HUZZAAA!!! :laugh: Congratulations! 880 KB is a very impressive record, but don't be to long testing it because I can't wait for it's release! 1.0.1 better hurry its rear...

You might want to keep an eye on the add-ons page

:cryptic grin:

Looks good so far, I've only started though, and won't get a chance to test if fully until tomorrow.

casual
Uhm… if any of you find yourselves unable to get past the three force-fields at the end of the big hall, please let me know. I have a fix on stand-by.

Never mind. Turns out I was going too slow. Tee-hee.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 07 March 2007 - 07:30 PM

Very nice level so far. I'm currently thoroughly stuck at the entrance to the Volcano section- I once managed to get down to what I think is a miniboss, but that was a fluke. You've managed to make a very good hard area there, which is not improved by the occasional framerate hiccup and the new blob multiplication bug.

(edit)Which two bugs I am getting really, really pissed off at. If it were possible to save in 1.0.0, I would go back to playing in that version, because the blobs behave properly, and the framerate hiccups don't lock upthe entire game for seconds at a time.
I especially hate the blob multiplication one. One big blob and a turret are bad enough, but when the last two little blobs that you didn't quite kill merge and form two large blobs, you may as well just ram one of the lava particles immediately- your estimated lifespan will go up.

(EDIT) I've finally gotten to the end zone- this has been quite an impressive level so far, and I've spent about three hours getting here. Unfortunately, I've encountered a rather bad problem- Whenever I start shooting in the room with the final boss, the framerate drops to zero for a couple of seconds. It's fine if I don't shoot, but that isn't exactly an option (I think).
(Another edit) Well, after about ten minutes of careful flying, shooting, and praying that I wouldn't get hit while the screen was frozen, I managed to take out three of the shield projectors. Then I died, as I don't think there's even a partly-safe place to shoot the last one from.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 08 March 2007 - 01:29 AM

@edwards, on Mar 7 2007, 06:11 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

(EDIT) I've finally gotten to the end zone- this has been quite an impressive level so far, and I've spent about three hours getting here. Unfortunately, I've encountered a rather bad problem- Whenever I start shooting in the room with the final boss, the framerate drops to zero for a couple of seconds. It's fine if I don't shoot, but that isn't exactly an option (I think).

Yeah. That appears to be a new 'feature' that was introduced with 1.0.1. I was hoping that it was just my computer.

GSN is most displeased <_<

Getting closer- I just managed to kill all four of the shield projectors, and get the boss's health down by about seven pixels. Why did you decide that you needed to give it (at a guess) 5000 HP?

(EDIT) All right, I have a tactic that gets all the shield projectors down about one time out of thirty. May I suggest that in a future version you have the grey turrets get disabled when the associated shield projector is destroyed?

(EDIT) Huzzah! It appears that the temporary saved game is an actual file, which is copiable, so I'm no longer quite so worried about the game crashing. Of course, I haven't tested to make sure that the backup works, but if the game uses a file for temporary data, it most likely needs to reference it every time it reloads that data.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 08 March 2007 - 02:36 AM

@edwards, on Mar 7 2007, 10:53 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Getting closer- I just managed to kill all four of the shield projectors, and get the boss's health down by about seven pixels. Why did you decide that you needed to give it (at a guess) 5000 HP?

Because when you have the right tactic, it's really easy. Maybe in the next version, I'll change it.

@edwards, on Mar 7 2007, 10:53 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

(EDIT) All right, I have a tactic that gets all the shield projectors down about one time out of thirty. May I suggest that in a future version you have the grey turrets get disabled when the associated shield projector is destroyed?

Good idea. I'll put out a new version when I've collected sufficient good ideas, bug fixes, etc.

EDIT: Done and done. When I upload the new version, can someone delete the old one? I don't want to clutter up the add-ons page.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 08 March 2007 - 11:38 AM

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Mar 8 2007, 09:35 AM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Because when you have the right tactic, it's really easy. Maybe in the next version, I'll change it.

If the "right tactic" involves the Homing gun, then I was screwed from the start of my multi-hour battle with the blasted thing. That was the one non-hidden upgrade that I didn't get, and the first time I tried to leave the final arena to get it (although I'd rather been hoping for a shield upgrade) I got trapped in the Mini Boss room, with no way to commit suicide. Fortunately, my backup of the save file worked, and I have since managed to get out a couple of times, with the only casualty being the four hours of clock time, which I'll need to add manually when I set a "fastest time" for the level.
Suggestion: Either add a way to commit suicide in the Mini Boss room after killing it, or set up the doors to be permanently deleted after the Mini Boss is killed.

