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[gunswordfist]

I am not a fish 

The Resurface level had to armored/shell/manface fish level's music, I believe. 

I saw the thing that chases you displayed in this thread so my bad memory that maybe I've already encountered it in the game lol

[USUNM@]

Hey, Raku is that one guy, "Baoiorin"(from http://rakugaki-otoko.deviantart.com/art/JtR-Chara-quick-bios-367689592) still in the game?

[Raku]

Ah sorry gunswordfist, a typo.
and USUNM@ Yes! He definitely is, he's still featured on the title screen as well! He only appears right after where the current demo ends, is all, dont worry.

[Minoru Leonardo]

I first saw your game on slowbeef's channel and it caught my eye and interest immediately. After playing your game for a couple of hours... It's amazing. The graphics and the controls are nice and simple and the music fits the game really well. I'd almost forgot this isn't an actual SNES game.

I'm on Starship Crash Site now but far ahead in the game now but still eager to see what are the other things the game can throw at me.

SUGGESTIONS:
The "manual" save costs 300p which is kind of high and hurts if you're trying to save up money for Scythe Upgrades (maybe 100p would be ok-ish?).

Still on shops you could give the option for players to swap souls right there as well, that would be nice.

It would be great if you were able to put some keyboard customization options in the future, since I tend to use WASD for movement sometimes my hands gets sort of confused when doing the movements, this got me killed a handful of times.

A suggestion regarding bosses. Some combinations can obliterate them in a matter of seconds (especially some with Brave soul), so you could give them a brief period of invincibility after their health goes below a threshold to make them a bit more durable in some cases.
Alternatively you can make them more resistant to certain souls and damage types (if that's possible).

Also the 3rd boss is pretty challenging but you could tone down the dandelions guys a bit. More often than not I've stumbled into situations where it was impossible to dodge the air attacks, dandelions dropping stuff and the boss attacking from an unfortunate side. It gives the slight feeling you've gotta be lucky with the patterns... Or bring a good Shield soul combination.

Also would still prefer to see some "late jumping" mechanism, i.e., allowing the player the jump even if he might technically already be off the edge of a platform. This article describes it more thoroughly I think.

I'd love to see that implemented, my first couple of deaths were because I mistimed the jump and fell in a bottomless pit.


QUESTIONS:
Is there a quick way to farm lives? I'm getting to the point where I'm dying 2 to 3 times on levels and having to return to get more stocks to avoid a game over can get a bit tedious at times. Maybe you can put them for sale on shops for something like 100 to 200p?

Another question is, are the purple drill enemies (that gives Brave souls) in Broken Seal map supposed to be beaten only by a Brave soul too? I ask that because so far the only place I can get a Brave (drill) soul is in Room with a View after beating the boss there which is a bit annoying (I'm fairly sure you can buy too but it's pretty expensive). Nevermind, I found out that Boomerang + Shield combo kills them too. Bomb souls seems to work as well.


Anyway I hope you are able to finish this game as fast as possible, Raku.



SOME (POSSIBLE) BUGS AND GLITCHES I FOUND WHILE PLAYING:
Here's a list of all oddities I found while playing the most recent demo (from 10-17-15).
I did my best to explain them and register the bugs on a video to make it easier for you to identify or even tell if it is in fact a bug.

BUG: Green shielded enemy impossible to kill with Level 2 and 3 Scythe

Raku, I'm on Deeply Rooted with the Scythe Upgrade 2 and it takes seemingly much more than 60, if not more or even infinite hits to kill the green shield enemy at the beginning.

+1 on this, also happened to me.

Map: Lion's Den Any with that green enemy with two shields
Scythe: Level 2




Scythe: Level 3




BUG (?): Boss 1
Map: The Man and Dog

Guutara doesn't change expression if he's hit with the Sly (gun) soul.

BUG: Level 2, 3 and 4 Scythes doesn't affect the "jumping block" enemy
Map: Any with the "jumping block with hand" enemy

Those enemies which you must hit once so they won't jump with you and block your way aren't doing that for some reason. In the video I am using the combination of Speed + Shield.
https://youtu.be/OTDXd39CyZ8

Another test with Scythe level 3 had the same result. Possibly this happens with Level 2 and 3 Scythe.
https://youtu.be/YBXBpYtz0Mc

Scythe with the 3rd upgrade (level 4) still gives the same result:
https://youtu.be/tC6tOG7Vwd4

BUG (?): Unable to pause
Map: Let's Run!

