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Author Topic: Horn of Balance  (Read 462028 times)

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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 15]
« Reply #840 on: November 08, 2013, 11:18:09 am »
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Loving the demo, but I have one problem with the way some pushing puzzles work:

There are a lot of pillar pushing puzzles and most of them are similar to one another (not sure if they are all planned to stay as is or not), and pushing/pulling them is very slow going. Now that I think about it, I felt like having to push those 4 statues in the first dungeon was a bit much as well (maybe keep it as is, but just take away 2 buttons?). Also, you have to be very precise on some of the pillars for them to actually fully lock in place. There have even been times that I've found myself wondering which one wasn't quite in place because it was only off by a pixel or so vertically, so I had to try to push and pull all the pillars around to find the culprit.

For me, the important and rewarding part of a puzzle is figuring out the solution and seeing/experiencing the result of the solution, but with these puzzles you pretty much know the solution right away, yet you still have to take a lot of time putting the pieces into place before you get the result of figuring out the solution, so it's kind of like the puzzle solving part is over at that moment, but then you're still stuck with having to push things around, so it ends up feeling like the "filler" that those long animes tend to have, needlessly boring you, making you just deal with it until it gets good again (my mind is thinking a bit oddly right now, but I expect you see what I'm trying to say), but obviously this isn't as boring/bad as most anime filler, lol. Maybe I'm just a bit impatient these days, or just an action junkie. :P Whatever the case, the current way that pillars work is something that needs fixing up in some way.

Solution idea 1:
For the ones that need to lock into position, it'd be nice if they slid into place when close enough. It might be slightly tricky to get it working well, but making the player get it exact seems to kill the fun factor at that moment, making it more of a chore than it should be.

Solution idea 2:
You could have the pillars slide like in OoT and other 3D Zelda games (I don't recall if any of the 2D ones did this). Basically, they lock onto a grid and slide in chunks (not explaining it very well, but I expect you already know how they move?). However, this would be unlike ALttP and I'm not sure how it would feel or if other people would like it that way. Is there a reason to keep the precision movement in the blocks? I can't think of one, but maybe others can. Even if you could only push blocks in 8 pixel chunks, I don't see that there would be any lack of important options for puzzles or strategies, etc. It seems like the best argument for keeping it as is would be to keep it the same as ALttP, unless I'm overlooking an advantage for precise block movement.

So those are my thoughts on the matter. All I know is that it's a bit annoying and tedious as is. But I have no other issues; loving the demo. And there's more to it than I thought! For example, I never saw the gauntlet before! I died pretty quick though, as I was trying to rush around and get good video. And on that note, I'll get back to making that trailer now. ;)
« Last Edit: November 08, 2013, 11:22:21 am by FrozenFire »
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 15]
« Reply #841 on: November 09, 2013, 12:22:23 pm »
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I'm proud to present the new trailer FrozenFire made for the NCFC 2013 event:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bQuObwECI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bQuObwECI</a>

I'm still working ard on the upcoming demo, so expect to see that hopefully in about half a day's time.

@FrozenFire: I'll definitely see about adjusting the puzzles, though I can't say if I'll get around to it for today's demo.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2013, 01:04:09 pm by Martijn dh »
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 15]
« Reply #842 on: November 09, 2013, 08:43:00 pm »
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Finally. After a little less then a year there is a new public demo release:
http://www.mediafire.com/?g5k90zgfflxrbz5

I will be submitting the game for the NCFC 2013 shortly but last year has tough me you can never get enough testing done. I have two more days before I leave on vacation so please see this as an invitation to play and try to break the game as much as possible before then. If at all possible I'll try to incorperate all the feedback.

