Stuff Under the Header

10/08/2017

Patching Some Things In DT3

PAAAAATCH NOOOOOTES!! Version 1.5.1.6

  • Elpizo can only place 1 shield down now.
  • More birds... always more birds.
  • Double jump removed from WhattayaBrian's Bubble Tower - B Side map.
  • If the second super boss is beaten, a new door opens in Bubble Tower - B Side. (It's a silly door that opens and the challenge inside is not meant to be beatable, like a few of the other maps on the lower floor of the B Side.)
  • Resetting bosses in the boss gallery should now always fully restore all ammo.

9/07/2017

Oh Man! Another Update

These are going to be slowing way way down as a project I'd like to put into an actual working prototype has taken hold. Now then, THE PATCH NOTES! This one has some good stuff in it.

Patch Notes

  • Invisible platforms will no longer plague a certain hidden boss.
  • Jerry and Claire will no longer use their partner's damage boosting equipment for damage calculations if swapped after firing a weapon. Sorry you guys who use this bug, I know some of you enjoy it.
  • Quite a few new stats are tracked under the Records pages. None of them are retroactive unfortunately.
  • More birds of course!
  • When selecting 'Load Last Save' or 'Return to Title Screen' from the save sub-menu, the cursor will default to Cancel. The confirmation menu has also changed color from green to red so it no longer blends in with the menu.
    • This same confirmation menu is now used for the world map variants.
  • Bumping Mario blocks from below will now cause damage to enemies directly above it.
  • There are a number of map changes, mostly small. A few of them have switches that open up short cuts. For example, a switch is located at the top of Grand Rising that opens a pipe near the bottom... that leads to the top. (No more traversing back up the Grand Rising if you've done it before.)
  • Fixed a memory leak involving the dark maps. This may not be connected to the issue of them not working properly at times.
  • Jaimers beat the super boss without taking damage. Check it out here. (Do not click if you don't want spoilers on what it is.) Disclaimer, this is not a patch note, but it is listed in the patch notes. I blame the birds.

8/29/2017

The DT3 Patch With Some Tester Levels

The 1.5.1.0 patch is now available. There is a new music file so the exe is packaged with it. A readme is included that will instruct you to place it in the music folder.

Patch Notes
  • 1.5.1.2 Patch
    • A few adjustments to a tester level in Side B.
    • 2 birds added that watch over Side B.
  • 1.5.1.1 Hotfix
    • Only fixes up the Dualshock 4 gamepad profile. If you have 1.5.1.0 and you don't use a DS4 controller, there is no need to get this update.
  • The Nightmare mode has had significant changes. Note that not all of these changes will be retroactive with current runs.
    • Idle abilities will now recharge faster than on Normal mode.
    • A few skill freebies were given prior to this update, but a few more were added. These are now reflected on the skill tree.
    • An heart container is obtainable through the Challenge Trials.
    • A selection of equipment is available from the game's start with all 3 slots available as before the update.
  • If you have obtained the true end of the game, the B side of Bubble Tower will be open. This location includes some tester ideas for levels as well as a few experiments from myself in its basement.
  • A few maps had minor tweaks for better flow purposes.
  • Warmaster should no longer be able to swap forms and immediately attack.
  • More birds have indeed been added. A lot of birds... like... A LOT of birds.
  • Turrets from a certain superboss will now auto despawn after 10 seconds.
  • For those using the built in Gamepad function, you should no longer jump upon starting a map after selecting an option from the Game Over screen. (Jump and Confirm are the same button.)
  • 2 new gamepad profiles were added.
  • The camera will no longer be stuck after beating the Gate G boss.
  • Assist Mode can still be used in the Boss Gallery, but the record will no longer count.
  • Other misc. fixes because I didn't note every change.

8/21/2017

Patching An Older DT

The first Distorted Travesty got a little QoL update today. Most of these were made after the patch to it last year, but were never fully approved for public release till going back to look at them again recently.