Pause is disabled during the auto-scrolling segment. This prevents the player from quick returning to the world map whether they already finished the map or not.

BUG: Let's go message almost misplaced
Map: Power Surge

The "Let's Go!" message shows up way below, almost not even appearing at all.
https://youtu.be/bJVQ2y6xHRg?t=12m15s

BUG (?): Weird Drill behavior
Ability: Brave soul (Drill)

This one is hard to explain but the drill isn't hitting the enemy there, not until I dodge once.
The video below probably will show the issue.
https://youtu.be/L38Xr4CPrwI

BUG (Uncommon): Too strange to name
Map: Starship Crash Site None
Ability: Brave soul (Drill)

Another odd bug that is difficult to describe. If you try to kill enemies and certain things like the panels to open the doors with a Brave soul (drill) the drill will keep doing damage even though the enemy should be long dead until you turn away from it. It seems to happen only every so often (I was using Drill + Shield at the time).

EDIT:
First instance of it happening here, in Starship Crashing Site.
https://youtu.be/sYtsZy7VbZE?t=23s

EDIT:
It happened again on Machine Gun Foliage. The video shows what happens.
WARNING: Loud noise at the beginning of the video!
https://youtu.be/2k4ldAHtXGU

BUG: Boss attacks not doing any damage
SPOILERS FOR BOSS 2 IN THE VIDEO
Map: Boss 2

Blue flames and debris thrown by the boss are not harming Jack.
https://youtu.be/mgGvXeB4WDg

BUG: Softlock
Map: Canopy Hopping

Happened with a Cherub. I fell into a pit and tried to dodge for whatever reason, then the game softlocked itself. I can't pause I can't do anything there in the video, I had to soft reset it with F2.
https://youtu.be/rBtswRqG8zM

[Raku]

Thanks for all the feedback so far Moniru. I appreciate that you're enjoying it so far.
I've toned down the dandelions on the 3rd boss recently, dont worry. You know you can also attack them or dodge their seeds too though?

in that build there's no quick way to farm lives, that I'm aware of, just gathering crystals.

As I've probably said, in that build of the demo, there's a bug where /any/ scythe upgrade over the base scythe makes a few shielding enemies invincible. Remember also that the scythe upgrades only increase your scythe's reach, not damage, as the shopkeeper tells you.

I'm trying to figure out why the first boss doesnt change expression during some damage, can't seem to find out yet.

I keep regrettably forgetting that the pausing is disabled during autoscrollers. Im still trying to figure out what's causing that, honestly.

the LETS GO message being low has been recently fixed but thank you for telling me!

I realized after releasing that demo that the drills were very bugged, and I've thankfully recently fixed them up all the way, it was basically the drills were damaging things so fast that they didnt have a chance to die, to put it simply. It should be all better now.

Ahh, I recently found that out about the second boss, myself. I had somehow displaced the blue flames' hitboxes so they couldnt do any damage to Jack, oops! fixed it though.

Hm! I didnt know about that bug, I'll check out what happens when you dodge with the Cherub around to make it bug.

Thank you for all the feedback so far, I appreciate it and I'll get to work on fixing everything once I recover from being a bit sick.

I'll post something visual just so this thread isnt entirely text haha.

This isnt for anything specifically, just was spriting for fun

[Minoru Leonardo]

Sorry for another wall of words, there's more possible bugs I found out about which I felt I should tell you about, Raku.

EDIT: I've finally finished the DEMO, it sure was a great game, now I'm hunting for OOParts and other secrets in the game.

There are more suggestions I'd like to make:

Awakening: The first part where you are chased gets a bit weird and even more difficult with a Speed soul instead of easier since the mecha chasing you speeds up to keep up, the enemy may end up breaking blocks before you can even jump on them at times.

Rusted Gate: The "speed" trial where you must activate 5 orbs and then rush to the totem seems to have a very strict time. I had a lot of trouble to finish that one without a Speed soul, something the game doesn't give you in the level...

