My map (Race to the Finish) has been DL'd a number of times and I'm curious to know how you liked it. I want to know how to improve RttF and future maps that I will make.

Sure thing pal.

- Perhaps you ought to add a few more background sprites above the start point...
- Hmm, are children of children supported? I'll have to bring it to the beta list.
- Some backgroud tiles ought to be better aligned...
- a bit too squarey for my tastes, you probably intended it, but Sketchfighter is all about graph paper doodles, not technical drawing!
- Hmm, why is the turret grey in the ice zone, when it can be hit with our fire? For that matter, what is the point of the sub-zone it's in?
- Perhaps you should add a few save points, it would save (no pun intended) the trouble of going back to the start to save your progress... Ooops, did I say too much?
- perhaps you shouldn't put spiders in the rotating forest parts, as they end up being upside-down (which doesn't happen for other enemies who rotate anyway).
- Hmm, When I get the third ship I only have the trust of the second ship, I'll have to bring this to the beta list.
- I often see a shielded tank wandering outside of the play zone, near the Forest part with the pseudo forest boss.
- Perhaps you should have the simple turrets be direct children of the core (instead of being independant), so that they explode with it.

Otherwise a challenging, if a bit short, custom level. I can't wait to see what will be beyond the two repulsive fields that protect the construction zones.

I can't get the level. Decompressing the archive doesn't seem to get me anything. I've tried re-downloading several times.

Beyond that it sounds nice.

I've not had any problem, it's a BinHex (.hqx)-encoded Stuffit X (.sitx) archive. It's possibly a bug with Stuffit that used to give some problems with such stuff (with the first version of Stuffit 11), make sure you have the latest version, and in fact make sure you have Stuffit Expander at all (it's not bundled anymore starting with 10.4; notice the 11 version is 10.4+ only).

Which makes me think that I would prefer people to compress their maps in .zip, period. We don't have any resource fork issue here (as with Nova plug-ins), and there is no need to create a backlog of files that are hard to get on other platforms in case Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha is ported to, say... Solaris! And perhaps That Other OS.

Thank you

"- Perhaps you ought to add a few more background sprites above the start point..."
Fixed that already
"- Hmm, are children of children supported? I'll have to bring it to the beta list."
The skull turrets of the boss are great-grand-children
"- Some backgroud tiles ought to be better aligned..."
Fixed that too
"- a bit too squarey for my tastes, you probably intended it, but Sketchfighter is all about graph paper doodles, not technical drawing!"
I'm going to add some things. Hopefully it will be less squarey.
"- Hmm, why is the turret grey in the ice zone, when it can be hit with our fire? For that matter, what is the point of the sub-zone it's in?"
It's meant to be a more powerful turret. Perhaps I should make it a different color.
"- Perhaps you should add a few save points, it would save (no pun intended) the trouble of going back to the start to save your progress... Ooops, did I say too much?"
Perhaps…
"- perhaps you shouldn't put spiders in the rotating forest parts, as they end up being upside-down (which doesn't happen for other enemies who rotate anyway)."
Noted"
"- I often see a shielded tank wandering outside of the play zone, near the Forest part with the pseudo forest boss."
I haven't seen this. I need to investigate! EDIT: Those tanks act rather odd. Maybe I'll remove them.
"- Perhaps you should have the simple turrets be direct children of the core (instead of being independant), so that they explode with it."
I'll try it. I didn't do it at first because I was afraid of running into children limits.

For the next version should I upload it as a .zip?

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 14 December 2006 - 04:37 PM

Yeah, I'd say next version should be uploaded as a zip. It's only a little larger, and everyone can open it.

Well, my problem turned out to by my generic unarchiver calling the wrong version of Stuffit. (For some reason I've got several hanging around. I'll have to hunt them down sometime.)

I haven't done a full explore: I died several times, then found the green gun and ran a couple speed runs. So far my best is 40 seconds, but I'm sure that's beatable.

My best was 21. Now with some new additions and fixes I'm stuck at about 40.

My best is 25. I had to cheat to find the green gun (open in the editor)...:(

What I would say above and beyond what others have said is that the trigger tile for the door to the turret boss is too far out. It's impossible to enter without getting dinged by the door closing on you. It's only 1 shield point, but it's annoying.

The turret boss goes really fast if you have the beam gun...

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Dec 14 2006, 12:32 AM, said in Feedback at me!:

My map (Race to the Finish) has been DL'd a number of times and I'm curious to know how you liked it. I want to know how to improve RttF and future maps that I will make.