DT 1 Patch Notes
Edit: (8/27/17) New patch!
  • Removed most of the healing stations since save points have their function now.
  • Shrouds should no longer spawn during first visits to locations other than the Detritus.
  • Shrouds will show up less often in the Detritus.
  • Shrouds should show up slightly less on repeat visits to locations.
  • Rock Drill has been buffed by quite a bit.
    • Old version: Base Power 10, utilized 40% of Spirit Power.
    • New version: Base Power 50, utilizes 70% of Spirit Power.

  • Blast Off cooldown resets when landing.
  • The jump attack has had considerable changes.
    • It can be controlled just a bit while in the air.
    • It will now deal much more damage as it now checks horizontal distance traveled for its damage calculations. Before it was only vertical distance. This will cause dashing jump attacks to be much more usable.
    • An infrequent bug where the player could get stuck in the jump attack has been fixed.
    • The time/distance that it takes to reach i-frames with the jump attack has stayed mostly the same, though a dashing jump attack will achieve this faster.
  • Necrobane no longer summons invisible lasers and his sky laser attack will no longer 'jump around' when reaching HP thresholds.
  • The Shroud Lord has had a few QoL changes. When starting his final desperation attack, all of his laser attacks will be removed. His hands will also despawn if they are active. (They still respawn at the end of the attack.) This removes having to manage HP thresholds for his final desperation attack. The hands will still remain for other desperation attacks though.

The DT3 Patch
There is still a patch for DT3 coming up that many of you are aware of. The biggest attraction is the opening of the Bubble Tower B Side. It has been changed from only tester levels to also contain a few experiments as well. Not all the tester levels will be in this patch, but a substantial one will be in.

The bug on Nightmare Gate G boss where the camera gets stuck after the fight will also fixed. Until the patch goes live, simply force game over after the fight and the game will resume as normal. (If you'd like to proceed without a +1 to death count, save and then reload from save and the game will still resume like normal.)

8/09/2017

Streams & Videos

There's been a lot of DT3 activity on the player side specifically in regards to streams. More than I can keep up with. There's even been two speedruns of the game, starting with Quof's insanity of 28 hours straight.

Completed Speedruns
Quof's play-through can be seen on twitch. Quof, for your health, don't do that again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjhw4N13zB8&list=PLcdCD0jznboYuIevxnqd_n3RWONqsrABW

WhattayaBrian is the other speedrunner who as of this writing, has the fastest run with 17 hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5f8GQHraoc

Completed Play-throughs
Ilvocare has streamed the entire series from beginning to end.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViEz1j3SCxK92nIJ7cT-ow

Kefit did a play-through on twitch as well. He has quite a few analytical criticisms of the game strewn throughout the play-through that were interesting to listen to. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTlZsIQ0oRH5IXwqS6jWWAOK5vEVk01pG

Moogy also has a playthrough, though on the game's Nightmare mode, and has Wahfuu co-commentating with him. The two have a really good dynamic that's just fun to watch and listen to. I really hope they do another stream together like this as they're an absolute joy to listen to and work well together from what I saw. There's a few later times I add my voice to their stream and was afraid to do so at first due to thinking I'd get in the way of their dynamics together. Things turned out really well though. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgvPvRTtFz-Uo9dGuO9ZH0FmXJKDpE48v

Special runs currently going
Slaix playing the game with a really awful controller. He has a camera aimed at his hands so you can see the awfulness of it. It creates humorous moments and luckily Slaix is very familiar with the game: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164330834

Cousinoer5 is a crazy man and is attempting the game at 2x speed. Uh... good luck? But really though, it's fun to watch. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164534568

7/15/2017

Update Post to Update

Edit: (Same day as previous update) Version 1.5.0.9 ------------------------------
- Minor tweaks(buffs) to a few abilities in Nightmare Mode. Purely cooldown/recharge counters.
- Fixed a locked camera issue in Gate G.
- Birds added.
- The previous update added 2 new hats that I forgot to mention. (One is a recolor because I'm trash.)

