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[RollingSkull]

Come to think of it, the glitch with the first level becoming a dry "You hear running water." level may be a carryover. Can anyone confirm that dying in a "The dead are restless" level will cause the first level to ALSO be a "The dead are restless." level? Are those levels supposed to be in the first section at all?

And just some general game design questions for the future of Spelunky, I know I've whined a lot, and you're the ARTISTE in this matter and thus your vision is what we follow, but I just wanna throw some stuff out on the table.

It takes ENTIRELY too much effort to get, say, an idol down a one-square hole. You have to keep grabbing it and retossing it until you get it in the right position. Maybe the drop-hang item drop physics could be changed so that idols are more likely to fall downward? Should drop-hang even drop items to begin with? I can't decide either way.

I like dark levels, but I really think the flare limitations could be handled better. I like having to nurse your own flare and carry it through the level. I like having just a few flares to use. I don't like suddenly losing them in jungle dark levels because of so many impassable water pits.

Underwater frogs are murderers. Perhaps we might include Mario-style underwater "If it jumps up into your feet, it still counts as you jumping on it." for land-based critters? Certainly not for fish.

I also think that dart traps, thrown objects, and the like should be 1 hp of damage, and the spikes from the statues in the jungles should be two hp of damage. The latter is really tough to avoid especially if you find yourself in a ditch next to one. The former would increase survivability in the early levels.

For newbies' sake, the man-eating plant sprite should probably be redone so its mouth is large, open, and it positively screams "Don't jump on me."

From seeing the effects of the "Running water" glitch, I was about to recommend more bottomless levels, but now that I'm getting to the ice world more often, I see you already beat me to it.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Hm, lady troubles!  I haven't been able to replicate any of these weird damsel bugs, unfortunately.  How often does this happen and is there any place that it always seems to occur?

The interesting thing was that she didn't turn into jam! I think a couple of the times I was when I jumped in the water and she turned out to be soluble... and I seem to recall some gravel falling down after me, as though she turned into mud! However at least one time I was just running and noticed that she was 'missing'.

[Derek]

http://www.derekyu.com/games/spelunky_0_99.exe

Here's a new exe that fixes a bunch of bugs, most notably the damsel crushing bug, the "rushing water" bug, and the sacrificial pit bug.

I also re-uploaded the previous build with the new exe and a settings.cfg.

RollingSkull, I think you bring up some good points.  I'm too tired to discuss them right now, but I agree that improvements can be made!

Thanks, guys, for helping me test!  There are so many different situations in the game that it's hard to find these problems myself and also add new content.  But most of the major features are in now, so I can concentrate (at a slower pace) on polishing it up.

[Caio]

Come to think of it, the glitch with the first level becoming a dry "You hear running water." level may be a carryover. Can anyone confirm that dying in a "The dead are restless" level will cause the first level to ALSO be a "The dead are restless." level? Are those levels supposed to be in the first section at all?

That's caused by a bug that makes these messages appear in the first level if you die before they vanish and start a new game.

[Nikica]

Underwater frogs are murderers. Perhaps we might include Mario-style underwater "If it jumps up into your feet, it still counts as you jumping on it." for land-based critters? Certainly not for fish.

I also think that dart traps, thrown objects, and the like should be 1 hp of damage, and the spikes from the statues in the jungles should be two hp of damage. The latter is really tough to avoid especially if you find yourself in a ditch next to one. The former would increase survivability in the early levels.

I agree with that and I think drop-hang should not drop items but the "whoa I'm gonna fall" animation should drop items.

[desp]

On numerous occassions, the dead body of a caveman has damaged me, while settling down from the bouncing.  I don't think this should happen.

[vdgmprgrmr]

5)  I noticed that the protagonist has a miner's lamp on his headgear.  Maybe there could be 'batteries' that could be collected from pots, allowing the headlamp to illuminate dark areas automatically, but only in a cone, at the direction that the protagonist is facing. It probably should run out within a minute or two, so that the player would rely on flares later on in the level.  That said, flares should be a collectible from pots I think - I don't recall ever encountering a way to restock on them.

