Just A Post Signifying That I'm Not Dead

And to commemorate... something, here's a screenshot that won't give anything away.

There are sparkly effects around Claire... is that a spoiler?

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday season. I'm still (slowly) working on the update I keep mentioning. It's totally happening, just not as soon as everyone wanted, but it's still going. I suppose there's really only 2 more things to do with it before I hand it off to the testers.

I thought about how to show part of the new content without giving anything about it away and the above is it. There's no post-editing going on. That is 100% in-game. This screenshot is also the only one I'm giving out.

Expect more birds with the update as well!

Quick Post About Some Changes

Damage Types
Some of the major and more noticeable changes coming are clearer indicators about what you're being hit by. For example, the color displayed by the damage value has indicated what type of damage you're being hit by, for example:
Red = Normal
Green = Elemental
Yellow = Explosive

But then the game noted direct damage (contact damage with an enemy) and trap damage, which isn't clearly displayed when taking damage. So now we have:

The hard zigzag means you were hit by direct contact, as shown on the left. On the right, the more fancy swirly lines mean you were hit by trap damage. Fancy because you guys are such sexy people with your trap dodging finesse. The spikes on the right screenshot have probably never been touched, so for demonstration purposes, they have been used.
On the right, a straight line is used for trap damage, as it's easier to see at a glance when these things happen. The testers felt it would be hard to see the difference between the two during gameplay and I agree.

The hit indicators scale with the size of the damage displayed and will also match the color. (damage type)

Morph Ball
As stated previously, Spring Ball will be obtainable in Gate 5, and as early as just after finding the standard missiles. The post-gate terminal will of course lead you to which sector it's in. This of course means pressing jump no longer removes you from morph ball state.

Other Stuff
Some other little things:
Air dashing after jumping on a bumper (the big Yoshi's Island arrow springs) will now completely cancel all the momentum gained from the bumper just like double jumping already does. Currently, you can air dash and immediately after the air dash has ended, you'll still rise.

A few more scenes are skippable, as well as the end credits. Many will want to (and you'll want to, trust me) see the revamped epilogue, so it's reachable much much faster.

Which brings me to the end sequence. You can no longer game over on that sequence unless running out of time. (Which no one does.) Falling off the bottom of the screen will now teleport the player to a nearby stable platform.

There's plenty of other changes and QoL fixes coming, plus of course some big surprises that I've not so subtly been hinting at since around April. (Just don't bother asking about it, cause I won't comment on it. :3)

DT3 Anniversary

As stated on Twitter, the update is not ready yet, for many reasons. Probably the biggest reason is it doesn't have my full attention right now.

I've been thinking of what to do and I think a late night stream (since I get off work late) where I play a game... not sure which yet, and do a Q&A of sorts. Where you guys can ask me anything and I hope I can remember everything enough to answer.

Wow, what a lackluster post this is. Perhaps I'll give out a screenshot showing a new thing in the patch... ON THE STREAM!! I can at least confirm that it's almost done, I just need to give it more of my focus. You'll know when the patch is soon since I'll have a tweet about it in the coming weeks.

I Get Quiet... Also Birthday Today

Edit: (9/17/16) I should have mentioned this well over a month ago. I've been a bit slow on this, but I'll be getting the other download links back up soon. Alice had to switch hosts (this was done quite awhile ago and the links being down is all me here being way too slow) so a bit of reworking had to be done. I'll definitely have them up when the 1.5 version is released. Maybe that's when I'll actually get them back up? I haven't had even close to the bandwidth limit a free dropbox account allows since the initial release of the game. (Another thanks to Alice for the mirror back then. Shut up Alice, I know you don't think you need to be thanked, but it really was a big help.) :P

After playing both AM2R and the original Metroid 2, I can safely say that AM2R is much better. Maybe I'll post a review proper sometime to talk about all the stuff I liked/disliked, but that won't be today. Reviewing in the journalistic sense isn't my thing, but who knows!

