Distorted Travesty 2 News

Edit: (February 28, 2011) Here's a small boring update to show that I'm still working on it. I think I might go back to regular weekly updates soon. Since this is just a small edit, here's a screenshot.

Edit: (February 17, 2011) Looks like I will be done by March, yay. Almost everything except the last area is ready to play. This project was meant to be a lot shorter, was only going to be a 10 minute game, but wound up making a completely new game out of it.

I'll talk more about the game differences from the original DT. Aside from it being the same game engine behind this, it's a fairly different game. The focus is much more on platforming and level obstacles. A lot of your spell usage may not even be for offensive purposes. Most enemies can be defeated with 2 or less attacks, so the levels move along much quicker. That said, you will be pretty much forced to understand elemental weaknesses, much more so than DT. Using an element that an enemy has even a partial resistance to will quickly run you out of energy. As for the enemy cast, some are borrowed from DT, but it has mostly its own cast of them. The only returning enemies are the Mario enemies seen early on in DT.

Damage and element resists are handled much simpler in this. No more negative values to indicate weakness. (that was kind of a bad idea in my opinion, I could have used a much better way to show that.) Instead, an enemy only has a resistance to a specific element instead of a weakness. There is no leveling up or weapon upgrades, so the base damage will always be 20. If you dealt less than that, you're not attacking with the right element. That or you need to do something to drop its defense. Although this is RARELY the case and will only take effect in boss battles.
Anyway, back to creating these levels that make me cry.

Edit: (February 15, 2011) Happy Val... oh screw that. Here's a random screenshot of a rather nasty situation. :D

I'm feeling nice today, so here's a little teaser video of some gameplay footage in DT2.
DT2 Teaser

As it says in the video description, I'm aiming for an early March release of the game. I think I can make it. So far the game is coming along great. Though playtesting the final builds of the later levels and trying to get the target scores is making me cry, you will understand when you play them. Remember, every pain you feel from playing these levels, I have to feel it even worse. T_T

Since the game is short, the difficulty will curve quite fast. There is a very noticeable difficulty spike at each new world. Worlds being 3 levels plus a boss fight. There are 3 worlds, plus a special set of 2 levels. Each level aside from the final one can be completed in 1-3 minutes.

No screenshot, you got an entire video this time!

Game Jamming Fun

Edit: (February 8, 2011) Yay, got my HD backed up.

Edit #2: (February 7, 2011) Nope, not the power supply, it's the mother board that died. It had a long nice life though. But everything is fine. It's dead, but I'm moving on to better machines.

Edit: (February 7, 2011) Development on the game may stop for about a week. My desktops power supply decided to die. Well... it has been dying, it finally decided today to refuse to let the PC to boot up completely. I would have gotten a new one today, but I know someone who has a bunch of extra computer parts just laying around so I just need to see if he has an extra power supply. I'm surprised it lasted this long, it's 6 years old. It gives 300 watts... I don't think they even make those anymore. If I can get the pro version of GM working on this laptop (whenever softwrap decides to get back with me) and if I can get the desktop to boot just one more time, I can get the recent build off of it. I was dumb and decided not to back up the most recent even though I knew the PSU could crap out completely at any time. May just slave it to another PC later.

Edit: (February 4, 2011) Almost forgot, the game I contributed to at the Global Game Jam is in the link below. My best time is 1:27. One of the other guys on the team has done it in 0:53, so that's the goal here. The concept is very simple, I don't even have to explain it, you'll see. If you use the [Website] link in the description (or the link I provided in this sentence), you can play it over the web, you'll only need to install the Unity web player on your browser. Not bad for a game done in less than 48 hours. :D
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/aliens-vs-bunnies

The 2011 Global Game Jam ended today. If you don't know what that is, more info can be found here. I had an amazing and fun time there. I'll link to the game we made a bit later. The game we made was done in Unity, which is a fantastic engine. I never really gave it a very good test run before this. Remember a post ago when I said I was studying up XNA... yeah, screw that. I don't do well with low level programming which XNA will inevitably require at some point. That and Unity is, in my eyes, a much better game development package. Not discrediting XNA, it's a nice tool, but Unity fits my uses much better. I was able to jump right into its C# code with very little trouble. The development pipeline is shorter and testing within Unity is efficient.