7)  Someone suggested that the Damsels could give more hearts to the protagonist according to how well treated they are by the player.  Maybe each Damsel can possess 1-4 hearts to give to the player, shown by their dialogue 'help' box, a heart for each corner.  This could tell the player how valuable a Damsel is.  For being recklessly tossed around or otherwise bothered, that valuable Damsel would lose one heart each time, until she goes down to just one - with the other hearts having a jagged crack through the middle.  This means that the player would have to take into consideration of how to get her to the exit with minimal loss.  When carried by the player, the Damsel could have a number of hearts that circle the girl's head, showing the amount of 'Love' she has remaining.

10)  It is often hard to tell if a block is pushable.  Perhaps a block can have stripes in a given plane to show if it can be moved about.  For example, a stone block that has horizontal stripes can be pushed about horizontally.

I agree with point 5 very much. But, I think it could be more than just horizontal. It'd be cool if it was normally horizontal, but if the player were pressing 'up' the beam would be at an upward angle in the current facing direction. The same thing with 'down'. So, it could fill a whole circle of view, but only a single sixth of it at a time.

For point 7, one of my friends was talking about something like this. He suggested that the player wouldn't be able to know what the damsel's status was, and that she would still grant more or less hearts dependent on the player's actions. His idea was two hearts for a perfect rescue, one heart for a bumpy rescue, and that if she was constantly thrown around or ever used as a weapon\trap-bait, when you went into the tunnel for a kiss, she would just turn away from you and put her chin up and say something sarcastic.

As for point 10, I think the image should be different, but it shouldn't be something weird like stripes. I'd go for, maybe, the block having cracks or a darker, wet-looking base. That would make a lot more sense than stripes, I think.

[desp]

After dying a few times, suddenly the music volume became louder, but the effects volume remained the same as before.

By the way, not sure if it's a Game Maker limitation, but there is visible tearing, especially in the scrolling.  It would be great to have a sync-to-vertical-blank/refresh option.

[Doncommie]

if you jump on a man eating plant you just disappear and get an instant game over despite the plant acting like it's been hit,

[Chizzer]

After dying a few times, suddenly the music volume became louder, but the effects volume remained the same as before.

I've noticed the same thing in the new release, on two different machines.

Other than that, fantastic game!

EDIT: The audio issue seems to go away if you enter the "ESC" menu and then go back into the game.

[vdgmprgrmr]

I have another few requests for Derek... (with no vitriol or anti-difficulty things)

Would it be possible to have the control effect of ducking be prolonged for about half a second after returning to a standing position? I keep just tapping through the 'duck, x' and I end up getting the 'x' part without the 'duck' part because I let off 'duck' a couple milliseconds before I pressed 'x'. And it's really annoying.

Also, I think the speed required for items to deal damage is slightly too high. After throwing the idol at snakes that are right next to me then being damaged by them because the idol, for some reason, just flew straight through them with out crushing them.

Also, I think actors that are in the same place as spikes should appear behind the spikes, but in front of the spikes if they're killed on the spikes. Would this be possible? It would look a lot cooler, and it would be easier to see that snakes in pits are guarding some spikes, instead of jumping on them, only to realize that there's spikes, then you end up in a weird fetal position state and the game freezes...

Next, throwing things in narrow corridors is different in this version than in recent versions. Well, it is for large objects... Anyway, now it seems to work like how when a yeti throws the character (in older versions, I don't know if it's different now or what), so I keep trying to throw an idol down below and it keeps just coming right back to where I am, instead of going down, and getting an idol down a hole without following it is a huge pain now.

[karmatic]

Difficulty whiners: this game is obviously not FOR you.  You are all acting like Counter-Strike fans whining at a Madden Football 2009 forum about Madden Football 2009 having no guns and no first-person view.

Way to take down those straw men! Might want to read the thread before insulting random people in it, bud.

I have read the thread.  Quite frankly, you are one of the people I am directly speaking to.  You have whined constantly about the difficulty.  Why are you still here?

I know I've whined a lot

[Valter]

Bug: If you land a bomb at the bottom of a "rushing water" level, you drain out the entire bottom of the level.

[Lucaz]

I'm not sure if this could be considered a bug or not, but in sector 4, I had the exit of the level blocked with one of the moving spiked blocks. I lost some time before accidentally activating it and finding the exit.

[beeare]

Hmm, is it just me or does the latest v.99 freeze at the end of completing a stage? Has worked fine most times but now it's frozen after completing stage 2.

edit: strange, i mashed on the keyboard a few times and it unfroze. maybe i had pressed a pause key by accident? didn't know there was one. sorry