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[PureQuestion]

I figured out the gun's name:

Generates and
Emits
Red
Energy
Rays:
Incineration
Cannon

[PsySal]

231 points, hooray! What a fun, awesome and hilarious little game. The SMB2-esque music along with SMB2-esque controls made me very happy.

With the spikes, most things that can be disabled seem to animate, and once they stop animating they are disabled. What if the spikes were drills pointed up, and once you clipped them they would be disabled and stop animating?

[Kegluneq]

I demand a level editor for this!
[/half-joking]

[Syrion]

So far I've figured out that stomping baddies and even hitting blocks with baddies in them is awarded with points. I wonder if that amounts to the about 20 points I missed.

With the spikes, most things that can be disabled seem to animate, and once they stop animating they are disabled. What if the spikes were drills pointed up, and once you clipped them they would be disabled and stop animating?

That's a good idea, but I think it's not as easy as with the other objects. I've found that if you destroy the lower part of the spikes, they don't seem to kill you anymore, even though the pointy top remains. But another time I was killed by a single friggin pixel of a spike which remained.
Maybe only a specific part of the spike kills you, and no matter how much of that part remains, it kills you? Anyway, I think that should just be made clear in some way.

[lulzapricot]

That was awesome.

[Hempuli‽]

Woah! Thanks for all these kind & awesome comments! Now then, let's see:

@PsySal and MisterX: The idea of having drill spikes is indeed good, and you have very good points about the illogical things in the spikes overall. I guess I'll change them to act like other objects when I get back from here!

@MisterX: I fear that there may be several cases why your score wasn't the best possible. Here're some:
1) I've counted the best score wrong
2) I've rushed the scoring mechanism and therefore made it glitch somehow. For example, when you restart a level, your score should return back to what it was when you began the level. It may be so though that I've made some meh thing in this and it takes too big amount of score away.
 I think that it may be the first one, since the score-take-away code seemed to work fine when I tested.

But anyway, I'm quite sure that you got the best possible score, even though the game didn't congratulate you for that!
Congratulations! It's great to see that this game was interesting enough to be completed fully!

@PureQuestion: GENERIC seldom spells with two R. Anyway, you're correct.

[Syrion]

@MisterX: I fear that there may be several cases why your score wasn't the best possible. Here're some:
1) I've counted the best score wrong
2) I've rushed the scoring mechanism and therefore made it glitch somehow. For example, when you restart a level, your score should return back to what it was when you began the level. It may be so though that I've made some meh thing in this and it takes too big amount of score away.
 I think that it may be the first one, since the score-take-away code seemed to work fine when I tested.

But anyway, I'm quite sure that you got the best possible score, even though the game didn't congratulate you for that!
Congratulations! It's great to see that this game was interesting enough to be completed fully!

Well, like I said, I wasn't aware that you get points for hitting the ?-blocks which don't even have coins in them (which seems pretty odd). So, I surely didn't have the best possible score.
Still, it was a lot of fun trying to get all the ones I did, as it's so tricky but possible. Thanks for that

By the way, in one of the later levels there is a key - but no door. Is that intentional? I kinda liked it, as it makes the game seem more odd, but I wondered



And, wait a minute.. I get congratulated for getting the best possible score?


..Here I go again.

[edit]
http://s7b.directupload.net/images/090618/48bexv5m.jpg   

That was fun, I've got a perfect solution for every level now
I think this is and Nikujin are the only indie game that aren't quite Nintendo Hard that I've ever longed to "master"

Concerning the 10 missing(?) points: I haven't counted how many "Goombas" there are, but are there possibly 10? At least one doesn't get any points for stomping them, but maybe it was planned?

[PureQuestion]

@PureQuestion: GENERIC seldom spells with two R. Anyway, you're correct.

Whoops

maybe it could instead be
Neverending

Yah. that works.

[Hempuli‽]

@MisterX: Uh oh. I didn't even count those blocks that have mushrooms in them! Another bug to fix. But there's clearly a miscalculation from my side, I guess I've counted diamonds in some level twice or something. Great job getting that score! Great that you enjoyed the game enough to do that accomplishment! And seemingly even found it fun.

What this teaches us: You should first test if it's possible to achieve something before including it in the game! I'll try to e more careful in the future. Unfortunately I can fix these stupid mistakes as late as next tuesday.
 Thanks again for playing and especially commenting about the process! You'd be probably a perfect betatester.

[Syrion]

Thanks again for playing and especially commenting about the process! You'd be probably a perfect betatester.

As long as the game is as fun to master as this one

By the way, are there even perfect solutions for each level that you specifically created, or is it more of an accident that it works so very well like this? :D

[edit]
I just played through it again, seemingly not doing anything differently at all.. 421/428

[gmudskipper]

This game is very cathartic.  It could be therapy for anyone traumatized by hard platformers.

[PureQuestion]

I think I found the score problem:

*entered level, hit block with Goomba then killed it*
*Messed up and reset*
*Hit block again.*
*Score didn't change*
*Reset*
*Score dropped to one lower than it was when I started*

This repeated infinitely, may actually lead to negative score, given time.

[Hempuli‽]

I think I found the score problem:

*entered level, hit block with Goomba then killed it*
*Messed up and reset*
*Hit block again.*
*Score didn't change*
*Reset*
*Score dropped to one lower than it was when I started*

This repeated infinitely, may actually lead to negative score, given time.

Ok, the problem's in that piece of code. Oh, how I'd like believe it's just a miscalculation! Anyway, I'll take a careful look at that next tuesday! Good noticing, helps a lot. The score can't be negative, luckily.

