 100%. Jerry jokingly said, parody Super Metroid exactly how it was and have the character strip down... No worries, I'm not doing that, not even for the laughs... well maybe. If someone sprites it in that style, I'll do it. No joke.

Anyway, I'm going to end this... oh wait. I'll be at GDC on October 4th - 8th. That'll be fun and informative. I've always enjoyed GDC. I'll be sure to actually get pictures this year. Now I'm done.

P.S. Does anyone want me to change the skin of this back to the orange one, or at least something else? Just wondering if this white on black is bugging anyone.

Fixed Up Beta

2010-09-15T18:20:00.002-05:00

My brother's wife had her kid this last Sunday and it's a boy. I heard back from him yesterday and they are out of the hospital, which means both her and the baby are doing well. So it was an exciting weekend.

I've released an update to the beta with all the stuff I've fixed up. Some of the changes include:
-No longer having to press [L] to reach your equipment in the inventory submenu.
-No lag in The Hideout, fixed up the code for the conveyor belts there. The conveyor belts also keep objects moving at a consistent speed now. Note: Some conveyors may move you a bit slower or faster than previous versions.
-1 more skill capsule.
-Lots of fixed up typos.
-A few more binary indexes that give irrelevant info.
-Rave mode music now stops when moving to another map. (It didn't do this for all maps.)
-A few level changes.

Game Manual
-The pdf manual is also included with the game download now.
For a bit of time, I've placed the pdf in its own download here and here if you don't want to download this update but want the manual.

The Beta is Done

2010-09-06T02:08:00.011-05:00

Edit: (September 14, 2010) Last edit to this before I just make a new post. I may release an updated version due to all the little things that have been fixed up. As you can see, there's a lot. Some of them are as simple as a typo, others are things like the inventory menu fixed up and even another skill capsule added in. Slaix (and my beta run) confirmed that I was 1 capsule too short for all the skills to be learned. A look at my skill list and total capsules in the game would have also fixed that. The new capsule was added in the second portion of Distortion 3. It's practically given to you... or I could move it and place in another hidden map somewhere. :P

Edit: (September 8, 2010) The side info now shows how close I am to fixing all the major bugs I have.

Edit: (September 7, 2010) The complete version save files will NOT be compatible with the beta or anything before it. The "encryption" on the save file will cause it to not be read properly. (It will read, but it will make some nasty mistakes and cause your saved game to do some odd things.) Anyway, with the beta, I accidentally left one of my test modes on, if you find out how to access it, well... there's nothing I can do to stop you from using it. Though I don't recommend saving after using it. (Depending on what you change with the debug settings.)

Edit: (September 6, 2010) It's uploaded, have fun!

Note: If you don't see it actually updated here, then it isn't uploaded yet. The beta is done, but when I have it actually packed up and uploaded, you'll see an edit above this and the side updated. Anyway...

I actually got it all ready by the date I previously said. There are still some things to do on the game, but for all intensive purposes, the game is "done". It is fully playable and ready for you guys to bug test and enjoy. During this time, I will be addressing a lot of issues like control schemes, typos, and some other random stuff, sound... I might make a boss rush mode (mega man style) or at least make the bosses replayable in their rooms. The submenu for inventory will be changed to where you don't have to press [L] to get to your equipment. There are currently 14 major bugs/issues that need to be fixed, when they are, I will consider the game "complete". This process may be a little slow as I won't be giving this as much time as I used to, so I will not be setting a release date for the full complete version, but I'll say here that I'd like the end of September.

Anyway, if it isn't already here, keep a look out today. It's done and will be uploaded today.

Oh Sincerity, How Convenient

2010-08-26T14:41:00.005-05:00

Edit: (September 5, 2010) I should be releasing the game tomorrow. (Monday) I will still have some stuff to do and finish up, but everything will be playable and that's what I'm going for right now.

Edit: (September 1, 2010) All the gameplay related things are done, which means a beta release will be coming up very very soon. Just need to fix up some stuff with the ending, (which isn't all that elaborate) test something with the final boss yet again, and we're all set.

Well I quit my job yesterday. The reasoning behind it I find quite humorous as it is very similar to certain themes presented toward the end of Distorted Travesty. If you're curious, (and this may be a subtle spoiler for the game) I quit due to moral differences between myself and the way the company is run. They deal in very shady business practices that I simply cannot associate myself with. Everyday would leave a bad taste in my mouth as I would be supporting and representing their unscrupulous methods. As far as who I was working for, I am under a restraint for a few days due to a term in their employment agreement, so I will not disclose who they are at this time. I doubt it pertains to things like saying why I left their company, but I will still wait till that clause has ended.
(No worries on what I will do for work, I have that taken care of.)

Game Stuff
As for the game, it is still coming along. The delay I stated before is still in place, it will/should be early September. I don't foresee any issues coming up on the development side of things so it's a straight shot from here. No changes to state this time, it hasn't had much work on it between last Thursday and today. I've been busy, mostly with life, partially the issue stated above, and etc. Also the 22nd was my birthday, yay!

Slight Delay in Beta Release

2010-08-17T06:57:00.007-05:00

Edit: (August 25, 2010) Alright, it will definitely be delayed until early September. It's still getting closer and closer to being completed though. :)

Oh delays, we're all used to them by now. Seems like most big games out there get hit with this. My reason/excuse is I'm going to be busy this week. From the time of this post till about Sunday. So there will be a week delay, possibly released the first week of September. (Though I doubt it since I'm ahead of where I thought I'd be.)

When you guys see the end, you will understand why this is taking so long. It will be worth it, I like to save the best for last. And yes, this is the end of the update today. Nothing to really announce at this time and no changes to list.

Game Changes
Wait wait wait... there is one... guess what changed again...

- Yep, Water Barrier changed again. Its casting time has been significantly reduced and its casting costs have been reduced slightly as well. Final change to this ability.
Okay two more changes...
- Flood has been changed too and its description fixed. It says it costs 280 Energy, but it actually costs 250 Energy. Its power has been boosted significantly, making it the most hard hitting ability next to Kudeku.
- Piercing Stream's power has been reduced very slightly.
You know... nevermind...
Almost all of the abilities have been redone on the casting time/power side of things.

Almost Done

2010-08-06T19:39:00.006-05:00

Edit: (August 13, 2010) It's Friday the 13th, which means... well nothing. A few have been asking when the update is. More of you are anticipating the last update than I thought. Same answer as before, some time near the end of the month. Probably between the 22nd and the 30th. There were quite a few subtle changes with the casting times. A lot of them have been slightly reduced. Other than that, no major changes have been made. It's almost finished though, another week or two!

Edit: (August 8, 2010) A small update is now available. (13.3) The file size bumped up a bit, but that's as big as it will get, maybe another 2mb will be added, but for the most part, all the content is in the game. The final level is still locked till I finish the end scenario though. One other change this has is there are now characters that give a small hint to where the hidden maps are. They are always in the maps where the hidden one branches from. The item count in the inventory menu is the final item count, so until I open up the final level, you won't be able to get 100%.

Alright, the Data Segment is done as well as the boss, yay! I still have a few more little things I need to fix up. I'd like to get most of these things done before I release it. The end sequence still needs to be scripted, which is coming along nicely.

All the collectibles are in the game, so yay again!
The bug where the boss health bar grows and shrinks when you damage the boss has been fixed. (All I had to do was move a line of code down 3 lines, no joke.)
Slaix has done a run through the Data Segment and has given some nice suggestions/critiques, so everyone else gets a more balanced version of that for the beta release. The final boss is as balanced and bug free as I think it's going to get. I've done NUMEROUS tests on it. (No, Slaix didn't get to see that, he has to wait for the beta too.) :P

Even though it's so close to being finished, still be expecting toward the end of August.

Oh yeah, I'll be nice and give a single screenshot, but I won't explain it. Enjoy! :P

Stuff Coming Along

2010-07-23T03:14:00.007-05:00

Edit (August 2, 2010) Updated the game, the stuff listed below are in the game and bugs fixed.

Edit (July 27, 2010) Fixed a bug where the "Dash Power" skill was not being saved.

Edit: (July 26, 2010) The max amount of Awesome Points you can accumulate is 100000, which means you can only get a double exp bonus from it. Other exp boosters stack with the Awesome Point bonus, so it is possible to get it to go a bit higher than double.

It's been almost 2 weeks since I've posted anything here so I just wanted to say that I am alive and well and that the game is still on schedule, if not ahead of schedule.

Game Changes
-The skill "Strategist" level 1 and 2 have been added to the available skills. It increases the cripple time by 2.5 seconds each level. The base time is 10 seconds, so that's a 50% boost. The skills cost 1 and 2 points to activate.
-Your Spirit and Element recovery speed is boosted a bit in the Data Center.
-A few more hidden maps have been added, mainly in the Mario levels. One of which can be found during your first run through the area. The other, unless you can seriously trick the physics of the game, you will have to come back to get to. Well that's of the Mario hidden maps that were added anyway.
-The amount of Internetz given by some of the chests has been increased. Not by too much, but if you have opened those, you missed out for your current save file.

Game Notes
The save files for the final version will be compatible with the ones out now. However a few changes will be made to it. It won't interrupt or change your data in any way. There may be another entry in the save file that will store preferences for things like starting the game in full screen as well as some other utility functions. I may also include an ini file that stores the key controls so that you can also change the controls out of game if you'd like. Technically you can now, but it's somewhere in the save data mess and isn't marked for people to read. There might be a few control presets built into the game.

Game Progress
The final area is roughly half way done. The very end (not the ending/credits) is what will take up most of my time to get perfect. Gotta save the best for last right? Going to make one last reference to my previous game. If you are one of the very few who have seen the end dungeon of it, then you know how I like to have final levels and battles. For everyone else, that statement means nothing.