The team I was in consisted entirely of coders, and are much better programmers than I am, so I was primarily the artist. Quite a surprise and change from what I've been doing lately. I enjoyed it a lot and will definitely be doing this again next year. I also highly recommend those of you that love game design to participate next year as well. Don't feel like you won't be able to contribute or underestimate yourself, you will find a place for yourself among the groups that form. I felt really lucky to be in the team I was in. Everyone was nice and accepting. One of the guys worked on Rift (I believe he did work on the server side of things) roughly a year ago, definitely glad to have him. One thing that felt really great was that no one was indispensable, everyone had and did something significant to contribute. So to reiterate, I had an amazing time and highly recommend to everyone who is a designer to participate next year.

Also something I've been a part of for over half a decade is the International Game Developers Association. (IGDA, site found here) Sign up, and check if there are any chapters near you, be a part of this stuff. There's a membership fee, ($50/yr last I checked) but that isn't required to sign up on the forums or to attend events hosted by the IGDA. It's typicallyonly if you want to be on the board committee as well as attending closed events, which don't happen that often. Most are open to the public. (I haven't been a paid member in a few years, shh.)

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That's really it... or is it? I shall now announce what this secret/surprise is. This is going to invalidate a trope or two, but here we go.

Due to demand and partially a joke, I am making Distorted Travesty 2. Whoa, wait... WHAT!? I wasn't going to make a sequel though!! But I am. However it is a very very short game. It is planned to be completable in 30-60 minutes. It takes place right after DT and will contain spoilers. All cutscenes, no matter the length, can be skipped in it though. It features independent levels set up more like Mario games. There's a score and timer (counts up) for each level and little collectibles. (Which must be obtained in one playthrough of the level) There are target times and scores for little bonus things on each level. There are boss levels as well, all of which can be replayed at your leisure. (Bosses will only have a target time.) I may try to set up leaderboards for this at some point, but I am focusing on the game itself right now. Despite it being very short, about 10 levels, all of which can be completed in less than 2 minutes, I am not working on it too much. It's not going to take months or anything, but don't expect it next week. Here's a screenshot.

As you can see, you will be playing as a different character, named Claire, in the sequel. If you played through DT, you probably know who this is (she was never referred to by name), if not, you will when you play this. I am using the same engine as before, but tweaked a lot. Claire is a bit floaty and more mobile than Jerry. She can't use physical attacks or techs, but can cast spells much better than Jerry could. She has all the mobility options Jerry has, to add to it though, she can wall jump, which will renew her air dash, even if she hasn't touched the ground.

The spell system works a bit differently, elements are not swapped anymore, instead an element is accessed through its own key, each of these have some context sensitive commands like holding a specific direction. For example, if you're in the air and hold up while using Fire, you will create Jerry's Blast Off effect. Some of her spells mimic Jerry's but she will have a few of her own. The game, overall is (at least in my opinion) a bit easier than DT, but you should still be expecting DT style difficulty. The first 2 levels are very easy, but I ramp it up very fast from there. I recommend that you have played some of DT, at least to the point where you understood its air dashing mechanic, as this game doesn't give you very long (2 levels) to get used to its mechanics before the difficulty goes to roughly the Dusty Ruins level of difficulty.

Oh yeah, one other thing before I end this... the Navi sprite that you see. No, there are no Navi sounds in this except for one time in the opening cutscene. She works like Jeremy's identifier ability in DT, however, if you leave the mouse alone, she will fly around on her own. (The object just detaches from your mouse while it is inactive, no worries, I don't actually mess with your mouse cursor position.)

