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[Ben Kuhn]

Looks pretty cool! I was pleased to note that the game appeared to be cross-platform, but it looks like it has some Linux issues. I'm on Ubuntu 9.10, running Python 2.6.4 and Pyglet 1.1.2, FYI.

First of all, would you consider publishing the game in something other than RAR format? It's a bit of a pain to deal with as many graphical archive managers do not support it.

Secondly, it's usually considered good archive etiquette to put in the root of your archive a single folder called e.g. 'pzero' which contains all your game files. Especially if you're going to distribute it in a format that can only be read by command-line programs, it will save your users both typing and the unpleasant surprise of having your game splat files all over their desktop.

Anyway, minor aesthetic complaints aside, I unrar'ed the game in its own directory which is currently sitting on my desktop. My first attempt to run the game was `python ./pzero.pyc`, which gave the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Files\My\PROJECTS\pzero\pzero.py", line 246, in <module>
  File "C:\Files\My\PROJECTS\pzero\pzero.py", line 130, in load_ls
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pyglet/resource.py", line 481, in image
    identity = self._cached_images[name] = self._alloc_image(name)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pyglet/resource.py", line 425, in _alloc_image
    file = self.file(name)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pyglet/resource.py", line 383, in file
    raise ResourceNotFoundException(name)
pyglet.resource.ResourceNotFoundException: Resource "o_f_sprites.png" was not found on the path.  Ensure that the filename has the correct captialisation.

Then I tried to run it with the absolute path (`python /home/me/Desktop/pzero/pzero.pyc`), and it appeared to hang. After waiting about 10 seconds, I terminated the process and it exited with the following error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Files\My\PROJECTS\pzero\pzero.py", line 9, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pyglet/resource.py", line 347, in reindex
    dir = '/'.join((tail_dir, dir))
KeyboardInterrupt

Please fix these problems; I'm looking forward to playing Probability Zero once they are ironed out!

[Loren Schmidt]

Thanks for making this. It's good to hear that after a string of incomplete projects you've found one that's progressing well. I've had problems with that too, and it's always encouraging to see someone else find a project they love and stick to it.

I've played the current version a bit. I really like the idea. I like the way you explain the controls using little floating boxes. That's a great idea, and very self-explanatory. Would you mind if I were to borrow that idea?

The little level up icons are nice. The only thing I minded about the level up screen is that I wasn't immediately sure what was going on when I spent my first point. As soon as I pressed the button to confirm my choice, the level up screen was still up and a new row of upgrades appeared. It seemed at first that I was supposed to select a second upgrade, when in actuality I was supposed to press space to close the screen.

Another place where I think there's room for some improvement is in the way combat feels. In general, more impact effects and sounds would help a lot. I was also wondering about one thing- given that we can attack horizontally on the ground, it's a bit awkward not being able to attack horizontally in the air until purchasing an upgrade. Why not allow punching in the air?

It would also probably feel better if there was some sort of sound + a visual effect for falling off the bottom of the screen and dying. Currently the player character just disappears, and there's a delay before the game over message pops up. It feels a bit unresponsive.

I hope none of this comes across as negative- I quite like the game, and I only point out things that I think could be improved in the hope of being helpful. Best wishes as you continue to work on this. I'm looking forward to future versions.

[droqen]

Kikaru
The menu definitely needs some upgrading, I'll add some control directions to that window.
The level generation is different, yep. That's strange, though: I've seen very, very few impossible setups. Are you absolutely certain there was not a single way to avoid damage? (Sometimes it's still possible but improbably difficult) -- Not to say this never happens, but I certainly haven't seen it frequently.
Falling damage, stars: I have noticed that one must take the platforming aspect of this game as seriously as the shooting-stuff aspect. Make every jump count, and make absolutely sure you can't get out of a point of fall damage by just skimming the top of the screen to get to the other side, where a descent is possible. -- In terms of stars, I was thinking about the character recovering a star every time he blinks. (when you idle for a little while, you blink.)

Hideous
Unrelated but I love it xD

Ben Kuhn
Alright, I'll make up a .zip too x3 and try to figure out these issues.
I don't know why the directory containing the game on my computer
is somehow included in the files ><
And I think I might know the problem, resource-loading is something I've only really managed to test on my own computers. [You're sure the 'data' folder is in the correct place, right?]