As far as pick ups go, most of them are in the game world. At the moment of this posting, every Heart Piece is in the game, 9 Skill Capsules and 1 Spirit Aura (the boost in Spirit/Elemental energy) are left to place into the game world. The final dungeon has a few of these, mostly Skill Capsules, and unless I make changes, will have approximately 13. There will be 131 total of those. O_O

Convention

2010-07-10T01:14:00.002-05:00

Was invited by a friend to go to an anime convention in San Antonio tomorrow. (Depending on your time, today.) This is honestly my first one, so we'll see how it goes. If you know me, you know I'm not all that into anime. I like a few, but I never go searching for new anime and people typically need to talk me into watching them. It's not that hard really...
You: "Hey Joe, wanna watch this?"
Me: "Sure, why not."
Should be fun though. No costume, especially on such short notice. I'd rather not cosplay anyway, not my thing. If I ever go to another one of these, then maybe. I have cat ears, that's about all I've got on me right now that's even close to anything considered a costume. Maybe I'll wear those...

Game Stuff
As you know, I've started work on the final area. It's a fairly large and linear area. I'll be including warp points, much like the way Black Rock had the doors to let you exit the dungeon, come back and keep going from where you left off. The focus of it will shift throughout the area. You're going to experience both heavy combat and platforming areas as well as a nice mix.

For the platforming and traps, I've only shown a part of that aspect to a small group of people. I won't go into that and for what they've seen, that's all they're going to see. (You keep that bet going Slaix :P, though you may get to see the AI in action once, but it will only be a very short clip.)

The combat may actually be harder than the traps this time. I'll explain a tiny bit. It is a squad based group of enemies that all support each other. They react to what you and their allies are doing as well as where everyone is. Fighting them head on does not work, I've made sure it doesn't. They support each other far better than the Shrouds could ever hope to. Speaking of them, they'll still be around, but not often, the Veiled Detritus is really where they shine. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Other Game Stuff
There's still more hidden maps that have not been put into the game. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to release them with the final area completed, or give some out before that. Anyway, look for the full, well beta version of the game in late August or early September. That's just my estimation.

Continue your summer fun.

The Spire is Built

2010-07-04T19:13:00.002-05:00

Edit: (July 7, 2010) Slight change with the Easy setting. Enemies and traps had 30% less power than they did on Normal, this has been adjusted to 25%.

Here it is, the spire is complete and ready to be... experienced. I know I was telling some of you I would have it done sooner, but life and all that. Hey, if I was working at Emagination this year, there would be no updates for 2 months. Though not being there is making me very sad. :(

I went ahead and bumped up the release number. This will be the last release before the beta, so it's going to take awhile before you guys see the final area of the game. As always, you may see a few small updates between now and then. Look for it toward the end of August.

Game Changes
- No, Water Barrier was not adjusted this time.
- There is now a little progress percentage that shows up when you save.
- You can now use the [Q] key to cycle backward through your abilities. Yeah, it should have been functional when I put the [E] key to use. You still cannot map them to other keys yet, I'll get that going soon.
- There is a short explanation just before the Vegetable Garden boss fight about how cripple points work when more than one entry is displayed. (Though you all know how that works already.)
- You get an exp award after all the floor sets in the Spire. You can continually get this award by completing that set again, though after the first time, it will only award you 10% of the original award. No worries for those of you who already completed the first 2 or 3, the award is very minor for those.

Some Stuff That Will Happen Before Beta
A few more hidden maps will definitely show up as well as some game characters that will give you hints in to their locations around where they are. These characters will only show up after completing Black Rock Fortress. I'll be giving chests that contain money a different sprite so you can differentiate between the 2 types.

On the subject of money chests, there will be a few more of those scattered throughout the game. This will help get rid of 90% of your money grinding, if some of you do that. By the way, Metropolis is a great money grinding area, especially if you come back after getting a few power upgrades.

There will be a level cap. Oh noes!! The level cap is going to be 64. Your level at the end of the game will most likely be around 50, assuming you kill roughly 80% of the enemies you come across and don't grind.

Alright, have fun. :)

The End is Near

2010-06-26T21:34:00.004-05:00

Edit: (June 30, 2010) The tower is almost complete, possibly by tomorrow. When it's finished, I'll upload the new version for you guys. It's being thoroughly tested, so there shouldn't be any bugs.
I'll go ahead and tell you now that floor 26 and up are going to be a nightmare. The last few sets don't mess around and some scenarios in them will be harder than the final area. On that thought, development will start on it shortly. :)

Edit: (June 27, 2010) After completing floor 15 of the tower, trying to go to floor 16 from the reward room will give an error. You can click ignore though and it will still record that you completed that set.

Released an updated version. This is quite a large one sorta. Fixes up a few things with the newest area. Probably stuff that no one saw hopefully. There are 5 more floors available in the tower. On the subject of the tower, the next update will have it completed. There's a new extra area which branches off the Veiled Detritus, should bring lots of new deaths. There are also a few new hidden maps, some of which are fairly easy to find, some are there to taunt early players. Check your map to see which ones have new areas to find.

The Mario [?] blocks are fixed and work better than they did when they initially worked. There are breakable blocks there now too, excuse the lack of sound when they are hit for now.

Oh, one more thing. If you completed the latest demo, check to message in the Data Center for what you have to do next, it now accurately shows what to do. The end cutscene dialogue changed very slightly to reflect on what it says to do next. (It basically says to go to your Sky Base.)

I think that's it for this announcement. I'll update this when the tower is done... unless one of you find a nasty crash bug, then you get more floors if anymore are playable when it's fixed and reuploaded.

New Demo Out Today O_O

2010-06-18T22:50:00.001-05:00

Okay, this is way faster, I was gonna set the release date to July 4th, but here it is. The file size has unfortunately gone up by 6 MB, though that's not THAT big a deal. The final version shouldn't go beyond 54 MB when compressed.

Release Info
The next release date says August, however there will be minor updates, like extra levels, the tower being completed, hidden maps in previous areas. I'll be putting signs and npcs around to give you clues to these hidden maps as well.

Remember last update when I said there would be one more small update before the final one? Well there will be. Version 13 will be a VERY small update though and that brief story area may just be included in 12 sometime.

Some Broken Stuff
The Mario [?] blocks are not working properly. I'll have that fixed up soon.
That's the only broken thing that I saw.

In Conclusion
Just felt like having a section like this. Makes this sub-par update seem better. Have fun with this update. I warn you, it's hard. Harder than Black Rock, way harder, just shorter... good luck.

What Is Happening Next

2010-06-13T21:59:00.005-05:00

I just had one of those Sonic Blast things which has nothing to do with this post so ignore that.

The project is almost over, so here is how things are going to go now. After this update with the forest, you will have one more update with a new area. There are only two more updates I will be releasing. After that I will be creating all the content for the final chapter of the game, once all that is done, I'll release it all for testing. The game will be in beta then, so yay! This should happen at the end of August or sometime in September hopefully. The beta phase should take about 2 months with things going back and forth with the bug finding and fixing. Plus all that stuff that wasn't put into the game earlier.

Removed Content
There's something you don't want to see. Here's what will be removed. The Conjure ability has been taken out. It was just a test to see how everyone reacted to them and how well they worked with the game. All in all, they're no good for the game. The event with Blazing will flow the same and he will still join with you, however, he will show up on his own. There is a constraint to him appearing. He will only show up when the Shrouds find you. He'll do different things to them, none of which will take from your energy. The other summons will not appear at all. I had only released two of them, so you'll only miss the water summon, Muuguru. The spot where you get Muuguru will be replaced with... nothing. Look in your skill window in Version 12 to see.

I was tempted to remove the bullet hell section, but it will remain in the game. Mostly as a minigame type of thing, though that one spot will still be mandatory. I have actually only heard good things about it despite not a lot went into it. It's very basic as far as bullet hells go. I attribute it to that section breaking up the gameplay.

Stuff
That's all I wanted to announce today. This upcoming update (version 12) will be the last big update. (Version 13 will be fairly small.) Version 14 will be quite a large update and will also be the beta version. It will probably be a long process, but it'll get done. Yay to the game being completely done before 2011.

Thank you everyone that has followed the project this far and provided me with bug reports of all different kinds. The project wouldn't be what it is without all of you. <3

What's Next?
What do you mean what's next? I just said... oh, what's after Distorted Travesty? I'll be making Distorted Travesty 2: The Sequel to the Prequel. Actually not really. This will be the only game; no series for this. What am I really doing? I know, but I'm not telling. Maybe getting a life... no, that won't happen... That's a scary thought.

Broken Gameplay

2010-06-08T02:04:00.007-05:00

Edit: (06/09/2010) How about a video showing those spinning death spikes. Also it gets much worse than this. Imagine what things would be like when you get your dash back.
Video

Not really sure what the title means... or do I?
I've come upon an odd revelation, I think I secretly hate games and it's so secret that not even I know about it. Wait, that's not true. It is, but it isn't. I find myself playing Independent games much more often than anything. So enough of that.

Broken Trap
I call this update broken gameplay because I am announcing a new late game trap that somewhat breaks the game. This trap will still damage you even if you are dashing.

You: Wait WHAT, bull!?

Yes, you heard/read correctly. The jump attack (and Grand Slam) will still go through it though. How about a screenshot...

Those spikey circles that you see will be a hated sight. If you already couldn't tell from the screenshot, they spin and have an open spot for you to get through. The screenshot shows that you have no dash points as well. The first time you are introduced to these, your dash will be disabled to encourage you to get used to not dashing through them. These easily break what I have been teaching you throughout the game and because of this, are the only thing that will break through your dash. There's enough for you to have to remember without having to remember some crazy amount of things that you can and can't dash through, so know that these will be the only game breaking object that you will encounter.

The Next Area
The forest and anything attached to that area will be full of obstacles. These are no combat heavy areas and there are few enemy encounters, especially after the forest. No worries though the Assault Unit, which is worse than the Shrouds, is coming up soon. They'll provide plenty of combat for you. :P

The end of the game is coming up soon so all of the more organized enemy types will be showing up.

Concealed

2010-05-30T21:42:00.003-05:00

My dislike for Square's games continues to grow. Even when I try to go into fanboy mode, I get disappointed. Between bad design choices that lead to frustrating gameplay, (Extremely high encounter ratings... which also means random encounters, I thought this method was out of style these days) and terrible writing that sounds like a bad fanfic... I think I'm done with Square's games. (More at the bottom.)