(Note added after another hour of play) All right, the boss is fairly simply once you've gotten all (but one group?) of the hidden upgrades. Knowing that the means exist to kill it without being a master player with too much free time, I hereby rescind all complaints about the difficulty level. I was trying to take it on with a not-quite-minimalist weapon set- Super Pellets, Beam, five missiles, and 100 shields. Just adding the Homing gun would have made three of my previous near misses flawless victories, and the Wave gun just makes it trivial (not that I mind that after having spent at least an hour of flight time fighting it, mostly in 45-second bursts).

Anyway, I finally killed the damn thing and finished the level, after a total playing time of (about) 5 and a half hours. Nice level, and I really like the credits. I'll be posting a more detailed review shortly.

Edwards

I won the older version with two hours of total playtime. It really is an excellent level, GSN. One of, if not the, best Custom levels i've seen thus far. Now i need to open it up in the editor, fight off those demon monkeys, and see if i missed anything. Oh, and is it possible to get into that room in the Techno section with all the upgrades? I couldn't find any, but maybe i just missed it...

Pi, who also greatly like the credits, partly because of his inclusion. And the teleporter.

This post has been edited by PiSketch : 08 March 2007 - 04:23 PM

K. I just uploaded a new version. Has anyone found the wave gun? If not, I'll make it a bit easier to find.

@Pi: There may and/or may not be an entrance to that room. But there probably isn't. The super-wave gun makes things too easy.

@Edwards: What secret areas have you found?

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Mar 8 2007, 02:28 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

@Edwards: What secret areas have you found?

At the end of the game, I had found the Beam, Wave, Homing and Super Pellet guns, ten missiles, 200 shields, a set of three hundred-shield recharges that I regretted not being able to stick in a bag to take with me, and one "fooled you" which does not appear to go any deeper than the message. I suspect that there was formerly a way to open the Room of Much Stuff (or some other hidden area) in the Ice section, but those snowflakes do not seem to respond to the Wave gun. On the other hand, I'm nearly certain that it's possible to disable a switch via an Extra2 link, without affecting the door that it opens, so I will not say for certain that those snowflakes do nothing.

Anyway, quick rundown of my opinion of the level:
Overall, very, very, very well-done. It's great to have a level that really does take a non-trivial amount of time to beat, and this one does that masterfully.

The layout is nice. There isn't much interconnectedness between the zones, but needing to go back through again to pick up a few upgrades (and a few hidden items, should you have missed them the first time around) makes up for it. There are some issues with not knowing which way to go in a maze, but as the answer usually turns out to be "either", this isn't a major problem.

The difficulty level can get a bit extreme at times, but being able to save makes it (mostly) acceptable. The points where I really had problems were as follows:
The beginning of the Volcano, where it took me about half an hour to accidentally discover that the "hot" enemies were destroyable, as they don't flash when you hit them (or, interestingly, turn blue when you freeze them). After that, things went a bit faster- it only took me another half-hour each to destroy them(/half-joking). The bouncers especially have too many hit points.
The Ice boss: It can be summed up very simply: Too (censored) many mines, too (censored) many Super Bullets, and too (censored) many hitpoints. It should not take five minutes of constantly shooting at a boss, and praying that it won't randomly bounce in such a way as to corner you against the entrance to its arena, just to get it to the point where you can start doing real damage.
The final boss (was there some inspiration from the Master Turret there?): You've heard about this one at length, but I do believe that it would be possible with just the weapons that can be gotten from non-hidden areas, so you don't need to do too much in the way of power reduction.

On the other hand, the sense of accomplishment when you finally manage to get through one of these sections is quite nice.

The scenery, although not very dense, it pretty nice. The water especially is quite nice- it works very well for the engineered pool appearance that you use.

The variety of playing styles is great- between the careful maneuvering needed in the Volcano, the memory needed to get around in the interconnected maze of the Ice Caves, and the pure twitch shot-dodging needed in the final battles, anyone who survives this map will definitely be a better player afterwards. It did point out that I've been spoiled by multiplayer- I'm used to having missiles, more shields, and not much in the way of death penalties, but it was fun nonetheless.

