Edit: (12/25/2013) Merry Christmas to everyone, now get off the Internet! :3
Damage Feedback
When the player takes damage, there are 3 main damage types that the player commonly comes across. That being [Normal], [Elemental], and [Explosive]. So of course, the game gives the player options for more defense against these.
When the player deals damage, the game lets them know through colored damage text if they hit an enemy's weakness or resistance. (Instead of DT1's method of ambiguation.) So it's only right that the player knows what they're being hit with. In the demo, this isn't shown, you just get a screen flash. This has changed, instead, the corners of the screen will flash a color based on the type of damage you were dealt. (And it isn't so in your face and intrusive when the player is hit.) The other thing is the game now tells the player how much damage they took like in DT1 and DT2. The color of the text matches the screen flash as well.
Force Armor
Remember this expensive piece of equipment in the demo? It reduced damage from all sources by 1, which is quite useful, a bit too useful. It was changed to reduce damage only from normal type damage. (Basically anything that isn't explosive or elemental (like fireballs)). In every situation, when choosing what type of defensive gear to use, Force Armor was the obvious go to. Why choose only elemental defense when you could go with all of them. (Unless you were stacking them.) This brings back a meaningful choice and removes a late game design issue I was seeing with stacking too many defensive options together.
Gate 6
I mentioned before that it became the final one since Gate 7 was removed, but I never did say what theme it would be using. I still won't, but a not so helpful hint will be given. I've mentioned in the past that it would be of an arcade style, but that's not what it actually is. DT already embraces a lot of arcade style action at times and doing entire set of levels on it is unnecessary. Gate 6 does not represent a game, but instead a genre.
I need to get an FAQ up sometime, not on the game, but on questions asked to me.
Fun Fact
It was around this time that I originally wanted to release DT3. Seeing how I'm finishing up chapter 14 of 20, you can see I'm a little behind schedule. What happened? A lot of things, remember nothing ever goes as planned.
12/08/2013
11/19/2013
Healing Items and Stuff
Edit: (11/20/2013) It's the Planetside 2 first year anniversary. On that note, if you tried the game and were turned off from it due to it running like shit, I recommend trying it again. The game has had a huge overhaul on its back-end and has improved its performance for nearly everyone, and they're doing 2 more, smaller, optimization passes on the game. It's also going to be on the PS4, again as a free-to-play game, and you won't need PS+ to play it.
The other day after shopping, I found about a quarter of a burger left outside. Well the top bun anyway. It had been out for awhile, which was made apparent by the bread being hard. I saw a grackle close by and tossed it over to her. She happily skittered over and grabbed it. That happy mood was quickly replaced by very visible frustration at the bread being hard. She shook it and threw it on the ground twice. I waited and watched to see what she would do next.
One thing that grackles know how to do is put hard food in water to let it soften, such as dog food. However, bread can be a pain in the ass for them to eat when it's wet. There were plenty of puddles around for her to use, which I figured she'd use, but that's not what she went for. Instead, she grabbed the dried bread and flew in front of a parked car, then placed the bread in front of the left front tire. What's interesting to note is the setting is a parking lot, so there were plenty of parked cars around. She didn't just put the bread in front of any random car though, she chose the one car among the rest in the area that had someone sitting in it.
So after putting the bread in front of the car, she went to the side, looked up at the car, and started chirping at it.
Healing Items
Short segment here. It's worth noting that when playtesting, I don't ever use healing items. If I can't get through a segment without the help of healing potions, then the level has to be edited. (Technically I have to be able to perfect run a segment, but when doing a full run through an entire area, that is disregarded due to human error. The healing potion clause always applies though.)