The Next Area

The next area is called Shady Woods. It will be fairly short, no wait, it will be really short. There is a secondary area along with it though. The idea behind this area is concealed traps. The foreground (trees) scroll at a different pace than you. (You know the illusion by now with 2D games) You must be very observant for this area or you're going to fall into it's many traps. Although it's short and condensed, it will be harder than Black Rock. The hindered visibility plays into this mostly. So yes, the game is going back to it's roots of pissing you off.

The shot doesn't show it, there's a lot of tall grass in some areas for enemies to partially hide themselves.

The second area of the update will also play into hiding things, but not to the extent the forest goes to. It will change throughout the area. Instead of spoiling it, I'll let you all find out for yourselves.

Game Progress
The game is actually getting close to the end. Story spoilers, (actually not really, Jeremy tells you right at the beginning of this) a Muffin is obtained from this area, which only leaves one more that is being guarded. Story wise, most of the characters will be explained in the next area as well as their motives. (If you are even following it .) :P

Once all the content is in the game, lots of stuff will be fixed up like the sounds and dialogue; So no worries, things aren't being skipped over, just put off for now.

RPGs, Specifically Square
I think I mentioned FF13 in a previous post, but here we go anyway. First the good: The characters were great. They were written very well, stayed in character (aside from a few parts that made me go o_O) and were overall, enjoyable. Snow may have been annoying, but that doesn't mean he wasn't written well. While I hate characters with misguided revenge issues, Hope like the others, was done well. As usual with Square, the visuals were awesome, especially Pulse. The artists put a lot of time and effort into crafting them perfectly, I periodically stopped to look around to see what they had built.
And now the bad: The battle system. At first I didn't really like it, then around chapter 4 and 5, I saw some potential for it and I at that point, I was enjoying it. This is around the time you Synergists and Saboteurs. I won't explain combat since you can read up about it anywhere else and you have most likely played it. I say I liked it, yet I place this under the bad. Here we go. Around Chapter 10, it was suddenly becoming annoying. Every battle became the same thing. Buff/debuff first, stagger, kill. Skip a step periodically, but it always played out the same. Battle started taking too long due to the buff/debuff aspect. Sure you don't have to do that, but then it just takes even longer to finish a fight. I'll come back to combat in a second.
*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***
The story was something else I enjoyed. I was a well crafted drama with really good pacing... and then Chapter 10 happened. The villain was about as typical as they come with plenty of illogical moments of sudden "hahahas" thrown in. Now I didn't go to the school of how to be a generic villain , but I'm beginning to think there's a class called "Moments when you shouldn't laugh, laugh anyway". Why, WHY must they always laugh at everything? I knew the story was about to go downhill when the villain gave his wondrous exposition on how evil he was at the end of Chapter 9. What's worse was the characters that I had enjoyed for the first 9 chapters were suddenly filled with one liners all through chapter 11. Which lets talk about that particular chapter for a second. Why was it there? Gameplay wise, that's where the game opened up, but nothing gets accomplished in the story in this chapter. Mediocrity and one liners apparently go hand in hand when delivering stories in gameplay driven areas. Before I go to the next part, apparently only main characters get any development. By main characters, I mean only those 6 in the party. If you weren't in that party, you weren't important.

Interactivity was a big concern with this game err movie. If you've played FF13, you know the immense amount of cut-scenes there are. When not in a cut-scene, you are running down a hallway, periodically engaging in combat. This repeats for the entire game. (Except Chapter 11) I never really felt like I was interacting with FF13, nor was in interacting with me. I felt like a spectator the entire game. What choice did I have on these pathways? None to be honest. I didn't really feel like I was interacting in combat either. You choose your role and the game plays for you. There are 2 main options you have in combat. Auto and Manual. Something that was done right, once you have either fought an enemy for a moment or used Libra, the characters would know how to fight the enemy better. This was also a slight problem as well as there was almost never a reason to not choose Auto. (Double negative, RAWR!) So there we go, I'm no longer interacting with the game past that.

FF13 can be summed up as a movie that you constantly have to press the play button to keep running. In this case, the A button and sometimes holding the left stick in the up position.

Another game I recently played by Square was FF4:The After Years. I played this out of curiosity and wanting a nostalgic feeling. The original FF4 was the first major rpg I had played through, so it holds that special place... you know what I'm talking about. I loved the original's dramatic and interesting characters. I was hoping to see more of that in the sequel. I decided to try being a fanboy for awhile. Bleh, I'm not going into it much. It started out decent, then goes into the realm of bad fanfic. In conclusion, Square could use better writers.

No Longer Hidden

2010-05-22T19:50:00.006-05:00

Edit: (May 24, 2010)
Another edit: 0.0.11.3 fixes yet another crash bug. I recommend getting this if you plan on item hunting. Sorry about that, and sorry Slaix for that bug. :/
Okay, that's enough crash bugs. Find something that isn't game destroying this time. XD

Version 0.0.11.2 fixes the crash bug when getting hit by projectiles while equipped with the Revenge Bead as well as fixes the crash bug with Zephyr. (Yes, it crashed the game... AGAIN!) The objective display within the Data Center is also updated. (It wasn't accurate for the end of Veiled Detritus.)

The newest version has been released today. (Being uploaded as I type this.) You can now enjoy the Veiled Detritus! As always, there are a few sound effects missing. Sound is one of those things that will be fixed up at the end. There is also 1 music track that is not in place and 1 that may be changed. Bleh, anyway. It is all playable and ready for you all to test. :)

It was a week early too, and now... I'm taking a break. Enjoy the game and of course, any bugs that you inevitably find, report them so I can dispose of them properly. :)

Game Changes
- For the bullet hell sections, err, section. (for now) There are 2 changes.
- The scoring system has been slightly changed, for the most part, you will end up with the same amount of points in the end. You get extra points during bosses (after each phase) depending on how many lives and bombs you have remaining.
- There is now a little homing shot that will track the closest enemy. It is much weaker than your normal shots.
- Jerry's hitbox has been slightly changed... again. It is roughly a pixel smaller on each side. His foot hanging down during his normal jump animation is no longer part of his hitbox. (You're still going to die just as much.)

Explanation of the Bullet Hell Scoring
If you've wondered how this works, then read this.
- Each time you hit an enemy, your points increase by a slight amount.
- Destroying an enemy ship gives a greater amount of points depending on the enemy destroyed.
- The stars (will probably be changed in the future) dropped by enemies give 1000 points each. You get an additional 20 for every graze point you have. - 1000+(graze*20)
- When a boss phase has ended, any bullets still on screen will be converted to a point item. These are worth 100 points each in addition to 3.5 additional for every graze. (rounded up) If you graze a lot during the levels, bosses are worth a substantial amount.
- Damage dealt by bombs will not award points.
- Enemies that are damage by a bomb will be worth half their normal point value and will only drop half the point items they normally would have. (If an enemy only drops 1, they will still drop it.) This also includes bosses, however it only counts for the phase the bomb is used on.

Work and Pacing

2010-04-25T23:39:00.006-05:00

Edit: (May 16, 2010) I should have the area ready in a few days. Still ahead of schedule! Nothing else to say at this time.

Edit: (May 14, 2010) Frustrating job is frustrating this month. Anyway, GOOD NEWS!! The next part of the game will definitely be released by the date I originally set, most likely a few days (maybe even a week) beforehand. There is not much left to finish up and most of the debugging and fine tuning has been completed.

A new control feature has been implemented as well. You will now be able to cycle through your abilities without having to go into your menu. You cycle through your abilities much like you do your elements, in this case, it will cycle through the spell list of the active element. If fire is active, it goes Fireball -> Flame Fillar -> Blast Off, etc. If none of them are selected, you will cycle through your physical skills. They are currently mapped to "Q" and "E", back and forward respectively. I will probably add them to the key configure list, especially for those people that either moved the default WASD set up or are using the arrow keys.

Question: Would you prefer the setup I explained up there, with a forward/back cycle button, or would you like one button to cycle forward through the current active element and the other to cycle through your physical techs, regardless of the active element?

Edit: (May 02, 2010) The main part of this area is almost done and the map system and all it's components are completely done. There are only a few incomplete maps, but story sequences and a few scripted things will need to be put in place afterwards. The boss battle may take some time to make. Planning and all that is finished for it at least.

Here are 2 screenshots showing those Element Doors I mentioned. The graphics may or may not be final. Leaving them in links.

http://gyazo.com/114ad92396dd2d2c115fa562830f6bae.png

http://gyazo.com/1708aff0ef1c376ec9e305d007e21820.png

Work is going to pick up this week, but a lot of progress has been made and the pacing is going well. I may actually have this area ready by the target release date.

Progress
Developing this area has been very enjoyable, the play testing isn't as bad as I thought it would be either. Though this area isn't all that hard. (Which makes it easier to test.) I can easily say that this area will give you a break. You may have to stop for a moment to think on some of the puzzles, the further you go in, the more elaborate they become. Most of them only require observation and some timing.

New Item
You can get an item here that will help you locate items. It will make a chime when you enter a map that you do not have all the items in. This can be turned off from the options menu, which will be added when you get the item and will be on by default. It will only alert you to optional items, story related items and keys are not included.

Here's a screenshot showing one of the new abilities you will get here. Yes, finally an effective water spell!

A new type of door/barrier will be showing up soon and unless I change one of the puzzles, they won't appear until after Veiled Detritus.
It's a door that is only open when a certain element is active. Simple concept, but very effective for puzzles.

I'm going to release a small update soon, you'll have 10 floors to try in the Spire and Zephyr will be fixed again. (I broke it, don't use it in version 10.2 or 10.3, it will crash the game.)

Hidden & Veiled

2010-04-10T05:57:00.007-05:00

Edit: (Apr. 20, 2010) Quick announcement. I'm back, yay! I come back to a report that the game crashes within the first few rooms if played on anything other than Normal. This was due to the thing I said below about cleaning up unused variables. Forgot about a small thing with the difficulty adjustment script, it's all been fixed now.

