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[mokesmoe]

I think I need to practice a bit so I can actually reach the boss!

Also, Vanguard, what's your build order, at least for the first few upgrades?

[droqen]

... New idea! At 2km or so (does that sound reasonable?) there would be no more triple boss rush; instead, you get that final boss. I might increase the depth, but the final boss would be the test of mastery of every ability, and your goal would still be to "kill" it as many times as possible.

Also, if you don't have every ability? Well, you might be out of luck. So once you get to the point of 20-ability god it's not so much what abilities do you have? as it is how well can you use them?

Here's what I mean:

Basic Combat Test would swarm you with extra enemies, requiring you to put your punches and stars to use.
Teleport + Smash Test would just fire huge swarms of "bullets" at you and increase block spawn rate, requiring you to dodge and carve your way through.
Jump Test would fire huge swarms of "bullets" at you and severely decrease block spawn rate, requiring you to carefully time jumps over long distances.

After that little self-contained brainstorming session, it'll probably come down to a boss who attacks like all of the other bosses (except the one who doesn't have a 'ranged' attack really) combined at different times (so - fires thick lasers to destroy blocks, fires spready spider webs, and fires bombs that explode) while bringing enemy spawn and block spawn rates to their extremes on occasion.

Two of these will never happen at the same time, but they will become closer and closer together and more harsh!

• Close to Solid: Requires you dig your way through heavy blockage.
• Incredibly Sparse: Requires effective use of double-jump, especially with all the enemies and crap floating around
• Enemy Surge: Creates a large number of enemies (and bosses too) at once while temporarily reducing boss attacks -- if you want to survive, you'll probably have to kill a bunch of them and fast
• Attack Surge: The boss goes into overdrive, attacking much more frequently while temporarily reducing enemy spawns -- a lot of dodging will be necessary here.

Anyway, thought I'd share my train of thought with all of you; even those who will never live to see it ):


[ please note I am still considering not adding a boss at all :D ]

EDIT ::
Right now I'm thinking... well... the game does this all already!
I will probably decrease time between mini-bosses by ____? (up to half), thereby ramping up late-game difficulty much faster, and spicing up the gameplay even for the newer players who can't get as far.

(Not to say I won't still be creating some special content for really late in the game...)

EDIT EDIT EDIT ::
I have done some playing and thinking. I don't feel like I should touch spawnrate things too much, as I like the way things are now and so do other people, I think! Certainly, bosses are a bit lacking in the early game but I don't want to remove their special quality.

[Curseman]

The final boss could just be off the top part of the screen.  I don't think the reason why you die from falling off the bottom of the screen necessarily has to be explained.

If you're going to have the end boss triggered by the player levelling up, It shouldn't happen any later than level 15.  By level 12 or 13 the player ought to be more than capable of dealing with anything the game can currently throw at them.  Any further than 15 is overkill.

If you do decide to limit when the boss shows up by player level, what if you made it so upon reaching that level, a final tier of abilities that are in some way useful against the end boss is unlocked?  I don't know if it'd actually be a good idea or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Edit:

I think I need to practice a bit so I can actually reach the boss!

Also, Vanguard, what's your build order, at least for the first few upgrades?

My usual preferred build order is Star>, Stock+, Knees+, Super Star, Double Jump.

There's a lot of room for variation in there (sometimes I grab Star^, Attract, or Smash 1 as one of my first 5, sometimes I take Knees+ before Stock+, and Super Star can be replaced by Ghost Star or Stock++), but my first major goal is always to get Double Jump, which I consider to be the best ability in the game.

[mokesmoe]

Drogen: Boss ideas sound awesome.

Vanguard: There are reasons other than story to have the boss on the bottom as well. First, it lets you hit him if you don't have star^, and second, it makes it make sense when he alters the spawn rate of the blocks.
Thanks for the tips!

EDIT: How would stomp work on the boss?

[Curseman]

... New idea! At 2km or so (does that sound reasonable?)

That should be good.  I'll do a run to 2km to gauge about what level a player can expect to be at by that point.

All of your ideas sound like they'd be fun.  I'm looking forward to the next version.  Whatever you decide on, I'm sure it'll turn out great.

[droqen]

Goddamn, why am I not in bed?