Right after playing the two games, I was convinced via being bought Axiom Verge by WhattayaBrian to play and stream the game. A game that I now very much enjoy and will definitely go get 100%, most likely off-camera. Axiom Verge is a Metroid styled game, and was fitting to play after all the Metroids that were hunted prior. Though their gameplay definitely goes in very different ways, maybe calling it Metroid styled would be wrong? In any case, I won't be doing a comparison between the two, I suck at reviewing.

Then the same person mentioned and then gifted me LISA. I'll also be streaming that one soon. I do feel that with the type of game it is that I'm not going to talk as much. If it's the type of game I think it is, yes. Looking forward to it, as it seems like a game I'll enjoy.

Oh yeah, it's my birthday today!

DT3 Stuff
There IS still a final patch upcoming. The release date I'd love for it is October 6th as that's the game's first anniversary. However, with what's been going on and my limited time the last couple months plus the next 2 and a half-ish months, I'm not sure I'll get done what I want to do for the game. (The streaming really doesn't take that large of a portion of time, all things considered.) Good news is that one of the new additions is Spring Ball which has been suggested often, especially while Metroid 2 has been on the minds of everyone. There's not really a lot that I want to get done, so we'll see. As for the other stuff I'm doing to the game, I'll keep that a secret till a bit closer to release.

And now for the best moments of the AM2R stream!

Where I should be more excited about Space Jump acquisition
Brian did say to do it at the end
So many Brians
Metroid is the best Metroid

AM2R Nearing Release

Here's a project I've been following for a good few years now. For awhile I thought it had been cancelled, but to everyone's delight, it kept trucking along. From the time of this post, it's less than 2 days away from release. Both Anomaly and Hadriex have reminded me about it as well. (No worries guys, I've been all over this project, though very quiet lately.) They did both remind me that I could make a post about it though.

If you don't know what AM2R is, it stands for 'Another Metroid 2 Remake' which at the time of its conception, was one of the bazillions of potential fan-made remakes of the game, but this one stood out quite a bit from the others and also hasn't died. The blog for it is here!

Also here and here and here and here! All lead to the same place, definitely check it out if you want more 2D Metroid goodness.

I've been wondering on a game to either stream or do an LP for and maybe this will be the one.

Hadriex will be streaming the game this Saturday (8/6/2016) at 1pm, Alaska time. (-09:00)

A Big Update to DT1 & DT2

Yay, finally! I sat on these changes for quite awhile. Here's what has happened to the games.

Changes to Both Versions
- Dash buttons, and the control variants that DT3 allows for the dash.
- Fixed the input bug where your last action would sometimes be repeated when touching the ground immediately after taking damage.
- Note that the dash mechanics for forward and back dashing has changed a bit and is fairly identical for DT1 and DT2 now. They are not the same as DT3 though.

DT1 Changes
- Water Barrier now makes you invulnerable to projectiles, meaning you'll no longer take damage from projectiles that spawned on top of you while the shield is on. (For those trying to mitigate bullet storms via the shield.)
- Soothing Spring now also gives the same 10% damage resistance that Water Barrier does and they stack.
- Various equipment beads were changed, such as the Ribbon Bead making you completely invulnerable to status ailments.
- Spell/Ability costs re-balanced. They should be able to be used more often now.
- Omega Metroid segment isn't so dumb now.
- Shroud Lord hand laser spam spread has been greatly reduced.

DT2 Changes
- Time scores are no longer tracked by seconds and instead by frames. The game will migrate old scores to this new system.
- The Tetris level is no longer randomized! Rejoice!
- Claire has a few frames where she sticks to the wall when pressing away from it. This will help out a lot when trying to jump away from the wall.
- Wall jump/dash mechanics have also been tweaked. Such as pressing away from the wall will give a somewhat different jump than pressing toward the wall when jumping off of one.

The download links have been updated on each game's page. If you already have the games, that page also has an exe-only link again. If not, here's DT1 and DT2!

Note that if you're going to download just the exe for DT1 and DT2, that the games do have the color pulse sounds from DT3. If you've got that game, just copy DT_ColorPulseA.wav and DT_ColorPulseB.wav from the DT3 sound folder and copy it to the previous games. Quicker download if that matters to you.

DT 1 & 2 Getting Love

Edit: (7/01/2016) New entries to DT1 stuff and a DT2 change added.