Patch Notes
Version 1.5.0.8 is a few more quality of life updates.
- Fixed an instance of Claire's up/down shot still being eaten by the walls.
- For those using the gamepad support, you can now set the left stick deadzone in the Gamepad Options. Range is 20% to 80%. (Default is 40% and where the game was hardcoded for it prior to this update.)
- More birds.
- Other small stuff that I'd have to go find my changes file for.

Stuff
The 'Update Download' option from the sidebar has been removed since it is no longer necessary.

This post should be updated later.

6/29/2017

The Big DT3 Update Is Here

Edit: (7/7/2017) Version 1.5.0.7 hotfix. ------------------------------
Ayeee another one. This one fixes up some issues that slipped in with the new swap methods. They should be working as intended now. Thanks for the bug reports on that you guys. This might be the last update to this blog post. Gonna just make a new post in the event that we need another patch.

 - Precisely 3 birds were added into a map somewhere.
 - A potential fix for the massive frame rate loss issues that some people have. If you suffered from this issue and were unable to play the game prior, this version may work for you, just be sure gamepad support is off. Found under Options - Controls. (Should be the default submenu under Options.)
 - For those that do use the gamepad support, if you attempted to use a Switch Pro Controller, you probably found it behaved badly. A new option for that controller was added to the Gamepad Setup menu. That option should help for those that have gamepads that don't have analog L2/R2 buttons, but want to try DT3's internal gamepad support. (This was mostly added cause NZZ wanted to use the Pro Controller, he kept asking.)

Edit: (7/6/2017) Version 1.5.0.6 hotfix. ------------------------------
Don't mind the version skip, it happens. This is primarily a quality of life patch. Some of these are from player suggestions that I liked.

 - When firing up or down while pressed against a wall with Claire, the shots are no longer eaten by the wall. (The walls will go hungry though.)
 - A certain boss has had some edits.
 - Under Options - Controls. There is a new option called 'Swap Type' that will allow you to change how the ability and character swap buttons behave.
   - Standard: How we have it currently.
   - Dedicated: Each character has their own button. For example, Jerry is assigned to character swap, pressing this button will switch to Jerry if he is not active. If he is active, his ability set will change. The ability swap button will do the same for Claire.
   - Hold: This is closer to a DMC styled set up. When the ability swap button is held, pressing one of the four directions will swap to a specific ability set. If the ability set is on another character, that character will then become active. (Note that the slight cooldown on character swapping is still in effect with this.) For this set up, the character swap button functions as it does on Standard except in certain cases like a certain chapter 16 minigame that has its own ability set.
 - And yes, a bird has been added. If you find it, you'll game over. (This is the best patch note in this update.)

Edit: (7/4/2017) Version 1.5.0.3 hotfix. ------------------------------
- Fixes a crash bug with the story variant of the Decimator boss fight.
- Like all updates, more birds were added. Note the previous versions did have birds added to the world, but was not noted. If the game continues to be patched in this manner, the world will be overrun with birds.

Edit: (7/3/2017) Version 1.5.0.2 hotfix. ------------------------------
- Fixes a silly bug with Gate 3. Apologies for any hold ups that caused.

Edit: (7/1/2017) Version 1.5.0.1 hotfix. ------------------------------
- Fixes a bug with one of the super bosses.
- Changed the option 'Turn off Static Bitrate Explosion' to 'Game Over Settings.' This now has 3 options.
   - Normal: Standard Game Over.
   - Reduce Static: Same as turning off the bitrate explosion.
   - Auto Skip: Skips the Game Over screen and auto selects the default option. For example, if you're on a boss, "Retry Boss" is auto selected. You can still force a Game Over to get to the Game Over screen if you need to leave a boss fight. This setting was added in primarily for Achilles mode players or repeat players.

You're not dreaming, it's finally here! Better super late than... anyway, here are some patch notes.

Patch Notes
- New Content
- A new set of events is available. The epilogue scene will give clues on how to start these new events.

