OHR Multicart Compilation

[Bob the Hamster]

I don't think I am going to have time to finish Star Dartle 2000

(All my programming time has been eaten up with other stuff, and probably will continue to be for months to come. You may have noticed I haven't been posting much except for the D&D threads, and that is mostly from my phone)

I figured I should post what I have so far along with all my scripts, just in case somebody else is interested in taking it over.

<a href="http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgam ... 27149">The gamelist entry with the zip file is here</a>

<img src="http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/files/s ... 00_212.gif">

Here are my un-implemented ideas for this game:

* Defeating all targets in a wave should drop a weapon upgrade, making weapon upgrades easy-to-get.
* Taking damage should remove a weapon upgrade, and taking a hit with no weapon upgrades means you die, meaning that your weapon upgrades are equivalent to your ship-health.
* The true goal of the game is not just to complete the level, and not just to destroy all the enemies.
* The current display of number of escapes was for debugging. In the final game I want the player to have to count escapes themselves
* The true goal would come at the end of each stage, where you appear before Lord Shiptaur, and have to apologize for letting enemies escape. He would ask you to estimate how many times you failed him, and you would have to select a number that was close enough (probably just within the right order of magnitude) Lord Shiptaur knows and sees all, so he would always know the correct number, and would thank you for your honesty, or blast you for your dishonesty.

[Foxley]

So, one week left.

How am I doing? Not excellent, but certainly could be doing a lot worse. Right now I'm just struggling with staying focused on creating a couple of hundred doorlinks for the whole game, pretty close to finishing even though it's almost the only thing I did for the game this whole 3-day weekend. Need to write scripts for dungeon boss behavior, and implement another secondary weapon/tool.

Still hoping to have a beta release (with rough edges) done by next week.

[Willy Elektrix]

So, one week left.

How am I doing? Not excellent, but certainly could be doing a lot worse. Right now I'm just struggling with staying focused on creating a couple of hundred doorlinks for the whole game, pretty close to finishing even though it's almost the only thing I did for the game this whole 3-day weekend. Need to write scripts for dungeon boss behavior, and implement another secondary weapon/tool.

Still hoping to have a beta release (with rough edges) done by next week.

Kick slime! Can't wait!

So far I've seen games from Newbie Newtype and Morpheus Kittani. All the games are pretty different, which is great!

My games are coming along. I need to play test Xoo a couple more times and I need to make more levels (and add a few features) to Ultra Frontier. Everything is going well, but this weekend will involve lots of game making for me.

[TMC]

Very belated thoughts on Ultra Frontier:

(It seems you haven't uploaded a new demo since the original <s>3</s> 4 weeks ago, so that's what I have to comment on)

Super Hexagon is one of my favourite games, and I think the fast paced dodging of this can be a lot of fun, as long as it's kept interesting. I did have fun although it got a bit frustrating when I wasn't getting anywhere (and unlike SH, the levels are fixed).

Gosh, I'm pretty terrible at this. It really takes me a while to get used to the controls; moving half a tile at a time makes it much more difficult that moving a whole tile at a time, because being halfway between tiles makes you a larger target. And it also means you need to time the duration of movements with double the precision, compared to moving block-by-block at the same speed! I keep crashing into the top and bottom walls of the screen because I overshoot. And you can't correct if you do overshoot, unlike in other situations. Aside from changing the controls, one remedy would be to avoid opening flush against the top and bottom.

I think the first time I it took me about 7 attempts to clear level 1, but the second time round it took nearly 40 attempts. But after that I got to about level 6 on just a few lives. In other words, the first level doesn't appear to be any easier than the others, maybe even harder. Also, it's surprising that all the levels move at the same speed instead of ramping up.

Any eyestrain, I feel, is a result of the very high contrast and the fast speed at which the level scrolls. Compressing the levels and slowing them down, or using lower contrast instead of stark black are options, to reduce it. Or just change the patterns along the top/bottom of the screen, which are flashing stroboscopically at 60fps.

