Shameless Self-promotion!

Announcing a new adventure for SketchFighter 4000 Alpha! The Temple of the Pen! This map is big. In order to complete it without a lot of practice you'll have to save. It will feature four theme sub-levels and test just how big a Sketch-map can be! The sub-levels will be Techno (small and easy), Forest (bigger and harder), Fire (even bigger and even harder), and Ice (biggest and hardest). Creative, no?

Features:
Multi switched doors
Good secret rooms
Underwater!
Multiple bosses
Many mini-bosses
Bigness

Pictures:

Well, how far along is it?
I like the pic of the skull turret that seems to be feeding off of the poot of sludge, and the shielded bigslime is cool, and the underwater sounds awesome.

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Good secret rooms

I'm offended by that...

Sounds awesome, but you got forgot to say what are your plans and status for this thing: complete but waiting for the 1.0.1 update (for a few bugfixes and the possibility to save), being finished, waiting for approval in the add-on files (AFAIK not this last one)? Anyway, don't forget to credit a certain person for the good secret room ideas too. Which makes me think that you should be careful with Tricky enemies: since pellets only bounce when Extra1 is -1, there needs to be such a deflector with Extra1=-1 in it, but I think that it can't be one of the ice shields or funny stuff is going to happen when the player enters in contact with the ice shield in question (see Edwards docs for the reason). Also, these Tricky enemies are not easy to rotate, you have rotate all the parts and reassemble; fortunately, soon that will be done automatically...

Oh, and will we be actually slowed down underwater?

I don't know how to slow things down underwater, but I'd do it if I could.

The ice shields are -1 and I haven't seen anything weird. I've run into them, shot pellets and missiles, etc.. I'll test those more.

I got my secret room ideas from Edwards and Zacha Pedro.

The status is something less then 40%. I've finished the first dungeon and I'm working on the second.

Oh yeah, I'm also copying some of the forest scenery from Obstacle Course. I hope you don't mind, cheleball.

This post has been edited by gray_shirt_ninja : 28 January 2007 - 11:19 PM

Make sure you change the color of the forest sections. That is the one thing wrong with that level.

40%? Boo. Should be mega awesome, though.

Now i need to look around and see what kind of passages Eds and ZP have come up with...

Pi

This sounds like it will be quite a fun level. I look forward to seeing it completed. Of course, with that "underwater" section you mention, on top of cheleball's Rapids, I'm really going to need to step up work on The Ocean so as not to come off as a complete copy-cat, despite having drawn the map almost two months ago...

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Jan 28 2007, 05:02 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Multiple bosses
Many mini-bosses

Have you worked out how to do that in a way that allows more than one Boss/Mini Boss to have child sprites, or would you like a few pointers? Also, have you found the problem with multiple sets of Boss Doors (and/or the solution to said problem)?

@pisketch, on Jan 28 2007, 09:50 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Now i need to look around and see what kind of passages Eds and ZP have come up with...

As will I, oddly enough. I don't remember having gotten all that involved with the secret passage discussion, apart from noting that one of ZP's ideas does, in fact, work.

Edwards

@edwards, on Jan 28 2007, 09:37 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Have you worked out how to do that in a way that allows more than one Boss/Mini Boss to have child sprites, or would you like a few pointers? Also, have you found the problem with multiple sets of Boss Doors (and/or the solution to said problem)?

I'm giving each boss a different name and using force fields + Extra2. Works fine.

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Jan 28 2007, 09:14 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

I don't know how to slow things down underwater, but I'd do it if I could.

A couple of ideas come to mind: put unscripted Mess sprites in layer 10 (they still slow you down, even without the AI). If the player is to have the third ship, you could put force fields opposing progress. If not, it may be possible to get a toned-down force field by doubling them up (they're additive, so you could try different combinations of opposing force and super force fields and see if one works).

The downside to having lots of force fields is performance, as I discovered with the Rapids.

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Oh yeah, I'm also copying some of the forest scenery from Obstacle Course. I hope you don't mind, cheleball.

Hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Jan 28 2007, 10:41 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

I'm giving each boss a different name and using force fields + Extra2. Works fine.

Yes, I suppose that will work, too... :transcendental smirk:

@cheleball, on Jan 28 2007, 10:42 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

If not, it may be possible to get a toned-down force field by doubling them up (they're additive, so you could try different combinations of opposing force and super force fields and see if one works).