Anyway, long update is longer than other updates have been in a long time... ... ...long.

Silly Dreams

The other night, I had a really odd dream...
[In Dream]
I was at work, it's a print shop by the way, with my roommate Terry, and we decided to take a break in the next room. Apparently the break room (there actually isn't one in the real world, but in the dream, we associated it as that) was a low-lit room and had a club-like atmosphere. I remember a pool table being on a far side of the room with a light hanging down above it. There was a couch that Terry and I decided to sit on. We were there for a moment just chatting about nonsensical stuff and were overhearing gibberish in the background from other people in the room. Suddenly Miyamoto walks in from a door next to the couch and sits between us. He doesn't say anything except for "Hi" and gave a little wave to me. I remember him looking at me straight in the eye when he waved which made me kinda nervous, I mean... this Miyamoto who is sitting next to me. I still recognize him as someone awesome in my subconscious apparently. We sit there for a moment or two when we see this clock over on a shelf nearby that seems to not be working properly. Terry walks over to the clock to attempt to fix it, but was not having any luck. Miyamoto looks over and says (in very fluent English) "The battery is probably open, just close it." Terry looks closer at the clock and says "Oh I think you're right." He struggles with it and Miyamoto walks over, does something with the clock that no one seemed to be able to see, and says "You close it like this." The clock started working again. I stood up to go and see this clock when suddenly, my roommate Jerry walks in and loudly says, "What up guys!". Then I woke up.
[Out of Dream]

I told this dream to Jerry who said, "You shared a dream with Miyamoto. In 2 years, we'll see a game about clocks from Nintendo." So remember, 2 years, Nintendo, clocks. And apparently AA batteries can be opened and closed fairly easy.

A bit of news for DT... wait, there is none, sorta. Not a single bug has been reported between new and Jaffe's comment. Definitely the longest in a year that I've gone without a bug report. This little secret thing involving DT is still coming along. Slaix and OkageSK have been my bitches... err, my unofficial testers for it. Maybe in a week, I'll show what it is. :) As I said before though, it will be completed before it gets a public release.
I know!! Here's a screenshot from it! :D

Achievements

Edit: (January 18, 2011) It's been awhile since I've said anything here. I'm still alive and well. The surprise is still in the works, very slowly. I will not release or say what it is publically until it is done.


Edit: (December 29, 2010) Between work demanding more time, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Christmas, and other misc. things and excuses, the surprise mentioned in the previous post will be released in January... or later. Another excuse is some of my time is being spent in XNA as well.

I hate them and everything they stand for, they are a shit stain smeared upon gaming. That said, I don't hate all achievements, just 99% of them. Things like "You beat Level x", that's not an achievement in the game, you were going to do that anyway. I also don't like grind achievements such as "play this setting 10000 times". This is just my opinion of them though. I don't mind the "Game Cleared" ones. I like the achievements that are more secondary such as clearing it in a certain amount of time or doing things a certain way. Distorted Travesty will NOT have achievements, but if it did, here are a few that it would have:

- Most bosses would have a time limit achievement attached. (Example: Beat the Shroud Lord in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds.)
- Complete the game on Distorted Mode.
- Get 100% items.
- Complete the game while you're still level 1. (It can be done.) (Or maybe not do this, but have an achievement called "404: Achievement Not Found") Basically beating any boss at 4:04 AM. :P (OkageSK idea)
- Defeat all enemies on the train elevator.
- Crush a Goomba, Mario style.
- "1-hit kill" 3 enemies with 1 jump attack.
- Beat the Metallicardian without ever landing on the top platform.

Surprises

Edit: (December 18, 2010) You guys have probably noticed I've been updating the game practically every day for the last few days. That is because you guys seem to be working over-time in finding bugs (myself included). Not a bad thing. Version 1.0.1.3 fixes a bug with Kudeku that made the animation loop forever and makes a very minor change to two other skills.
List:
1.0.1.2 - Fixes a crash bug caused by a sound on the train and fixes a minor issue with Wave of Awesome.
1.0.1.1 - The big hit detection update, some graphical updates with custom sprites by OkageSK, plus many other small bugs.
Just want to keep the most up to date version on here right now.