Stuff
I've mentioned that DT3 will be the last fan-game (or game with sprite-rips) that I'll do. It'll also be the last of its scale that I'll make, at least alone anyway. DT3 is massive, its main quest is definitely bigger than DT1, and that's not mentioning DT3's side content. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would be a lie to say this wasn't an oversight. I prefer smaller games honestly, both in playing and making I've found. Really, I think games should be smaller for the most part, MMOs aside. I feel games typically explore their gameplay well enough within 5-8 hours. The rest seems like filler or copypaste content. DT3 isn't any different, to be honest. I've tried to bring something unique to each area, and not just in the visuals. If I were in the mindset I am now 2 years prior, DT3 would be a bit smaller, but at this point, it would hurt the project to cut it down. It certainly explores each of its Ability Sets extensively, especially on the end game chapters.
On the note of games being shorter, this is a huge topic, and not one I know how to fully address. In some cases, more content can be better, even if it's more of the same type you've come across before. I'm pretty sure we could have gone without level... we'll pick 5-2, or 6-1 in the first Mario game and it wouldn't have felt any different than it did... or would it? It's hard to really figure out, “Is this better with or without this content? Does it add anything to the experience? But does it take away something without its presense?”
I know if I were to start cutting existing content, the Sky Castle in Gate 3 would be the first to go. Next would be a few misc. maps in Gate 2, and I know of 2 or 3 maps in Gate 5 that I'd remove. That's speculation though, I'm not removing existing content that currently works.
Progress
Chapter 14 is getting fairly close to being done. Just a few more gameplay scenarios to script and it'll be ready.
As for unique content for each new area, the end game certainly does this better than the rest of the game.
The other day after shopping, I found about a quarter of a burger left outside. Well the top bun anyway. It had been out for awhile, which was made apparent by the bread being hard. I saw a grackle close by and tossed it over to her. She happily skittered over and grabbed it. That happy mood was quickly replaced by very visible frustration at the bread being hard. She shook it and threw it on the ground twice. I waited and watched to see what she would do next.
One thing that grackles know how to do is put hard food in water to let it soften, such as dog food. However, bread can be a pain in the ass for them to eat when it's wet. There were plenty of puddles around for her to use, which I figured she'd use, but that's not what she went for. Instead, she grabbed the dried bread and flew in front of a parked car, then placed the bread in front of the left front tire. What's interesting to note is the setting is a parking lot, so there were plenty of parked cars around. She didn't just put the bread in front of any random car though, she chose the one car among the rest in the area that had someone sitting in it.
So after putting the bread in front of the car, she went to the side, looked up at the car, and started chirping at it.
Healing Items
Short segment here. It's worth noting that when playtesting, I don't ever use healing items. If I can't get through a segment without the help of healing potions, then the level has to be edited. (Technically I have to be able to perfect run a segment, but when doing a full run through an entire area, that is disregarded due to human error. The healing potion clause always applies though.)
Stuff
I've mentioned that DT3 will be the last fan-game (or game with sprite-rips) that I'll do. It'll also be the last of its scale that I'll make, at least alone anyway. DT3 is massive, its main quest is definitely bigger than DT1, and that's not mentioning DT3's side content. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would be a lie to say this wasn't an oversight. I prefer smaller games honestly, both in playing and making I've found. Really, I think games should be smaller for the most part, MMOs aside. I feel games typically explore their gameplay well enough within 5-8 hours. The rest seems like filler or copypaste content. DT3 isn't any different, to be honest. I've tried to bring something unique to each area, and not just in the visuals. If I were in the mindset I am now 2 years prior, DT3 would be a bit smaller, but at this point, it would hurt the project to cut it down. It certainly explores each of its Ability Sets extensively, especially on the end game chapters.
On the note of games being shorter, this is a huge topic, and not one I know how to fully address. In some cases, more content can be better, even if it's more of the same type you've come across before. I'm pretty sure we could have gone without level... we'll pick 5-2, or 6-1 in the first Mario game and it wouldn't have felt any different than it did... or would it? It's hard to really figure out, “Is this better with or without this content? Does it add anything to the experience? But does it take away something without its presense?”