Been there, done that. The ratio between the strengths of normal Force Fields and Super Force Fields is 3:5, so you can easily calculate how many you need each way to get any given net force. In terms of practical uses, simply have a normal force field oppose a Super Force Field, and the net force will be slightly under the force of Ship 1's engines in the direction of the Super Force Field, so it is possible to fly backwards. For a gentler flow, two Force Fields against a single Super Force Field will give a slight push in the direction of the normal Force Fields. This latter version is easy to oppose, but still causes quite a noticeable push when you are flying around in it.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 29 January 2007 - 01:10 AM

If you've not run up into anything using -1 ice shield then no problem; there could be as the player could be pulled through them (walls i.e. such -1 sprites being asymetric in their collosion behavior).

Yes, I was indeed thinking of putting a layer of invisible Mess sprites to slow down the player, though force field arranged so that you can go against them would also work, though notice that the effect won't be the same and give a water current feeling instead. In fact you could combine them (provided the player can still go against the flow, of course...)

However, you should wait for the release of 1.0.1 (which I think I can say won't be very long now) before releasing your level, it fixes a few bugs that can potentially inpact the secret level techniques I described, which may force to implement things a little differently.

"You inspired me" I hope you don't mind I make another one...

Hey, this seems to really compete with my level (which is just waiting for 1.0.1, because it'd be too big and too hard without the improved saving)! The underwater part sounds pretty interesting, too, as well as the many bosses. But, believe me, one of the hardest part is beta testing such a thing.

@freq245, on Jan 29 2007, 09:44 AM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Hey, this seems to really compete with my level (which is just waiting for 1.0.1, because it'd be too big and too hard without the improved saving)! The underwater part sounds pretty interesting, too, as well as the many bosses. But, believe me, one of the hardest part is beta testing such a thing.

We'll be happy to beta test it for you until the update comes out.

(BTW, out of curiosity, what's so hard about beta testing such a thing? You just run SF and the editor side-by-side and test as you go. As the level gets bigger, move the start point along with it; no sense in covering all that ground so many times. If there are items you would have needed to collect, start with those too for testing purposes. The only time you'll ever need to test the whole thing is after it's done, for gameplay balance and polish; you should have resolved all problems and gotten most of the details right as you went along.

Then again, using this method I released Obstacle Course with a text sprite that says "Sprite" in a side passage, so take it for what it's worth. :))

@cheleball, on Jan 29 2007, 06:06 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

We'll be happy to beta test it for you until the update comes out.

(BTW, out of curiosity, what's so hard about beta testing such a thing? You just run SF and the editor side-by-side and test as you go. As the level gets bigger, move the start point along with it; no sense in covering all that ground so many times. If there are items you would have needed to collect, start with those too for testing purposes. The only time you'll ever need to test the whole thing is after it's done, for gameplay balance and polish; you should have resolved all problems and gotten most of the details right as you went along.

Then again, using this method I released Obstacle Course with a text sprite that says "Sprite" in a side passage, so take it for what it's worth. :))

Yeah, but what's about switches? You'd have to turn some down after changing the "game start" sprite and there are some other complicated things, too, like special Extra2 values which should have got set before the new start point.

Very interesting idea, GSN I look forward to the release.

Freq : I think he just means that it's easier to do that then to reply the whole level over and over.

@mackilroy, on Jan 29 2007, 06:46 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

Very interesting idea, GSN I look forward to the release.

Freq : I think he just means that it's easier to do that then to reply the whole level over and over.

Ah. I mainly used the improved 1.0.1 save points for testing "The five seasons" until SketchFighter crashed after being open for several days and idle states.

More pictures! Yay!

Ooh, tree-tastic. I love the little S.Pellet "Flowers." The seedpods will destory the vines? Cool. I've never gotten why the badguys can't get hurt by theire own shots. It doesn't make much sense.

@pisketch, on Jan 29 2007, 08:05 PM, said in The Temple of the Pen:

...I've never gotten why the badguys can't get hurt by theire own shots. It doesn't make much sense.

In much the same way the two players don't get hurt by their own shots in 2-player mode.

This post has been edited by FireFalcon : 31 January 2007 - 10:33 AM

The screen shots look awsome!! How long before we can play it?