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Finished! :laugh: One or two final changes to make and I'll post it up.
The framerate slows down a bit at the beginning because you start in a forest, and I couldn't help stuffing a forest with detail, (and because of the stupidly large file size) but most of the game is ok.
EDIT:
The final size is 1.1MB. All of my next maps will be smaller, so as to avoid framerate slowdown, I really hope the level isn't ruined for everyone now. My average time for completion is 25 minutes, and my best time is just over 20 minutes. I'll post it up tomorrow I expect.
This post has been edited by Silverwind : 15 March 2007 - 06:36 PM
Me goes: Wheeeeee!!!! Bounces happily on seat Now i just have to make it till tomorrow....
It... is... ALIVE!!! :laugh: I just clicked the submit file button.
Overall the difficulty is mediumish varying to kinda hard. But let me know what you guys think of the difficulty, because I want to entertain all audiences. (the Save Zone Rings thin out a little as you progress, so beware of that)
This post has been edited by Silverwind : 16 March 2007 - 03:40 AM
WOW! I've only had it up for a day, and already it's got 31 downloads! ^_^
Has anyone completed it yet? What do people think of the difficulty? To hard? To easy?
I've gotten past the twisty part with lots of electrodes, then my mom kicked me off the computer... I did get the saqve file though, so i an startover from there. So far it has been MUCH awesome.
EDITY:What's a saqve file?
This post has been edited by PiSketch : 17 March 2007 - 09:30 AM
Oh yeah, that's a tricky bit. (that's the bit with the mine I mentioned earlier) You're doing well if you've gotten that far Did you manage to get the upgrade off the Mega Cluster just before that?
Yeah, that freakin' mine. :mad: It got me and then I quit. But, I'll pick it back up from my save.
The disappearing save rings are a nice if cruel touch. That and I think the random number generator got a bad seed, because the engine was being super stingy with health dropped from blocks. These things combined to make a tricky challenge.
Oh, and it's gorgeous, every inch! The slight slowdowns in spots is completely acceptable to me. I was a little sad that you posted shots of all the cool stuff prior to release. Like seeing Christmas gifts before they're given, it spoiled the "wow" factor for me. Having already been wowed by the shots, I was like, "yup, there's that arch/water/etc."
i really like your water fall and how you gave it the splashing effect although i recommend giving the doors in the background the "env. Super door flicker" script. It really helps give the water more of a falling look.
I have reached what I can only hope is the final boss, and let me just point out that it has too freakin' many HP for something so well-shielded. When I can only ever get in the briefest of hits, it should die in less than 5 minutes. I seriously wonder if I have the patience to beat this thing. I'm not sure it's worth it.
@cheleball, on Mar 17 2007, 08:41 PM, said in The Cathedral Of Chaos:
... hehe... hehehe... heheh, hehaha!... Mwahahaheahaaha!!!
Ok, sorry about that, now that it's out of my system let me aid you in your battle against this most dangerous adversary. If the Boss you speak of is the Ultimate Cluster then you're assumption of it being the final super power is wrong. He is a desperately hard opponent to those who do not know how to tackle him, so I'll give you some advise. Use Pellets for the most part, and whenever you get the chance at a free strike close in with the Beam. (just make sure you're ready to back off quickly again!) If you still can't beat him with this technique, try searching for a few of the secret powerups. By the way, I can beat him in under 2 minutes. Good luck young Sketchfighter!
Oh, OK. That was my problem, I was using the pellets exclusively. The window is just too brief for that weapon to be effective. Once you suggested the beam, I ditched the pellets entirely (the small amount of damage they would do is not worth the trouble of switching and trying to aim in between beam attacks), and the boss fell soon after.
After that thing, the final boss was almost a let down. Not that it was easy , just that it was easi er.
And...secrets? Did I hear someone say secrets? I saw no secrets! Now that I've beaten the level, I can look for them in the editor...MWA-HA-HA!
(Sorry man, I just derive no pleasure from searching every nook and cranny for secrets that have no hints.)
@cheleball, on Mar 17 2007, 11:46 PM, said in The Cathedral Of Chaos:
I thought someone would say that, which is why I took the liberty of making them secret in the editor as well! By the way, if anyone wants a hint or clue on where to find the super secrets, please PM me and I'll be most happy to confer. I don't want to post any in the topic though, as the temptation to read them might overcome those who want to find them on their own.
Enjoy searching for the super secrets in the editor Cheleball, I hope it proves a challenge...
P.S.
If anyone does find a super secret you're free to mention it here, but please keep it's location concealed, and instead just tell us of it's contents. For example, instead of saying "I found the secret room with the Shield Upgrade, behind the Skull Turret in the twin Skull Turret room," say "I found the secret with the Shield Upgrade." Thanks.
By the way, the example secret isn't in the map, so don't spend hours trying to figure out a way to blow the wall up, as it won't budge.