I know if I were to start cutting existing content, the Sky Castle in Gate 3 would be the first to go. Next would be a few misc. maps in Gate 2, and I know of 2 or 3 maps in Gate 5 that I'd remove. That's speculation though, I'm not removing existing content that currently works.
Progress
Chapter 14 is getting fairly close to being done. Just a few more gameplay scenarios to script and it'll be ready.
As for unique content for each new area, the end game certainly does this better than the rest of the game.
11/06/2013
Data Entry
Something about birds. I'll have something about them next time.
Random Shenanegans
Slaix and I had a totally super serious conversation about the end of DT3 the other day. These are such really big spoilers that I don't know if I should post this very serious conversation.
ZephyrBurst:
ZephyrBurst:
Slaix223:
ZephyrBurst:
Slaix223:
ZephyrBurst:
Slaix223:
ZephyrBurst:
ZephyrBurst:
Enemy Scan Data
This is a fairly big part of the game, especially for DT1 on Hard mode since cripple points were about the only way to do significant damage to a lot of late game enemies. I always liked the idea of being able to look up information about what you're going against in games. This idea came from Metroid Prime's scans and while they weren't really necessary, (like in DT) I found them more immersive more than anything. In DT1, it was mainly there to help players out that haven't played the source games that the enemies were from, or to clue them in on how to engage a boss fight. In Metroid Prime, it had all these nifty bits of info about what the creature ate and how it lived in the habitat you found it in. The Space Pirates always had interesting entries in how it described their weapons systems or about the heirarchy of their command when you found a higher ranking Pirate.
In DT2... let's just skip DT2.
In DT3, I wanted to make sure Jeremy and Chao, for the most part, had seperate roles in the scan data. Jeremy reclaims his role in DT1 of giving the player basic info on how an enemy behaves.
Chao will sometimes fill in a few blanks Jeremy left behind, but her primary role is tell where the sprite came from, source wise, and sometimes the differences in their behaviors in the source material and in DT3.
The Dev Comments are just my bits of info about not just the enemy scan, but about some of the things I was making on the game during that time. It was also made to seperate this from Chao's scans, since she started getting a bit too meta with her entries.
Talkhaus Is Back
10/21/2013
Game Mechanics
The grackles from the north are back for the cold season. Thousands of grackles fill the sky every evening now. They also catch on really quick when other grackles find food. Once one of the regulars that know me approach me, the 1 or 2 birds quickly turn into about 25-30.
Holy Shit, Censorship
This is partially why this post suddenly happened. Was gonna save some of this stuff for later, but here it is... well the stuff below this link, but check this out anyway, I find it very important to know about.
Holy Shit, Censorship
This is partially why this post suddenly happened. Was gonna save some of this stuff for later, but here it is... well the stuff below this link, but check this out anyway, I find it very important to know about.
Silly things that happen
Edit: The dev responded to what happened
Game Stuff
Here's some changes that have happened lately.
Jerry's Dash
More specifically, his backdash is now a ground dash like the forward one. This had some humorous bugs before it got to the testers. Like being able to use up all your dashes incredibly quick to build up immunity time. It's still possible to do, but the button sequence and timing is so incredibly tight and specific, that if someone can pull that off, more power to them. Plus running completely out of dash points in DT3 can suck a lot.
Gate A Boss
Since all the other Extra Gates (now called Nightmare Gates) have boss fights, I figured it would be good to get one for this level too. That and there aren't that many other Mario based boss encounters planned aside from those in Gate 1. Though if you play the Nightmare Gates right after their respective gates, that's still quite a gap in time between the early and later Mario boss fights.
The layout is the same for the level above, the tiles simply changed for the Castle level in Gate A. And the tiles now matching Yoshi's Island totally have nothing to do with the boss fight... nope! Actually the boss room tiles are using the Gate 1 castle tiles, but that's because they work better for that part.