Important stuff that happened today, from most important to least:

• If your game runs at 30-60 FPS, performance will drop but the "game" will still run at the same speed in terms of real time! (I feel this is really important, as it'll keep everyone on a more level playing field)
• "Leap of Faith" ability had headbutt capability added. Doesn't that sound exciting? It makes it a ton of fun to use and it completes the "melee" build. You can now punch to the sides, stomp below, and headbutt/leap-of-faith above for an all-four-directions star-free attackfest. Of course, the way they all function is quite different and in a way that I feel very pleased by!
• Brains were juiced! Ideas are flowing!
• I changed a number from 60 to 75, and now it runs more smoothly on my computer without everything going hyper-fast (due to the top point in this list). Yay!
• Switched to Pyglet 1.1.4, possibly solving some random bugs which I had no control over! (Maybe the spotty text will be fixed?)

mokesmoe: DroQen! & thank you :D // Stomp on the boss would mean you'd better have double jump -- or a platform nearby to get to! // And that's true, I don't want to make the boss too impossible to kill without Star^. It's not quite unique anymore in its ability to attack straight up, but the other up-attack ability only works well against low health enemies.

Vanguard: Looking forward to seeing 2km results, thanks! I understand the level 12-15 thing, especially since this game is somewhat focused around making your own build -- and getting to level 12 is a lot easier than getting all the way to level 20! I probably won't add another tier of abilities... but I will consider it... I'll tell you right now, though, that it's unlikely! & Thank you for the support!

I think that timing it based on distance would be interesting, because once you get 'good' enough? it would be a race against the depth timer to see how high of a level you could get, in preparation for the boss. Every lost bubble would matter a bit more.

I'm really glad that the new Attract ability is good enough to warrant being in your first 5 picked sometimes ^^


Both: Still deciding on top/bottom placement of the boss. I'll work on it tomorrow because it's like... 5 in the morning... okay, I'll work on it "later today", but I need sleep!

[Akari]

This is a nice little game, been playing it a lot recently. Got to level 15 today:



Runs pretty slow on my EEE PC 901, though... probably 20 fps or something when there's lots of stuff onscreen. Considering how simple the game is graphics-wise, the performance is honestly pretty bad. I'm kinda interested in trying how well would a simple Construct port of this run on my EEE PC... might try it myself a bit later and post the results later, if you don't mind. Obviously it'd be only for testing purposes...

But yeah, keep up the good job with the development, it's tons of fun to play this, though I have to stay that after having a taste of being super-powered, the beginning starts to feel kinda tedious. But then again, I can already get past starting point quite fast.

What do I need in order to unlock that last upgrade, by the way? And what is it?

[droqen]

Nice! & Thanks!

It's very disconcerting, actually, to see that the ability there is locked. It's supposed to be unlocked! That last one is "Vanguard Stance" which makes you entirely unaffected by stun + knockback when you take damage -- you need to have "Fighter Stance" to get it, but you do have it.

I am very likely going to port this game... into Java, someday, because it's the other main language I'm really comfortable with.

And finally, yeah, it's slow and it's honestly just because I coded it bit by bit without a plan or anything -- most of the stuff is just thrown together in there. New bits of code I added are supposed to bring it up to speed (although it's still choppy), but they're also making things work... strangely...


Whether I remake it exactly or with different details... is still up in the air.

[Curseman]

What do I need in order to unlock that last upgrade, by the way? And what is it?

Was Fighter Stance the last ability you took before you made that screenshot?  It doesn't show new abilities that you've unlocked with your previous choice until you level up again, and FS is the prerequisite for VS.

[mokesmoe]

mokesmoe: DroQen!

I did that just to see how upset you'd get. 

Really looking forward to 1.00!

[Blechy]

Fantastic game! I read this entire thread because I was really looking forward to how much the builds varied from person to person, and am INCREDIBLY surprised that some people prefer punching. I always felt that stars were the clear winner, and after trying punches in talent mode it just wasn't for me. Even stomp never really appealed to me. I am fascinated that some people prefer this route.

I've probably had about 20 solid playthroughs so far, best of which was just past 1km (2 bosses together were the death of me, I'll get you next time!)

I want to hear more talent builds! For a very long time, until my last couple playthroughs, I went:
Star^ - Stock+ - Knees+ - Stock++ - Double Jump
which I notice is similar to Vanguard's route. However, recently I've been trying the more difficult/faster leveling build of:
Star^ - Stock+ - Attract - Ghost Star - Knees+ - Double Jump

You can really progress quickly with this build, and you might have to take the damaging fall here and there but you'll never miss an enemy on the screen, so you should always have plenty of health.