Cavern Chronicle: the spikes could be a bit more distinct to tell the player they'll harm them. While the first ones are clearly shown, some on the last areas are almost hidden in the background and I died a couple of times because I didn't even notice them since I was worried with enemies around too.

(Gameplay) 00Parts: It would be great to know which levels have them and if we already got it.

(Gameplay) Hard difficulty: Bosses with more health, enemies react and attack faster or spill more bullets on death (like in previous versions), less scarecrows (or more "revenge" scarecrows) and gems giving less reward for "Healthy!" bonus. That kind of thing.

Thanks for all the feedback so far Moniru. I appreciate that you're enjoying it so far.

No problem, I've liked your game and had high expectations from the start and they more than surpassed them. You paced the game well and even puts levels with unique mechanics to keep the game "fresh".

So far my only complaints about this game is that the jump could be a bit "floatier" (you could fall a little slower) and that backtracking the map is a bit boring (maybe warp points, or shortcuts, would help?). The double jump could be a little bit higher as I often struggle to jump on platforms you may (or may not) have intended to access with it.

I've toned down the dandelions on the 3rd boss recently, dont worry. You know you can also attack them or dodge their seeds too though?

The thing about that is that there were so many of those guys and there was the air attacks from the boss and you also had to worry not to get slapped around, it's nearly impossible to attack the dandelions and avoid every other thing coming at you (at least I'm not dexterous enough for that). Also it's impossible to attack them without a proper soul which can complicate things if you go to the boss again right off the bat.

Also, I learned how important dodge is after bumping into Brave Cannon. I realized (after brute forcing the boss) that dodging certain attacks (like its claws) would've make the boss MUCH easier and ever since I kept my finger ready to dodge. People tend to overlook dodge since it takes practice and until you memorize the boss' pattern you'll end up eating a lot of hits to the face.

As I've probably said, in that build of the demo, there's a bug where /any/ scythe upgrade over the base scythe makes a few shielding enemies invincible. Remember also that the scythe upgrades only increase your scythe's reach, not damage, as the shopkeeper tells you.

Technically the Level 3 upgrade does upgrade your damage since it also increases how fast Jack can hit enemies, right?
That upgrade made Jack's standard attack VERY good and reliable. It's worth every penny saved for it.

Ahh, I recently found that out about the second boss, myself. I had somehow displaced the blue flames' hitboxes so they couldnt do any damage to Jack, oops! fixed it though.

That explains it. Also still on bosses I noticed the 3rd boss' attack (tongue one) isn't dealing damage to Jack either. I've seen in a video of someone playing an older version of the game getting hit by it, maybe it's another bug?

Thank you for all the feedback so far, I appreciate it and I'll get to work on fixing everything once I recover from being a bit sick.

Your game is undoubtedly one of the best surprises I came across. I'm venturing on game development myself and I understand how freakishly difficult things can get it's even more amazing that you're doing all of this by yourself (I'm only good at writing stories and even that is saying too much).

Music, graphics, ambiance, gameplay and characters are all charming and great. I hope your game gets enough recognition because it deserves so, I can picture people speedrunning this game already. I wish there was a better way to give your game support, but the best I can do is just to make a walkthrough of it.

I hope you get well as fast as possible from your sickness too. Best wishes, Raku.



More weird and odd stuff I found out while playing.

BUG: Softlock (Uncommon)
Map: Canopy Hopping

Hm! I didnt know about that bug, I'll check out what happens when you dodge with the Cherub around to make it bug.

I somehow managed to replicate this on Meridian Reactor. It seems to have something to do with nothing with dodge, but rather taking damage and then falling in a pit shortly after (which what I did in the video).
I honestly have no idea what can cause this. Whenever I try to replicate it willingly it doesn't happen, but 2 out of 5 times, the Cherub softlocked the game.




BUG: Cannot pick hats while bouncing on spider webs.
Maps: Canopy Hopping and Lion's Den

Title explains it. Every bouncy surface like the jellos from High Altitude Fungi or spring boards have a similar problem.

BUG: Discarding souls without input

This happens after buying a soul from the Shop. Oddly it only seems to happen when you buy a for slot S. On my last shopping I bought a soul for slot A and nothing happened.