Edit: (December 16, 2010) The update that was uploaded has all the changes made below and a few others, I will list the changes. The new hit detection is in place. The Veiled Detritus theme has been changed. Then of course the sprites from OkageSK. He changed the Muffin sprites, and made a sprite edit for Jerry during the Muffin sequences, which have also been changed. Probably best of all is the custom sprite for Jerry during the intro to Black Rock. It was made in reference to the NES Ninja Gaiden sequences when Ryu approaches the fortresses. It looks great and since this is only viewable one time in-game, I have a video of it here. I'll take out that annoying white line on the left of the video sometime... maybe. Oh yeah... this is not the surprise referenced earlier. As far as work done to DT itself, this should be it.


Edit: (December 14, 2010) I made a change to DT that needed to be there since the beginning. Until now, when an enemy takes damage, it cannot be hit again till it is no longer flashing red, regardless of how many attacks you throw at them. This is no longer the case, each new attack you use will now damage the enemy. Attacks can still multi hit the enemy, but that time has been boosted. For example, Mental Insurrection no longer double hits (however it has a slight boost in power, yay cutting through defense :P ). Some skills have been rebalanced to reflect this update. This also does change Metropolis a bit. You can still blast them to bits like you could before, but your attacks have a slightly longer delay before they multi hit. Mental Insurrection still double hits them. Skills like 'Flame Pillar' were made for this type of system. I was just too shitty of a coder back then to do this. (Even though this was incredibly simple to set up.) Overall, this does boost your damage output a bit and truly lets you stun-lock enemies like you're supposed to. Again, that's what 'Flame Pillar' would be used for. You can lock them in that and still attack them with whatever other abilities you'd like. This update will be available sometime later. For the next bit of news... ... ...
Some of you in the rrr community know of OkageSK, he has been fixing up a few sprites, creating new sprites, franken-sprited a bit, and is currently making some nifty custom art for a certain part of the game. Most of it is done, I'm just waiting on one last animation set from him that will definitely be pretty awesome looking in game. A big thanks goes out to him for all the work he's done. (He replaced my awful Muffin sprites too.)
A video showing some of the things you can do with the new system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqJTN26uxA


Edit: (December 12, 2010) Wow, so apparently 'Wind Burst' has been working incorrectly this entire time. It is supposed to auto-destroy when it collides with a wall, something I acknowledged a long while back, but turned a blind eye to. The other is it's supposed to increase its velocity as it goes out. For some reason I made a typo in my code, not enough of one to cause a crash, but enough for the spells effects to be ignored completely. (Even though the actual code for it was correct all along.) I don't really know how I overlooked that this entire time... The difference is the spell has more range and speed with the offset of being destroyed when coming into contact with level surfaces. Anyway, it's not a huge concern to upload a new update for that right now, just something humorous to share since it induced quite a big facepalm on my part.

I've got a surprise for everyone coming up sometime later this month. (It could be next month depending on how busy things get.) It does involve DT and was something that was requested, though I'm very very sure that it is not at all what the requesters thought.

The bullethell is still being made, I'm just splitting my development time. This helps keep me from getting burned out and the ideas from getting stale so fast. Who knows, I may release a tech demo of the bullethell before the thing mentioned above.

Anyway... forget about all that for now, I might make a separate blog for various things. I want to keep this blog to only stuff about DT and stuff related to it. If I happen to make it, I'll link to it from here. That's it for now, no screenshots so this post is fairly boring for those of you that don't like walls of text without supplemental images. Anyway, Christmas is coming up, be safe, have fun, and eat cookies during the holidays.