Forest Palace
Do you guys remember this place in Gate 2? Probably not for most of you. I personally despise this level. There's only so much you can do with Zelda 2 styled dungeons and make it continually intresting. At least without changing it so much that it becomes unrecognizable from its reference material. Having 3 of them seems like overkill. The Desert Palace is good and introduces the Gate and the basic, 'press the attack button to kill things' mechanic just fine. The Great Palace is different enough (and specifically the memories involved for anyone that played it will instantly cause them to differentiate it from everything else) to keep it around. But the Forest Palace is just there, clinging to this weird rules with the floors being lies.
So it has been deleted and will be remade into a new, more interesting Forest Temple. It's closer to what you would find in more modern Zelda games, but in 2D of course. There were some decent moments in the level, so those will be ported over to the new place. The Dragon boss has been moved to the Great Palace as a sub-boss. Though he might be pushed to a very very very short new zone just before the Great Palace as a guardian of sorts. Still deciding on that. The new Forest Temple will get a more interesting boss fight as well. I mentioned below it was a boss fight used to test engine way back before it was DT.
Spoilers: It does involve OoT's Forest Temple's idea of turning rooms upside down.
Edit: The dev responded to what happened
Game Stuff
Here's some changes that have happened lately.
Jerry's Dash
More specifically, his backdash is now a ground dash like the forward one. This had some humorous bugs before it got to the testers. Like being able to use up all your dashes incredibly quick to build up immunity time. It's still possible to do, but the button sequence and timing is so incredibly tight and specific, that if someone can pull that off, more power to them. Plus running completely out of dash points in DT3 can suck a lot.
Gate A Boss
Since all the other Extra Gates (now called Nightmare Gates) have boss fights, I figured it would be good to get one for this level too. That and there aren't that many other Mario based boss encounters planned aside from those in Gate 1. Though if you play the Nightmare Gates right after their respective gates, that's still quite a gap in time between the early and later Mario boss fights.
 |
| Changed due to... you guessed it! Reasons!! |
The layout is the same for the level above, the tiles simply changed for the Castle level in Gate A. And the tiles now matching Yoshi's Island totally have nothing to do with the boss fight... nope! Actually the boss room tiles are using the Gate 1 castle tiles, but that's because they work better for that part.
Forest Palace
Do you guys remember this place in Gate 2? Probably not for most of you. I personally despise this level. There's only so much you can do with Zelda 2 styled dungeons and make it continually intresting. At least without changing it so much that it becomes unrecognizable from its reference material. Having 3 of them seems like overkill. The Desert Palace is good and introduces the Gate and the basic, 'press the attack button to kill things' mechanic just fine. The Great Palace is different enough (and specifically the memories involved for anyone that played it will instantly cause them to differentiate it from everything else) to keep it around. But the Forest Palace is just there, clinging to this weird rules with the floors being lies.
So it has been deleted and will be remade into a new, more interesting Forest Temple. It's closer to what you would find in more modern Zelda games, but in 2D of course. There were some decent moments in the level, so those will be ported over to the new place. The Dragon boss has been moved to the Great Palace as a sub-boss. Though he might be pushed to a very very very short new zone just before the Great Palace as a guardian of sorts. Still deciding on that. The new Forest Temple will get a more interesting boss fight as well. I mentioned below it was a boss fight used to test engine way back before it was DT.
Spoilers: It does involve OoT's Forest Temple's idea of turning rooms upside down.
9/30/2013
Something Different Instead
Edit: (Oct. 16, 2013) There probably won't be a new post this month. DT3 is still being worked on all the time though. For the next week or two, I'll be going back through chapters 1-7 to fix up a lot things I need to address. Mainly the Gate C revamp that really needs to happen. There's another level before it that no one really made much mention of. It wasn't hated or liked, but personally I loathe it so it's going to be destroyed and replaced with something else much better and more memorable. It had a boss fight with it which no longer fits, though I don't want to remove that one, so it'll be moved to another location while a new boss will be put in the new place. The fun thing about the new boss is it was the first 'boss fight' type of thing to be made for the DT engine before it was even DT. Of course behaviors and some code will have to be altered to make it work for DT's current state. Displaced Cyborg was the first boss made for DT1, but it wasn't the first test subject.