It's also worth pointing out that on an LCD monitor, even a TN LCD which are cheap but quite responsive compared to some other LCD types, there is a lot of motion blur. (In fact, high contrast adds significantly to motion blur, because it takes the pixels longer to switch). Don't know if you've only tried a CRT. But the motion blur isn't really a problem.

----

I also played Star Dartle 2000. It's definitely promising although still very unfinished, although that's kind of obvious since so far it follows the mold of every sidescrolling shoot: with powerups, more challenges, more patterns, and maybe a bit more speed it could be a lot of fun.

Having to count escaping enemies is a very interesting way to penalise the player! The more that escape, the harder that it is to keep track. And it counts as a core mechanic, because the player has to do so constantly. If it weren't for the fact that you fire continuously, it would also enable a 'pacifist' way to play the game! I guess there could be a key to hold to not shoot, if there were a legitimate reason to do so sometimes, or just a special mode, or have a high score list of most escapes :)
Still, I'd hope for more uniqueness in the rest of the game too, and I can't see it yet.

Since I haven't done any work on an entry (although, as I said, RMZ did, but he's clearly busy anyway), picking up James' game is appealing if he really doesn't have any time to finish it in the coming month. I was waiting to see whether anyone else would, and besides I'm quite busy as well (I certainly wouldn't work on it in the next week), so James might still be more suitable than I to finish it. So I'll report back later, if Willy hasn't already decided not to wait around.

[MorpheusKitami]

After some delays due to an illness, I'm pleased to show the more or less finished product:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/imlbric2g ... how0.9.zip
Most of the issues brought up should be fixed, if not all of them. And now it's got all sorts of fun things like randomization of item locations and dialog. It's a bit darker than before though, instead of just implying it, now the game outright says the player characters are prosecuted criminals trying to get out of jailtime. And some other stuff that should make the players dislike Dr. Moonlight even more.
I also hope the music in it isn't too annoying. Most of the attempts I made at it were just bad.

---

I'm definitely interested in working on Star Dartle 2000 if no one else has the time. It seems simple enough to put all the unused ideas into the game from what I've read of the already finished scripts. But how about if the true goal wasn't just to count how many escaped, but to let all of them escape? Like Lord Shiptaur is actually the bad guy and he corrupted your ship somehow?

[Bob the Hamster]

I had some downtime last week and actually managed to implement weapon upgrade power ups and four levels of weapon. I'll re-post when I get a chance

[TMC]

­Morpheus­Kitami: OK, I just played though Dr Moonlight's Happyworld. I really enjoyed it! Interesting monsters, fun exploration, and puzzles.

There's not much randomness to the game, but it's a nice touch, especially the random start to the intro (but I think there are only two options? A couple more would be nice)

I finished the game twice; the first time I thought I defeated all the enemies (though maybe I got confused and missed one), and the second I was trying to do it without fighting any, but still killed two. I didn't get a bonus round; what do you have to do for that, get through the house without battles?

I found it very easy. I only died twice: the first time to the Shadow because I just tried punching it, and the second time to your instant-death trap, which I was not at all upset about; it seemed very appropriate. However, it occurs to me now that the contestant you start with is probably actually a difficulty setting? I didn't try all the different contestants and compare them. Maybe that's why I found it so easy: I beat it with the blackbelt and bodybuilder. I guess I should try again, then.
It's very strange that half of the enemies never even attack you, plus one (the invisible man) that has (as far as I saw) a 100% miss rate (or was there a reason for that?). I can't understand why you did that. Also, a lot of the enemies had so much hp that you just had to hold down space to hit them 20 times. It was nice that most of the enemies had multiple solutions. That's what made it so easy: I didn't have to pick up the special weapon for a monster before fighting it, and I had heaps left over at the end. I still don't know what the necromnicon is for. Also, I was expecting to encounter Terry. Was the demon in the white mask Terry?