Edit: (7/03/2016) Removed the Joy2Key link entirely. I went to the site and the download links are all fishy, even from the site itself. They may be fine, but I don't trust them and so I'm no longer linking to that.

Its been a long time since I've done anything with the first 2 DT games. The last few days, they've gotten some updates that will go out possibly tomorrow.

Changes to Both Games
The big thing that both games have gotten are dash buttons along with the options that DT3 has for turning off up+jump from activating dashes, as well as the left/right or back/forward controls it has. They also have the issue where the directional buttons will cut the dashes short, along with some of the other dash control issues.

They do not have the squirrely/loose nature changed to be like DT3. Meaning in DT3, when you jump right and let go of right, the character stops, whereas in DT1&2, they carried some of their momentum before stopping. (Could possibly still change though.)
This change was made as well. 'Think & Act Fast' will sadly not be the thing it used to be due to this change. We all have the memories at least.

The input bug where your last action might be repeated after taking damage was fixed. Easiest way to replicate was to get hit and press jump during the flinch animation, you would jump again upon hitting the ground.

Dash mechanics have changed.
Forward dashing is nearly identical to how it was before, though Jerry and Claire can dash a bit further now.
Back dashing is now a short dash back.
Air dashing is nearly unchanged, but will feel a different.
The forward dashing has a bit more control now. If you dash without any directional key pressed, the dash is short, where if the directional key is held, the dash is long. Varying dash lengths lie between this.

DT 1 Specific Changes
Water Barrier now simply makes you invulnerable to projectiles. It does still eat bullets the way it did before. The way the game worked prior is that if either you were very unlucky or a bullet spawned on top of you while Water Barrier was active, you'd still get hit. There's an extra check in the damage code that handles Water Barrier now.

Some of the Beads (equipment items) were tweaked. For example:
Ribbon Bead, instead of reducing status effects by 5 seconds, it makes you completely immune to them.
Specific elemental beads give 20% elemental resist instead of 10%.
Poison Bead now poisons on the third claw attack in the combo string instead of on cripple.

Spells/Abilities had their cost descriptions match what was actually being taken. Some of them I found were incorrect when I went to rebalance them a bit. For example, making the first level spells of each element cost a bit less to cast for both spirit and elemental energy. Nature's Gift still eats both of them up because you're not supposed to be getting hit like a chump. Utility spells like Earth Shift were reduced in cost. The Rock Drill can now deal a bit of damage to lower defense enemies.

DT 2 Specific Changes
Time scores are no longer tracked by seconds, but instead by frame count, which means previous scores are not valid. :( It'll migrate your scores to the new system.

Humbled

I just got fanart of me drawn by kitikami from the talkhaus. [Direct link to image]

I wasn't expecting this at all, I don't really have any words for it. A bit surreal maybe? Looks like I may need to make that image come true some day and learn how to actually summon birds. (Other than the grackles that approach me at work.)

Thanks again kitikami.


DT3 News
Nothing to announce at this particular time... well maybe there is. Something looks to be happening. An idea I've had since late last year might be coming true. ('Might' being the operating word.) What is this idea though? Well, a tweet at some point will clue you guys in. When is this tweet occurring? No one knows yet. That is all.


LPing Stuff
I've been asked if I would consider doing Lets Plays and am indeed considering this. One of the issues holding it back were what games to LP. I'm thinking Mighty No 9 may be a start. Despite all the mishaps the project has gone through, I would still like to play it. A blind LP could be a good way to start this whole LP thing.

The No Birdening Edition

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.9)
- Shooter segment changes
  - All weapons have been improved in some manner. Chao also now displays the DPS of each weapon in the scan info.
  - Ship focus speed changed to 1/2 speed instead of 1/3 speed.
  - A weapon is no longer lost on the first hit and instead on the third hit. Reacquiring the same weapon will refill the weapon's HP. The HUD has been edited to reflect this change.

- The Strike Chain has a bit more leniency on latching. (Meaning it'll grab from further away.)
  - This was in the previous version and was the change I was monitoring. Everything checks out so it'll stay.

- A few minor level edits for flow purposes. All were pre-Gate 4 edits.