Edwards

@edwards, on Mar 8 2007, 02:51 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

The beginning of the Volcano, where it took me about half an hour to accidentally discover that the "hot" enemies were destroyable, as they don't flash when you hit them (or, interestingly, turn blue when you freeze them). After that, things went a bit faster- it only took me another half-hour each to destroy them(/half-joking). The bouncers especially have too many hit points.

I'll think about reducing HP on the bouncers. The hot enemies don't flash red because of the technique needed to make them glow. When you're damaging them, you're damaging the invisible turret that's doing the shooting. The visible part is not solid and has the "Lava Pulse" script.

@edwards, on Mar 8 2007, 02:51 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

The Ice boss: It can be summed up very simply: Too (censored) many mines, too (censored) many Super Bullets, and too (censored) many hitpoints. It should not take five minutes of constantly shooting at a boss, and praying that it won't randomly bounce in such a way as to corner you against the entrance to its arena, just to get it to the point where you can start doing real damage.

I was going to reduce the HP, but then I thought: "It's really hard, but I just feel so good when I finally beat it." My original thought when I made it was that it should be harder then the three previous bosses.

@edwards, on Mar 8 2007, 02:51 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

The final boss (was there some inspiration from the Master Turret there?): You've heard about this one at length, but I do believe that it would be possible with just the weapons that can be gotten from non-hidden areas, so you don't need to do too much in the way of power reduction.

It is possible to beat with the non-hidden weapons. Make sure to pick up the homing gun though.

I'm thinking of some changes in the ice-caves. There are some red mines that you have to shoot with the blue gun to destroy. When I put those in, I thought something about them being flaming mines. Maybe I should put a pictograph on the wall to indicate that they're on fire. Also, a HP reduction on some of the Ice Boss spikes.

Guess what, boys and girls? That bug with the boss? I've sorta pinned it down. It seems to only happen when the boss trigger has been activated and you're firing. I have a patch for it, if you don't mind fighting without a boss health bar. Also added a diabolical entrance to the Room of Much Stuff, and a dark area. WARNING: You are likely to be eaten by a Grue. Well, okay. Not really. I just needed an excuse to say that I'm working on making the ink blobs in the dark area not flicker. It's something I forgot to add in the release version.

I have to admit: I gave up after

1. realising the huge amount of time you must have to beat the level
2. thinking that the challenges are so hard that one of them could be an entire custo level

Probably I'll try it the next time if there's some better saving, but I really like the details, new enemies and ideas you put in this.

Btw: Have you already thought of an easy version available to not-so-skilled people?

@freq245, on Mar 9 2007, 07:13 AM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Btw: Have you already thought of an easy version available to not-so-skilled people?

Yeah, but I'm not going to (unless there's popular demand). My next level will be easier. Maybe.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 09 March 2007 - 12:03 PM

hurrah for a decently sized and non-trivial level! I got as far as (finishing) the first water zone before stopping (as it was too late in the evening, it had taken me about half an hour to do that!) I'd sadly forgotten that the save was only temporary though, so I'll have to try again from the start.

My only concern about it so far is sadly that the frame-rate often drops off to barely acceptable (about 10 fps or so) when there are lots of bullets or flickers on the screen. Of course, that isn't really your fault.

Quote

My only concern about it so far is sadly that the frame-rate often drops off to barely acceptable (about 10 fps or so) when there are lots of bullets or flickers on the screen. Of course, that isn't really your fault.

Blame SF 4000A 1.0.1.

Hmm I prefer not to have stuff removed from the add-on files unless there is an overriding reason to do so (like hidden fatal flaw), it makes regression testing easier and forces you to think before releasing an update (I don't like when people silently update relatively often while keeping the same link, I'm speaking to you Dogbert). Which brings me to the point: do you want me to approve the pending 1.0.1 update, or would you rather skip this update and directly to the future version with the fix mentioned in this post:

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Mar 9 2007, 03:09 AM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Guess what, boys and girls? That bug with the boss? I've sorta pinned it down. It seems to only happen when the boss trigger has been activated and you're firing. I have a patch for it, if you don't mind fighting without a boss health bar. Also added a diabolical entrance to the Room of Much Stuff, and a dark area. WARNING: You are likely to be eaten by a Grue. Well, okay. Not really. I just needed an excuse to say that I'm working on making the ink blobs in the dark area not flicker. It's something I forgot to add in the release version.

? (oh, and I'll just light up the lightbulb. Seriously, Voidspace needs to be ported to SF4kA)

Just wait. I'm almost done with a new version. Do you people think I should re-do the boss so that it doesn't wig-out? It'll mean the loss of the health meter.