Speaking of which, it was a bit annoying that there's no feedback when you eat a sandwich, not even a sound effect. Still, I'm glad that you didn't use the engine's built-in spell target picker, I don't think it would have fit. But it's very easy to work out that you can just stuff yourself with sandwiches.
It seems like different contestants start with different numbers of sandwiches. Is that intentional, or a bug? I thought the intro says you start with 12 or whatever the number is.

I know that you already moved down a lot of the enemy graphics, but their names (over the attack target cursor) still overlap the battle UI, so it would be better if they were lower

Typos:
"among it's three floors"
"Our large number cash prizes"
"Without an inherit flaw"

The intro says that contestants start with a pistol and 15 lead slugs, but I was quite confused to find that I only had the slugs. I initially assumed it was a mistake, and that I had to find the gun myself (and that's why I died). Maybe you could give the player a pistol in their inventory, which can't be equipped and does nothing, or which is equipped in a slot that doesn't do anything.

BTW, aside from one joke, Dr Moonlight doesn't come across as German, if that was the intention.

When you kill the shovel of the gravedigger it fades out twice (well, one and a half times); is that because it gets hit by an on-death attack which resets the death animation? Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to fix that.

But how about if the true goal wasn't just to count how many escaped, but to let all of them escape?

Then there wouldn't be any powerups?

[MorpheusKitami]

­Morpheus­Kitami: OK, I just played though Dr Moonlight's Happyworld. I really enjoyed it! Interesting monsters, fun exploration, and puzzles.

There's not much randomness to the game, but it's a nice touch, especially the random start to the intro (but I think there are only two options? A couple more would be nice)

There are six currently. If people think it needs to be more randomized, I'll add more randomness.

I finished the game twice; the first time I thought I defeated all the enemies (though maybe I got confused and missed one), and the second I was trying to do it without fighting any, but still killed two. I didn't get a bonus round; what do you have to do for that, get through the house without battles?

The bonus round can be entered when you defeat all the enemies. Remember to check all rooms except the bathroom on the way down from the attic. And it's definitely possible to get through the house without fighting, just remember to rush through the lab and that the most obvious way to get something is not always the necessary way.

I found it very easy. I only died twice: the first time to the Shadow because I just tried punching it, and the second time to your instant-death trap, which I was not at all upset about; it seemed very appropriate. However, it occurs to me now that the contestant you start with is probably actually a difficulty setting? I didn't try all the different contestants and compare them. Maybe that's why I found it so easy: I beat it with the blackbelt and bodybuilder. I guess I should try again, then.

Yes. The blackbelt is supposed to be the really easy choice. The dude/hippie is supposed to be the normal difficulty and the kid is hard mode.

It's very strange that half of the enemies never even attack you, plus one (the invisible man) that has (as far as I saw) a 100% miss rate (or was there a reason for that?). I can't understand why you did that. Also, a lot of the enemies had so much hp that you just had to hold down space to hit them 20 times. It was nice that most of the enemies had multiple solutions. That's what made it so easy: I didn't have to pick up the special weapon for a monster before fighting it, and I had heaps left over at the end. I still don't know what the necromnicon is for. Also, I was expecting to encounter Terry. Was the demon in the white mask Terry?

The invisible man was just a mistake. The rest are just slower than you to be gentlemanly. Probably should change the more damage spongy enemies to something doable on the hard difficulty though. Necronomicon is a quasi-get out of jail free card so to speak. Any enemy except for the final boss will be knocked out with it.
Terry's the gravekeeper. The Terry mentioned in the journal is probably someone else.

Speaking of which, it was a bit annoying that there's no feedback when you eat a sandwich, not even a sound effect. Still, I'm glad that you didn't use the engine's built-in spell target picker, I don't think it would have fit. But it's very easy to work out that you can just stuff yourself with sandwiches.

You can thank Willy for that suggestion and help with it. I'll add more feedback to it.

It seems like different contestants start with different numbers of sandwiches. Is that intentional, or a bug? I thought the intro says you start with 12 or whatever the number is.