- Ending sequence changes -
  - Game Over no longer occurs when falling off during the final escape sequence. Instead, Chao brings the player back to a nearby stable platform.
  - All ending cutscenes, including the credits, can be skipped.

- New Ability -
  - Spring ball is now an optional item found in Gate 5 - Main Hub.
  - Morph ball can no longer be canceled with the jump button.

- New options -
  - Chao will give an audio alert when an item is in the area if the Item Finder is found. (Default: On)
  - An option to turn off pressing up to unmorph. (Default: On)

- Misc -
  - Contact(Direct) and Trap damage is now shown to the player via an icon when it occurs.
  - Air dashing will now cancel Mario bumper momentum completely just like the double jump does.
  - Bird Swarm and Chainblade Storm now have consistent patterns.
  - The Gate 6 parry will feel a bit more reliable.
  - Blackmore will no longer rise above the level.
  - Jerry and Claire's snap back dash issue has been fixed.
  - Death's Eye in Gate 3 should now properly stay in the player inventory after obtaining it. The eye really liked its prior home.
  - New pointless achievements.
  - Various misc. fixes all over the game.

- New Feature -
A command line argument can now be passed to the game indicating which save file to save/load. If you have multiple saves, this is for you. If, for example, you have a save file called "DT3data_Nightmare.dts" you can pass that as an argument through the command line to save/load to that file instead of the normal "DT3data.dts" file. This is helpful for those that use multiple saves, but don't want to have to rename files constantly. I may make or link to a tutorial on command line usage later.

Shut Up Zephyr, Where Do I Get The Update?
On the side links as usual. There are two download links.

If you are here downloading the game for the first time, use the full game download link. (Or if you had the game but deleted it.)

If you're here simply getting the update and already have the game on your computer, use that link and follow the readme instructions within. It'll have the new executable as well as the new resources.

What Took So Long?
Lots of reasons. Life got in the way many times. Other times, big games came out that I wanted to play on their release. A large reason though is that the update was going to be smaller in scale. The original release was set to be out last year as some of you may recall. But as development went on, I continued to find things in the existing content to tweak and improve, including fixing some persistent bugs and oddities. Another is the update began to scale up a bit bigger than originally planned. (This is the theme for DT3 it seems.) Many things were added in these last couple months that weren't originally planned and those took some time to test and prepare for release. The result turned out nice though. Without spoiling, some of the additions will please the more hardcore players that want more of that kind of content.

Anyway, I'll be playing games and streaming games as well in the future. And of course, hope you all enjoy the game. Have fun, get many more game overs... many more, and eventually come out the winner!

Thanks for sticking with my delays for so long and remaining so patient.

5/08/2017

Upcoming Update This Month

I'll be handing off the new version to the testers in a few days. There are quite a few new resources to get, especially music files. I'll upload the newest version like I used to, with an exe-only and full download for first timers (or those that lost their old files). There will also be a separate download with all the new resources for those that don't want to have to get the full file again.

Partial patch notes of what's to come
- Contact(Direct) and Trap damage is now shown to the player via an icon when it occurs.
- Air dashing will now cancel Mario bumper momentum completely just like the double jump does.
- New Ability
   - Spring ball is now an optional item found in Gate 5 - Main Hub.
   - Morph ball can no longer be canceled with the jump button.
- Ending sequence changes
   - Game Over no longer occurs when falling off during the final escape sequence. Instead, Chao brings the player back to a nearby stable platform.
   - All ending cutscenes, including the credits, can be skipped.
   - It is highly advised to revisit the epilogue scene shown after the credits.
-And of course, because it's not a secret anymore, and what everyone's waiting for; A new set of events have been added. (And 4 new bosses, yes 4, not 3 like I said originally, though only 3 of them are coming to the boss gallery.)

A bug fix
- Blackmoor will no longer rise above the level.

2/14/2017

On the Horizon

Edit: (3/27/2017) Dropbox changed how it handles the public folder. Download links have been fixed.

It's right there, but how far is it really?



















P.S. Love you all, it IS that day!