delduio
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Coming soon (enough): Hasslevania 2!
Posts: 10
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Post by delduio on May 23, 2009 9:30:37 GMT -5
Playable grandpa huh? Hahaha that's a great idea!
I also have a cool power or whatever you could give him, and also solve your problem for a visual cue on those fake bricks:
If you add any new items, or if you decide one of the existing ones just aren't necessary, why not add a pair of glasses that only gramps can use? When he's wearing them all the false blocks would flash. If this power sounds too strong (and it probably is) make gramps the unlockable character after you beat the game once.
I also had another suggestion: The way the original NES game displays character stats seems to just flat out show the in-game variables the code actually uses. For example, STR 1, DISTANCE 16, JUMP 32. Could you do something like a 4-star system that would show the previous as STR 1 star, DISTANCE 3 stars, and JUMP 4 stars? I think it'd look a lot better and confuse players less because the range is so huge between stats.
Maybe once you beat the game a second time you could make Keela lay an egg when it dies (I know, this is ridiculous but that's what games are all about). Anyhow, start up another game and lo and behold there's an egg in one corner of the cabin. Select it and out pops the playable Keela spawn! He could act like a suped-up Pochi only with a longer distance normal weapon (fireball / firebreath) and maybe also the ability to equip the mom's wings later. After all, the dragons DO have wings on them, it'd sort of make sense.
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Post by Ike on May 23, 2009 16:53:10 GMT -5
Definitely add save points. You could even save in inns, perhaps. It's way too easy to fuck yourself in this game, especially if you use a free-roaming save state system.
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Post by Weasel on May 23, 2009 17:12:28 GMT -5
you could use a 2D game programming library such as Allegro Not to sound like an elitist here, but do not use Allegro. It's unstable, has issues with a lot of hardware, and generally it's just not much good. SDL admittedly still has some issues, but it's probably better overall (and cross-platform, too). Then there's Game Maker, but that might anger the open-source people as Game Maker games don't tend to run very well under Wine.
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Post by wyrdwad on May 23, 2009 17:35:22 GMT -5
I seriously think VERGE is probably the best choice for a programming library to use here. It's set up more for tile-based RPGs than side-scrollers, but it can be VERY, VERY EASILY adapted, and is probably the most versatile 2D game programming software there is.
-Tom
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Post by marginwalker on May 25, 2009 18:39:58 GMT -5
I was debating whether inn saves would be good. It wouldn't totally deter fucking yourself, you could still save in a bad area that you can't get out of, in which case you'd have to die, but there's really no punishment for dying anyway. It would be nice to save right before a boss at an inn. I'll think on it.
No level updates today, but let's just say I'm making fast progress. Next update will be a big chunk of the dungeon.
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Post by Ike on May 25, 2009 18:51:46 GMT -5
Well, you could also add the option to teleport entirely out of the dungeon (for a fee, of course.)
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Post by marginwalker on May 25, 2009 19:32:16 GMT -5
those are called crystals
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Post by Ike on May 25, 2009 20:44:45 GMT -5
It's been a while since I've played it, to be honest.
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Post by Malroth on May 25, 2009 21:21:36 GMT -5
With all the suggestions, it sounds like there should just be a graphical update mode, and an arrange mode.
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delduio
New Member
Coming soon (enough): Hasslevania 2!
Posts: 10
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Post by delduio on May 26, 2009 6:53:08 GMT -5
I was debating whether inn saves would be good. It wouldn't totally deter fucking yourself, you could still save in a bad area that you can't get out of, in which case you'd have to die, but there's really no punishment for dying anyway. It would be nice to save right before a boss at an inn. I'll think on it. No level updates today, but let's just say I'm making fast progress. Next update will be a big chunk of the dungeon. I don't think saving at inns would be a good idea. For starters, there are what, 50 or so in the whole game? 50 save points in a game that's designed to be ultra-tough. Just have a save point at the cabin or maybe better still an item that allowed you to save wherever you were when you used it. You could make the item either unique & expendable or super-expensive.
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delduio
New Member
Coming soon (enough): Hasslevania 2!
Posts: 10
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Post by delduio on May 26, 2009 6:53:36 GMT -5
Well, you could also add the option to teleport entirely out of the dungeon (for a fee, of course.) They have an item that does that already. It's the blackish crystal thing.
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Post by Rash on May 26, 2009 15:16:54 GMT -5
This looks great! Keep up the good work. ;D
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Post by Ike on May 26, 2009 15:30:37 GMT -5
Well, you could also add the option to teleport entirely out of the dungeon (for a fee, of course.) They have an item that does that already. It's the blackish crystal thing. Yeah, like I said, I haven't played the game for a few years. I'm jonesin' to pick it up now, though.
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Post by marginwalker on May 27, 2009 7:08:33 GMT -5
Here's an indicator of what I'm up to. Check out Keela's head! Also I'm fond of my fuzzy blocks. If they weren't meant to be fuzzy in the original game, well they are now. The area leading into Xemn's area, with the dark greenish blue brick walls and castle in the background is turning out really well. Remember this is a first draft and a lot of these tiles are placeholders. *edit*Huge file! 2 megabytes, 12000x3500ish img14.imageshack.us/img14/5757/mapsofar.pngAnd I've got more done I just haven't added to the map yet. Oh boy. Also, now I'm thinking of mixing and matching map ideas a little. There are some pretty insignificant areas that don't affect the flow of the game, but for some reason or another they were altered between the msx and nes. So in these cases where they're not radically different, I'm going to go simply with what feels better to me.
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delduio
New Member
Coming soon (enough): Hasslevania 2!
Posts: 10
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Post by delduio on May 27, 2009 8:35:15 GMT -5
They have an item that does that already. It's the blackish crystal thing. Yeah, like I said, I haven't played the game for a few years. I'm jonesin' to pick it up now, though. You should, it's great! One thing though is Xemn's area is kind of frustrating because of all those hard block puzzles. It's funny but very recently I saw a speedrun of this game (30 minutes, believe it or not) and the guy used Lyll for Xemn's area and she was able to just smash those blocks up and forego the headache. Which leads me to.. The pause jump glitch. The speedrunner used this trick a lot and it let him get to items and areas much sooner than he should have. The remake has to get rid of this glitch IMO because it's cheap. How it works is once you jump up you pause the game, unpause, then pause again, then unpause again and this resets the variables so you can jump again while still in the air. You can imagine how huge that is especially for the daughter who already has a giant jump height to start.
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