Sparky
Thanks very much ^^ And you can definitely borrow that idea, I'm glad you liked it too :3

That was kind of a holdover from the old, now changed system. I'll clarify things before I think about adding more pretty icons for even more abilities.
You can actually never attack horizontally in the air, as the directional star-throwing upgrades work when grounded only. The original reason I made things this way was because it made the controls simpler -- punch on the ground, throw star straight down in the air. As it stands now, the only thing you can do while in the air (ever) is steer and throw a star down. Anyway, have you tried punching in the air? I'd imagine it wouldn't be terribly effective xD
---> I will probably leave it as is. There are still a few ways to attack things in the air, and being able to punch in the air would make high-damage punching too valuable while devaluing the Star^ and Star> upgrades.
However sounds in general will be added, I guarantee that! [& more of a "yes, you have just fallen to your doom" sort of thing]

Sparky, I'm looking forward to the next version too : D


Thanks for all the comments, I will do what I can to steer this game in the right direction!
---> I wonder if anyone has even reached the third tier of abilities in this current build.

[Doktor_Q]

By 'impossible' I don't mean unable to avoid damage, I mean a string of black tiles all the way across, with no space to get down. If you don't have the 'punch through black tiles' power, you'll die by going off the top of the screen.

The pickup queue is kind of neat, but could easily be removed. Players don't always need to know what they'll get next. Also, it clashes a bit with everything around it.

[droqen]

Eek. Okay, definitely will need to do what I can do avoid that, will put together a check to make sure there's some path through.

I'm thinking of taking the break blocks ability and condensing it into a single ability which is made more powerful by the punch upgrades.


Pickup Queue:
The goal here was to allow the player to plan ahead a little more. Running out of stars sucks already, so it's good to know "okay, I can waste stars -- there's a big star collect up ahead" or "better conserve stars because I'm getting two health-ups in a row then a level up". It makes the pickups feel far less random and up to the whim of the game to me, and I'll definitely be keeping it... [also it might make the player realize that getting more pickups is necessary to leveling up]

I'll do what I can to make it fit in better, I realize the backdrop squares are of colours that aren't otherwise used in the game outside of the menu.

[Phasma Felis]

Pretty nice!

I feel like the basic punch needs some kind of buff. Its hitbox is so small, and its recovery so long; there's several types of enemies that, if you get close enough to punch them once, they'll run you over before you can do anything else. You could increase the hitbox size, or maybe give it a brief stun effect or something. The punch hitbox is especially annoying when a spider or an orb is hung up on the edge of a ledge, and it's right in front of me but my punch whiffs over its head. I want to kick it or something. :D

I'd agree that the bouncing is kind of annoying as it is, not just because it tends to kill you, but because it kills you while you watch helplessly. Falling one square too far and then bouncing off into oblivion like a basketball is really frustrating. Losing control of your character sucks, basically.

What about something like the (old) game Centipede? Crawling from the top, consuming blocks... I should give that a try, it sounds easy. Tough to fight without Star^ upgrade, though.

To make a zigzaggy centipede enemy fightable without stars, maybe you could have the punch (and only the punch) make it recoil half a line or so, or more depending on how powered-up the punch is. That way you can either pelt it with stars from a distance or give it a good knuckle sandwich, depending on your ability loadout.

[droqen]

Phasma, thanks for the feedback!

Base punch and base star are supposed to feel like they need a buff; that's why you get your first upgrade so quickly and the second one not too long after :]

I'll consider upping the hitbox (vertically) for the punch attack and its respective upgrades, though.
Most enemies react instantly to being damaged (the one exception being the orbs, but then again you could wait until they've landed, though that's sometimes impossible, too!) so adding a stun wouldn't do much :p

Bouncing:
I am going to make it a little less frustrating, but I've also added a level-1 ability that prevents you from going flying when you take damage, as well as reducing stun duration. I'm not sure if it's a good idea but we'll see.


So currently:
8 new abilities are on the way, adding a new column and a new row (a whole new tier!). Look forward to abilities: double-jump (it's a hell of a lot of fun to play with), health regeneration (extend your lifespan!), and super star (just in case you felt like stars didn't wreck things up well enough in the first place).
4 new, more boss-type enemies are being added, too, and they will for the most part be avoidable but more of a hindrance than the other enemies should you choose to ignore them.
All this and more is slowly grinding its way in.

[ Centipede-type boss is still in the conceptualizing process, I'm worried about it getting stuck xD ]


abilities to be removed & replaced:
Healing. Now every level-up will instead heal you by one.
It really is no fun to look forward to buying the next ability... but then realize you have to buy the healing upgrade or you're screwed. So if you're healed up every level, it guarantees you a better chance at giving your new toys a try, hopefully it will make the difficulty curve a little less steep :] and finally it makes place for new abilities ^^


edit ::
Of questionable utility but undeniable amusement is the super-high jump -- it's not like you often need to go up, but if you ever do... well.


conceptualizing but not guaranteed ::
Some form of combo system that makes it a little bit easier to get points and gain levels. Combo as in - if you kill 4 enemies without letting one go off the top of the screen, you start getting double pickups.

