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.
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,
16 comments:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Well shit, time to edit my write-up, then.
Great, now I've got to play through the original games again, if you're going to be updating them!
I've been looking for a reason to do another run-through of DT1. I'll wait a bit and see if you're done updating them, or if you change your mind on the physics. I don't think that changing them would require changing any level layouts to compensate. Now, if there was only a way to actually map everything to a 360 controller...
Hey, if somebody were to come up with a suggestion for an alternate control system, would you consider implementing it as an option, so people can play with an actual controller? I've been thinking, and if you made a couple adjustments to how abilities were equipped, I think you could probably squeeze it all onto a typical 360 controller.
Brian and I talked about, or I basically talked to Brian and he seemed agreeable about, turning element and spell switching into wheels that come up and pause the game when you press each button and hold it down, then you'd press one of four directions to select an element or leave the stick neutral to select physical skills, or leave the stick neutral to select the first spell and press one of four directions to select the other four spells you get per element throughout the game. This would let players use dash buttons without sacrificing their ability to switch around their magic efficiently without using the menu.
If you were to add controller support for the game, you could even let the player use both wheels at the same time, using the left stick to select elements and the right for spells; as long as one of the two wheels is on screen (either the element or spell switch is held) the game would stay paused. And keyboard users could use WASD and arrow keys respectively.
I highly doubt improving the physics would make any jumps impossible, but if you really need someone to re-playtest the entire game for you to have peace of mind to make that change, I'll valiantly offer up my services.
One thing I do not want changed though, is Claire being able to run through spikes without taking repeated hitstuns in DT2. That change was welcome in DT3 and would be fine in DT1 since there's a few places it can kill you, but I don't remember it ever being a problem in DT2 and it would invalidate a few speedrun records that tank spikes, like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqwCIRqeEpg
The physics change wouldn't mess with any of that. The character speeds would be the same, they just wouldn't slide everywhere after letting go of the button. Which would also make Think & Act Fast not so much a thing. :P
That's a lot of big changes that I'm really happy to see, and yes I'm still screaming! But maybe when these builds go public, the previous version should be available for rollback just in case any new bugs pop up with the new versions...
Where I download the new versions?
The new versions aren't up yet. Various things are still being checked before I release them. I did say they'd be out yesterday, but I wanted a few other things in them as well while I was doing this update.
Ilvocare, just keep the old version around in case, but I don't foresee any game breaking issues this would bring up.
As of 11:30 AM EST, 7/6/16, I have completed the final boss in Achilles mode. Still gotta go get the gold medal... Not looking forward to going full reckless mode
Let me gush again about how amazing of a boss this is. While I did get into a few situations that felt like no amount of skill would prevent my death that I wouldn't have noticed in a casual run, the boss is still among the greatest bosses in all of video game. raocow probably put it best yesterday, its like fighting another protagonist. That's what makes this so great.
That's quite the feat that not many have been able to pull off, good job LostSoldier! What was your death count, if you remember/still have the save file on hand?
That makes 3 people who have beaten Achilles mode as far as I'm aware. Congratulations!
Thank you!
The official counter on the final recording is 3877. But this does not include a lot of practice on some other very difficult bosses (and a good let's say... 600-700 extra deaths on the Warmaster) so I estimate somewhere just over 5000 deaths factoring those in.
I'm sure my runs at Gold times will bloat this number even further!
I might just go back and play "old" DT1 a tiny bit so that I can get a feel and understand those physics changes.
Color wheel sound effects will be in both games as well.
Just thought I'd ask since it's been a while. Have you updated the first two games yet? The download page still says the last update was in 2014, so you may want to edit either the "They'll be out probably tomorrow" to "I'll post when they're done" if you haven't gotten it yet, or edit the 2014 date on the update page.
Oh, boy. The changes. Cool. Though personally I'm quite scared by adding 2 new dash buttons to already complecated controls. What I could wish to change in DT1:
1. Fix Thread level in Scan. It always shows 0%. Even during the battle with Shroud Lord. Weird.
2. Erase invisible block on the stairs in almost last room in Tutorial Area.
3. Could you please match controls in game and in menu to be the same. Because if I change controls in game there are default controls in menu. So I have twice more buttons to remember!
4. Add to Change Control Menu buttons Q and E. I was really confused when I first changed controls and then realized that button controlling change of spells behave wierdly (I changed to Q), then I changed the second one to E and I was even more confused. For some time I thought that one of the spell changing buttons must behave wierdly and it was intentional. After some time I found information about these buttons hidden somewhere on your blog. There was no information about this in manual, tutorial or even help menu!!!
They haven't been uploaded yet, though they've been finished for almost a week. I've left them alone for the moment just in case something else was caught by those who were playing the new version. I'll probably upload it with a new post when I get back home later tonight.
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