Edit: (Oct. 1, 2013) I love using Comic Sans, mainly because it upsets people for some explainable reason. Forgot to mention, I will be unavailable between Oct. 5-8 as I'll be at the Captivate Conference.
So... this post was originally going to be a rant (was even going to have a disclaimer) about how I dislike modern gamers. Instead, I'll just talk about something else, because I'm sure my thoughts on modern gamers, or rather the words I'd use to describe them, are well known anyway. I've been in a very bad mood lately. It's not my life (things are fine), it's just the world pissing me off more than usual. Probably best to keep that anger away from this blog.
Okay, now this narrows it down a bit
better. Personally, this gives me more hope of being able to at least
find where the other items are, getting to all of them is a different
story. Every Gate will have this aside from Gate 4. If you remember
from the demo, the level select screen already displayed this
information for the player.
Edit: (Oct. 1, 2013) I love using Comic Sans, mainly because it upsets people for some explainable reason. Forgot to mention, I will be unavailable between Oct. 5-8 as I'll be at the Captivate Conference.
So... this post was originally going to be a rant (was even going to have a disclaimer) about how I dislike modern gamers. Instead, I'll just talk about something else, because I'm sure my thoughts on modern gamers, or rather the words I'd use to describe them, are well known anyway. I've been in a very bad mood lately. It's not my life (things are fine), it's just the world pissing me off more than usual. Probably best to keep that anger away from this blog.
Before getting into DT stuff; My bird had
been gone for over a month until she suddenly showed
up yesterday. She flew down and landed next to me, awaiting the usual routine
as if she had never been away. It was really good timing as that was
one of my bad 'I hate everything' days.
Item Hunters
First up, I like being able to find
everything in a game. The completionist in me wants to see that 100%.
(Assuming I like the game enough.) So lets look at a screenshot.
For Gate 3, it shows I have 26/29 items
left to find. So exactly where are these 3 items? That Gate level was
huge, broken up into 7 different areas. Where do we even begin?
I'm sure for you completionists out there,
this could be a frustrating task. Exploration is fun, but sometimes a
little clue is nice. Gate 5 has 40 items split up among 5 major areas
so... yeah. Something new has been added in. After a Gate is
completed, a terminal will appear at the Gate's exit portal that will
display a bit more information for the player.
 |
| The source image isn't busted like what is being displayed here. o_O |
Another thing returning is the Item Finder
from DT1. This time though, it's not just given to the player. It's
an optional unlock that takes a bit to get. It doesn't play a sound
this time, instead, Chao will display a treasure icon in her little
word bubble upon entering a map if there's something there. And like
DT1, it will not locate hidden maps, so it can't always be relied on.
Other DT Stuff
The last week has been almost nothing but
bug fixing, tuning, and changing some things that were problematic.
Things are running and playing better now. Yay!
Amnesia: Machine for Pigs
If scary things don't make you shit
yourself and you like horror games... well why haven't you gotten
this if you haven't already? To say too much about it would be
somewhat of a spoiler, so I'm just gonna say it was a very engaging
experience going through this. Personally I didn't find it quite as
scary as the first Amnesia, but it is definitely a lot more
disturbing. I found the story and writing more engaging than the
first and in some cases, the monsters felt scarier. They aren't as
visually horrifying (well you're not supposed to be looking at them,
but w/e) but I found some of the situations were scarier than what
was in the first game. And that's it, any more and it'll go into
spoiler town. If you liked the first game or Silent Hill 2, I highly
recommend Machine for Pigs.