Also Cheleball, if you didn't find any secrets did you not think it odd that there was a character in the credits who didn't appear in the level?
This post has been edited by Silverwind : 17 March 2007 - 07:23 PM
i found the second ship upgrade.
Oooohhh... that's my favorite secret. I'm surprised you found that one, or did you find it in the editor?
Huh, you did that on purpose, eh? You'll need to try harder next time; see, the editor has this wonderful feature that hides layers. :ninja:
However, something tells me that, in your heart of hearts, you wanted these secrets to be found. First, if you hadn't told me there were secrets, I never would have thought to hide the covers in the editor while looking for them (and I did think of that much before you told us they were hidden in the editor, too). I would have just done my usual look-through in order to find secrets and lift ideas (;)) and found nothing.
Thanks for a beautiful level, SW.
@silverwind, on Mar 17 2007, 08:24 PM, said in The Cathedral Of Chaos:
I found it in the editor. And yes i thought that was a very cool secret.
O...k... but did anyone actually find a super secret whilst playing the game? As I don't consider the other way actually finding them.
Yes by the way Cheleball, of course I wanted people to find my super secrets, and the only reason for whispering about them is that none of the BETA testers found any, so I was getting worried they might remain super secrets forever. I'm also fully aware of the Show Layers feature, but I thought that since people usually have hidden walls visible in the editor, people would mistake my level to have the same method.
By the way guys and gals and others, is the point of a secret not to be unveiled? Well... no, I suppose that doesn't make sense... but my point is, why want to go looking for it if not by the way which shall reward you? Is the joy not in finding it rather then knowing it? Once solved, a riddle can no longer present a puzzle, and once a secret is discovered it can no longer give the feeling of wonder and determination. Why then hurry past the joy when you could make it last longer? This goes especially for those who have already completed the level, and have not else to look for. For although a challenge that seems impossible may cause great doubt it also doubles the joy and accomplishment of success.
Quote
Sorry Silverwind, but you've got to make it worth our while. There is just absolutely no indication in your level that there's anything there at all. I'm not about to go shooting and ramming every wall just in case there might be a secret there.
I wonder what easter egg hunts are like at your house? My house has always had the rule that you had to leave at least a little egg visible without moving anything. Because, honestly, arbitrarily searching everything for entirely hidden easter eggs is just tedious and unrewarding. Noticing a very cleverly and deviously hidden (but still with some indication of its presence) egg is fun and rewarding.
... but my point is, why want to go looking for it if not by the way which shall reward you? Is the joy not in finding it rather then knowing it? Once solved, a riddle can no longer present a puzzle, and once a secret is discovered it can no longer give the feeling of wonder and determination. Why then hurry past the joy when you could make it last longer?
As I said in post #51, it just doesn't do it for me. I was going to use a(nother) bad metaphor to try and make this clear, but I think (hope) the direct method will work better.
Look, the problem is there's no skill involved. There's no puzzle, no logical deduction, no possible way to find those secrets beyond simple mindless trial and error. Spin around in every room firing pellets. Try every color. But then, maybe you hid them behind pickup walls, like GSN did in TToTP, so you've got to ram everything, too. Do you honestly mean to tell me you think that's fun? I'm getting bored just typing it.
I'm just curious enough that I'd like to know what the secrets are and where and how they're hidden, but I don't want it badly enough to go to the trouble of searching for them in-game. That's why I use the editor.
That's all.
I think you mistake the purpose of my super secrets for that of a riddle. A riddle should give you enough truth as to make the correct answer fit in place once it's found, but at the same trick you're mind into thinking that the correct answer is something very different than it actually is. As you described that a secret with an indication of some sort which is not immediately obvious, but when the secret is found it becomes so. Or, the alternative is a clue or riddle hidden or placed somewhere away from the secret, and there for it serves like a clue in a treasure hunt.
My super secrets were supposed to serve a different purpose however, they are to maintain the feeling of activeness long after the level has been completed, and help prevent the empty feeling. When I completed Kingdom Hearts 2 for example, I had no reason to play it again, for I had done everything I could actually do. Whereas in Kingdom Hearts 1, the game maintains the active feeling even weeks after you've completed it because it's still providing you with new challenges that you may or may not decide to take up. But the point is that a secret's real treasure is the fact that it's there at all, not what treasure it contains. Once the upgrade is picked up you've used it, it's gone, poof! You've already done that before. Whereas if you have tried to find it before, but still have yet to do so, well then you've gotten the joy twice, and perhaps a third time if you still can't find it on the second run. This is not to say that the other method is not fun and rewarding as well, indeed a riddle can provide even more fun at most times. But the method I chose will, as I say, preserve the feeling of life, activeness if you will, longer.