- Fixed some missing collision on a bullet bill launcher in Gate A.

- Fixed some missing damage zones on some spikey vines in Magical Hills. (The map with the Lakitu.)

- A major bug was found that isn't fixed for this version. That being no new birds were added for this patch. This is unpatchable as this patch is one time only and will forever never include an added bird. They will be missed.

This patch focuses mainly on the pew pew segment listed above. More changes may come to it, so it's a start.

The Pew Pew Segment Needs Love

Edit: The dropbox link has a version with a slight variance on a mechanic in the game that I'm going to be monitoring for a few days, which I'll then note. The change should help the flow of the levels various LPers are on that I'm watching. Secret tests!!

Most of you that come here seem to have beaten the game or have come close, so I'd like to hear your voice on this topic if you feel you have something to add to this. The segment I've been thinking a lot about lately is the shooter bit very late in the game. If you don't want spoilers on this segment, do not read on as this entry will have various specifics about it. (Though I'll leave out plot related things involving it.)

These are all proposed changes and I'd like to see what you, the players, think of some of these. Feel free to throw in suggestions as well.

-Focus Speed-
-I've heard many voices (not just from you Brian) on the focus speed being abysmally slow. I'm in agreement and think it could use between 0.5 - 1 pixel more speed per frame.
So this makes more sense, the normal speed of the ship is 6, while the focus speed is 2.
I'm thinking either 2.5 or 3 is a better speed for focus mode.

-Sucking-
This needs work for sure. Something that has always bothered me that I didn't ever address during development was mitigating the issue of getting hit while trying to gain new weapons, which a lot of times ended up in the player losing the weapon right after getting it. I'm thinking of having the player invulnerable the moment an enemy is latched by the sucking. (Trying to be as spoiler free as possible for potential accidental grazing eyes here.) And once an enemy is suckessfully sucked in, give the player somewhere between 15-30 frames of invulnerability. (0.5 - 1 second)
This may sound like it could be abused, but lets be real, that would be pretty hard to pull off properly. If someone was able to suck an enemy around the field and use the periodic i-frames to avoid bullets, well... I want to see that.
If this change is made, it'll be noted in the tutorial fields. (Which Robin hilariously passed over and questioned what the sucking did. Though in his defense, he figured it all out without the tutorials. So really, I'm both making fun of you, Robin, and giving you a compliment.)

-Weapons-
This part would take the most work, but I've thought about making a huge change to this. Essentially you'd always have access to the standard gun and it would be a neutral third slot. Getting hit would no longer revert the current weapon back to the standard shot, so you'd always be able to store 2 sub-weapons along with the standard one. (Thinking about even having them carry over through game-over and subsequent plays, maaaybe.)
When starting out, all 3 slots would be the standard gun, and if you eat an enemy with Jerry or Claire selected, it overrides their slot. Eating an enemy in neutral mode would either heal a bit of HP or give a longer invulnerability time. (I haven't decided on this if I were to make this change.)
If this goes through, weapons would probably be slightly rebalanced. The standard gun would get a very slight nerf. Some of the other weapons would get a bit more oomph to them as most of them are pretty situational.
Another idea is to keep the 2 slots the way they are, but the player does not lose the weapon when getting hit and can instead voluntarily revert back to the standard gun on that slot any time.

Let me know what you guys think in the comment section. I don't think this section of the game sucks. (Well, it kind of does actually.) Though it definitely could use a bit of love. The first two things should definitely happen.

Fixes and Fur

Not a huge update this time, but I mainly wanted to get the Claire dash change out.

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.8)
- Claire's back dash will now properly be stopped by pressing left or right. (Meaning you can use her back dash and tap forward to keep her in place and use the invulnerability frames.)

- Claire's charged cannon starting damage from 70% -> 65% of standard cannon power. It will now lose 1.25% power per hit instead of 1%, minimum is 50%. It now takes 12 shots to bring it to 50% instead of 20.

- A few other minor fixes throughout that I've seen. And of course, birds added. 2 more to be precise in Central City - South.

- The bird counter in the records sub-menu will not correctly increment by 80 when leveling up in Gate 6. Glad I finally got this game breaking bug fixed. I apologize for those of you that have reached max level there and have missed out on the 5040 birds that should have been counted.