EDIT: (New video with better showcase of the bug)

BUG: Pitch black screen
Map: Grieving Ruins

The screen goes, and stays, pitch black if you pause and return to the world map too fast. Re-entering the map doesn't fix it.
I'm sure this will go away after you finish the cutscene for that level, but it may be worth mentioning something like that can happen.
https://youtu.be/xI3yYMx0fcE

BUG: Softlock (weird)
Map: Rusted Gate

I don't even know how to explain this one. Please, just watch the video and try to figure out what happened there.
https://youtu.be/8JnTKPts__U

EDIT: The "bear in a suit" in Slightly Bumpy also causes this sometimes.

BUG: Automatic Laser + Gas
Ability: Assertive + Confident souls

Whenever you get this combination of abilities it stays active until you press Z.

BUG: Baleen Meridian skip
Map: Baleen Meridian

I did not do ANY edit in this video. I don't know what I did here, but I skipped the inside of Baleen Meridian entirely for some reason.
https://youtu.be/Ltqcmt-C1rk

EDIT: It seems to have something to do with destroying the last core part and entering inside the airship quickly. At least when I did it to replicate the bug it happened again.

EDIT 12-15-15 (Bugs, oddities found)

BUG: Weird Cracker shoot
Summon (minion): Cracker

Cracker's bullets are behaving in a very odd way when I tried using this combination (Boomerang + Hidden one) of souls.
https://youtu.be/VREEXh8cFVw

BUG (?): Summons not following when buried
Ability: Meek soul (burrowing)

Title says what happens. The summons, minions won't follow you while you are burrowed and digging forward.
https://youtu.be/-mLWQviU-lk

BUG: Psi Generator not dealing damage
Map: Jelly! Jelly!

One of its attack (star bullets) isn't dealing damage to Jack.
https://youtu.be/oYldA9jPwbw

BUG: Eclipsus not moving after boss' deaths
Map: Boss 2 and 3
SPOILERS FOR BOSSES 2 AND 3 IN THE VIDEO

If you finish the fight burrowed, Eclipsus won't be hopping celebrating as she should.
https://youtu.be/3fGo8X8nNl0

BUG: Cherub Soflock on Operation Sky Bullet

More of that but doing what I did (standing on a breakable platform above a bottomless pit and letting Hullbird bombard Jack) in the video resulted in softlocking 3 out 3 times I did.
https://youtu.be/3qEiTmXHinQ

[BMF54123]

I don't even know how to explain this one. Please, just watch the video and try to figure out what happened there.

That's basically the same thing that happened to me months ago, but it was during the giant mecha (??) chase. Jack hit the enemy in mid-fall and vanished. Some kind of weird bug related to block-breaking enemies?

[Gyrre]

I keep getting some unexpected error while the game is loading. I've downloaded it twice now. I've tried turning my computer on and off again. Yes, I've also unzipped it (that was the first thing I did upo downloading it). Anyone have any ideas?


It won't go past the new loading icon of the skull with the characters and sword in it.

[USUNM@]

Is Jack the Reaper made on any specific game maker engine, such as the Grandma engine or Brod's engine?

[Raku]

No, I made the engine myself from scratch

[USUNM@]

No, I made the engine myself from scratch

Noice.

[eliasdaler]

No, I made the engine myself from scratch

Awesome! What tools did you use to make it? Any interesting stuff happening during engine implementation? Any ideas that proved to be awesome and helpful?

Your game is great, by the way. I've played some of it and the amount of polish and detail is truly inspiring. Great job.

[Raku]

Thank you! And Im not sure what you mean by tools, I just use Gamemaker 8.0 and program everything from scratch. Im not sure what engine implementation is either honestly.
Thank you for trying my game out though!

[BMF54123]

So the demo starts up just fine for me, but once I start the actual game it crashes immediately after I gain control. This happens in both the tutorial and the first stage. I thought it might be an issue with Windows 10 but compatibility mode didn't help at all. I also downloaded the missing songs but again, it didn't help.

Any idea on how I can fix this?