9/14/2013
Because Video Games
Blog intro paragraph goes here...
Making DT3 and Video Games
One of the best, and sometimes worst, things about developing video games is how much they change while they're being developed. It's a highly unpredictable and volatile process where 10 bugs can pop up out of nowhere, and fixing 2 of them causes those 10 original bugs to turn into 17 bugs. Oh wait, that's not what this section is about...
I prototype a lot of stuff and always recommend it to anyone designing games. Even if you know you're not going to use something or follow through with an idea you have. If you want to see how it works, and given that it won't take too much time, do a quick prototype. It helps to see some of the flaws and strong points of your idea. Wait, that's not quite what this section is about either...
While I love prototypes, I feel that they aren't always enough. Sometimes you just have to see your ideas play out in the game proper. Games evolve and change as their developed. In DT3's case, with its original idea of the 7 Gates, each granting both characters 3 sets of abilities. (Plus that Mario one.) There was the melee oriented set, the ranged set, and the more quirky set. And in hindsight, it could still work, but it wasn't until seeing the first 2 sets from each character play so well together that it made the 3rd feel very out of place. I won't go into that here as there is another blog post that went into that already. I don't think any amount of prototyping would have assisted in getting to this change. The way the project has played out feels like it just begged for the change to cut out the 3rd set. Sometimes, you just have to put in the time to make shit to see how it really works.
Seemingly small things can be huge. Jerry's Megaman attacks all have a slight refire delay to remove point blank spamming. I've done it plenty of times during playtesting, ShadowSonic did it in his last LP video of the DT3 demo. Slaix spammed missiles in a bosses face to make incredibly short work of them. Point-blank spamming breaks a lot of things. Part of the reason there's a projectile limit (such as only 2 arrows allowed on screen or 3 X-Buster shots) is to remove such exploits. So, Jerry's Megaman refire delays have been extended to all projectile weapons, including Claire's Daggers and Holy Water. It's not a big delay, just enough to remove the above issue.
Controller Support
Gamepad controls are now built into DT3. That's really all that needs to be said about that...
A Common Idea I Like
I seem to really like cat and mouse scenarios as Gate F has a map where the player will be chased around while they find various points of interest. Said thing is invincible OF COURSE and will use the black magic of A* pathfinding to always find the most efficient route to the player. The map is question is somewhat maze like where the player can open and close routes. While the cat of this scenario is slightly slower than the player, it's often best to be as far from it as possible, or in some cases, close off a route at the last second to grant you just a few more seconds away from it. Also said thing gets slightly faster the more points of interest the player completes; Because reasons!
I know I said I'd have a video explaining some of my boss design methods on the next blog post... I guess I lied. It's still going to happen, but I want to finish up a few things in the project before I go into another video. If I do the video now, I'll probably end up rushing it and I don't want to do that.
Making DT3 and Video Games
One of the best, and sometimes worst, things about developing video games is how much they change while they're being developed. It's a highly unpredictable and volatile process where 10 bugs can pop up out of nowhere, and fixing 2 of them causes those 10 original bugs to turn into 17 bugs. Oh wait, that's not what this section is about...
I prototype a lot of stuff and always recommend it to anyone designing games. Even if you know you're not going to use something or follow through with an idea you have. If you want to see how it works, and given that it won't take too much time, do a quick prototype. It helps to see some of the flaws and strong points of your idea. Wait, that's not quite what this section is about either...
While I love prototypes, I feel that they aren't always enough. Sometimes you just have to see your ideas play out in the game proper. Games evolve and change as their developed. In DT3's case, with its original idea of the 7 Gates, each granting both characters 3 sets of abilities. (Plus that Mario one.) There was the melee oriented set, the ranged set, and the more quirky set. And in hindsight, it could still work, but it wasn't until seeing the first 2 sets from each character play so well together that it made the 3rd feel very out of place. I won't go into that here as there is another blog post that went into that already. I don't think any amount of prototyping would have assisted in getting to this change. The way the project has played out feels like it just begged for the change to cut out the 3rd set. Sometimes, you just have to put in the time to make shit to see how it really works.