As an offshoot of that, one interesting preference to me is Star^ vs Star>.  To me Star^ is the clear choice, at least for leveling purposes (rather than survivability purposes). Yes, things above you are less of a threat than things next to you, but you have so much more control over what's above you than what's next to you, meaning the game holds the control of what's vulnerable to your Star>.

Underpowered abilities:
Super Star. Worst ability in the game? And not because of the capacity limit. To double check, I think it still takes 2 hits to kill a boss with it right? Down from 3? Maybe if it 1-shotted bosses you'd want it at the 1-km mark, but I can't think of a reason why you'd want it besides then.
Smash 2. I feel when you have time to make an escape, you have enough time to spend the extra punches.
Leap of Faith. There's just no point to get this over double jump. Maybe allow it to give you immunity on its upward arc, lets you bash blocks above you, and fall immunity?
Punch+. But like I said, some people get this apparently. I sure don't get why. :D

I'd be interested in the bestiary, those kinds of things are always cool to me. Monster comments:
They're all really cool! Blobs, bugs, and spiders are a nice intro (and it's always nice to see a spider on the screen - guaranteed powerup pretty much). I love how squids are so dangerous until you understand how they work. Bats honestly are the most difficult thing for me, since their projectile shots are so unpredictable as far as I can tell. The invisible things are cool, do they not do damage to you while invisible? I'm surprised I haven't been screwed by that yet.

Boss difficulties for me:
Spider boss - totally easy, by far easiest. Easy to dodge his stuff, doesn't last long.
Drill boss - pretty easy too, but to be honest I rarely try to kill it unless I have double jump or am jumping over him simply for a path.
Thundercloud boss - Depends on how much open space is in the layout, but sometimes he'll just charge you and there's not much you can do. I'd prefer his movement speed down just a smidge. I can't quite tell how he breaks blocks... does he spurt out a random black thing randomly N/S/E/W and if there's a block in the way of the spurt it breaks?
Block shooter - By far hardest. I think it would be interesting to put that "target" symbol where its shot is going to land before it actually shoots it.

One thing I haven't been able to tell, why is it that sometimes stuff dies in 1 hit and sometimes in 2? Such as star blocks. it makes it frustrating when I 1-shot a star block and then kill its sweet treasure with a second star immediately after.

Cool music, I'm going to have to be exception and say the boss alarm really drills a hole in my brain... even hours after I stop playing.

You mentioned adjusting the spawn rates on plants... those have no effect on playstyle, merely aesthetic right?

And lastly if I might ask (couldn't find it), where are you from Droqen? You have a unique way of speaking which makes me want to say Europe...

I think that's it, I came back to writing this post over the course of several hours. Whew. Thanks again for a great game!

[Akari]

It's very disconcerting, actually, to see that the ability there is locked. It's supposed to be unlocked! That last one is "Vanguard Stance" which makes you entirely unaffected by stun + knockback when you take damage -- you need to have "Fighter Stance" to get it, but you do have it.

Well, Fighter Stance was the last powerup I took, so it being locked is explained by that. Nice to know what it is anyway!

My usual starting upgrade order is Punch+ -> Knees+, after which it varies which one I go for next. Usually it'll be either Smash, Stomp or Stock+. Each are useful in their own way. Knees+ is basically a prerequisite for easy living, which is why I always get it second.

Also, to Blechy about underpowered upgrades:
Super star is VERY useful - with it, you can kill most enemies with one star instead of two (or three). There's only one enemy besides the bosses that requires two stars instead of one, the three-eyed jumping thing. Combine super star with Ghost Star and Stock++ (or even just Stock+, changes are you won't run out of stars anyway), and you have one hell of a star assault in your hands.
Smash 2 - You can also punch spikes with it, which doesn't even cause damage if you have the spike hugging ability. More movement freedom.
Leap of Faith I agree with - it's probably the worst ability in the game as it is. Though when Droqen adds headbutt to it it'll probably be a bit more useful.
Punch+ is required in order to get super punch which gives you one-shot kill against any enemy in the game. It's worth getting just for that.

[mokesmoe]

Punch+ is good for the same reason Super Star is good.
But you don't like that either so whatever. But I got ninja'd so whatever.

[droqen]

I'm not sure why, but I just get this really nice feeling inside when I punch or stomp or headbutt an enemy. Punch+ and Power Punch both increase not only damage (the latter, indeed, is a one-hit kill on anything) but also attack area. I also like them because they are unlimited without having to purchase Stock abilities (although Stock+ frequently feels like enough for me) -- meaning I have more space to buy other abilities.