I am very glad you ask. In my opinion, Race to the Finish has one serious shortcoming. Namely, even after saving right after getting the yellow gun, if at some point I get killed by something, like the mini-tank Boss, then I have to restart from the very beginning. Having to get the yellow gun at first is annoying enough, but having to do it over and over after getting killed is a bore. I don't know if this is just a glitch or this is the way it's supposed to work. If it is the second one, I don't think I am gonna spend much time on it.

This is the way it currently works (and mind you, GSN's level is to be considered small, so it's not a very worrying shortcoming for it, it's worse for a larger level, like Andcarne's HSStarQuest, and would much worse for a big level), but an update is going to make saving possible in custom levels. There, I said it.

Feedback. Hmm...

1. You may wish to move the turret boss slightly farther back from the door, as it is currently possible to destroy it from outside the room.

2. I'll second the comment about moving the entrance trigger for the turret boss a bit farther from the door.

3. I did not like how you hid the green gun. There are so many more imaginative ways to hide something than to just put in an illusion- I've even worked out a way to send the player through a genuinely-solid wall, which, when attached to a suitable puzzle, could be quite fun.

4. I hope you have some purpose in mind for the various currently-unused rooms.

@vicent-estrella, on Dec 17 2006, 12:28 PM, said in Feedback at me!:

<snip>

Two points about that:

1. Not being able to save in custom maps is a current "feature" of the game, not a bug in a specific map.
2. That's Andcarne's Hard Start Star Quest you're describing, not GSN's Race to the Finish.

@ZP: Woohoo!

Edwards

@edwards, on Dec 17 2006, 05:19 PM, said in Feedback at me!:

...

2. That's Andcarne's Hard Start Star Quest you're describing, not GSN's Race to the Finish.

...

Oh my. My apologies then.

"1) You may wish to move the turret boss slightly farther back from the door, as it is currently possible to destroy it from outside the room."

Hmmm, okay.

"2) I'll second the comment about moving the entrance trigger for the turret boss a bit farther from the door."

I'll fix that

"3) I did not like how you hid the green gun. There are so many more imaginative ways to hide something than to just put in an illusion- I've even worked out a way to send the player through a genuinely-solid wall, which, when attached to a suitable puzzle, could be quite fun."

This method of your sounds interesting. Care to share? PM me for my email address.

"4) I hope you have some purpose in mind for the various currently-unused rooms."

I'll make the map bigger once you can save. In fact I'll go so far as to say I'm not uploading the new version until SF 1.1 (or whatever it's called) comes out.

It is 1.01

Bumpage. Version 1.0.1 is up. I lied about when I would release it. Now I'm onto a new project: "The Temple of the Pen". But still, I'll try to continue to improve this most excellent level. Whenever I can put in a save feature, I'll make it bigger. Much bigger. And maybe with a better name.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 17 January 2007 - 09:18 PM

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Jan 17 2007, 07:17 PM, said in Feedback at me!:

Bumpage. Version 1.0.1 is up. I lied about when I would release it. Now I'm onto a new project: "The Temple of the Pen". But still, I'll try to continue to improve this most excellent level. Whenever I can put in a save feature, I'll make it bigger. Much bigger. And maybe with a better name.

Good:

• The level looks better overall

• I like the additional enemies in the corridors, although you could use even more.

• The turret boss seems a little harder (although I may just be out of practice)

Bad:

• There doesn't seem to be any way to get to the green gun. I see you've given it an extra2, but it wasn't linked to any destructible sprite that I could find.

• There still appears to be no purpose for the side room in the ice caves or the forest boss, which, without missiles, is all but impossible to destroy. Is there any reason to fight it?

• Still needs more enemies.

My good and bad lists are about the same as cheleball's, except that I found how to get into the Green Gun's hiding place. I don't like how there is absolutely no logical link, apart from

Spoiler

the color

. It would make much more sense to have the Heart of the Forest be blocking the way to the green gun, apart from the part where it's darn near impossible to beat with only pellets, the basic beam, and 100 shields (even with constant recharging, a single seed pod can kill you from halfway across the screen). Even on a minimalist run through the main quest of the game you have five missiles when you face it, and possibly Super Pellets.
Also, the Turret Boss door still clips you on the way in. You may be interested to know that it is possible to put more than one "Boss Start" trigger in a level, so you don't need to have just one right in the doorway- you could put two in a box around the door.
Other than that, the level seems to be a definite improvement on the previous version.

Edwards

Hmmm okay. Maybe if I linked the heart of the forest to the wall and put in missiles? I could put the missiles in one of the two "construction zones". The ice cave side room will need a new purpose though. Hm.