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[Lode]

I'm now working on various improvements of this game based on the feedback, but at the rate I'm going this might take many weeks! To allow making better levels more easily I'm also planning to make a graphical instead of a text-based level editor so it's going to take even more weeks.

Couldn't you use an existing editor?  Like http://tilemap.co.uk/mappy.php, say? (tiles in one layer, sprites/blocks in another, though you do overlay things sometimes, but I guess you could have layers >0 be 'sprite' layers - If you're on osx you might like to know that it works fine in wine).   I'd get a level editor in order as a matter of priority.

I'm developing it in Linux (which also has wine of course).

How does using such a third party level editor work? My game uses its own text-based level format, consisting out of 4 layers in ASCII art, and some textual properties (level name, hint messages, etc...), and also has some special tile types that have a random image based on their position in the level (that is, the grass in the outside levels, and the floor tiles in the inside levels, are not repeating all the time but somewhat more random , if you look more closely to it, and that is not done manually but auto-generated). The fourth layer is codes to connect buttons to objects. Does mappy support that and does it support writing out custom level file formats?

Thanks.

[lapsus]

i can recommend Ogmo Editor
http://ogmoeditor.com/
works for both mac and win, check site for docs

really easy to define your level data in xml format (the levels are also saved as xml)
should be possible to make most things you need in it

[increpare]

i can recommend Ogmo Editor
http://ogmoeditor.com/
works for both mac and win, check site for docs

really easy to define your level data in xml format (the levels are also saved as xml)
should be possible to make most things you need in it

Will that do tile-based sprite placement?

How does using such a third party level editor work? My game uses its own text-based level format, consisting out of 4 layers in ASCII art,

That's certainly not a problem.

and some textual properties (level name, hint messages, etc...)

That might be a problem for mappy - I think it just does tile placement and not much else.  However, as you're doing it, a lot of stuff would be possible, except for metadata stuff (level name, hint messages).  Which doesn't make it totally unusable with it, but means it doesn't fit perfectly.

Ogmo, I believe, allows for more complicated setups (Attaching metadata to objects), but I have not used it.  I have used Dame, and that was pretty nice, however it's quite geared towards flixel projects.  I don't know how much reengineering it would take to get it to work in a project in an unrelated engine (from what I've heard, ogmo is a little more lightweight).  Looking at it now, I notice that it does have an XML exporter, so maybe it's easier than I thought to integrate (I would recommend being flexible about your map format when looking for editors - ).  Sprites can be placed and given metadata.  By default sprites can be placed anywhere, but it is possible to turn on 'snap to grid' which will give you reliable pixel coordinates that you can process when loading the map.

I wouldn't worry about stuff like runtime tile-substitution, well, an editor doesn't need to do that - you can pick a single tile and display that in the editor, safe in the knowledge that it'll be sexed up at runtime.

On the other hand, it might not be that hard for you to build an in-game editor yourself (though it might be easier if you do some of the metadata stuff yourself - manually inserting text into the outputted level files).

[lapsus]

Will that do tile-based sprite placement?

yeah, and since you can attach whatever meta data you need to all other stuff (eg nodes) it is easy to add things like level-name etc.

worth a try at least - and done by chevy ray so you know it is the real deal

[Lode]

I investigated those map editors and decided to go with Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/), and write some scripts that convert the images and maps to/from the Tiled tilesets and map format.

Tiled works for Linux out of the box and looks quite nice

[lapsus]

looks great! Good luck with the editor and im looking forward to play the game more later. there will be an ios version.. right?

[increpare]

Tiled works for Linux out of the box and looks quite nice

Great.  Hope you have a good time with it

[Lode]

looks great! Good luck with the editor and im looking forward to play the game more later. there will be an ios version.. right?

If ios supports Flash, then sure!

Android supports Flash and I've tried the game on it, it worked reasonably well there when opening the tiny keyboard for the controls (but not as good as a native app would). I think if I just add something that makes the player walk if you press the mouse aka finger next to the player, it would feel and behave great on phones

[Starflier]

I think if I just add something that makes the player walk if you press the mouse aka finger next to the player, it would feel and behave great on phones

Personally I think that would feel better on a PC too.

[Lode]

big pause (ok maybe 0.2 seconds) before playing the first sound of each level I think?

I know! I wish I knew what's causing this! On which operating system are you playing this?

I play the sound effects immediately, there's no timer in between or anything. And I checked the sound files in Audacity, to see that the content starts immediately, and it does (I removed "horizontal" parts at the beginning of the audio files).

I play the sounds with the following code:

Code:

   public function playSound(sound:Sound):void
    {
      if(sound_on)
      {
        var sc:SoundChannel = sound.play();
        if(sc) sc.soundTransform = new SoundTransform(sound_volume);
      }
    }

And I too get this annoying pause before the sound actually plays. Really annoying, I wish I knew how to fix it.

[increpare]

big pause (ok maybe 0.2 seconds) before playing the first sound of each level I think?

I know! I wish I knew what's causing this! On which operating system are you playing this?