Edit: (Apr. 15, 2010) Going to be out of town for roughly a week. I'll release a little patch later today which has the bugs fixed that were reported to me as well as the bullet hell section fixed up. (Still no music of it's own.) :P
I recently cleaned up some of the code, mainly things like enemy projectiles and traps. Since they are an object inheriting from the same source as enemies and such, they had parameters like life and defense, an unused cripple point value among other things unique to the enemy types. This has been fixed up, about 39 or so variables were removed from those types of objects. When you think about the amount of things like spikes that were in some rooms like in Black Rock, that's a lot of memory freed up.
39(vars cleared) * 200(spikes) = 7800 less variables used in memory, which is somewhere around 39KB of memory freed up.

Edit: (Apr. 14, 2010) Alright, got the first few maps done and all the systems in place and fully working, so things should go fairly smooth now. As said before, the difficulty is a bit lower overall in this area, the enemies are a bit tricky in that it is very important that you hit an enemy's weakness here. Some enemies, if you're playing on Hard or Distorted, you will hit for 0 damage unless you cripple them. Most of them also have an element that they are completely immune to. This is going to become fairly common. You don't have to deal with elemental shifting opponents yet though, that will be a common sight in the next area. As for boss fights in the Veiled Detritus, there will of course be the 1 big one, and there will also be a few mini-bosses scattered about. You guys will definitely love the way the game checkpoints you in this area. It is areas like this that it was set up like this in the first place... aside from the game killing you in nearly every map. (I'm sure Distortion 3 did that.) <3
Anyway, automatic updates insists on my computer restarting, so I better do that before it has a fit. Another note, I'll most likely be working more. Real life jobs demanding more time, bleh, but w/e $$. :P It shouldn't have TOO much an effect on this, but it will slow things down.

Edit: (Apr. 12, 2010) Earlier when I mentioned that the new area would be large, I didn't realize how large. Looking at it all laid out now, it spans well over 20 maps that all intertwine and weave about to create this labyrinth. It is bigger than all of Metropolis collectively. Like that area, there are numerous story events and new abilities. (And will expand on your Conjure ability.) What I'm saying is this will take some time to complete. I've gone ahead and set a desired release date and we'll see what happens depending on how life goes and how many issues come up during development. That mini-update still needs to be released...

Redundant titles are... yep. I'll be releasing a little update soon with all the problems fixed that were sent to me. There were roughly the amount of problems that I figured there would be. You guys found some really good ones that got by me this time, so thanks for that.

Game Changes
- Changed Water Barrier yet AGAIN. This time I changed the amount of HP it has. Before it had 1/3 of your max HP, now it has 1/2. It's lifetime has not been changed.
- The enemy "Black Mantle" that first appears in Windy Caves has a slight change. Their bullets no longer go behind the level tiles. I bet that was annoying. >_<

Bullet Hell Section Change
- Probably won't have the music or sounds in place yet. However you will be able to get a Skill Capsule from it if you get enough points. The required points will be displayed next to the area in the selection menu. A star will be displayed if you have earned the item there.
- Note that the required points is slightly different per difficulty. You need 10% less points for Easy, 10% more for Hard, and 20% more for Distorted. These are also the score modifiers for each difficulty, but it is still technically easier to get the required score even on higher difficulties due to the way the scoring system works. Just a heads up, the required score for Windy Mountains is 1,500,000. It's not as hard as it looks. Unfortunately due to when/how it awards these, even if you have the required points, you will have to retry with the next update. (This is also so you guys don't cheat the scoring system for it since you currently can.)
- Bosses during these sections will have timers for each of their patterns, this will be put in place due to how the scoring works.

Upcoming Level
The next area, currently called the Veiled Detritus, may take some time to complete. No new systems need to be put in place and all the pre-production work is done, but it is quite large, bigger than Black Rock Fortress, and a lot happens there. You may remember a few months when I mentioned that you would be given a Zelda like map for The Hideout. As you saw, I did away with that. What had happened is I simplified The Hideout and decided to push that idea back. This is when that will be taking place. (For real this time.) It is tamer than Black Rock and Windy Slopes as far as enemy and trap difficulty go. There is a slight emphasis on puzzle solving for this area. That isn't to say it won't have it's fair share of rough spots, this is Distorted Travesty after all, but they will be more spread out.

On a random side note, Hard mode makes Windy Slopes 10 times harder. x_X

You Know What Time It Is!

2010-04-05T18:47:00.007-05:00

Edit: (Apr. 7, 2010) In the next update, you will be able to reset your skill trees. There is a new character added in towns that will reset them for 25 Internetz. Took a bit to make that work, they were never coded to be reset. I know some of you will like this.

I've been trying to think of ways to make a screen blur effect that wouldn't drop the frame rate and finally did. It's pretty nasty on the eyes, and I would be very conservative with effects like these. Here's 2 screenshots of it, though it looks a lot better in motion.

Keeping them in links.

Blur Effect 1
Blur Effect 2

Yay, it is finally here! So many deaths await you.

A few things to note:
For the bullet hell section: (yes there is one, and it shouldn't be too bad even if you don't play those types of games) It currently uses the music from Windy Slopes, this will change, as will the sound effects for that area. (Or rather the lack of sound there.) It is still being worked on, but fully playable. There will be numerous changes occurring very soon with that. I don't like releasing something so incomplete, but it is a minor part of the Windy Slopes level. Rather than delay any longer, I want everyone to be able to play in the new area. There will be more of these bullet hell levels, but not too many, probably 3 in total throughout the game.

As far as how it plays... the same as any generic bullet hell, they all play almost the same, so if you've played one, you will understand this one easy.

Anyway, I really hope I got it as bug-free as possible, but that's where you all come in. Have fun and try not to die TOO much.

Where Have I Been?

2010-03-25T21:44:00.011-05:00

Edit: (Apr. 5, 2010) The next demo will be released today, there will be a new post when I do.

Edit: (Apr. 2, 2010) It's not fake, I swear!

Edit: (Mar. 30, 2010) The collision point for the character has been refined again. It is smaller for a few frames. And fixed up the running while shooting frame (the collision point) for Metropolis. (It was kinda off.) The new area will be done soon. Yay!
Likewise, the collision point for enemy projectiles originally was the entire sprite. All of them have been shrunk down a pixel or 2 within the sprite. The game plays a lot better this way, before this, it looked like you would be getting hit when you really weren't. That wasn't the case, but regardless, you can now graze by projectiles. Enemy collision points are the entire sprite still, this is partially due to that being their hitbox for your attacks too.

Hey look, a post! I know I said the next update would be tomorrow, but that goal is impossible right now. Gonna have to delay it a bit. Real life is calming down again and I have more time for this now, so it will be soon. Also I've been playing games more. FF13 has taken up a good chunk of time. (Even though I said I wasn't going to play through it.) Having fun with it though and getting kinda close to the end... I think. o_O Done over half the hunts. There's so many of them.

Game Changes
- The sound effects for hitting an enemy in Metropolis aren't so loud now. (An issue that came up from the sound volume control.)

There's not too much to say right now. Not wanting to spoil anything. Overall though, I don't think the Windy Slopes are quite as hard as Black Rock. There are a few rough points though, multiple boss fights as well. Everyone will enjoy the second boss fight there, which I definitely can't spoil that.

Wolves and Apples

2010-03-11T12:00:00.012-06:00

Edit: (Mar. 16, 2010) Noticed that the first time you save after starting a new game, you will get a crash error. It still saves and won't crash anymore afterward, but still very bad. This has been fixed. 0.0.9.5 will have that fix as well as:

The Shrouds will now scout for you. The system is complete and has been fully implemented. This only takes effect after Black Rock of course. A new entry in the records sub-menu will tell you your threat level. There are different warnings:

None: They are not scouting your current area.

Minimal: Some Shrouds are around, but the likelihood of running into them is low.

Low: Same as above, but the you may run into them if you are unlucky.

Moderate: They have started scouting a bit more thoroughly.

High: The Shrouds know you are in the area, it is only a matter of time before they pinpoint your exact location. They may follow you if you run from them on this warn level.

Critical: The Shrouds are on high alert and have probably already seen you. If you run from them, there is a slightly higher chance that they will follow you.

Imminent: You would have to either be lucky or have run from the scouts a lot to see this threat level, and even luckier if they don't find you at all on this. If you run from them on this warn level, there is a very high probability that they will follow you.

As noted above, on a warn level of High or above, the Shrouds may follow you if decide to leave the map without defeating them. If they do follow you, that group will continue to pursue until you either defeat them or leave the area altogether. (Exit to world map) Running from them will almost always increase the warn level up a notch.
A few rules that Shrouds must follow however. They will never scout for you in the Data Center, towns, and areas marked as "Extra". They will also not scout in the Spire of Forgotten Souls and a few select maps. They may scout in some boss rooms, but only if the boss has been defeated. If you exit to the World Map and your warn level is Imminent, it will drop back down to Moderate. If it is High or Critical, it may drop a bit.
Added rule: Jaffe suggested a great idea, if your warn level is High or higher, you cannot use the teleport ability.
--------------------------------------------------

My roommates and I have been watching Spice & Wolf, hence the title. Now we're just waiting for the English release of Season 2. Watching that gave me a craving for apples though... so now I have some.

I usually stay away from TV Tropes, when I do go on there, I have a self-imposed 3 link rule. It keeps me from staying on there forever, same with wikipedia. But there are 2 tropes I found relevant to Distorted Travesty, I think you will all find most of this very familiar.

Platform Hell
Classic Video Game Screw Yous

Game Stuff
Windy Slopes should be available in 2 weeks. It is taking some time as real life has demanded a bit more of my attention this last month and Windy Slopes has a lot of stuff involved. Testing it has become quite a task. A new thing will show up, there are hidden maps in this area so keep a look out for that. Some of the pick ups will take some out of the box thinking.

Here's a little video showing what I call the Blazing Fire Spam.
This is part of the Windy Slopes, there's more to it than the upper field.
You get a new ability here which most of you will like, I won't reveal what it is though. There's not too much to report on the game except that it is taking awhile to finish this place up. :P

Game Changes
- You will slide farther now when you kneel after running. If you used it as a way to dodge before this, note that it is even more helpful now and gives a bigger boost of speed, just be sure to accommodate for this. 0.0.9.4 has this change already
- You can no longer swap spells while in the casting animation. Try this before the next update. Cast a spell with a noticeable casting time and change it out from the menu. It should crash the game.
- The Up Arrow key now works with everything. Map doors and npcs did not respond to it before this.

