Happy Cupid's Arrow Day

Edit: (February 25, 2012) DT1 got a small patch to fix a few small issues I was seeing in the LPs going on. The Agility skill was locked out if you had the skill 'Iron Body Lv 3', this update fixes that issue. The explosion tunnel in Distortion 1 wasn't changed on any technical level, however, the short cutscene that plays out before it starts only occurs once now. Once you reach the point the cutscene initiated, the sequence skips the cutscene.

Edit: (February 23, 2012) A quick announcement. It's Slaix's birthday today! You will all now throw many many gifts at him! Also you will all worship him for the remainder of the day... which doesn't have much time left now. So we'll make up for that by extending the time of reverence to this time tomorrow! So yeah, just gonna take this moment to thank Slaix again for all his help with this project, your feedback has made this project so much better.
Here's your birthday ca... cupcake!

Kind of a spur of the moment post. March is going to have me a bit more busy than February, but most of the demo will be complete by then and I'm not really going to have THAT much time taken from my usual DT time.

Gate 3 has 7 different areas of various sizes, 5 are completely done, and #6 will be done by tomorrow. The last stretch is fairly short and focused. That part should only take me a few days, and the encounter at the end... depends. Boss fights I can never tell. Like the one I just finished a few days ago, I'm trying new things with him, which will most likely boost the debugging time. New ideas = more possible mistakes = more time.

I also figured out a really odd thing that GM does with script local variables. Never ever give one the same name as an object local variable. It'll override the object's version and remove itself from memory, even if the block of code using the script local copy isn't read at run time. It confused the heck out of me when I was getting an error that the variable wasn't known. This however, creates ways of removing variables from memory when you don't need them anymore. It still doesn't allow you to remove global variables from memory though, I tested. Also if you keep up with the Game Maker Blog, any time they have the suggestions open, suggest a marquee selection tool for the map editor for moving tiles and objects around. I've been trying to get them to put that in for so long, but I think more people need to voice it. It would be incredibly helpful. Also an option for copy-pasting instances in the map editor. For when you've got a set of objects with instance creation code. Sure, we can use a for-loop to mass produce, but argh, GM is also a visual editor, it needs more in that department.

Once this gate level is done, it's time for sound! (Dang it, I haven't finished/polished any of the optional gate levels.)