Hint when using punch: If you're moving while you punch, the horizontal range is increased.

I find I agree with you on Star^ versus Star>, but that may just be because I'm used to using punch a lot -- so Star> seems like less of a big addition because I can just punch enemies. There's also the fact that, well, the screen is a lot taller than it is wide!

Super Star: 200% damage, 50% capacity, bigger star.
What Daiz and mokesmoe are both saying is right; there's also the fact that getting star pickups have, effectively, twice the value. +2 stars with regular stars = 2 damage. +2 stars with super stars = 4 damage.

Smash 2: I found myself thinking the same way about this, to some extent; although it does let you break your way through even very thick walls, it seemed lacking, so I added the spike block breaking capability. Nothing gets in your way with Smash 2!

Leap of Faith: Again, agreement. Headbutt ability probably doesn't put it that much higher, but I think this ability is just a lot of fun. It's supposed to be a little underpowered; it is the only Tier 5 ability without a prerequisite.

---

The Spider boss is a tiny bit tougher now, but I think I like it as it is :]

The "Thundercloud" boss causes little explosions to occur, randomly, around him. Every little 'pop' you see in the air is a damaging point, if just for a fraction of a second. Blocks can be worn down quickly by a few of these. He does move quickly; if you don't have any warning, it can be tough to fight one; however, he's the most fragile of the bosses and is rarely a danger once he's above you (at which point Star^ should be able to handle him without too much difficulty). You will not want to try regular down-aimed star toss on him, though. Star> works if he lands on the same level as you; as does punching but you'll want to do it quickly (or you might get hurt by the aforementioned explosions).

The Drill was the first boss I created, and had a hell of a lot of fun as he chased me around. He's got a lot of health, and his drill is invincible (you need to hit the head) but he's probably the most limited in terms of movement and danger to you.

The block shooter is definitely a pain to fight, especially since his little bombs can block your stars. I may or may not alter him...

---

That's a bug ): one I've been trying to fix, too, as I've run into the exact same problem you're describing there.

Goddamn I love that siren.

Just aesthetic, that's right.

No Europe! Though I've been there (once and just for a week). I hail from Toronto (Ontario, Canada, etc)! I do use "British English" -- i.e. 'colour', 'favourite', 'armour' (and it's a pain when spellcheckers decide I should be spelling things differently). Interesting to hear I have a "unique way of speaking", though! I've never heard that before.

And, finally, you're welcome! I'm so very very glad I could finally bring a good game out.

---

Oh, one more thing: Yay, Daiz uses Punch+! I was starting to wonder if anyone who could get fairly deep would use Punch. Still, I knew lots of people liked the punch abilities, and I think it's great that there is such disagreement :3

(It's good to know that locked Stance ability bug is not really a bug after all)

---

mokesmoe, why you trollin' me about my name D:<
(Not actually upset , I was more surprised and wondering why you spelled it wrong because I thought you knew)

The Heads-Up on NEW IDEAS
As Probability 0 has no tutorial or explanation beyond the basic controls (i.e. it's left up to you to figure out how enemies work, how blocks react) and as bosses appear their little specifics are never shared with you...
The boss may end up being an extension of "What the HELL is going on here".

I will not stray from my goal of, ah, making every ability important against the boss -- as in, it will test your ability to make use of whatever abilities you've collected.

But just a taste of what I'm mulling over:

• Time Envelope; The player's every movement will be slowed. When you jump, you walk, you fight, everything will happen more slowly when this is active.
• High Gravity; The player's personal gravity is increased as though his mass were multiplied. Regular jumps are much less effective, double jumps will allow you to bring regular jumps close to regular effectiveness... and consider this a bit of an artificial boost of the usefulness of the Leap of Faith ability.

When these are invoked, there may be an effect or message, but nothing will be explained. My plans are to create a bunch of these. It will be obvious that something has happened but in general the boss will be screwing around with the way things work.
(other stuff may include altering scroll speed, spawn rates, and so forth)

[mokesmoe]

Responses, in order:
Physically killing enemies does feel nice.
Didn't know about the longer punch range while moving. Useful.
One of the downsides of Star^ is that it's harder to get bubbles from above you. Attract fixes this though.

I find the spider boss the hardest, but thats because I usually play a more physical build. The drill is easy to stomp.

I like the siren as well. I really like how well the different parts blend together when they come in.
I'm pretty sure colour and armour are the official Canadian way of spelling them too. Crazy Americans.