Seemingly small things can be huge. Jerry's Megaman attacks all have a slight refire delay to remove point blank spamming. I've done it plenty of times during playtesting, ShadowSonic did it in his last LP video of the DT3 demo. Slaix spammed missiles in a bosses face to make incredibly short work of them. Point-blank spamming breaks a lot of things. Part of the reason there's a projectile limit (such as only 2 arrows allowed on screen or 3 X-Buster shots) is to remove such exploits. So, Jerry's Megaman refire delays have been extended to all projectile weapons, including Claire's Daggers and Holy Water. It's not a big delay, just enough to remove the above issue.
Controller Support
Gamepad controls are now built into DT3. That's really all that needs to be said about that...
A Common Idea I Like
I seem to really like cat and mouse scenarios as Gate F has a map where the player will be chased around while they find various points of interest. Said thing is invincible OF COURSE and will use the black magic of A* pathfinding to always find the most efficient route to the player. The map is question is somewhat maze like where the player can open and close routes. While the cat of this scenario is slightly slower than the player, it's often best to be as far from it as possible, or in some cases, close off a route at the last second to grant you just a few more seconds away from it. Also said thing gets slightly faster the more points of interest the player completes; Because reasons!
I know I said I'd have a video explaining some of my boss design methods on the next blog post... I guess I lied. It's still going to happen, but I want to finish up a few things in the project before I go into another video. If I do the video now, I'll probably end up rushing it and I don't want to do that.
There's something else I was going to mention in this post, but brain farts have occurred...
POSTING ANYWAY!!
9/08/2013
Pink Journal
Edit: (September 11, 2013) Gamepad support is IN. It's not fully implemented yet, (It doesn't work with the UI stuff at the time of this typing) but it works awesomely for the character control. I even fixed up the control code in the process and made it more efficient. Even better is GM can detect the exact controller that's plugged in, so if I want to get really fancy, I can have the UI change along with the connected controller. For example, if an xbox controller is plugged in, the UI can show (A) or (X), etc, where a Logitech would show a (1) or (3). I don't know if I'll go back to DT1 and DT2 to add this in, but rest easy knowing that DT3 will have full on gamepad support built in! No more 3rd party software to get your stuff to work!
Once again the seasons are changing and the bird flocks are moving around, so a lot of the birds I interact with are moving with their flock. A bit less bird action, but since this is when all the grackles migrate down here, there will actually be more of them... a lot more.
DT3 Things Getting Done
It's a good and accurate section name. Gate 5 and all its troubles, yet interesting development findings is done. (Well has been done for roughly a week.) As the tweet says, I like how it ends. Most of my attention is now on its extra Gate, which have all been renamed to 'Nightmare Gates'. Since Claire got shafted on her first exclusive optional level, she gets it again. This time in the form of an ice based level with full on physics changes (slippery, but makes the dash a beast) and player controlled (and timed) moments of low gravity. If you've followed the tone of the previous optional gate bosses, it's pretty easy to figure out what this one is.
I'm also looking to get gamepad support built directly into the game so players won't have to use third-party software to get their controllers to work. I'll be borrowing Jeremy's controller that he has since the one I have is very unreliable when it comes to testing how things feel. I'm planning to let the D-Pad and left stick (if the controller has it) both control character movement and will see about tuning the left stick to feel right for that if that's what players prefer. The right stick, if I'm able to, will control Chao.
After Gate F is finished, which won't take very long, I'll probably move back to fixing up Gate C.