Star Fox Zero
This game sucks and I was gonna go on a rant about it, but upon seeing these two videos, I found that they more eloquently said everything I was going to.

Honest Trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IceMIN7wzAk

And my favorite reviewer
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/116870-Star-Fox-Zero-Review

Time Flies

Its almost been a month since the last update and it doesn't feel like its really been that long. Today there are a lot of small fixes and tweaks to help the play experience and flow of some very late game bosses.

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.7)
- The following changes have been made to the first boss of Chapter 20.
  - All attacks have been reduced in power by 1. (check below for a few exceptions)
  - The hands had their attack power reduced from 16 -> 12 and now linger a bit longer.
  - The fire near the end of the fight burns quite a bit less: Power: 12 -> 9
  - The eyes near the end of the fight hurt less: Power 11 -> 9
  - The eyes near the beginning of the fight have a slightly longer warning time on their attack.
  - The attack dropping from the ceiling has slightly reduced frequency.
  - Added some sound effects to a few things in the encounter, which should help with their telegraphs.

- The following changes have been made to Shadow Eura.
  - Attack power reduced by 1 for all attacks.
  - The rocks now have scan data.
  - He will always appear in the rocks in the same order. (Used to be based on where the player was standing when the rocks started falling.)
  - He will no longer escape from the rocks prematurely. (That's right, I nerfed him, but then fixed the early rock release exploit!)

- All of Brain Machine's attacks now give half a second longer of a warn time before firing them.
- Brain Machine's floor lasers will spawn at a higher frequency. (On phase 1 and 2.)

- Jerry and Claire have extra input on the various tutorial messages for the Chapter 16 event to make those not so dry. (Might do the same for the late Chapter 19 event too.)

- The door leading to Death's Hall can no longer be opened with only 2 of Death's pieces.

- Fix for the enemy barrier sometimes not being removed during the encounter on the second map of the Displaced Construction Site.

- The Nightmare Mode exclusive morph bomb ability now properly removes its charge level when releasing the charge key too early. (It also has the charging sound.)

- The Nightmare Mode exclusive dagger ability no longer crashes the game when they hit a wall.

- Speaking of Nightmare Mode, check the NPC in Central City that talks about that mode's exclusive abilities. Some of them have been made much easier to perform since those new abilities should all be as accessible as the others.

- Note: I didn't mention this a bazillion updates ago, but on Nightmare Mode, the Belmont abilities (including the recharge speed) are set to the cost of the first level of their skill in the skill tree as that set is very restrictive, more so than the others, without any upgrades.

- Other misc fixes for things I've seen in LPs and from feedback.

- There are now birds on the title screen lined up that are equal in number to your AP level. If you're at the end of the game and aren't max level, go grind so you can have them all. GO GRIND! (Don't really.) If you're playing on Nightmare Mode, well... I'm sorry. :(

New Abilities in Modes That You Shouldn't Play

Edit: (4/22/2016) Get 1.0.2.5, it fixes a goof with the previous version. Patch notes below are still relevant as nothing has changed, just the Claire charge cannon damage has been fixed to match the values below.

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.4)
- The little light pulses created by player weapons in dark maps linger a little longer and a few more have been added, namely a light trail created by missiles.

- Reduced Claire's charge cannon damage to 70% from 75% and each hit removes 1% of damage, down to a minimum of 50%.

- New special abilities added for each ability set that are Nightmare Mode exclusive.
NOTE: Some of you may have found a hidden ability with the Link Set while playing on Nightmare Mode where a certain button combination can be pressed to use a sword wave while at full health. These will now be noted in-game somewhere... possibly the north side of Central City.

- There is now a very noticeable level up notice when leveling up in Gate 6.

- Fixed an issue with Jerry's running hitbox to make it consistent with others.

Fixing The Things

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.3)
- Claire's Samus Beam charge shot now deals 75% of the normal beam damage per hit instead of 50%. The charge complete sound effect and visual effect now line up with the actual charge time.
(The description on the charge beam in-game when you get it still says 50%, will fix later. :P)

- Equipment changes
  - Freezer Core: The 50% extra energy cost has been removed.
  - X's Headpiece: Energy usage decrease from 33% to 50%. Now works with Gravity Well charge as it was bugged before this.