Other Games
Final Fantasy 13 was released this week. I've decided the game could have been a 2D side scroller and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Battles are fun and the system is very simplistic, however it gets very repetitive and sometimes time consuming starting every battle with buffing first. I'll give them props for keeping the pace of the game moving forward at all times. I think the Star Ocean team could take some design lessons from Square in how not to make an easily broken game. Star Ocean 3 just chain moves until enemy dies, they can't counter, it works every time. Star Ocean 4, just use Meracle once she joins as she's even more broken than Ike was in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, actually he was broken in Radiant Dawn too. Hell, he's broken in Smash Bros. but so are all the characters in that game.

I started playing Ninja Gaiden 2 (360) again. I haven't played it in about 2 years. I only played through the first level of it back then. I died in the first 5 seconds of it due to not remembering anything about the game. (Holding block does nothing for you) O_O Then blazed through the first 2 levels, it was all coming back. I stopped there, may play more later today. The camera is really REALLY bad. Multiple times I was attacking off-screen enemies, not able to see the ground, or it just refused to respond to me. Using spells puts the camera right at your back most of the time so finding a new target is pointless to try. At one point, one of those mages situated himself directly in front of the camera and followed it as I moved. So for roughly 10 seconds, I was almost literally fighting blindfolded and for some reason, I wasn't able to recenter the camera. Luckily boss fights give you the option of keeping the camera focused on the boss while trying to keep you in view too. Other than that, it flows really well, once I learned a few combos, I blew through most things. Oh, and I hate archers, take them out first. >_<

What's Going On?

2010-02-25T01:21:00.017-06:00

Edit: (Mar. 2, 2010) Version 0.0.9.4 fixes the crash bugs reported by Jaffe. They were bugs that would definitely pop up so they needed to be patched up right away.

Edit: (Feb. 28, 2010) Version 0.0.9.3 has the new beads system for you to try out and the fixed collision. There was an edit to the end of the new extra level, it is a cosmetic change that will make certain things about it easier to identify. (Not giving spoilers.)
BEADS
There are currently 11 obtainable beads. Most of these are practically given to you throughout the game and would be pretty hard to miss with the exception of the extra levels. Every extra level has one and aside from Bullet Bill Fort, they are usually the beads with the somewhat abnormal effects. This also gives the extra levels more value than just more skill points and heart pieces. Because you guys would have most, if not all of them with relative ease by this point, I have given a way for you to just have them right off the bat if you want. In the Data Center, press Enter, and type "friendship" in the pop-up box. This will give you all of the beads currently in the game. This feature is only accessible if you have completed Metropolis and only available until version 0.0.10.1. There is also a second bead slot available to purchase at any shop. If you are not starting a new game, it will cost 30, the real cost is 100, but the 30 cost is already loaded in your save file. 70% off sale for anyone with a current save file. :P For those wondering, the beads are counted toward your Item %, they are counted as "Chests" in the menu and on the map.

Edit: (Feb. 26, 2010) The sound option is no longer a toggle, but is now a slider so you can adjust the sound volume now. This is not available for music since I am using a few mp3s and Game Maker does not have access to change their volume, by default anyway. When the project is in beta, I may look into an extension for that. Note that on the next update, you will have no sound when you start up. The sound option was a toggle so the value was either 0 or 1, which means your sound volume will be at 1% when you start up. I used the same var I was working with before.

Spire of Forgotten Souls
Right on to game stuff today. If you played version 0.0.9.2 past Black Rock, you will notice another area called "Spire of Forgotten Souls". (Windy Slopes is the next story area.) This area is optional, it is not labeled "Extra" though as it follows different rules than the rest of the game. You can not use items there and when you die, you will be put back at the ground floor. However, you are given a check point every 5 floors, which you can come back to at any time. Each floor is a trial of sorts and is timed. The timer resets after every 5 floors as well. The rewards for completing this area... well I'll let you find out. It will be developed along with the rest of the game. As for the amount of floors, I'm not telling you. ^_^ Once you go in there is no turning back unless you die or complete 5 floors. Except for now as you are free to roam Floor 1.

Character Collision Change
I was fiddling around with the Game Maker 8 sprite collision tools and realized how improved they are over previous versions. Jerry's collision was done through changing a collision mask depending on what animation he was in. This new method is far more accurate and faster due to not having to constantly swap collision masks. It is now done by pixel collision, though it is still not his entire sprite, just like before. The dimensions of the collision box have not changed, but you will no longer hit your head on things when jumping and dashing. Which is where the inaccuracies came in. Collision is also based on which frame Jerry is in now as well. I am really happy with the results after testing this. To be honest, your hitbox is just a tiny bit smaller for certain frames.

Screenshot from Windy Slopes.

Windy Slopes will have a few surprises, bring lots of deaths, laughs, and a few direction changes for the game. A few new skills will be added later, I will make a note of them here later.

The 4th Equipment Slot
I bet you have been wondering what that is for. You can customize your friendship bracelet with Magical Beads of Awesome. Those familiar with THFG will find it similar to the NanoCons from that game. You were supposed to have access to it much much earlier in the game, but I never finished coding that equip menu, so I kept it locked down. It will be available soon though. :) Unfortunately for those of you that have been following this will not have any beads as you get them throughout the game from chests. (These chests are different than the ones that give money and items.) The explanation for how to equip these beads will be given the first time you open one of those chests. These can be freely swapped, unlike skills which are permanent once you spend the points. The effects of these beads are things like; boosted resistance against an element, boosted Power/Defense, Physical/Spirit. Very basic stuff, some of them mimic a few skills, but there are a limited number of bead slots. (Which can be boosted throughout the game.) You start with 1 and can increase it to 4 by the end of the game. By this point of the game, you would have 2 slots. (You would be able to get your second slot when getting to Abstracity.)

Other Games
I've now played through all of the Touhou games. Well all of the Windows compatible games. Done a 1cc run of 11 and 12. I posted stage 5 and 6 of my run through Touhou 12.
Stage 5
Stage 6
The series is pretty fun if you like shooters. The earlier games are good, but not as refined as the later games in the series.

Touhou 6 ~ the Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil
This is the most popular in the series it seems. It's the first to be playable on Windows. This one is not that hard, or at least it wouldn't be, but you cannot see your collision point in focused mode and there is no indicator of where the bosses are at the bottom of the screen. Not being able to see your collision point meant you had to guess when weaving through thick waves of bullets. That made it unnecessarily hard when bullets where flying horizontally. This one also has the humorous spell by Cirno on Easy mode which you can literally stand in front of her and not get hit.

Touhou 7 ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom
This is the second game in the series I played, and I played it right after Subterranean Animism, which makes Hard and Lunatic (well maybe not so much this mode) on this game seem like a walk in the park. This one is the easiest in the series for me. It had some of the more creative patterns in the series in my opinion. The Prismriver Sisters have a spell that hurts my eyes, it's the way the colors and patterns are used. x_x

Touhou 8 ~ Imperishable Night
My favorite of the pre-9 games. To me, this one has some of the best music in the series. The backgrounds were very creative with this game, were a bit distracting at times, but not as much as Mountain of Faith. I don't have much to say about this one other than it has the useless character, Reisen. :P I never really analyzed the scoring system too much, I just try to grab as many point items as I can without bombing too much, since that seems to lower their point value.

Touhou 9 ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View
Err, lets not talk about this one, it's not a traditional Touhou game.

Touhou 10 ~ Mountain of Faith
This one has some of my favorite bullet patterns and backgrounds. Overall, this one is really solid. The scoring system is very simplistic, you just need to make sure you space out your kills and item pick ups to keep the point items worth from decreasing. It's not too hard, I can 1cc this one if I go back and try. This one took grazing out for some reason, which is a shame because it had the best moments for grazing.

Touhou 11 ~ Subterranean Animism
The first Touhou game I played. (Or at least recently, technically Imperishable Nights is the first one I played, but that was years ago and it was only for a few minutes, so I don't count that.) This is when the series suddenly spiked up in difficulty. Even the second boss can give lots of trouble, and the third stage kicks things up a notch even more. It has my most frustrating Touhou level. Stage 5 just doesn't let up at all. Then the boss, Rin, is by far the hardest Stage 5 boss in the series, and definately one of the more tricky fights since it's easy to trap yourself, especially on Hard and Lunatic mode. It also has my favorite character in the series, (which may be a shock to some of you who chat with me in irc) which is Satori. (No you guys, it's not Rin. I like cat girls, but that doesn't automatically make her my favorite.) :P I find her story interesting and is actually sad. Her ability of reading conscious thoughts makes people afraid of her, so most hate and avoid her, as they have no real privacy when she is around. The scoring system is easy to grasp. Every 100 grazes increases the max point multiplier by 1%. When you graze, the multiplier goes up, when it maxes out, all pickups will come to you. You get them at full point value, and you don't have to hunt them down, which was essential for Hard and Lunatic, when you're practically locked to a small area of the field because of the ridiculous amounts of bullets on screen. I find this one a lot of fun, but I feel there wasn't as much creativity with the bullet patterns as there were with previous games. The idea of this one seemed to just be litter the field with loads of bullets. Luckily the backgrounds are dark and make it easier to focus on the bullets.

Touhou 12 ~ Undefined Fantastic Object
This one is also hard. For me it was a notch under 11 in terms of difficulty as the only major hard parts for me are Murasa (stage 4 boss) and the final boss. The stages are pretty easy to get through. From what I've seen, 11 has harder stages, and this one has harder bosses (aside from Satori and Rin). It has a weird scoring system, which you have to collect UFOs in a particular color order that spawn off certain enemies. Once you do, a UFO appears and collects all the power ups on the field. If it collects enough, you get a bonus depending on the color of the UFO. They also multiply the point value of the items it collects, which you get back once you destroy it. They also destroy all bullets on screen when destroyed, which is super helpful on Hard and Lunatic. Every 10 grazes also increases the point value of pickups by 10 points, so grazing a lot is important if you're going for a high score. It may not seem like much, but think about how often you can graze and mix that with the UFO point multipliers.