[JMickle]

also: music and sound effects, right? xD

[droqen]

Yesss
It's added in the first post, there are a number of other things coming in the next release (or some future release, anyway) that I am looking forward to adding :3

[droqen]

Why is it that things turn out so much better than I expect, once I actually get around to doing them?

Here is a small peek at things to come:



1. Yes, that is 20 abilities with a good handful of them still locked.

2. Yes, that is a new enemy hiding behind Star^ and Stock+

3. Yes, that enemy is DESTROYING A BLOCK. (it has thus far been an incredible thrill to fight or avoid)

Coming soon to a thread near you.


---> Also coming is a high score table, pretty menu, and a new game mode that grants access to 18 of 20 abilities! (not all at once, of course, but you'll have the opportunity to try each of them over a few plays!)

[Doktor_Q]

This looks pretty darn amazing. Can't wait until you put it up for download!

[droqen]

NEW VERSION!

+ Menu (it's so niice)
+ Local High Scores (i.e. not online, sorry ._.)
+ 4 Boss Enemies
- 1 Old Ability
+ 11 New Abilities

[mokesmoe]

The ability menu doesn't seem to be working right. It doesn't highlight the ability I've selected, and buying doesn't seem to affect anything. Also, I can't tell the difference between potential and talent once I'm in-game.

[droqen]

Hmm. That's odd.

Can you describe more specifically what's going on?

Talent should start you off with 4 ability points and deny you future level-ups.
Potential starts you off with none but you will have the ability to level up.

Send me a screenshot of abilities not being selected?


And... does the description of the selected ability appear at the bottom?

Does buying an ability change what it looks like?

[[[ Note: There will be an update soon with rebalancing of bosses! Some issues I didn't catch will be repaired - somehow I feel nobody's made it that far anyway xD ]]]

[mokesmoe]

Never mind about talent and potential, they're working fine.

Heres my select screen:

Pressing left and right show different text at the bottom, showing what should be selected. But buying abilities doesn't seem to do anything, but does make more abilities appear. Seems to be working fine now that I've tried it again.
Also, the changing names don't quite seem to correspond with where the abilitys are on the screen.

Sometimes I get hurt when theres nothing even close to me.


I'm assuming both problems are my computer not rendering stuff properly.

[droqen]

eek.

Um, that's an old version. Give me a sec, I'll double-check to make sure the downloaded versions are... correct.



EDIT :: Make certain that when you extract the stuff, it's extracted to somewhere untainted by other files. Somehow it's... finding files from the old version of the graphics (), and that's where the issue lies. If you had an old version of Probability 0 downloaded somewhere, delete the folder and replace it completely.

Oh, and just to play it safe... redownload the files from the first post.



Currently Under Consideration: Fall Damage.
I think it's a core of one part of the gameplay, but not of another. Sometimes it adds an interesting challenge, other times it can be frustrating. I'm torn between keeping fall damage, and toning it down/removing it :[

[mokesmoe]

That would be the problem. I aways extract to the same folder and select "replace all". I'll delete all the files, re-download and say how it works.

EDIT: Game works! Had a bunch of fun. Got this however: (had just died on talent)

Code:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "pzero.py", line 3502, in <module>
  File "pyglet\app\__init__.pyc", line 264, in run
  File "pyglet\app\win32.pyc", line 63, in run
  File "pyglet\app\win32.pyc", line 84, in _timer_func
  File "pyglet\app\__init__.pyc", line 187, in idle
  File "pyglet\clock.pyc", line 698, in tick
  File "pyglet\clock.pyc", line 303, in tick
  File "pzero.py", line 3448, in game_step
  File "pzero.py", line 871, in step
  File "pzero.py", line 2138, in step
ZeroDivisionError: float division

[droqen]

Eek. Thanks, that's fixed now (in my code, anyway, not yet in the uploaded version of course), thanks :]

---> A new ability is already coded in, squeezed in and shifted around the end result of which is that there's no more Knees++. I'm probably going to make fall distance slightly more forgiving. Also, all abilities will now be available in Talent due to prereq. shifting!

[ the new ability is really fun xD ]

[Doktor_Q]

I was also thinking that maybe you should give five abilities in talent mode instead of four. It still won't compare to potential, but it certainly will make it a bit nicer/easier/more fun.

Other than that, excellent game, and fun (albeit neck-cramping) menu! I look forward to more soon~

[droqen]

Kikaru, you'll have to be a little disappointed -- it's definitely staying at 4. Even I, who have been playing a long time ( and made the game o_O; ), have only juuust managed to nab a 5th point in Potential D;

However, with the newer build coming out soon, you'll be able to give every ability a try.
Oh, also, things will be made a little nicer/easier/more fun: Fall height is increased a block or so, right from the beginning. Means you can worry a little less about fall damage.
 

Reuploaded... again. Switched over to version numbers.