[Biggerfish]

Good job. The levels were challenging even with that mechanic, a lot better designed than most games, even.

[Bood_war]

This was great fun! I like it how you can say "Fuck level design, I'm going to destroy it"

[Hempuli‽]

OK! I'm back, if only for a little while. I changed/fixed at least these things:
-Fixed (I think) the scoring.
-Made the spikes work like other objects.
-You don't get points from boxes with mushrooms.
-Corrected the "best possible" -score.
-Fixed some small annoying things.

[Syrion]

Just tried it. Cool update, especially the spike "nerf" keeps the level with the secluded rooms from being frustrating if you go for all coins, as it's now easier to get the ones above the spikes

But, I discovered a bug:
http://s8b.directupload.net/images/090622/owyr2q4h.jpg
The ray broke these precious little coins, even though it was still some pixels away from hitting them. It also didn't actually "erase" them before it really hit them, only made them uncollectable. This only happened when I "approached" them horizontally with the ray.
Similarly, at least in the last version, the ray would sometimes not destroy some pixels of a room's ceiling (the one exactly opposite, on the left side of that screen), even though it clearly hit them. Also only heppened when I shot horizontally.

Then, some oddity in another level:
http://s4b.directupload.net/images/090622/g7dwk7hn.jpg
When I died in the level and restarted, I was suddenly visited by that fella (the shrooms are also obviously surprised). It came from below the screen, bounced on the wall and left again. When I restarted another time he didn't show up, and the next time he was there again. Might be intended, might have been there before, I just noticed it now and I thought it was neat It kinda seemed like it came from one of the earlier levels, where I let some spike balls leave the screens. It would be so cool if that was actually true :D

Lastly, I'm sorry to shatter your hopes of fixing that, but:
http://s11b.directupload.net/images/090622/6db8ujcz.jpg


Still having fun with it I think I'm going to do a little "perfect" walkthrough video


[edit]
Just tried a bit more, that bug with the horizontal ray also works in other levels, but not with all coins. Also, it seems to happen only when the ray is perfectly horizontal and not angled at all.

[Hempuli‽]

Just tried it. Cool update, especially the spike "nerf" keeps the level with the secluded rooms from being frustrating if you go for all coins, as it's now easier to get the ones above the spikes

But, I discovered a bug:
http://s8b.directupload.net/images/090622/owyr2q4h.jpg
The ray broke these precious little coins, even though it was still some pixels away from hitting them. It also didn't actually "erase" them before it really hit them, only made them uncollectable. This only happened when I "approached" them horizontally with the ray.
Similarly, at least in the last version, the ray would sometimes not destroy some pixels of a room's ceiling (the one exactly opposite, on the left side of that screen), even though it clearly hit them. Also only heppened when I shot horizontally.

Then, some oddity in another level:
http://s4b.directupload.net/images/090622/g7dwk7hn.jpg
When I died in the level and restarted, I was suddenly visited by that fella (the shrooms are also obviously surprised). It came from below the screen, bounced on the wall and left again. When I restarted another time he didn't show up, and the next time he was there again. Might be intended, might have been there before, I just noticed it now and I thought it was neat It kinda seemed like it came from one of the earlier levels, where I let some spike balls leave the screens. It would be so cool if that was actually true :D

Lastly, I'm sorry to shatter your hopes of fixing that, but:
http://s11b.directupload.net/images/090622/6db8ujcz.jpg


Still having fun with it I think I'm going to do a little "perfect" walkthrough video


[edit]
Just tried a bit more, that bug with the horizontal ray also works in other levels, but not with all coins. Also, it seems to happen only when the ray is perfectly horizontal and not angled at all.

The bug you mentioned first is one I have acknowledged but have no idea how to fix - when I look at how the thing works, everything looks like correct and it shouldn't be able to do that, but :<

The second is just my mistake, I forgot one spike ball there. :D

And what is that last thing!? I'm SURE I counted EVERY single coin, money bag and diamond! If you're sure that is the 'perfect' score, I'll change it. :D

[Syrion]

Okay, well, the bug isn't really a problem. I only found it a tad annoying in that level because I had to change one step of my perfect solution to it :D

Keep the ball!

I just carefully went through it again, this time I got 426 I lost track of my score at least once (It's not easy to keep an eye on it when you constantly blast it away). I think I'll just go through it again, let's see..

[edit]
Okay, I found a bug which might be the cause for the differing score: Seemingly when you collect coins too quickly, one may not be counted. This is obvious when you hit two coin blocks simultaneously, you'll only get one point. But I also noticed that if I jumped into a whole row of coins, one point may be missed.

[edit²]
Just did it yet more carefully. I got 427 and I am pretty sure that only 2 coins were not counted. So, 429 seems to be the perfect score, but I wouldn't bet my life on my mental arithmetic skills, ahem.

Noticed two more things:
1. When you click outside the window and then on the title bar of the GENERIC window, you'll often hear the looping sound of the cannon firing, even though it doesn't. That seems to stop happening if you fire once for real. Totally minor thing, obviously.

2. http://s7b.directupload.net/images/090622/wypekhch.jpg
When I jumped out of screen at the designated spot, I heard the sound of a door unlocking. Could it be that you forgot your door keys there? :D ("Aaaah, this is where I left them!")

[bamcquern]

This game is tough, but hilarious and fun.

I wish too that the collectibles still worked if they were a bit damaged.  It's hard to tell when they're not.

And I sort of wish the spikes still killed you after they'd been blasted.  It doesn't fit to have all of these ^^^^^^^ spikes that don't work just because one at the end is chipped off.