If any of you do decide to play Touhou, I recommend staying away from the fans as they are a crazy bunch. Though I do encourage you to look at some of the fan made content out there of it, because honestly, the fan created content is half the fun of Touhou.

[/nerd]

^_^ .-. O_O

2010-02-19T04:07:00.023-06:00

Edit: (Feb. 22, 2010) Released a little patch. You'll see a lot of new stuff on the map. The only 'real' new area is the new extra stage. Remember, Black Rock must be completed for it to be unlocked. Got a new little system for myself for making the transition from my editing version to the playable one. (Just gotta remember to turn my debug menu off) It is attainable in game now. Press enter in the Data Center and you will see a little window pop up. Don't try to guess the password. Even if you did get the password right, (it will let you know) you wouldn't know how to use it. :P Also, don't be alarmed at the title screen. The new extra level is a little different, it actually has a save point.

Edit: (Feb. 20, 2010) New option under Options called "Show Elemental Glow". It will give you a little colored glow that shows what element is active. It is defaulted to off. The reasoning for this option is it makes it easy to see which element is active (or if one is active at all) without having to glance at the top-right corner. I personally playtest with it off, it could be useful to some people or if you just want a glow following you at all times, there you go.

I noticed a comment by a spambot which posted tons of links to 'not porn' sites. First time that has happened and doubt it will be an issue, but I will be deleting them as they show up. If they for some reason start showing up in mass quantities, I will set comments to only show when I approve them. (Doubt it though) Don't really want that stuff around here.

My inability to create a creative title for the post has once again crushed me... as you can see. Singles Awareness Day, Cheap Candy Day, whatever you want to call it is long gone. So I guess it's time to stop giving you guys my love the way you got to see it in Black Rock.

Played more Touhou... >_< This time tried the 7th game (Perfect Cherry Blossom) and wow was it extremely... eh... easy. When compared to the madness of the 11th game (Subterranean Animism), this one was easy. I had an almost perfect run through it my first try, but didn't save the replay. Bleh for not having it translated and not knowing which option was "Yes" when it asked to save the replay. (It usually has it labeled in English anyway though) o_O Gonna try Touhou 6 out next. It seems to be the most popular among the fans. What is it about vampires...?

If you've ever wondered if Distorted Travesty will have a bullet hell/shooter style level... maybe. Though I would be very lenient with it as it is a completely different style game. It's easy enough to adapt other styles to Distorted Travesty and still keep it in a platformer set up. Zelda for example can be translated to it fairly well. (And will.) <- Spoilers! But shooters not so much, although the bosses send off enough projectiles at you now to be able to put a danmaku tag on the game. :P (All of THFG's late game bosses did pretty much that)

Speaks for itself... (Yeah, that's what it looks like on Distorted)

Game Stuff
I'll be posting 9.2 sometime soon, fixes those issues that came up. Gene still being there after the battle with him, stuff like that.

Moved the 2 edits from the previous post to this one. (With some minor edits to fit this post.)

There will be an extra stage for you in 9.2. Black Rock must be completed to gain access.

New Skills
5 new skills were added:
Sharpen Lv.3    - 2% bonus to physical attacks
Iron Body Lv.3 - 2% resistance to physical attacks
Free Spirit Lv.3     - 2% resistance to spirit attacks
Protection Lv.1     - Decreases effect time of Poison by 25%
Protection Lv.2     - Decreases effect time of Spirit Lock by 25%

The IEF building map icon has been moved just north of Donut Plains. Something else will be placed there. Also don't be surprised if you one day suddenly see a different map. The one I'm using is from another game and is merely a placeholder. The map icons will not change locations though.

Easy Mode "Safety Nets"
These were already in easy mode, but the graphic has been changed and are slightly more frequent now. They're so happy now ~~and gives others another reason to make fun of you if you play on easy mode~~. :P

Easy Mode

Distorted Mode

As for what's in store, I'm going to leave all that for you to find out. It's better as a surprise anyway. I'd have a lot more done, but one of my roommate's brother is in town and staying with us for the week, so we've been all hanging out. (Mostly making fun of what's on TV and watching the winter olympics.) o_O

First Half of the Game Available

2010-02-11T22:54:00.010-06:00

Yay, much sooner than I had originally said and just in time for the weekend. I hope you all enjoy the Black Rock Fortress and the challenges present in there. I am definitely happy to bring this section of the game out, I know you will all enjoy it. :) As before, if any problems arise, you know what to do, as I'm sure a bug or two were overlooked.
On that note, when the entire game has been made, there will be extensive testing done to perfect everything. Lots of things will be finished up, sound will be in places where it is missing, effects and graphics will be fixed up, as well as cleaning up everything that lags the game.

Updates
The major updates will be a bit sparse now. But awesome things are going to happen. A new option in the err... options sub-menu has been added. You can now turn the sound effects off. Turning this off will also turn off the combat award sounds, even if they are on. So yay, you can completely mute the game if you wanted. o_O

Fun Fact: I actually released this later in the day on Feb. 11, but killed the download due to something I wanted to change. (Also there was that problem with not being able to move on when choosing to retry room from one of the bosses.) The new sound system wasn't in place yet either, so I decided to implement it fully and add it in. Still kept the version at 9.1 since I took it down before anyone had downloaded it.

Anyway, have fun with this, and try not to hate me too much for the difficulty presented in Black Rock. OH! The game will tell you when the demo is over.

What's In Store For YOU
You've seen from the Mega Man area how the game will change up the mechanics somewhat. Expect a lot of twists and turns in gameplay mechanics in the second half. Things will take a major turn now and as for difficulty... Consider the Black Rock Fortress your rite of passage into what is coming. The second half is where I take the kiddy gloves off. I've referenced it before and I'm going to do it again. If you've played my previous game up to the mid point, you know the hell you're about to get into. This mid-game boss is kinda tame compared to The Happy Fun Game's mid-game boss though, in my opinion anyway. At least DT's doesn't turn the lights out on you... well it does, but not in the same way. Be observant... and I hope the Shrouds don't push you around too much. Good luck.

Post #32

2010-02-05T15:37:00.019-06:00

Well it is! Create your own subtitle for it in your head. :P

Edit: (Feb. 10, 2010) The fire spell 'Inferno' cost has been fixed. The Spirit and Elemental energy costs were swapped. It showed it right in the menu, but it was reversed when it was used.
I might actually be done before Valentine's Day, I'm not sure if I'll release it early or not yet. The lines of code causing the lag have been fixed, though a bit remains when I stress my computer. (No lag if my RAM isn't being used by lots of other things.) I'll be slightly reworking the 3 maps where these lag problems are happening.
Oh yeah, the poll was changed to include everyone, not just those that completed the latest demo. I bumped the released date forward to the 13th... or is that back? o_O Would rather release it in the middle of the weekend, still might see it on Friday the 12th though.

Edit: (Feb. 09, 2010) In the next update, you'll see a minor cosmetic change with some of the boss' health meters. The HP counts have not changed for those that have this change. It is merely to make things look scarier than they are. :P
All that is left is the boss of the Black Rock Fortress, then the demo will be released. I am also reworking some of the object code in the place as there are some lag issues with some things. Using a few commands that are taking a lot of processing time in the step event, so I need to make some changes to speed things up.

Game Changes
The update posted today has some minor fixes. Has the updated collision system. (You won't feel a difference though) A few bosses have been slightly altered and fixed.

Dark Mind
It was brought to my attention by Slaix that he was creating unfair attack combos. I checked the code and it was completely random on what he does.

Quick Time Distorter
There was a bug when crippling it with Wind and Earth, it can now be crippled (the proper way) with those elements. Pretty bad mistake to make when crippling it is practically the only way to beat it on anything harder than Normal.

Megaman Fortress Boss
He has been slightly nerfed. Lowered it's massive HP count by 1000. But that's not the big thing. It was shooting off those bombs it sends into the air nearly twice as fast as it was supposed to. Got 2 numbers mixed up there. It was creating very bad scenarios for anything higher than Normal... even on Normal, it was harder than what I wanted.

Megaman Fortress Boss 2 (No spoilers)
Slowed down his reaction times on all difficulties by 1/5 of a second and again, lowered his HP by 500. You will still have a hell of a time with him on Distorted.

Game Stuff
The Black Rock Fortress is almost done. I will be out of town for a couple days, but the hopeful release date has been posted. Give or take a day on that. I could possibly have it finished and test before that date. The hopeful date is Valentine's Day, I can show you all my love for you by giving you the hardest area of the game, much harder than any of the extra levels. I always have the mid game dungeon and especially boss fight rather tough. I am very nice with some aspects of Black Rock, giving you a shop inside and check point doors. If you get to them, you can exit the dungeon and come back in where you left off. The dungeon is long and you will probably be pulling your hair out and biting your nails off by the time you even get past the first boss fight in there. (There's more than one) Once you do beat that first boss, it gets much more hectic. :P Good luck, and it's almost here!

A New Feature and Lag Fixes

2010-01-30T17:49:00.006-06:00

Too much Touhou, way too much Touhou. I did a no continue run through Touhou 11 on Normal.
Check it out here. Only showing the final stage of the run. Yay for it saving replays. Definitely gonna cut my Touhou playing down a notch. x_x

New Menu Option
A new setting in the options menu will allow you to set the games priority. You have 3 settings. (Normal, High, and Higher) It's the same as going into the task manager setting the priority there. If you notice some lag, setting it to a higher setting 'may' reduce it somewhat. I've noticed about a 4-6 fps difference on higher settings when I force a map to lag. This setting is not saved into your save file. Once you turn the game off, it will revert to Normal.

Collision Changes
A new system for handling collision has been put in place. The code itself has not changed, but rather the way I set level collisions. It has in some maps, significantly increased performance. I have basically reduced the amount of collision objects used. Maps typically had anywhere from 300-700 of these. The new system has dropped this number to somewhere around 20-30. This is no exaggeration. It takes a little longer to build the static collision for maps now, but it is worth it in the end. This has also delayed the next demo a bit as I am converting all the maps to the new system. I may not convert all the maps by the next release. We'll see, if I do decide to convert them all, just know it will delay the release by a little bit as it is very busy and tedious to convert them all. Checking to make sure I did not mess up somewhere as well.

