The Survey Thread!

[elfprince13]

dude, this is looking awesome, any chance of some screenies for those different attacks?

[DigiTan]

Definately some screens coming. The next trailer will cover the new stuff and the "Grand Grove" level of the game in November. I figure I can do a new trailer every 3 months or so (which is about as fast as I can add new levelmaps). The next GIF will be out next week.

[elfprince13]

awesome dude, keep it up

[DigiTan]

Yet another round of changes:

Rage - After using melee or collision on a badguy you start flashing like invincible Mario. ATK points are doubled. Melee attack rate is maxed out. Lasts for about 3 seconds. Its absolutely devestating if you get your opponent pinned against a wall.

Blaze - Rocket into enemies at high speed with no damage to yourself. This one's a 3D holming attack (like in Sonic Adventure). 'Moves just about as fast as hyperspeed. Easy for beginners to pick up. Nice for taking on flying enemies.

Hyperspeed - All of the character's running and accelerating happens at x1.5 the normal rate (x2 was waaay too hard to control). This includes jumping & falling. The character becomes invincible when he reaches his top speed.

Heyday - You inflict a "Jinx" effect by making physical contact with an enemy. Jinxed enemies freeze for a few seconds and maybe drop powerups in that state (haven't decided). Done with moves like fire or water its pretty deadly.

Shield - Breifly protects you after a hit. After being hurt, your character blinks and becomes immune to object hit detection. It's really helpful vs a gang of badguys because they'll tend rickochet you off each other like a pinball (happens twice in the next video). No protection from spikes, lava, etc...

Gateway - Stand perfectly still to disappears from view. Just like shield, you're immune to object hits in this state. Only difference is you can't attack. You might also get to walk through some solid objects (haven't decided). To keep things from being too easy, enemies will still know where they saw you last.

...Anyways, the game is getting big so I simplified the more code-complex moves. Everything except for Blaze is always-on so as to make their meaning obvious for first-timers. Next video trailer: Nov 18th.

[axcho]

I like the new abilities. Looking forward to the trailer.

[DigiTan]

Aw man, I'd better get started. Only have the soundtrack added right now!



One alternative I could do for Gateway is having the character disappear while jumping instead of standing still. It would look a little like teleportation that way. Mid-air attacking would be done normally. Basically you're untouchable through the jump and go normal when you land or attack.

[DigiTan]

Looking for puzzle ideas:



This video shows some object interaction that I want to use for Caldera's puzzles. Just imagine a volcano instead of a house and a 16x8 stone tablet instead of a 8x8 table.

I figure the puzzles will involve pushing the tablets onto special floor markers that will unlock doors. And a time limit will be enforced. Puzzle room #1 will involve simply moving the tablet onto a single marker so new gamers will get the idea.

Any ideas for additional puzzles? Maybe something like a lights-out kind of minigame? or something like Chips Challenge where the unlocking rooms is the right order is needed?

[Weregoose]

Have some simple things introduced periodically, like finding a barricaded wall that must be knocked down by thrusting a boulder into it, etc. On a different note, the act of knocking stuff over is fairly reminiscent of my recent try at Elebits.

[Delnar_Ersike]

How about a maze of rooms? Each room can have up to four connections to other rooms. Some rooms are dead ends (have only one connection: the room from which you came from), others its a forced movement (have two connections: one to the room from which you came from and one to another room), while others can also have forks (three connections). The reason this is a good maze is because you cannot see the dead ends ahead of time (you may be going randomly from room to room and suddenly, dead end)

[DigiTan]

Oh yeah, I liked Elebits on XPlay. A maze is possible if I can get good compression on them. Luckily the mapping system let me re-use map designs at only ~20 bytes per duplicate. I'm also considering using stunned/dead enemies in place of the stone tablets in some areas. IE: kill a monster, then levitate the "remains" onto the marker.



Prototype puzzle above. You start in mineral deposit (rest area). Then puzzle area #1 simply requires you to move the stone tablet onto the marker (which takes quite a bit of practice to do accuratly). After the puzzle area is a second rest area and so on... In the final version, hitting the marker will be indicated by some special effects.

[AlienCC]

Progress is coming along quite nicely on this, keep up the great work!

--AlienCC

[Liazon]

o.o that heat mirage effect is so cool!!

are they animated tiles? or are they random byte rotations? it looks like every other row is shifted left/right to me

[DigiTan]

It's a bit shift of individual rows. A similar effect was used in Sonic & Knuckle's 'Angel Island' and 'Lava Reef' zones. Basically 2 shifted rows, followed by 2 un-shifted rows, and so on. Then an offset counter makes that pattern move "upward."

[activeti]

May Is say what I voted?
Well...
Yellow????
Yes!Because it fits with my avatar...green alaso but only ones voting
Why do do many vote blue?

[DigiTan]

Okay, new survey here involving the character's levitation sprite...


Some Background:
Currently, when you accelerate to high speed, your character stops running on foot and instead levitates along the ground. This is sort of a tribute to Super Sonic or Mewtwo in "Sonic & Knuckles" and "Smash Bros Melee" respectively.

Poll Question:
My question is: should I keep the current system. Or have the character continue to run on foot and remove the levitation feature? The reason I ask is because I don't want gamers to mistake the image as a graphics glitch.

[frenchcalc1]

[Weregoose]

[Harrierfalcon]

It's kinda weird...It looks like he's sliding. Maybe add a shadow or something?

[Xphoenix]

It is weird...
It needs to look like he's actually flying, not really sliding.

[Liazon]

Well, if you went really fast, you'd have to move the legs really fast, which could get pretty blurry because it's stationary in the center of the screen while the background rotates behind it. Since's it's stationary, it becomes more blurry the faster you switch between the sprites because it's the same set of pixels being affected. (same happens in some anime I guess).

A slide is probably the most logical animation to show a fast moving sprite. Maybe change the sprite so the legs are still very visible? I like the current system but the sprite might be why it looks like he's flying (when he's not, am I correct?).