Look, the problem is there's no skill involved. There's no puzzle, no logical deduction, no possible way to find those secrets beyond simple mindless trial and error. Spin around in every room firing pellets. Try every color. But then, maybe you hid them behind pickup walls, like GSN did in TToTP, so you've got to ram everything, too. Do you honestly mean to tell me you think that's fun? I'm getting bored just typing it
The fun of the super secrets is in the thought that there is still something worth finding, not in finding it, as I just stated.
There is nothing wrong with that, it's just a different way of looking at it. You find the joy in the knowing rather than the knowing of, although you should know that if you thought of it my way you'd get the joy to last far longer.
My final words: Aren't my super secrets so superly secret? (in game I mean)
Okay, I've completed the Cathedral of Chaos, and it's indeed very good, with a few very interesting challenges (like the warped space-time part, and I just love the invisible walls/rotating fields part, gotta love these red shots), it's a visual experience (well, you don't get magnificient stuff like the waterfall and gate afterwards, but it's always interesting to visit), for instance I liked the monstruosity that's the boss Cheleball had problems with (though I did beat it using only the pellets, by paying attention to the regularity of its main triple cannon and firing as much as I could between two such shots). I like the fact it's linear at the beginning (as you use the path to go to the bad people hideout), and at the end (it's the last line to the finish), though it would have been better if there was a longer non-linear part at the middle (making both linear ends less long to compensate), and/or if you did not have to do things in a set order in there, I like for instance things like the two doors that guard the gate to the Factory from the Wasteland in the main game, which you can go and disable in the order you like, and of course the stars which you can grab in the order you like (in fact, the thing I prefer are things like the 8 levels in the original Legend of Zelda, which were meant to be made in that order, but in fact could be completed in a different order to an extent, though of course it is safer to do them in the normal order; in later Zelda games they unfortunately enforced completing the levels in a set order, by making each level require you to have completed the previous one or at least gotten the upgrade from the previous one, and when you've started a level you might as well complete it so you basically had to do them in order; so in a nutshell, what I like best is having a suggested order in which to do things, which I can ignore at my own peril).
To enter the secrets debate, well, I didn't find any at first (guess I'll have to find them now ). The end sequence is very good, but didn't indicate me at all that there were pending secrets (I just imagined that the elder sketch was someone from the characters of Sketchtopia that one would see in a future level and/or the SketchFighter academy). I mean, it's not like it's hard* to have a text sprite that would say that not all secrets have been found (like the main game does when you complete it without getting 100% stuff). I can't remember how Kingdom Hearts did that (my brother played it, not the 2 though), but I think it was better said at the end that there was special things if you really did find everything (I also remember that my brother, to find everything, used the strategy guide; I don't think you can reasonably get a strategy guide written for tCoC ;)). As for how well they are hidden, well, I like my secrets well hidden (and my easter eggs too, for instance once I let my little brother and sisters looks for them in the garden, and once they were done I went to look for those they didn't find because I was only interested in the ones that were really hard to find, unfortunately there was only one such one left), but not too problematic to find: like I implied in the topic about "maze", I don't like secrets which require you to hump kilometers of walls in FPS, and even less if you have to hit them in SketchFighter since that actually costs you life, and life is actually pretty hard to come by in tCoC; jump everywhere in a Mario game, sure, jumping is cheap, browse and, even worse, hit all walls (especially as you're vulnerable when doing so), no. Not that I won't try to find them now (in the game, only using the editor as a last recourse), I like replayability by secrets, it allows to view all the stuff with a renewed eye, but some cryptic hints (perhaps given at the end if you've found the secret in question) wouldn't hurt (:cryptic grin:, oh how you would love Voidspace ). By he way, how many such secrets are there, so that I know when I've found them all?
Other than that, a few, more technical, shortcomings: I've seen a non-solid metal plate (can't remember exactly where it's one embedded in a wall with another, solid this time, metal plate next to it). Also, other save rings do reappear after a save/die/reload cycle, I dunno if it's possible to have them not reappear, but assigning an unused, unique Extra2 value to each of them would I think prevent that (can't check that you did, I don't want to open the level with the editor).
*About how to do that: you could create a text sprite, copy it as many times as you have such secrets, give each of them the Extra2 value of the secret upgrade that matches it, and have all of them superposed on top of each other, but that would defeat the text antialiasing; instead you could put black masks between each two text sprites, the mask sprite going away when discovering the secret matching the text sprite just above, so that one and only one is visible as long as you've not found all secrets, but that would be limited by the number of layers, it should be possible to come up with a better layering where not all such text sprites are superposed, or even have them different (say if they give the hint for the secret they match); of course everything is simpler if the player is allowed to see all them at the end. As for how to disclose the "you've found everything go left for super-cool extra stuff!" message, it's even easier, just have as many black masks as there are secrets above that message and there you go, you can even make the way to the supercool extra stuff completely unconspicuous by simply having it protected by as many super force fields as there are secrets, just like the super force fields that prevent the player from going left and right at the end, thus making it impossible to suspect there is anything until they are all gone and the message is disclosed.