- Equipment price changes
  - Dark Omen: 500 -> 100
  - The 4 Gate 6 things: 1000 -> 800

- Boss Gallery changes (Only time I'm changing one of these)
  - Enmity's gold time change 61 -> 40

- The final boss now has a visual effect indicating when he does one of those certain attacks that shall not be spoiled because some of you haven't completed the game.

- The boss before the final boss no longer spawns certain things that he spawns when he shouldn't be.

Tired But With Fixes

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.2)
- Gate 6 changes.
  - Blocking will now remove all invulnerability time. Meaning from damage or dashing, this means you can block and parry after taking damage or from within a dash. This also means that you can take damage again almost immediately after taking damage if you use guard improperly.
  - Blocking will now force the player to block for the parry window frames. Holding has the same effect as before. This is for those of you that like to tap the button for parries.
The above 2 changes should make blocking feel more fluid. It does allow the player more room for error, but also allows for more DT tricks and shenanigans.

- There is now a sound effect (beep beep beep boop) leading up to the color pulse damage frame.
If you don't want these sounds, simply don't add them to the sound folder or rename the two sound files named (DT_ColorPulseA and DT_ColorPulseB) to something else. (Just add _ to the end of the filename)

- There is now a slight glow effect on the player when in areas with color zones. This glow color matches what the next color is that the player needs to be in.

- Fixes for potato machines.

- Metroids work fully again. (Yay!)

- Oh yeah and... more birds!

You can get the 2 new sound files under the game download links on the right.

Its Been Awhile

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.1)

- When swapping characters, the re-swap time has been reduced from 40 -> 20 frames. (Matching it with the split party swap time.)

- Claire's second weapon of her second ability set has had its stun time buffed from 4 -> 12. I mean, probably all of you have gotten that far, BUT JUST IN CASE! Then again, I think the patch notes have spoilt this before? But anyway, that has been changed.

- More typo fixes!

- There is a bird on the back of another bird in Central City - South - Back Alley. That's the new bird addition.

- Misc. fixes like spikes not working still, etc.

- Nerfed Jerry's backdash.

- No, I didn't really.

New Games!!

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.2.0)
- Those air stall changes from last time have had some edits, and I kinda figured this might happen.
  - Jerry: 3 frames
  - Claire: 5 frames
  - Additionally: Options -> Gameplay: You can turn on an option that allows holding down to disable the air stall. Its been an idea ever since WhattayaBrian suggested it like... months ago? It may or may not be janky, I don't think so because down isn't used in normal air combat, but hey, how about an option instead for it. It is off by default.

- Explosive weapons leave a lingering light in dark rooms now. This is mostly useless, but it does look cool. (Some other weapons may create light effects too, but which ones? Oh man!)

- Oh man, what was that other update to this? Something to do with sound? Nah, that's not in this update. There was nothing else ever requested about new sound in the game. (But really, charging up weapon sounds is now in along with a charge complete sound.)

- BIRDS!!

Other Projects
I was approached by a good friend who asked if I could make a game with him. It was a project that he had started ideas and designs for many many moons ago, which I had actually assisted with back in the day. Fortunately I'd even been thinking about this project recently and he had suddenly presented the project to me.

So, what is this project that we started? I can't say too much about it at this point. I did tell a few that my next project would not be a platformer. That was before I knew I'd be working with anyone else or even this game. So yes, I am indeed working on another platformer. It's different after all this time to really start on something new again from scratch. Interesting enough, I've only just started work on it and the physics/control feels better than DT already.

What am I doing on the project? I'm the guy coding most of it. I told my friend if he didn't want to touch the code, that I'd be fine with that. Although he's been jumping into the code too, so yay. (I get it all organized though.) He's doing the writing and like, tons of other things. (Yay, someone else is writing, and he's actually done a lot of writing.)

I've worked with him on things before this and he's also a very self-motivated dude. I've no fears of him bailing on it, especially since most of the project is from his design, as far as characters and the world go. (The characters are adorable.)