Huh, that's weird. Nothing I've got says they should be having different numbers of sandwiches. Have you noticed this at the start or after perhaps interacting with one of the fridges?

I know that you already moved down a lot of the enemy graphics, but their names (over the attack target cursor) still overlap the battle UI, so it would be better if they were lower

I think I can solve that one without even moving the graphics further down.

Typos:
"among it's three floors"
"Our large number cash prizes"
"Without an inherit flaw"

The intro says that contestants start with a pistol and 15 lead slugs, but I was quite confused to find that I only had the slugs. I initially assumed it was a mistake, and that I had to find the gun myself (and that's why I died). Maybe you could give the player a pistol in their inventory, which can't be equipped and does nothing, or which is equipped in a slot that doesn't do anything.

Done and done.

BTW, aside from one joke, Dr Moonlight doesn't come across as German, if that was the intention.

It's more of a backdrop really. If it isn't obviously, he's not exactly human anymore, and he's more or less mimicking humans.

When you kill the shovel of the gravedigger it fades out twice (well, one and a half times); is that because it gets hit by an on-death attack which resets the death animation? Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to fix that.

It's because he's hitting the primary creature with the on-death attack.

But how about if the true goal wasn't just to count how many escaped, but to let all of them escape?

Then there wouldn't be any powerups?

Yes, it would make fighting the bosses more difficult, but it would likely have an effect on how happy your ending is.

[Willy Elektrix]

Gosh, I'm pretty terrible at this. It really takes me a while to get used to the controls; moving half a tile at a time makes it much more difficult that moving a whole tile at a time, because being halfway between tiles makes you a larger target. And it also means you need to time the duration of movements with double the precision, compared to moving block-by-block at the same speed! I keep crashing into the top and bottom walls of the screen because I overshoot. And you can't correct if you do overshoot, unlike in other situations. Aside from changing the controls, one remedy would be to avoid opening flush against the top and bottom.

I think the first time I it took me about 7 attempts to clear level 1, but the second time round it took nearly 40 attempts. But after that I got to about level 6 on just a few lives. In other words, the first level doesn't appear to be any easier than the others, maybe even harder. Also, it's surprising that all the levels move at the same speed instead of ramping up.

Any eyestrain, I feel, is a result of the very high contrast and the fast speed at which the level scrolls. Compressing the levels and slowing them down, or using lower contrast instead of stark black are options, to reduce it. Or just change the patterns along the top/bottom of the screen, which are flashing stroboscopically at 60fps.

The 1/2 tile movement is going to stay. I agree that it is more difficult, however, it feels much more fluid. I've experimented with this exhaustively and I see the benefits of both 1 tile and 1/2 tile movement, but I ultimately feel that 1/2 tile is more fun.

In the newest version of the game (demo to be released in a couple days). I have redesigned every level to create a more consistent difficulty ramp. This sort of balancing is really tough!

I reduced the number of colors to 2 per level. I've also removed all the textures. As a result, the game looks much simpler (more like an Atari 2600 game than an NES game), but it is much easier on the eyes and more fun. Nothing to be done about the motion blur though...

I've almost designed all 24 levels. I agree Ultra Frontier is HARD, but I think it's pretty fun. I'm really enjoying playing it myself. Each time I play, I can watch my top score increase, which feels great!



Still touching up a few more things on Xoo: Xeno Xafari too.

[Willy Elektrix]

Since I haven't done any work on an entry (although, as I said, RMZ did, but he's clearly busy anyway), picking up James' game is appealing if he really doesn't have any time to finish it in the coming month. I was waiting to see whether anyone else would, and besides I'm quite busy as well (I certainly wouldn't work on it in the next week), so James might still be more suitable than I to finish it. So I'll report back later, if Willy hasn't already decided not to wait around.

Concerning Star Dartle 2000: It would be cool if someone finished it up. I know I said that the deadline was March 1st. However, I'm not opposed to extending it if someone is *really* serious about making another game and can do so in a reasonably short time line (i.e. April 1st).