I'd also like to note that this new method of doing collision will not change anything at all in the game. Except for you guys who like to try to get above the map. You won't fall into the ceiling anymore. This also makes it so I don't have to worry about anybody getting stuck up there.

Edit: I have come up with a method for very quickly jumping into the game and seeing right at a glance if the collision is correct. Already found an error I had made in a map. So using this, I shouldn't have any bugs coming out of this. :)

Edit: I have converted every map and tested them all. That method worked wonders.

Bug Reporting
This is also where you guys come in. 3 new items in the "Pointless Records" menu have appeared almost strictly for finding bugs. They are on page 5 of the records. (Map ID, Player X, Player Y) If you say... fall through the floor in a map, this will allow you to tell me exactly where it happened so I can fix it easier. For example, the first map of the Dusty Ruins has an ID of 143. If you found a problem there, just send me a bug report saying:
**************************************************
-Dusty Ruins - ID: 143
-Your x/y coordinates as well if you'd like. (The general area anyway)
-Explain the problem here.
**************************************************
I don't foresee any issues arising from this. I have a little system set up for myself for converting all the maps, but in the event something does slip through, I encourage you to use that system there.

Game Stuff
The Black Rock Fortress is actually nearing completion. I think the menu quote I chose for the area fits perfectly. That death count is no doubt going to rise quickly. This area has some things that others before it didn't in that sometimes you can't turn back. I'll put in a check mark for teleporting deeper into it most likely so if you do want to leave, you can and not have to lose all your progress. There is a shop keeper inside as well. There's also more than 1 boss fight and the Shrouds do not count, they may actually be harder than one of the bosses.

Game Changes
- In the save room, you now get a little summary of your current objective in the top right of the screen. Took all of about 10 minutes to implement... What? I'm honest.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaawr

2010-01-25T23:35:00.006-06:00

Would've posted an update yesterday, but my roommates and I were doing stuff and when we weren't, I was playing Touhou. (#11: Subterranean Animism for those that want to know.) Beat it on Normal before the weekend was over. Stage 5 gives me trouble, as does the boss there. (I hate Rin.) x_X My roommates hate Touhou or any bullet hell game for that matter. XD

Edit: I've added a link to "Joy to Key" on the sidebar and here. It is a program that will allow you to map keys to practically any USB controller.

Here's an image showing my recommendation. PS2 controller because most USB controllers use this button set up.

Game Stuff
I'm not going to say I'm close to a demo release, but I will say that this won't take nearly as long as the Mega Man area to be released. There's not as much new content and systems to implement. The area is pretty big though. There are a ton of traps here and a few sections where you only get one chance to make a jump as well as being timed for some of them. This video kinda shows what I mean. Those latch crystals are not the theme of the area, they don't show up too often. The enemies are a bit odd in this place, but I don't want to give away what they do. I don't think they will be as memorable as the Shrouds, which are scary on Normal and a nightmare on Hard, we won't go into Distorted...

Edit: I lied about the 1-hit kill spikes in a previous post. They are back. ^_^

Game Changes
No game changes to report.
Well there is one, Water Barrier's duration was shortened by half a second. This was implemented on the 0.0.8.1 release, so you already have it, I just didn't mention it.

Now that I reread this, it looks like a pretty lame update. Posted anyway!

Difficulty Settings

2010-01-18T12:18:00.015-06:00

Edit: 0.0.8.4 fixes a problem with the elevator on the train. I forgot timelines changed a bit for GM8. >_< It'll say 8.3 on the title screen, it lies. :3

I have adjusted all of the difficulty modes. Enemy stats have not changed at all, what has been changed are enemy and trap spawns. I will go into a bit of detail for each setting.

Beginner (Easy)
A lot of enemy spawns have been removed as well as a lot of traps. This can finally be called the easy mode aside from just enemy stats and reaction times.

Veteran (Normal)
Not much has been changed for this, you might see a few minor changes if you play through again on this setting. A few enemy spawns have been removed from this and are now Hard mode exclusive.

Hardcore (Hard)
Again, not too much was changed, but more changed for this than Normal. Roughly 3 or 4 enemy spawns were removed from this setting, but a few were added in various places. A few traps have been added to this setting, but not many. The boost in enemy reaction times is part of what makes hard the way it is.

These 3 settings are the main difficulty settings, you won't see too much of a difference in the game on Hard and even less of a change for Normal. Easy has been drastically changed though. The idea of being able to switch settings on the fly is if you are having too much trouble getting by an area, you can lower the difficulty, get through it and set it back to where you had it if you want. Or go higher if you feel the setting you are on is not enough. Easy mode is definitely much more friendly to you now. If you were having trouble with it before, try again with this next update and I assure you, you will see a major difference. Each of the settings are more unique now, especially Easy mode, making a lot of stuff fairly friendly.

For those of you asking for a harder setting, Hard mode's new traps add a slight bit of difficulty, but not much. I must say though, keep in mind, this is just the first half of the game, it's going to be much worse during the second half, HOWEVER...

Distorted (Extreme)
For those of you that have asked, a new difficulty has been added, named the 'Distorted' mode. The game gives you a warning before playing on this setting. You cannot switch out of this mode once you choose it. Throughout the game, I constantly take stuff out because I feel things may be too rough, even for the hard setting. This one however I will be keeping them in. Enemy base stats have not changed much, they are approximately 1% higher than they are on Hard (Bosses have an extra 5% HP), with an exception for power, which is roughly 12.5% higher than Hard. This is not what makes this setting hard, even if Hard mode had these base stats, you wouldn't feel much of a difference on it. What IS changed are enemy response times. Everything moves faster, shoots more, and has far less recovery time. New enemy spawns exclusive to this setting were added in fairly inconvenient places. Traps are more frequently seen. You will have to see it to see what I mean. Some of the environments have been slightly modified as well.

A video showing the first map of the Old Castle on Distorted.

Distorted is only for the extreme players. O_O Hard can be changed out of if necessary, this cannot. This new setting is really it's own thing. I thought about making it an unlockable, but meh. Even in the final version, this setting will be open straight from the beginning, though it is intended for you to have played the game once.

tl:dr version:
Easy mode has been made easier, Normal and Hard are fairly the same, and there's a new difficulty that will destroy you.

Game Changes
- Fixed collision for Jerry when he is running and shooting.

What's Coming Up

2010-01-16T11:57:00.002-06:00

With the Mega Man levels finished, we will now venture into the awaited Black Rock Fortress. I will only be showing one screenshot from this place, and it's not even a real one, just showing you what some of the enemies look like. (If you remember a semi obscure game from the SNES era, you'll recognize them. There was another version on the Genesis as well.)

The Black Rock Fortress
I will say a little bit about the area though. Gone are the 1-hit kill spikes of the Mega Man area, now you face being dropped into pits by respawning Falcons... wait, wrong game, but you'll still probably be dropped into pits by something in there. Remember the Dusty Ruins and The Hideout and fun traps that you more than likely were caught by a few times? Then remember some of the more combat heavy areas? It's a mix of these, with a large lean towards combat. The worst enemy type is not shown in this shot though. The Shrouds, which will be a reoccuring enemy throughout the game after this point, will coordinate with each other. You will almost never fight only one, since their strength lies in working together to get you.

Worlds
A lot of the more popular game worlds have been used now. During the second half of the game after the Black Rock Fortress, more obscure game references will be used. Though you will still see a few popular ones.

Other Stuff
Expect the game difficulty to rise, now that by this point you have been given enough time to learn the game's mechanics, and have a large number of abilities.

Game Changes
- Forgot to add it in before the release, in the hub for the Mega Man area, a little star will be shown next to the sub-area if you have all the items there.

It's A Day Late

2010-01-14T14:46:00.005-06:00

Hooray!! I apologize for it being a day later than I said, family things came up... It's a real excuse! Q_Q

Filefront
Megaupload

Version Mark Change
There are a few changes to the way I'm doing updates now. You will notice that the game has a more defined version number now. The one being released is 0.0.8.2. O_O I will now be showing the latest uploaded version on the side bar. Every so often I may release a small patch, for example, I may find something that should be fixed or may get a nasty bug report, I'll release the next very quickly as 0.0.8.3. I will not announce these small updates so you will need to check if there is an update. (Well my weekly updates, I'll make a mention if one was released.) There won't be any major content added to these, just minor changes and fixes. The version number is now shown on the exe. If you rename it, no worries, the version number is also shown when you mouse over the exe as well as on the top-left corner of the title screen. This allows me to release little fixes and such, but remember, it's only small stuff, no new content will be added unless specifically noted.

There is one known issue with this version. When Rave Mode is used in the Mega Man area, if you go to a different map before the song is over, it will not stop like it's supposed to until you either Game Over, or the entire clip is finished. This will be fixed soon though. A few sound effects are not in the Mega Man area that should be there, so in a later version, I'll add those sounds. (Once I can find or rip them.)

Keeping your save data
As a reminder, you can keep your progress by moving the "GameDetails.ini" into the new folder.

Edit
I found a crash bug a few minutes after releasing it. >_< Fixed and reuploaded.

Soon @_@

2010-01-09T11:06:00.005-06:00

I have really lame titles for my updates. So let's see, what should I randomly talk about before I get to the game stuff...? ... ... ... (plus more ellipsis) Nothing. Well the soon title means there will be a new demo soon... this week. I'm sure of it!

Game Stuff
I have been using Game Maker 8 now. GM8 interprets scripts much faster than GM7 did. You will find that the game runs much more efficiently too. The loading time to launch the game has been decreased. Yay!

Game Changes
- If you play using the arrow keys, you've no doubt been annoyed by the fact that you can't interact with objects using the up arrow. This has been fixed. Overlooked things are overlooked.
- Your Resist window in the the stats sub-menu now shows your Resist % properly when you have an element active. (Remember, they add a 10% resist bonus)
- Easy and Hard mode have been slightly adjusted. Only the base stats themselves though. Reaction and recovery times have not. In a sense, Easy isn't quite as easy, and Hard isn't quite as Hard. No worries, not by much. It's a 5% difference compared to the Normal setting each way. This will play into other things later. (The Quick Time Distorter will still take 0 damage on Hard Mode without a cripple by a long shot.)