But platformer doesn't say anything! So he's a big fan of 'Mischief Makers.' Many of you might be familiar with that. It's an old and pretty great N64 game centered on grabbing and throwing. That was his main inspiration for the project and as a fan of the game myself, I had no issues jumping on the project. It was pretty easy to spot the game features that were certainly inspired from Mischief Makers. There's something to do with pie and cake in the game, apparently. Also yes, I will put a bird somewhere in the game. A piece of cheese may end up somewhere too as that's one of my signatures that started way back when I used to make Unreal Tournament levels. In all of them, I hid a piece of cheese somewhere.

Untitled Post (I forgot to title this one)

Edit: Looks like we'll be getting 'charging weapon' sound effects next patch.

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.1.9)
This one happened quicker than I expected. The biggest reason for it going out is to fix more crashes for potato machines, but there are a few other misc changes that might interest some of you.

- Equipment Change [Golden Shield]: It no longer awards 7 Game Power back upon a successful parry, but instead extends the parry window of opportunity by 1 frame.

- You guys all know of the subtle bounce effect after hitting an enemy with a melee attack in the air. There was a 2 frame hover time that has been extended to 6, which will allow more control of these.

- The next wave timer for the Ch.16 event is now displayed on screen instead of at the base flag.

- The first wave of the Ch.16 event now has the proper 30 seconds instead of the 15 seconds.

- More crash fixes for lower end machines.

- 3 additional birds were added. This time to the bridge map in Central City, but they only show up after Ch.10.

Other Games
Jeremy and myself have been very interested in The Division. (Despite it being a Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy's game) Though the closer to its release, the less interested I became. Jeremy had pre-ordered it, and seemed to like it. Then its open-beta occurred and actually proved me wrong on how I felt about the game's dark zones. If you know anything about the game, then you know all about those. I figured they'd be a cluttery shitfest, but they weren't, which is a huge plus for me. It has the right amount of pvp and periodic cease-fires.

What I didn't know, but that the game lets you know the moment you start it, is that it's a cover-based shooter. I'm really not a fan of the sticky wall syndrome of cover-based shooters. I tend to find it clunky and unwieldy, usually preferring more loose systems of simply letting me crouch like in say Planetside or Borderlands. That said, I found the cover system in The Division by Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy The Division to actually do well at what its supposed to do.

I'm not sure how long Tom Clancy's Clam Tomcy's The Division will last as far as popularity goes, or for myself, but Jeremy and the open beta have convinced me to play. It has a Borderlands style loot system and possibly having pvp be a bit much on the gear-based side. Though when Jeremy and myself took out people who way out-geared us (though they weren't very good either) I found that wasn't too bad, especially when the dark zone tries to keep people who are within certain levels of each other. If you're going to play it, get a friend. It is not all that fun alone I find.

Oh yeah, I don't like shooters. No really. I don't. Planetside doesn't count.

Too Tired to Post

Patch Notes (Version 1.0.1.8)
- Enemies now deactivate much closer to the off-screen boundaries resulting in significantly less off-screen bullet spam. (I've had a grievance with this one myself for some time, just took awhile for me to finally address it.)

- Potential fix for the chapter 16 minigame where enemies were spawning with invulnerability in rare moments.

- Various typos.

- Morph Mortar now does what its supposed to do.

Edit
- More birds were added!

Other Stuff
I had other things I was going to post alongside this, but I am way tired and apparently have obtained an illness that is making me feel super drowsy. Will possibly edit this later.

Fixing Things for Potatoes

Patch Notes (1.0.1.7)
- Dragon Knights will now also be vulnerable to explosive damage when their shield is up at any time. (They didn't have that vulnerability for their final 30% HP)

- Rocketeers now take 1/2x damage from special type. (Changed from 0x)

- Unreal Guy's pitch can now be changed.

- Claire now has a 'look up' frame when holding up.

- More hats.

- More birds! (Oh man, just what we needed!)

- Jerry's hat now displays in his non-X wall cling frame.

- Fixed a 1 pixel off hitbox issue with Jerry and Claire.

- Possible fix for certain maps crashing on lower end machines. (If you had a surface draw error, this update may just fix that for you.)