Currently the compilation has 5 games, which is enough, but one more would always be welcome. It could be developed as everyone else works on the finishing touches on their games (and the compilation itself).

[Foxley]

I'm working hard to turn out a somewhat playable beta of this game - minus bells & whistles and a variety of enemy types - within the next half a week but I'm not sure how that's gonna go. I've basically been in near creative burnout for the latter half of this month, but I'm also tantalizingly close to actually finishing a game for once, so I'll be busting my slime as much as possible to make this happen.

[Willy Elektrix]

I'm working hard to turn out a somewhat playable beta of this game - minus bells & whistles and a variety of enemy types - within the next half a week but I'm not sure how that's gonna go. I've basically been in near creative burnout for the latter half of this month, but I'm also tantalizingly close to actually finishing a game for once, so I'll be busting my slime as much as possible to make this happen.

Yes! Please! The compilation needs this game. Roll your sleeves up and power through.

What can I do to help? Bug testing, proofreading, graphic drawing, sound effect and music mixing, etc. etc. etc.



BIG EDIT:

XOO: XENO XAFARI is DONE. I'm still open to the ideas and fixes, but as far as I can tell, this game is done. Give it a try (especially if you haven't already). Download link here.

[Bob the Hamster]

I uploaded the newer copy of Start Dartle 2000 with sources for weapon upgrades.

[TMC]

I uploaded the newer copy of Start Dartle 2000 with sources for weapon upgrades.

So, are you actually expecting to finish the game, or just handing over some more work? The game looks fun!

There are six currently. If people think it needs to be more randomized, I'll add more randomness.

In that case, I guess it's just my bad luck. I had started the game about 6 times and only got 2 intros. Trying it several more times, I only saw one more intro. This goes to show that random numbers are often a bad idea in computer games; better to use cycling.

Also, I when it comes to the randomisation of item positions, are there certain locations that they're more likely to be? I thought I found the axe several times in the shed. Now hat I replay the game several times the randomisation, together with playing on a harder difficulty does make it more interesting.

Yes. The blackbelt is supposed to be the really easy choice. The dude/hippie is supposed to be the normal difficulty and the kid is hard mode.

That explains it. Actually, it seems that the Dude can't even hit the invisible man (at least, I haven't managed to hit him after about 50 attempts), so if you don't have the right item, you're stuck and have to Alt-F4.
I made another attempt to get through the game without battles; almost managed. It doesn't seem too hard.

The invisible man was just a mistake. The rest are just slower than you to be gentlemanly. Probably should change the more damage spongy enemies to something doable on the hard difficulty though.

What do you mean by slower? The battles are turn-based. They don't attack at all, at least not in very easy mode.

Terry's the gravekeeper. The Terry mentioned in the journal is probably someone else.

Aww, but it's much nicer if the game is self-referential and self-consistent rather than meaningless.

Huh, that's weird. Nothing I've got says they should be having different numbers of sandwiches. Have you noticed this at the start or after perhaps interacting with one of the fridges?

My mistake. You start with 7 sandwiches and can pick up more. (Would be nice to see how many you picked up).

When you kill the shovel of the gravedigger it fades out twice (well, one and a half times); is that because it gets hit by an on-death attack which resets the death animation? Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to fix that.

It's because he's hitting the primary creature with the on-death attack.

Seems to be an engine bug.

BTW, don't forget that you left debug keys enabled.

----

Yes, it would make fighting the bosses more difficult, but it would likely have an effect on how happy your ending is.

So... there would still be bosses you have to kill?
I think that with that mechanic you may be better off skinning the game to be about controlling a run-away truck hurtling through city streets or something of the sort, to make it more intuitive.

[Newbie Newtype]

I think MorpheusKitani is trying to suggest an Undertale-style Pacifist playthrough as an option, which required you to stay at level 1 (though the game scaled boss damage to your level so leveling up was pointless anyway).