Very late reply, but I'm having the same problem on my new(ish) computer running Windows 10 Pro. The game crashes right before passing control to the player at the start of a level. It seems to be related to the PxTone DLL used for music playback, according to Event Viewer:

Code:

Faulting module name: pxtone.dll, version: 0.9.1.7, time stamp: 0x4e85cfdf
Exception code: 0xc0000005

I thought maybe it was a problem with my Audigy 2, since some Creative cards/drivers have issues with Pixel's games, but switching to the onboard Realtek sound didn't fix anything.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a solution, but at least the problem's been narrowed down somewhat...?

[Raku]

So the demo starts up just fine for me, but once I start the actual game it crashes immediately after I gain control. This happens in both the tutorial and the first stage. I thought it might be an issue with Windows 10 but compatibility mode didn't help at all. I also downloaded the missing songs but again, it didn't help.

Any idea on how I can fix this?

Very late reply, but I'm having the same problem on my new(ish) computer running Windows 10 Pro. The game crashes right before passing control to the player at the start of a level. It seems to be related to the PxTone DLL used for music playback, according to Event Viewer:

Code:

Faulting module name: pxtone.dll, version: 0.9.1.7, time stamp: 0x4e85cfdf
Exception code: 0xc0000005

I thought maybe it was a problem with my Audigy 2, since some Creative cards/drivers have issues with Pixel's games, but switching to the onboard Realtek sound didn't fix anything.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a solution, but at least the problem's been narrowed down somewhat...?

I appreciate you trying to work on finding out what the problem is. That is somewhat helpful now that we know it's pxtone.dll that's causing the error. It's just very odd, because yes, as you said people have been reporting that it crashes once control is given to the player. Pxtone.dll has nothing to do with player control, it controls the music, ... which the game begins by playing some music, meaning that it has no trouble actually playing music. It's just very odd.

I have noticed that working with the pxtone.dll, you have to be very delicate with how you use any of it's features. An example of that would be: Once you beat a miniboss in a stage that doesn't immediately end after the miniboss dies I want the music of the stage to play again of course, BUT if I make the music immediately start to play when the miniboss dies in the same action, it tends to cancel out those same actions coupled with it (such as the boss dieing or something moving, etc). Often times, if I start music playing without giving a few frames of buffer and without making the music playing it's very own action with nothing else associated with it, it kills all enemies on the screen for some reason. Just really odd happenings with it...

[gimymblert]

If bugs happen to unrelated things it might be because there is memory access overlap or stuff like that, for example memory used for controls spilled or interact indirectly with the memory controlled by that other part.

/thinking aloud

Ignore me

[BMF54123]

Yeesh, that's some strange behavior for sure.

I don't know much about Game Maker yet, so I don't have any real solutions or ideas. It seems very odd to me that the intro and story sequences play without crashing, but levels do not. Are there any significant differences in how you're triggering music tracks between story scenes and levels (you mentioned having to add buffer frames, for example)?

(Side note: I tried using the newest version of the PxTone DLL from Pixel's website, 0.9.2.5, and it just made the game lock up. Oh well...)

EDIT: If you're using Game Maker 8, there's a newer PxTone wrapper that might be worth trying: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=470034

[Raku]

Are there any significant differences in how you're triggering music tracks between story scenes and levels (you mentioned having to add buffer frames, for example)?

I don't believe so, they're all just the same code.
Ah, thank you for that link though, it might help? We'll all see next time I put out another demo, I suppose.

[Gyrre]

What are the system requirements for the latest version of the demo?

I'm trying to run it on Windows 7 to no avail. Would it be the version of Windows I'm using or could it be the graphics card.

I only get "an unexpected error occurred" message. How do I find the error log to find what's going wrong?

[BMF54123]

Good news! The game works really well (aside from a slight audio delay) in VirtualBox, so that may be an option for anyone that has trouble running the game natively, especially in Windows 10. You'll probably need a decent CPU and a few GB of RAM, though, since you're running an OS inside an OS.

I used the following setup:

OS: Windows XP Professional
RAM: 2 GB (the game alone uses almost 1 GB of RAM for some reason)

You'll probably also need to install the Guest Additions, enable 2D and 3D acceleration, and bump the video memory to 128MB. These allow the game to use your computer's native video acceleration. Downloading the DirectX 9.0c installer is probably a good idea as well.

Hope this helps someone!