Another sketchfighter map

Uh, you forgot to reposition the Game Start again. :rolleyes:

It's supposed to be there. (that is if it's at the start of the ice caves). I figured by now you would be tired of having to go through the waseland and valcano areas. however if you like you can move it back.

EDIT:If you do don't forget to set the weopens back to only yellow pellets and the first ship.

This post has been edited by Dogbert : 04 March 2007 - 06:36 PM

Oh, ok. Thanks!

Next version of the level up. Please let me know if you find any Bugs. Enjoy.

Grr. i knew i was forgetting Something. Theres more added to the ice caves, so please move the game start back to the beggining of the ice caves and set all colors except green and only pellets homing and beam also don't forget to delete the super door. Or you can download the latest version.

Good job. All in all, that's a great level. one thing that I noticed though: Near the beginning of the ice caves, there's a lot of frost missiles that are part of a lava bubble sprite, and it doesn't really fit. Also in the ice caves, when you gain the super homing upgrade, the light in the switch behind it doesn't go out. In the wasteland also, a lot of the walls seem to use right angles. Not really bad, but the original game rarely uses right angles in the wasteland. Great level though, and keep up the good work.

And there seems to be an invincible Plant Turret in the volcano blocking the way out, was this deliberate?

Go ahead and delete it. Or if you want give it some hit points.

Heres a screenshot of one of the Factory Bosses. Picture_1.zip (60.06K)
Number of downloads: 9

The final version is up for testing. please see the first post to download.Enjoy!

sigh I'm not having much luck with that game start... Thank you silverwind for informing me that it is misplaced.

I'm afraid that this “final” version still needs a bit more work before release:

The Bad:
- the fake (mini-)boss dors at the beginning. I don't think I need to say more
- I've seen a few thing that could be culled in and out while there were still onscreen, like the Factory Boss shield parts used as shields by the triple turrets, or one wall in the first actual mini-boss battle.
- no blinking of colored parts of pickups supports, nor disactivation when the pickup is, well, picked up? Why?
- oops! the boss battle with the oddly-shielded guardian is back (after a save/die/reload cycle), even though the boss is gone. I have to kill myself by hitting the walls. (the boss starts are consumed when they're used, so you probably just have to give them the same Extra2 as the Boss so that they don't come back after a save/die/reload cycle either)
- What's with the killer ice missiles?!
- scenery in general is a bit undetailed, I'm not asking for Silverwind's kind of stuff, but a bit more things here and there would make for a better experience.
- The ice zone is confusing, not that it's easy to get lost in it (after all, it's a bit the point of the game, to be lost), but the switches to open the various doors are mostly unrelated to the doors they open. Not that I necessarily ask for a line of blinking blue thingies between the two, as it could be a dead givaway, but some proximity, at least, would make more sense, while still allowing a feeling of complexity and exploration ("Now, let's try to get close to that door, but by another path, because that may be the place where the switch is ")
- The big mama flicker seems to have an insanely high amount of life. Also, the red bar at the corner didn't deplete, leading me to think it wasn't reflecting the life of said boss, but another, and since that's a second full-fledged boss (with music and all), this may be related, and related to the previous boss battle bug. Careful about the hacks you use. -after some play- okay, I get it. When you're putting multiple bosses in such a way, they need to be encountered by the player in the order they are physically in the level file, otherwise the boss health bar gets attached to the first boss found (which is the first boss in level order), not the one the player may be fighting; worse yet, the same goes for the boss doors, which means I got stuck after fighting the Forest Boss in the Forest (if I do it before the flicker boss)! ARRRGGGH!
- don't forget to put spinbacks at the ends of the forest.
- The Forest Boss has way too much life (though the boss life bar is correct here, strangely enough). This is especially worse as the windows to hit it are short, and we don't (may not?) have missiles yet. I resorted to hiding in a corner and firing my blue super waves.
- That giant guardian has, guess what, way too much life. Also, when I went to kill it just after disposing of the forest boss, I got no boss battle, however I got one if there is a save/die/reload cycle between the two, but in this boss battle, the health bar didn't deplete either, like for the flicker boss. And when I finally beat it, guess what, the door didn't open. I actually stopped playing at that point.
(why is it bad to have such an insane amount of life for bosses? Well, some more life can make for more challenging battles indeed, but at this point it comes down to either a boring battle, or sheer luck, or a cheesy way to beat it, neither of which are desirable. See my Terrifying Forest Boss, I precisely tried to do a an interesting boss battle that required some stamina and yet was interesting and not repetitive)

The Good:
- the boss that's just there to prevent you from going any further, and you get the super beam when you beat it (as a reward for your effort): I like this kind of no-brainer, just a choke point where there is a boss which prevents you from going further, not guarding an essential upgrade or a critical switch or whatever, it's there, you beat it, you go on, period. It does not even need to have a door which prevents the player from fleeing (or equivalent, like force field) if you don't feel like setting that up, just a door that prevents going on as long as the boss hasn't been beaten. Heck, what do you think the inspiration for the Terrifying Forest Boss was, and why do you think I created it?
- The forest. It's mightily confusing! Argh! And it's good!