Fun & Stuff

Edit: (December 9, 2010) That crash bug I mentioned in this post... well the fix is finally released, along with another bug that was reported about the game crashing in the control setup window of the menu. A null sound was returned and crashed the game. This update fixes those 2 bugs along with a slight efficiency boost in one of the submenus. (Found that while fixing the sound bug with the control setup.)


Been working on the bullet hell very very slowly. Actually got a small playable prototype out to 4 people. All positive comments, but then again, it was a tech demo of sorts and wasn't much to comment on. People said the idea looks promising though, so yay.

Well I've had a fun and interesting week. Some of the activities include a few unexpected job opportunities, seeing family again for the first time in over a month, being held at gun point, etc. You know, typical daily stuff.

The next game I am making is of the bullet hell variety. It's an idea that I had made a prototype of even before starting Distorted Travesty. When I get something that I feel is worth showing, I'll... well possibly show it. If you couldn't tell already from playing the second half of DT, I like the bullet hell sub-genre. I've just never made a full game from it. The two shooter levels in DT were very basic and easy for bullet hell and this game is nothing like those two levels. I won't give away what the gameplay mechanic is yet. A few know what it is already, but I'm not publicly giving those details out yet. As for progression, it isn't going to be like standard bullet hell, but more like Star Fox where you can change the story path as you play. It probably goes without saying, but I will not be using sprite rips. That was specifically for DT due to what the game world was.

On the mentioning of DT again, a crash bug was found by Slaix when you try to save. It occurred for him when he tried to save on the 4th map of the West Side Jungle. (The map titled "...What?  I couldn't think of anything.") It doesn't bug up the save data. This bug should actually happen 100% of the time any time you save, but it seems to be incredibly selective. I fixed it, and will upload the fix for it sometime. It will only be the EXE for now, and remember it is only for the completed encrypted version. (I can make an update to the older version upon request though.)

PS. I need to remember to print an updated copy of my car insurance, it's out this month.

Read If You Update

Edit: (November 10, 2010) A few people have had some trouble with the sound extension. It doesn't seem to be loading in the sound effects at times. For those of you that this happens to, you're SoL... okay not really. It seems to be a sound card issue. Your best bet is to update your sound drivers. On the note of drivers, if you get an error message the moment the game starts saying something close to "Failed to initialize surfaces", you may need to update your video drivers. These and/or a restart, I hope will help out some of you.


For what I'm doing next, this screenshot sums it up nicely.











This is it, this should be the last update ever. (Aside from bug fixes that are reported.) It has the new sound system fully in place. The sound changes cannot be turned off anymore, there's no need for it.

The game loads a bit faster now since it streams all the music files into the game, which means it doesn't take as much memory to run. It will stream them in and out of memory now. (I have yet to see any loading breaks in the game due to this.) The sound effects are not streamed however, they are loaded in the same way they were before. The memory leak mentioned earlier has now been completely fixed, yay!

The encryption on the save files is done... it is not "real" encryption. The values are just mixed up when they are saved to the ini file and converted back after the game loads them in. But it does hide everything now. (Feel free to try figuring out what I did, it's probably not that hard to crack.)

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----- READ ME -----

Note: This version is NOT compatible with previous versions of the game. The save files are still read, but your data will be loaded incorrectly. It keeps your progress, but all of your stats will be screwed up and most likely lower. (Some may magically be higher.) Another note about this, since the game no longer uses mp3s, the older EXE versions will not load the new music files. So do not update your music folder, treat this as a separate game now if you make this update. If you are starting over or this is your first time playing, ignore this.
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I ran through all key points in the game and made sure all the sound changes work. All that should be bug free. A few other minor bugs were found and fixed as well as one crash bug with a boss in Black Rock.

As always, have fun and thanks to those of you who have followed this project for so long and put up with my numerous bugs, delays, and other shenanegans. Oh yeah, file size only went up 8 MB.

Reminder: Slaix is doing a play-through on Hard and posting it here.