Games and a Patch

Patch Notes (1.0.1.6)
- When losing, you will respawn with 75% of your max HP (rounded to the nearest full heart) instead of 50%. Only if you entered the map with less than 75%.

- Rocketeers no longer have full explosive resist. They now take 1x damage. (Both variants of them) For those who have fought against Rocketeers, rejoice, for they are hard to hit with explosives, but at least you're rewarded for it. :P

- After looking at LPs and gathering feedback, plus other things; some enemies in Gate 2, 3, 4, and 5 have had some HP adjustments. There's quite a few so I won't list them. These adjustments range from (-30 to +30) most that I touched went down a notch.

- You may note that as of this version, the skill and equipment relating to the X-Buster have changed values. These provide the same bonuses as before, but the base charge time (with no skill/equipment benefits) has been reduced from 45 to 40 frames.

- After completing Gate 1, the teleport menu will have a notice when highlighting it in the pause menu that should help players better understand when it's available.

- A few minor level edits for Gate C, Mountain Temple, and some Gate 4 areas.

- Fixed an Assist Mode item grabbing exploit. (Thanks to this guy for being a cheater and finding this.)

- Fixed a bug where the player could unlock the MMX ability set before finishing Gate 4.

- And of course, you know what else was added somewhere in the world. I'll give you a hint, it has wings.

A Patch That Patches

But what does it patch?

Patch Notes (1.0.1.5)
- When choosing 'Retry from last save' or 'Return to title screen' from any menu, a confirmation menu will pop up.

- Unreal Guy now has his own volume slider and a sound test for it.

- Dead Hand Hands (the spawns) HP change: 350 -> 300

- Jerry and Claire can now have their own hat.

- Engaged Intel(TM) Bird-X 212 Bird Rendering Drive, for 2.5% better wing vectorizing and spline reticulation.

- Added approximately 13 new birds!

This patch is primarily to add the first entry up there. This should help out with those menu mishaps that cause players to lose progress.

First Post of the Year

Edit: Download links restored. We're all back to normal now. Plus there's a new hat!
Also there's a bug in version 1.0.1.4. It didn't add any new birds! Lets pretend 1.0.1.3 doesn't exist. It's technically the same version as the newest one, except that a single string was edited. So if there's ever a version 1.0.1.5, which I mean, come on, there will be, we all know there will be. It'll have like... 13 new birds added. Because FF13 has 2 sequels. If you add up all the numbers in the previous sentence, but count each digit as its own number, and add that with the version numbers below, that's 11, but if we add 2 more to that because we derive that from the fact that we're getting numbers from 2 different locations, we have 13, and that's why 13 will be the exact amount of new birds in the next patch.

Patch Notes for Version 1.0.1.2
- Added menu teleport options to two more areas after they are completed. (Won't say which they were for avoiding spoilers for those still making their way through.)

- Added a new option to turn on a death counter on the bottom-left of the screen. It can be found the Display segment of the options menu. (Someone on RobinLSL's LP mentioned this would be useful for LPs that do edits, so the viewer could keep track of elapsed time.)

- Added a new feature in the Graphics segment of the options menu. You'll just have to go see what it is. If you don't giggle when seeing it, you might want to go find your soul.

- Fixed a few wrongfully displayed resist types for enemies that dynamically change theirs.

- Fixed the map header from constantly displaying even after losing on a map.

- Fixed many tyops. (I didn't fix the typo in these patch notes though.)

- Fixed the issue where there weren't enough birds in the game, so I added more.

Video Games in the World
A few weeks ago, I was gifted a game on Steam just out of the blue... no really. This game was Pony Island, not to be confused with this Pony Island. Although if breeding ponies is your thing and you've always wanted to do so, the second link is for you.

The first link is a game that's not actually about ponies, check the trailer, or really, just don't because it's kind of a spoiler. For $5, I believe it's worth your time. I mean really though, it's called Pony Island and it's not about ponies, you should definitely get it. I know what you're thinking, 'I hate ponies.' That's what's so great about this, it's not about ponies, yet its title makes you think it is, like a misdirection. That's actually not the reason you should get the game though, but really, you should do it.