Game Dev Harassment
This is something that's gotten some attention lately, it's not new, but with the rise in social media, it's gotten a lot worse and more frequent. Here's two articles on the issue. One Two
It's sad, disgusting, disrespectful... it's a lot of things wrong. It's wrong when a developer changes something as small as 0.1 seconds on say, a gun reload time, and he/she recieves death threats from their players. It's wrong when developers don't want to interact with their players because these players are self-entitled twats who spew nothing but vile comments at them. I see it happening myself (not to me, I've had it good, though my audience is small, but I'm thankful that my audience gives me constructive feedback when they don't like how I've designed something instead of telling me I'm) on various places throughout the Internet. Within the Planetside 2 forums, there's tons of disrespectful comments toward the developers. I stay away from those forums aside from patch notes these days because it's just angering to see how much negativity is there. One of the game designers during their most recent Friday Night Ops (which is a thing the devs do most Fridays where they highlight certain players, or Outfits(guilds) and play along with them, ask them questions and all that) mentioned this negativity being one of the reasons they choose to interact with the players in other places most of the time. (That being Planetside Universe, THE fan site for the game, and reddit.)
This guy here talks about why Call of Duty is made and changed the way it is and presents it in a very well done manner. I recommend checking it out. The reason I mention this here is simply to help raise awareness of this issue as it has become a big problem lately.
In closing, I found a hard covered pink journal completely new. It was just... there. I now use this for drawing up level designs and concepts, among various other DT related works, and probably non-DT stuff in the future. I don't know when, but soon(TM) I'll be posting a video on some of my methods for designing boss fights. Let's hope I can control the speed of my speech and not derp up the video quality. The odds are not in my favor.
Once again the seasons are changing and the bird flocks are moving around, so a lot of the birds I interact with are moving with their flock. A bit less bird action, but since this is when all the grackles migrate down here, there will actually be more of them... a lot more.
DT3 Things Getting Done
It's a good and accurate section name. Gate 5 and all its troubles, yet interesting development findings is done. (Well has been done for roughly a week.) As the tweet says, I like how it ends. Most of my attention is now on its extra Gate, which have all been renamed to 'Nightmare Gates'. Since Claire got shafted on her first exclusive optional level, she gets it again. This time in the form of an ice based level with full on physics changes (slippery, but makes the dash a beast) and player controlled (and timed) moments of low gravity. If you've followed the tone of the previous optional gate bosses, it's pretty easy to figure out what this one is.
I'm also looking to get gamepad support built directly into the game so players won't have to use third-party software to get their controllers to work. I'll be borrowing Jeremy's controller that he has since the one I have is very unreliable when it comes to testing how things feel. I'm planning to let the D-Pad and left stick (if the controller has it) both control character movement and will see about tuning the left stick to feel right for that if that's what players prefer. The right stick, if I'm able to, will control Chao.
After Gate F is finished, which won't take very long, I'll probably move back to fixing up Gate C.
Game Dev Harassment
This is something that's gotten some attention lately, it's not new, but with the rise in social media, it's gotten a lot worse and more frequent. Here's two articles on the issue. One Two
It's sad, disgusting, disrespectful... it's a lot of things wrong. It's wrong when a developer changes something as small as 0.1 seconds on say, a gun reload time, and he/she recieves death threats from their players. It's wrong when developers don't want to interact with their players because these players are self-entitled twats who spew nothing but vile comments at them. I see it happening myself (not to me, I've had it good, though my audience is small, but I'm thankful that my audience gives me constructive feedback when they don't like how I've designed something instead of telling me I'm
This guy here talks about why Call of Duty is made and changed the way it is and presents it in a very well done manner. I recommend checking it out. The reason I mention this here is simply to help raise awareness of this issue as it has become a big problem lately.
In closing, I found a hard covered pink journal completely new. It was just... there. I now use this for drawing up level designs and concepts, among various other DT related works, and probably non-DT stuff in the future. I don't know when, but soon(TM) I'll be posting a video on some of my methods for designing boss fights. Let's hope I can control the speed of my speech and not derp up the video quality. The odds are not in my favor.
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