Here is a list of the larges changes compared to demo 15:
+ Fixed all known (surface) errors and issues in the previous version
+ The game now has seperate buttons for the two equipable items
+ Massively expansed of dungeon 2 to near completions. (It still likes bosses but it can be fully completed beyond that)
+ Balanced out dungeon 1 through things like enemy stats, placements and (puzzle) designs
+ Spend a lot of time making the coding simplier and/or more efficient
+ Tried to convert to gamemaker studio, got fed up and discarded over a month of work
+ Added another mini dungeon called the gauntlet (meant as a hard mode)
+ Added a one screen mini-cave to the overworld
+ Changed the contents of all the green chests
+ Added a debug mode which can be called by calling your character debug
+ Added new enemies: medusa, trickbox, wizzrobe (alive and undead), large spiked block, more flying tiles, spiked roll (vertical / horizontal), deadrock, tektite (3 versions), octorok / slarok, gibo, guruguru bar
+ Started work on dungeon 2 (sub)bosses: Lanmola and Sanmola
+ Adjusted / improved existing enemy AI for: soldiers, hardhat beetles, stalfos, beamos, cukeman, goriya
+ Enemies can now shoot each other
+ Added desert bushes, piles of stones and trees
+ Added heart pieces and heart containers
+ Added three new types of room transitions
+ Containers can now hide things underneath like holes, stairs and warptiles
+ Optimized the existing tilesets
+ The game's engine now includes: moving platforms, icy floors, conveyor belts and spiky floors
+ Added extra screen resolution (1280x960)
+ Added new character action: idle (=waving to the camera)
+ Added hitswitch that only reacts to arrows
+ Room with flying tiles stay cleared during a dungeon visit
+ Enemy positioning is reset once you re-emter a room
+ Containers spawn their contents only once per dungeonvisit
+ Lots and lots of other smaller tweakes, fixes and additions
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 now out!]
« Reply #843 on: November 10, 2013, 09:47:45 am »
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Suggestions:

Fix the sword mechanics.  In LttP, if you hit something while slashing or while the sword is held out, it resets so that you have to slash again.

While scrolling from room to room, the enemies should not be getting updated(IE moving and such).

Do not know if it is your engine or not, you cannot move up-left while holding out the sword, at least while in the Desert Palace.

Work on your camera system.  Link like "vibrates" as the view scrolls and such during movement.

Slightly increase Link's movement?  It feels as if I am moving slow when compared to LttP.

Work on corner-cutting.  I can get within about 3 or 4 pixels or so of straight edge and Link won't corner cut it.

Movement in general feels a bit stiff.

Enemy deaths are too fast.  The monster should be blown back, wait a half second or so, then play the death sound and animation.  You seem to have it getting slightly blown back and the sound playing as soon as it gets hit.

Add a black fade in/out when going up and down stairs to different levels.  it just looks weird to have instant change of scenery.


ERROR in
action number 2
of Other Event: User Defined 15
for object obj_Container:

In script script_Update_Terrain_Surfaces:
Error in code at line 114:
   switch (argument[7].array_terrain_type[argument[1]])
                       ^
at position 22: Unknown variable array_terrain_type or array index out of bounds
Getting that all the time whilst trying to slash pots with sword after descending to B1 then coming back up to the pots surrounding the statue in the huge main room.

Also, attached is an error image.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2013, 09:49:25 am by Theforeshadower »
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 now out!]
« Reply #844 on: November 10, 2013, 11:56:19 am »
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Thank you for the feedback Theforeshadower.
The error (and I believe also the simular errors that Atom ran into) should be fully fixed in the following v16.01 demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/clqtn7spycab4yk/Horn_of_Balance_0.16.01.zip

Due to time constraints I'm only able to go after the major errors/issues/glitches right now. ALL other feedback is (as always) also more then welcome (!). I'll just have to look at it in more detail once I get back from my vacation.

The up-left combination does not work probably due to your keyboard. Mine's the same in that regard. I believe the exact problem is that most keyboards can't handle three buttons at once. Back when I looked into it I was sadly unable to discover a workaround, though I'm still open for suggestions in case I missed anything.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #845 on: November 10, 2013, 12:12:12 pm »
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Thank you for the feedback Theforeshadower.
The error (and I believe also the simular errors that Atom ran into) should be fully fixed in the following v16.01 demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/clqtn7spycab4yk/Horn_of_Balance_0.16.01.zip

Due to time constraints I'm only able to go after the major errors/issues/glitches right now. ALL other feedback is (as always) also more then welcome (!). I'll just have to look at it in more detail once I get back from my vacation.

The up-left combination does not work probably due to your keyboard. Mine's the same in that regard. I believe the exact problem is that most keyboards can't handle three buttons at once. Back when I looked into it I was sadly unable to discover a workaround, though I'm still open for suggestions in case I missed anything.