I'll second ZP's comments about the early fake boss doors, particularly since the background you've chosen works very well for hiding things.
You ought to put a visible barrier or force field indicator at the point on the path to the Blue gun after the giant guardian that has a force field.
The blue switch in the Volcano section that apparently should open the access to the Ice section has no apparent effect.
PLEASE reduce the hitpoints on the ultra-deadly Ice Missiles in the Ice Caves section, particularly on that one at the very start, several minutes from the last save point in the cave.
The Giant Flicker doesn't seem all that over-powered to me, but I'm used to taking out the one in the Crazy Zone- this one seems to have slightly fewer hitpoints than that one.
The giant guardian in the Forest has a non-functional Boss door, so I didn't need to kill it to get to the last area.
The lack of accessible save points in the Forest is annoying, with no real purpose. I never did work out how to open that door, and instead used the Volcano save point.
For some reason, Boss6 (the one with two giant walls in front of it) does not exist by the time I reach it, and it is thus impossible to beat the level without backing up the save file, and editing the map.
The entire level seems pretty much trivial in difficulty after you get the Super Wave, although there's a slight chance that this is only because I've had a lot of practice with that weapon.
The Skull Turret Tank has way too many hitpoints.
It is a bad idea to place the 200% shield upgrade at a point in the map that can only be reached after one has passed the 300% upgrade, as picking up the 200% upgrade after the 300% upgrade will reduce one's maximum shield capacity.
The final boss is actually pretty boring- the strategy needed for it is exactly the same as that needed for the Volcano turret boss.
I found absolutely no use for the missiles. There are only two enemies on which they might be useful (Boss6 and the Skull Turret Tank)- of those, one didn't exist and the other was much more easily fought with pure Super Wave gun.

With regard to the poorly-executed multiple bosses hack, I would like to refer you to my guide to multiple Bosses (EDIT: That guide is currently useless for any version of the game other than 1.0.0), particularly the warnings section. Note also that that guide has not been updated since custom level saving appeared in 1.0.1, so I do not know exactly how accurate the warning about that is.

Other than that, it's a nice level. With a few modifications, particularly the ones listed in Zacha Pedro's and my posts, it should be quite good.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 18 April 2007 - 06:14 PM

Yes, I think it would be worthwhile to reevaluate the multiple bosses hack in light of the saving feature, and test all possibilities of a saving/die/reload cycle occuring at any point (well, perhaps except inside of a boss battle ;)).

Thanks for reporting the bugs. I'll add the lists to my "to do" file and it may be a while til i send it in because i'm not very happy with the valcano section.

@zacha-pedro, on Apr 18 2007, 01:17 AM, said in Another sketchfighter map:

...(well, perhaps except inside of a boss battle ;)).

No, even there. I'm pretty sure I've seen a level where saving inside a boss fight was possible (that Forest map with the incredibly huge Boss arena), and if you set up the Boss Start triggers correctly, I see no reason that it would not be reasonable to put a save point inside the arena of a particularly complex multi-part boss- particularly if it's a single-use ring.

(EDIT) This is most unpleasant: As far as I can tell, everything I came up with for the behavior of Bosses and Boss Doors in 1.0.0 has been changed in 1.0.1. Boss Doors are no longer deleted after the Boss dies; Boss start triggers are not removed, just deactivated (with one exception); and if you hit a Boss Start trigger while a Boss is exploding, the game dies with the Boss. Because of this, I very strongly recommend that only experienced map-makers/debuggers even think about using multiple Boss Health Meters in a single level, and declare it something of a miracle that this map is at all playable (in fact, I'm pretty sure that it is not behaving at all like my testbed scenario, which is going to make this guide even harder to write. EDIT: It's not as bad as I thought, but I still don't know why most of the Boss Doors are working rationally).

(ANOTHER EDIT) All right, something new has been added involving putting a preference on Boss Doors that are within culling distance. This whole setup is a royal mess that may or may not work better than previous versions, but is still rather more difficult to work with than would be good for normal use.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 18 April 2007 - 06:49 PM

@dogbert, on Feb 14 2007, 05:29 PM, said in Another sketchfighter map:

Level is now complete (except for a read me) Here it is. please let me know what you think. Droid_Factory.zip

Nice long level, Dogbert. After playing for about 45 minutes I had a problem in the Forest section. I kept trying to defeat the gaurdian boss and then when I finally did the Boss Door didn't open. :huh: I had picked up the star in the Boss room and thoroughly defeated the Boss. I was therefore trapped in the Boss room and had to quit the level.

Also, sometimes when I was trying to defeat the Carrier/Tangle thing the Gaurdian Boss kept escaping from it's own room and coming into the Carrier/Tangle room. :huh:

Otherwise a great level, Dogbert.

Klublex