I'm play on osx 10.6, firefox 3.6.13, flash 10,1,102,64.

And I too get this annoying pause before the sound actually plays. Really annoying, I wish I knew how to fix it.

I think I remember hearing something like "each time you play a sound for the first time in a scene (or something) flash has to start up the audio subsystem".  So maybe playing a 'level start' sound (even if it's silence) will mitigate the issue?

What version of flash/flex are you using?  Have you tried updating to/building for the latest versions?

[Lode]

What version of flash/flex are you using?  Have you tried updating to/building for the latest versions?

Didn't try that, I'm still using Flex 3 and didn't migrate to Flex 4 yet!

[Draknek]

I think you could do with smaller levels. There's a lot of empty space which is there to make you walk around rather than because the space is required for a puzzle. Walking is not fun: try making each level as small as possible (ref: level design workshop exercise 1). This problem was particularly pronounced in the introductory levels: every outside level could have been a single non-scrolling screen without losing anything.

I think you should add new gameplay elements more slowly and focus more on the puzzles. There aren't any actually interesting puzzles until level 11 or so, before that it is all simplest-possible-puzzle for each new item. That is not fun in of itself!

Movement is slow and feels a bit unresponsive. I think it's possible for key-presses to be lost if you're moving when it's pressed?

"You are an adventurer": don't say this, it's obvious anyway but it also breaks immersion and just isn't good writing (i.e. show don't tell).

Level 10: blocks on top of fire should have some visible indicator that they're on top of fire! I agree this level is too long. All of Increpare's comments on this level are spot-on, it's too long and there's too many places where you can die after encountering a new mechanic: forcing you to replay the whole level again. The message "Lava requires both fire and water protection" has never been so annoying...

The behaviour is unexpected when you move onto ice without there being normal floor across from you. I expected to be stopped by the wall and then to be able to choose a new direction to walk in, instead I bounce back. Not really a problem I guess, just something I thought was a bit weird. I also find it weird that a wood block pushed on top of water doesn't react (I'd expect it to create a walkable platform).

I am not sure how much some of the enemies add to the game but maybe that's just me being a puzzle purist. Since it is a tile-based game, avoiding enemies early on is just been about timing and isn't particularly interesting or skillful (note that "oh crap I have a very short time to press this button or I'll die and have to restart the whole level" does not require skill, it just creates frustration). Some enemies like that rat have puzzle implications that work fine so possibly it is just a few enemies that aren't necessary.

Overall conclusion: it's certainly a promising set of building blocks for puzzles, as I said before I think the puzzles themselves could be streamlined though.

Sound-delay: Linux has an unavoidable half-second delay on every sound. If Increpare is having issues not on Linux not sure why that might be: that code snippet looks fine.

I think I remember hearing something like "each time you play a sound for the first time in a scene (or something) flash has to start up the audio subsystem".

I think this was a problem with older Flash players and shouldn't be an issue with AS3. Could be wrong though.

[cystem glitch]

Hey, I finished your game. Simply amazing. Some really genius levels in there, and I loved the level of difficulty near the end. Also loved the new mechanics and twists, and the puzzles in general.


For feedback I would say I remember feeling more comfortable once I got inside the castle and nestled up with the familiar grey blocks and the straight forward introduction of new blocks and puzzles, I remember in the first few levels walking round outside in the forest worrying that the game was going to be stupid. I don't know though, it might make things easier on new players because it seems more like how other non-chip's challenge games start so it might help segue them into action, but maybe trim it down a bit (I would use more feedback from players who had never played chip's challenge before making that call if I were you, I'm already familiar with the original game and a fan). Also, I am suggesting trimming a little fat from the journey to the castle not removing it totally, it's still a good idea.


I suggest an in-game graphical editor, it would probably not be very difficult for you to slap together. To save games players would probably still have to use the copy paste method, which might seem ghetto (I used this same method for saving levels in a simple level editor I was making too) but its flash what are you going to do.


If you are adding more levels I was most impressed by the ones that used simple mechanics to clone or pay homage to other game archetypes, or puzzles that used the new mechanics in interesting or unexpected ways. I thought the level of difficulty was just right and curved nicely. I don't mind the odd level here and there killing you halfway through and making you redo everything, but again this is probably because I familiar with this game archetype. It's almost akin to a roguelike in that way and I would suggest not nerfing that part of the experience as others have suggested, but that is just my two cents.


You really have a great game here and I enjoyed beating it immensely.  Maybe now I'll go back and try and find all the treasure (I got all the treasure that was obvious/shown the first time, but I didn't check every nook and cranny). Is there a certain amount of treasure on every level?

[Lode]

Thanks a lot for the thorough reviews!

Sorry about the treasure, but there isn't that much yet. I need to add more treasure and make sure there is some in every level!
However it might be interesting to get the crowns. I think there are 3 or 4 crowns in total now. And crowns are only reserved for really well hidden places or extra hard puzzles

My plan for the treasure is: coins will be spread around in levels in plain view, challices are for slightly challenging places, and crowns are only for the really special locations.