- The Metallicardian and Demon Cursor boss HP has been decreased slightly. (By about 500 points each, but their power has increased by 5)

- So I might include a harder setting as it has been asked for again and by a very interesting source. Competitions, really? O_O It will not be included in the next release, it may take some time for that, but know the full version of the game will definitely include a harder setting for those who feel extremely masochistic. As noted before, choosing this setting will lock you into it. There will be no switching in and out of it.

Other Games

Mega Man 10 Thing
I looked at Sheep Man's stage from Mega Man 10 because I was very curious as to how they used a "digital computer-ish" level and I can safely say that their idea was far different from mine. I'll give a link to it, however I warn you, only click this link if you are willing to spoil that level for yourself as they show pretty much all but the boss fight.
Click if you don't mind a Mega Man 10 spoiler

A Game Save Frustration
Games today on the current gen consoles are getting very advanced and saving methods sometimes need to change and adapt to fit the content. However there is one thing that has really gotten on my bad side that I first saw with "Smash Bros. Brawl", is that you cannot move/copy save data to say, an SD card and bring that data to another Wii. What? Why? When I got my Wii a few months after Brawl was released, I wanted a copy of the data that my brother had on his as we had done a lot. And was disappointed when I couldn't. While I didn't mind playing the game again, I didn't want to have to unlock everything again. I don't see the reason for this. Not even for the online part, which is a joke anyway as that portion is completely unplayable due to terrible network code. (Unless some magical patch has been released that I am unaware of.) If it was because of the online records then lolwut? Have the game not copy that portion of the data or separate them into different blocks so the Wii can easily know which data to not copy.

Another game that did this, which I can justify a little bit more was Demon's Souls. Now I know this doesn't happen often, but what if I want to show my character to a friend, you saying I have to transport my PS3 just for this? What if I want to back up my character? It's not saved server side like real mmos, so if my PS3 takes a dump, I lose it all. I'm sure they could have thought of something for this. It's not like you can trade items like say, Phantasy Star Online, which I will cut Sega some slack for that as they didn't want people easily cheating and duplicating items. (Happened anyway.) :P

A New Year

2010-01-02T20:37:00.005-06:00

Yay, it's a new year! Let's try to make the best of 2010 and hopefully make it better than the previous year. GAME STUFF!!

Game Stuff
A new demo with the Mega Man area is getting very very close. This place is taking me awhile because of the large amount of content going into it. There are 7 different levels to it, a larger variety of enemy types than any other area (although Mega Man enemies aren't the hardest thing to script), the minibosses (the Robot Masters), a couple real boss fights, the gimmicks and such that go with each of these levels, story sequences, etc... x_x Hopefully it is all enjoyable. I estimate it's roughly an hours worth of play time, give or take depending on your speed and death count racked up in this place.

Story Stuff
The next demo will also finally reveal what The Darkness is. Not everything, can't go giving it all away yet.

Game Changes
- Implemented the new map feature that lets you know which areas you have everything in. You'll see how it works. I kept the old way in too.

- For the boss fight with Dark Mind, when he uses the energy balls that spiral, they have a shorter life span.

- Heart pieces have taken on a different look. Been toying with this idea for months and I find that their new animated look says "Come get me!" much more than the Zelda heart pieces. Same effect though, you must still acquire 4 to get a max life increase.

- Ring upgrades now count for 7 points of Spirit Defense instead of 6. You will not need to start a new game to get the effect. Example: If you have 4 ring upgrades, you will see that you have an extra 4 Spirit Defense.

- You can now see your overall Item % Completion within your items menu. It is possible to have 100% at this time as the game reads only the items that are currently in the game.

- Quick Time Distorters Physical Defense was decreased a slight bit, but its Spirit Defense was increased the same amount.

- Bosses are now included in the exp bonus given from the Statistician skill.

- A few people have cried (you guys know who you are) about the hall of explosions in Distortion 1, saying it doesn't give them enough time to start up, and they die instantly. That's right, you're being made fun of. :P Due to these concerns being legitimate, I have made a change. The explosions now start back a bit more, giving you more time in the beginning.
To be exact:
It was moved back 80 pixels, which gives you an approximate 0.386 seconds more time to get away. In response to this, the wall of death has been made a tiny pinch faster, so instead you get 0.385 seconds more to get away. This is on the normal setting, it has been made a bit slower for easy and a bit faster for hard. Overall, you still get more time than before, even on hard, though it's only by about 0.382 seconds more. But then again, this is only accounting for those first few seconds. (No but really, you get more time now and this hopefully fixes the problem that some of you are having.)

Haaaaat

2009-12-21T21:32:00.010-06:00

Don't try to decipher the title, it means nothing, it's just what was randomly on my mind just now. Something to do with my roommate. When will you get a new demo with a new area to play in? Not until 2010 unless I magically speed up production of this which is unlikely.

Game Changes
- Made a very minor change to the Kirby boss, you won't even notice it.
- The Castlevania boss has been made a little easier, he doesn't spam as harshly and when he rages around the room, he does so a little bit slower.
- A few more enemy spawns have been removed. (Not many though.) Mainly for gameplay flow purposes.
- There may be a few power ups added in some of the previous areas. This may happen throughout development till the final version.
- Possibly this release or the next, a new way to show if you have everything in an area will be used. Instead of hovering the mouse over the level icon to see, a little trophy icon will be displayed next to the level icon on the map itself. I'll probably be taking out the previous method completely which means you won't be able to see which type of items you are missing. I'll switch to this new method unless I get a lot of "No we like the current one." The upside to the new one is you can see at a glance where you have everything.

All the new spells and abilities you will get in the Mega Man zone are ready. The screenshot shows you what two of them look like, but I won't say what they do.

The 22nd Anniversary of a Cold

2009-12-16T16:13:00.001-06:00

The title makes little sense, but so does getting sick and feeling dead this last weekend. Glad that's over.

Game Stuff
You would think that in celebration of Mega Man's 22nd Anniversary I would release an updated demo of the game considering the new content is the Mega Man area. Well guess what? I'm not releasing anything. Yeah I know sad face. :( Maybe a lack of planning, maybe a lack of being done with the area, and it could also be a lack of remembering it... probably all of these. So here's a screenshot instead.

Don't make assumptions that you will surely make anyway from the screenshot about the obvious changes in gameplay in this area. Also, pay no mind to the out of place blocks that you will surely notice. Before I end this brief message, I will add that yes, spikes do in fact result in the Game Over screen with a single touch.

Game Changes
-A Healing Post has been placed in the Dusty Ruins. One room before the boss cause I'm an ass.
-Very minor adjustments to a few bosses.
-Fixed up some grammar issues with the dialogue. On that note...

Dialogue
This will constantly be revised throughout the project. Consider this, all the story text for the entire first half of THFG was revised at least once. And the first few hours of the game revised (as well as select areas) roughly 3 times. The dialogue in a lot of cut-scenes for Distorted Travesty, I think anyway, is pretty bad. Before the final full release, expect a lot of the dialogue to be rewritten/edited.

Something that's a surprise to me, 2 people have asked if there will be a 4th unlockable difficulty setting. Is Hard not making you feel masochistic enough? There are no plans for a harder difficulty at this time, but who knows, some people get their wish. (I'll be making it like the Hard mode on THFG to where you can't wuss out and change the difficulty if this is made available to you.)

Edit: The post time is actually 2 hours later, blogger still thinks I'm in California. How cute.
2nd Edit: Fixed the time zone.

No, I Don't Sleep

2009-12-11T03:20:00.001-06:00

It's true, I never sleep... except for when I do. Quick note to those that don't know, I'm back in Austin, Texas... have been for 2 weeks. And now on to non real life stuff.

Probably wondering what the black space on the left is... we'll just call it the dead zone. Anyway you guessed it, the Mega Man area is under construction. This shot is all I'm giving you. I'm sure it's familiar and yes there's a few changes, bite me, you will understand once you've seen it in game. (You're going to die here a lot.) You all know how a typical Mega Man game plays out so I don't have to explain that. I definitely won't be using 8 different levels, (or even 6 like the first Mega Man) that would just drag this section on too long. And with how evil I like to get, I don't think you want 8 levels + a wily stage or 2 of platforming mayhem. Expect at least 5 or 6 different areas in all though. Bosses and events will of course be a secret. Can't give away subplots, this will even feed into the main plot line as well. I definitely can't wait to unleash this upon you all. ^_^

I recently (3 days ago) saw that there is going to be a Mega Man 10. That's a half fail considering Mega Man X. o_O Even though I've been ranting on about Capcom milking Mega Man EVEN MORE, and making fun of the lame Sheep Man... seriously... Sheep Man, I almost want to make fun of that in Distorted Travesty, but I'll let it rest. Despite all my cynical remarks at the game, (would have been cool if they did a downloadable series, each one bumping up the bitrate, MM10 being 16-bit and so on) I'll still probably be lame enough to get it. $8-10 isn't that much. (Even if I beat MM9 within a few hours of downloading it) One other thing I noticed is a computer related level with cursors as enemies and all that jazz... ... ... I beat you to it Capcom, get off my territory. :P

Game Changes
I've cut back some of the enemy spawns in a few of the early areas. Up to Dreamland, there were just way too many in some areas. Areas after that I've already fixed up and by that time, you have enough base Spirit Recovery to blast through most group with spells.

Also... The Game. <3

A Little Updated Demo

2009-12-03T23:13:00.001-06:00

The last release got a nasty crash error due to some file purging I was doing and I messed up. (Deleted something that was needed) Luckily this was found right away.

There are a few changes.
- You now build power when you Air Dash. As long as you don't hit the ground, you will build up power. There is a new skill in the Skill Submenu to speed this up.
- The spin animation is faster when doing the forward ground dash.
- Minor change on the aerial bounce effect, you float very momentarily with the bounce now.

I think that's it actually. I had to move again and was very busy, hence my disappearance and not much work being done on this.