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[DarkWanderer]

66 enemies (some are variations of others but generally they're unique)

If I counted correctly that's pretty close in count to the enemy cast of Cave Story, definitely a healthy amount of enemies for a game of this scale

In terms of Secrets, will there be any secret level hubs or bosses? Or endings? I'm curious as it could be pretty cool to see. Maybe some waste repository that acts as the station's sewer but has been adapted by the wild life into a primitive swamp? Secret areas in Metroidvanias could be pretty awesome

[Hempuli‽]

The answer to that is HEHEHEHE, while HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HEHEHEHEH and
HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HEHE HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

At the moment I've planned for there to be some secrets, but depending on my motivation there might be more or less

[phi6]

Oi!

[DarkWanderer]

That was good

[Hempuli‽]

An area in the game has annoyed me for a longer time, and I wrote a post why and what to do about it: http://www.hempuli.com/blogblog/archives/1002 

In other news, I've very very nearly finished the last room in the penultimate area. It has been a lot of fun working on this place, I'm glad!

[DarkWanderer]

From what I've seen, I like the tileset in the temple. I would like to see the area reworked as opposed to scrapped. & I hope as well the assets you made for it don't get shelved. Just revise their functionality, especially the traps you described. Or make save points more accessible. There's nothing necessarily wrong with instadeath, but I agree it's implementation could be better adjusted. Sounds like a massive overhaul is your best bet, & I'm willing to hold out for that. If the lay out changes keep backups of the original, maybe it could end up being soomething fun to play after the main game, or even just seeing a map of it for comparison(A boss rush mode could be fun too). Speaking of which, after this game gets the attention & recognition it deserves, & the fanfare wanes a bit, it'd be cool to get my hands on that level editor

[Hempuli‽]

I've been a bit more busy with studies and studying-related things, and this will continue next week. However, I've been tweaking little things here and there in the aftermath of my disappointment with the temple. I'll start reworking that area only after I've finished the rest of the game, though, so don't you worry about that.

I've technically finished the penultimate area apart from the boss, I'll just have to implement some story-related code in order for the area's main "puzzle" to work. It's not really a puzzle, just a little something to make the area less of a linear romp.

I also added some new things to already existing areas, making them get a bit more interesting as time goes on; for example, I'll make it so that once you activate certain things, some old, easier paths get closed off and you'll have to use other means to get around. Hopefully this'll add some more 'metroidvanianess' to the game. Obviously limiting the choices the player can has in order to increase difficulty may become a bad thing if overused.

Speaking of which, after this game gets the attention & recognition it deserves, & the fanfare wanes a bit, it'd be cool to get my hands on that level editor

This'd be cool but I don't think I'll have the motivation to rework the editor to something an another person could understand. We'll see!

[DarkWanderer]

I'll make it so that once you activate certain things, some old, easier paths get closed off and you'll have to use other means to get around. Hopefully this'll add some more 'metroidvanianess' to the game.

Will there be back doors into these areas after their primary access points are cut off? I'd hate being shut out entirely. Perhaps they could be reopened upon completion of the game at least? Will ESA have a free roam mode once the primary campaign is beat, like the GBA metroid games? I'd like to have a record I've beaten that I can jump into at any time to visit my favorite parts of the map & characters.

[Hempuli‽]

I'll make it so that once you activate certain things, some old, easier paths get closed off and you'll have to use other means to get around. Hopefully this'll add some more 'metroidvanianess' to the game.

Will there be back doors into these areas after their primary access points are cut off? I'd hate being shut out entirely. Perhaps they could be reopened upon completion of the game at least? Will ESA have a free roam mode once the primary campaign is beat, like the GBA metroid games? I'd like to have a record I've beaten that I can jump into at any time to visit my favorite parts of the map & characters.

Those paths will become one-way-only, but you can still access the other side. Mostly what I meant was that the player needs to take new paths through the station and thus experience stuff they otherwise wouldn't. In this context I really dislike missing stuff permanently, too. There'll be a save point and a teleporter literally one room before the boss, so that can technically be considered when you hit the 'freeroam' phase.

[DarkWanderer]

That's still pretty cool & will work just as well. Maybe some of those corridors can become inhabited by new wild life once they get shutoff, to add a layer of newness to them (& a reason to tread down into the dead end). Either way the game sounds like it'll be a perfect entry into the genre

[Hempuli‽]

[Hempuli‽]

[DarkWanderer]

Awesome

[SnakeCoiler]

That's so cool! You did an amazing job on that!

[Whiteclaws]

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

butt , putting it on the ground at the beginning and making it glow his eye red before waking up , could been even better

[SnakeCoiler]

Or maybe it could have some kind of yellow eye that has that super metroid xray/scanning effect coming from it? Like it scans you first or something.

[Hempuli‽]

Yeah, I guess eye-glow would add to the menacing look; I'll add that.

Today has been a very productive day, and I've finished some rooms while implementing small fixes here and there, changing some awful areas and making existing ones more flavourfull. Also I added frogs as harmless critters to make the jungle area feel more lively!

Today I also reached 86% completion! I think I'm going to stop using a percentual counter, since the last 10% will probably take quite a while, what with the final boss and all the polish the game'll need even after finishing every room for good.

All in all, progress has been good!

[DarkWanderer]

YEEESSSSSS The anticipation is killing me, but I can feel the final stretch approaching.
Can the harmless jungle frogs be killed?

[Hempuli‽]

Oh, and I also made a silly tool to further visualize the progress on the game:


To be honest, looking at that the progress has been much steadier than I thought; although that obviously means it has been steadily slow all around, haha. Oh well, I feel pretty happy thinking that when I started this thread, the game was at 26% and now we're here.

[Zack Bell]

This was paged.

I think we've talked about this before, but will you at least have a donation page or something if you aren't charging for this? There is so much charm in every single gif that I can't help but think you've put your heart and soul into it. It's looking very, very solid and I'm more than excited enough about it to help support.

Just a thought 

Keep up the good work!