It's not my keyboard.  I can go in any other diagonal direction whilst holding the sword out except Up-Left.  When I play other games and emulators, I can move up-left and hold the sword fine. :/
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #846 on: November 10, 2013, 12:32:38 pm »
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We ran into the same problem about two years ago:

I'm was working on Nubcake's suggestions when I ran into a strange new glitch. Could someone check the following with the available demo: walk in the upper left direction using both the up and left key pressed in any order. That should work. Now try the same thing while pressing the sword button to charge to sword. My character does not move left. Only up. The Button_Held event doesn't even recognize the left button being pressed.

I want to determine if it's just me or if other computers have the same problem.

EDIT: Not really a solution I'm satisfied with, but it appear the problem is solved if I set left and up to letters like J en I. Right...... Anybody ever have a simular experience. Or beter yet. Does anybody know the reason behind something weird like this. :huh:

I get the following results testing directional keys while charging the sword with the current demo:

Pressing up first does not allow left, but allows right
Pressing left first does not allow up, but allows down
Pressing down first does not allow right, but allows left
Pressing right first does not allow down, but allows up

I see a simple pattern here, perhaps it has to do with the key code values.

Strange. My computer does not have any issues with the combination M, Down and Right. My older laptop appearently does not have any problems whatsoever ::)
Also, and this is something I did not notice earlier, when I press M, Up and Left a beeping sound can be heard. It would be my guess that the combination of keys is already in use by some other system. Gamemaker doesn't even recognize the last of the three keys being getting pressed (it not that it just skips the pressed event). I checking the  string of previously entered keycommands.

Since I'm now fairly convinced that this is not a problem I can neatly fix, I am inclined to just leave the things as they are. The players already have the options to edit any of the controls if they experience issues.

Some keyboards have key priority issues and object to certain combos of keys. Other keyboards are amazing. XD But yeah, don't worry yourself about this as it's very likely a hardware-specific issue.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #847 on: November 25, 2013, 10:02:57 am »
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As with Chaos Rising, I haven't been able to play Horn of Balance's NCFC demo yet but wanted to say thanks for representing ZFGC and entering into the event. You have always put a lot of consistent, high-quality work into this project and I hope that others at the event can appreciate that too.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #848 on: November 29, 2013, 01:14:09 am »
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Thanks. I got back from Indonesia yesterday but judging by what I've seen so far the love on NCFC is far to be found. Guess I'll have to try again next year.

In the livestream recording of my game various solid objects seem to have dissappeared (probably due to surfaces not getting created due to too much memory usage). Has anybody else encountered simular problems in the game?
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #849 on: December 02, 2013, 07:04:28 pm »
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Its not as bad at it seemed at first, you are still receiving votes even now NCFC has ended. You are at 13 votes now.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #850 on: December 15, 2013, 05:14:40 pm »
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And here is another status update. The last few weeks have been a little rough for me so that's why there wasn't any news last weekend.

Progress update:

0.16.01 (10 november 2013)
+ Fixed error: destroying containers in rooms where digging is allowed sometimes throws errors

0.16.02 (1 december 2013)
+ Edited hinttext for cannonball puzzle in dungeon 1
+ Further optimized overworld tileset

0.16.03 (10 december 2013)
+ Further optimized overworld tileset

0.16.04 (15 december 2013)
+ Fixed pick up animation while looking left
+ Further optimized overworld tileset
+ Added new item: Magic Mirror ("return to beginning" effect only)
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #851 on: December 29, 2013, 07:21:39 pm »
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Sorry for the lack of updates lately. It's the holiday season and all.
I've attached some screenshots of the new darkness system I've been working on (as I've been working to add it). Nothing too flashy, but it ended up being a lot more complex to integrate, amongst everything, else then I had expected. I'll need another weekend to finish it I'm hoping and maybe some more time to tweak the light area sprites.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #852 on: December 31, 2013, 08:33:13 am »
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Interesting. How is the lighting system going to work? From the screens so far, it doesn't really make sense or seem consistent, but I'm pretty sure that's because it's just set up for testing stuff? And I'm pretty sure everyone's projects slow down during the holidays, so no big deal, no need to be sorry.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [NEW POLL ADDED]
« Reply #853 on: December 31, 2013, 09:16:18 am »
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Well, I've been pondering on various systems and I'm now working with three layers of darkness. The lower floor (= the hole in the 2nd image), the upper floor (= the dark area in the 2nd image) and the highest floor (the red area). If a lightsource is on the lower floor then the light only effects the lower darkness. If the source is on the upper floor, it effects both the upper and lower floor. The highest floor is only effected by room wide light sources... That's the theorie anyway. It's a work in progress. The hard part is defining the three surfaces efficiently (which what the screenshots show).

