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.)

Moving Along

Did everyone see the Valenti... err Hearts and Hooves Day episode? You know what I'm talking about...

Okay, Gate 3 is almost done, just finished with a huge thing. This thing took awhile to get working, I haven't done anything like this animation-wise ever in 2D. And definitely not coding. It was a request by a new tester and one other person. It's a boss fight that replaced the Frankenstein monster. (I kept saying Werewolf for awhile.) I thought about showing what it was, but I'll just keep it a surprise. I'd probably just gush about the boring technical aspects behind it anyway.

So moving along, Gate 3 has 1 area left to make. Well... more like 1.33 areas left to make, plus I gotta finish coding the final encounter there. But that's it! Then a demo! (Plus the last bit of fine-tuning and tweaking.)

A few weeks left! Also no screenshots this time. Oh yeah, it snowed about 1 hour north from me! It's too damn cold!

And I'm Back

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

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

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

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

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.