I actually thought of doing it on purpose, then changed my mind cause it was a stupid idea, but I guess I forgot to change it back. Hehe.

Boss messing with you sounds cool.


Also: I didn't know the star blocks game you bubbles! When I first saw them, I started a talent game, got smash 2, punched it and nothing happened. I  then just assumed that they were just indestructible blocks.
Now I see this:

it makes it frustrating when I 1-shot a star block and then kill its sweet treasure with a second star immediately after.

Specifically this part:

I 1-shot a star block and then kill its sweet treasure

More specifically these four words:

star block ... sweet treasure

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Curseman]

In my last 2 km run, I ended up at level 13.  I had just about (but not quite) every ability I cared about for the build I was running, so I think that's a good stopping point.  I think it's be okay to do it earlier than that if you wanted, but do it much later and every character becomes exactly the same.

Underpowered abilities:
Super Star. Worst ability in the game?

No way, Super Star is great.  The squids and the wall-hanging monsters are two of the hardest regular enemies to deal with, and both of them die in one hit to Super Stars.  I would also argue that it actually makes you less likely to run out of stars, since more kills leads to more star pickups, and even though your capacity is halved, each shot only uses one of your stars, so a +10 stars pickup still gives you 10 Super Stars.

Smash 2. I feel when you have time to make an escape, you have enough time to spend the extra punches.

Not always.  Smash 2 isn't as necessary as Smash 1, but it's definitely useful.

Leap of Faith. There's just no point to get this over double jump. Maybe allow it to give you immunity on its upward arc, lets you bash blocks above you, and fall immunity?
Punch+.

I kind of agree, but it sounds like work is being done to make this a bit more of an attractive option.  Its biggest problem isn't that it's bad per se, it's that it overlaps with Double Jump, and Double Jump is (arguably) the best ability in the game.

I have a suggestion that might help bring the two a bit more in line with each other: make Stomp a prerequisite for Double Jump.  One of the only advantages Leap of Faith has over Double Jump is that the latter has a prerequisite, but Knees+ is valuable enough that most players would take it even without it being a prerequisite for DJ.  Maybe if DJ had two prerequisites, LoF would be a bit more of an attractive option.

[ChaoSpectre]

Wow. I tried to read through the thread a bit because I was looking for something specific, but I gave up and I'll address it here. This sounds like it would have been a blast to have been involved in the development.

This is a great game, and I find myself sinking spare break times into it. And I'm especially excited by the fact that you're still having great ideas to incorporate.

I find myself wishing that the screen were slightly bigger. Not play area, just the scale. Just a minor quip.

The thing I was looking for and will now mention is something I notice after not too long into any given play session. After a while... text and numbers are all replaced with '...-' or similar gibberish. Is this a memory leak issue? I'm running on Windows 7, and my computer should be more than enough to run this wonderful game without issue. I suggest a memory leak because gameplay sometimes slows down after a while when compared to a freshly opened game.

Otherwise, great music, great aesthetic, and great fun. I'm reminded of Pixelante's Falling Forever and Hunted Forever. I'm torn between completely digging the minimalism and wishing there were something to tie everything together, like a superfluous story arc or a "malevolent AI companion." I do think the minimalism is doing its job smashingly, though.

Good luck with the rest of the development.

[mokesmoe]

I have a suggestion that might help bring the two a bit more in line with each other: make Stomp a prerequisite for Double Jump.  One of the only advantages Leap of Faith has over Double Jump is that the latter has a prerequisite, but Knees+ is valuable enough that most players would take it even without it being a prerequisite for DJ.  Maybe if DJ had two prerequisites, LoF would be a bit more of an attractive option.

Seems like a lame way of balancing it. And I know that in the next build, I'm gonna love Headbutting things.


Wait no! I have a better idea! Switch spots with Stomp and then give Stomp infinite stomps! 


And I got ninja'd.
The dots issue has been known for a while, he's trying to fix it.

[Parthon]

Finally played the game this weekend. Totally awesome.

It's quite brutal though at the start. Definately a game which focusses on teaching the player how to play properly instead of nursing him to mediocrity.

All in all, brilliant. 

[Curseman]

Seems like a lame way of balancing it. And I know that in the next build, I'm gonna love Headbutting things.

I'm not saying that the headbutt thing shouldn't be in, I'm just saying that Double Jump is overpowered, but I'd rather see it require more of a skill point investment to get than see it get weakened.