I'll create a video to show the concept soon.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2014, 10:13:50 am by Martijn dh »
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [NEW POLL]
« Reply #854 on: January 05, 2014, 09:35:05 pm »
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@ FrozenFire: Finally got around to (almost all of) your feedback from two months ago. Would you be willing to test the new situation after the next weekend?

Progress report:

0.16.05 (22 december 2013)
+ Started work on darkness engine
+ Reorganised how area data is defined

0.16.06 (29 december 2013)
+ Continued work on darkness engine (fixed a ton of issues and added interaction with medallions)
+ Integrated higher blending effects with darkness system to cut resources

0.16.07 (1 januari 2014)
+ Fixed error when turning plant enemies into slime enemies using the quake medallion
+ Redid part of the darkness system to prevent glitches when moving between floors / areas

0.16.08 (2 januari 2014)
+ Improved darkness system: added light sources for light (with and without lanturn as equipped item)
+ Fixed glitch: darkness engine can now handle lightsources with alpha values
+ Added darkness to dungeon 1

0.16.09 (4 januari 2014)
+ Fixed glitch: darkness engine no longer throws errors when ctrl+alt+del is used
+ Link's light cone can now handle diagonal directions (while on dwindelstairs)
+ Link's light cone now takes height above ground into consideration
+ Added new type of pressure plate (=needs continious weighted pressure), though I ended up scrapping actually using it anywhere. Hahaha. Maybe at a later date.
+ Made the three pillar puzzles (and another small puzzle) in dungeon 2 more forgiving with regards to their placement requirements
+ Altered / simplified pillar puzzle 2 in dungeon 2

0.16.10 (5 januari 2014)
+ Redid third pillar puzzle in dungeon 2
+ Redid "movable small statues" puzzle room in dungeon 1
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #855 on: January 05, 2014, 10:44:02 pm »
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Really love how the lighting turned out, looks very nice and more realistic. Care to give a little insight on how the system works?
« Last Edit: January 05, 2014, 10:46:19 pm by Whitay »
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [NEW POLL]
« Reply #856 on: January 06, 2014, 09:27:32 am »
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@ FrozenFire: Finally got around to (almost all of) your feedback from two months ago. Would you be willing to test the new situation after the next weekend?

I'd be happy to. And the latest progress on the lighting looks nice. ;)
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #857 on: January 06, 2014, 10:54:03 pm »
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Really love how the lighting turned out, looks very nice and more realistic. Care to give a little insight on how the system works?

Check my posts on the 30th and 31th of december.

One downside to the system though is that the character's light will shine through walls that are narrow enough. I'm not sure if I want to build something elaborate to counter that, compensate via room design or just ignore it.

Does anything in the attached images bother anyone?

@FrozenFire: Thanks. I'll contact you when I've addressed the last of the suggestions.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #858 on: January 07, 2014, 12:18:58 am »
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I feel like it should just stay that way, as otherwise the light also may be too limited when in complex built rooms. You have gotten very far and made a really cool system for the lights here, and i feel like any more would just be wayy to much for the result of something like that small of a detail.
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Re: Alttp - Horn of Balance [demo 16 out now!]
« Reply #859 on: January 09, 2014, 12:08:49 am »
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Sorry for the lack of updates lately. It's the holiday season and all.
I've attached some screenshots of the new darkness system I've been working on (as I've been working to add it). Nothing too flashy, but it ended up being a lot more complex to integrate, amongst everything, else then I had expected. I'll need another weekend to finish it I'm hoping and maybe some more time to tweak the light area sprites.
This looks pretty good and it looks like it could be used well with different kinds of things for example if you end up makeing a fire temple/dungeon you could use the lower lightsource for rooms with lava on the bottom.(2nd, 3rd, and 4th examples) and hte last one obviously being for a dark area below the room. This is getting pretty big, and it's looking really good, kinda like sequal to lttp on the snes in it's own way but with alot more things and a completely different plot. I'm looking forward to seeing how much more effort you put into this project~
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