Hey Marty, we haven't heard back from you or your project. What gives?

Any new demo with this preview? The art has become noticably more...detailed.

Where's the new demo Marty?

This is heavy...

Actually, I thought the initial number of mooks before the first attack was okay. It's every successive attempt after you fail to lure its tongue on the pit that seems annoying, since you have to go through a whole wave of them again.

I propose every 2 mooks after a failed strike. When it reaches the second phase, make it spit out 6 mooks once again and then attempt to hit you with only two goons for each failed attempt.

I'm playing this game right now! I love how everything is so utterly and delightfully contrived! And the sprite animation....

(Finally beat the boss: Just to let you know, the camera is excellent as well. I hardly noticed it during the boss fight, but the forwarned tracking is really, really helpful for those annoying critters.)

Cannot...wait! Feel so envious at your dedication and progress.

I think I might have spotted a glitch at the start of the intro sequence: You know the cars passing by? Well, the street grates seem to be on the foreground more than on the background, since the cars just pass right through them!

I love the artstyle! Love how you got the scarf/cape right on the couch.

My frothing demand for this game increases...

[sound's mostly mono]

I...I-I....DAWWWWWWWWW'D

Also I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it's something to bring up:

-Maybe he's aware and maybe he isn't, but the sound's mostly mono.  The jump sound effect is fine, but things like music, sword swings, and gem pickup noise only come out of the left speaker.  When only listening with speakers it's probably not a big deal, but since I wear headphones it's really noticable for me.

Gya... The Story Mode is soo....   Elina is cute.

Edit: Only qualm is the ladder. Once you climb it you should fall down again. It's worse than Castlevania's stairs...

Edit 2: Nice touch on the plant enemy.

Also from a member at the MM Boards:

It's coming along nicely! I still think the dive move is a bit cumbersome, but no point in going over that again. If he likes it that way, good for him.

The grappling/zip line thing is different. I don't want to say it's bad, because once I figured out what it was doing I managed to get it more consistently. but it definitely takes some getting used to that might interfere with the fun of using it. My first instinct was to try to time the button press so that the line would be fully extended at the peak of the jump, but that resulted in the line extending way lower. Then I realized that all I had to do was press the button right at the peak and it worked fine. It's an interesting take, but I think if he's going to do it that way, the line needs to extend very fast (almost instantly) to avoid looking like it requires any timing.

The underwater air meter is still a bit unnoticable. I drowned because I didn't realize I was in trouble. Turning red is good, but it still needs a danger sound or something to add a bit of urgency. Or maybe have him start taking life damage when air is gone?

It seems you can't hold walk and jump. I could have sworn it worked before, and it would be a bit useful in making short jumps that don't overshoot things (such as that one on the left edge of the stage).

Otherwise, I like a lot of what's going on here. The bullet bouncing is neat; he should consider adding some downward aiming as well.

So it's now a Zip Hook. I'm still troubled by the fact that you can't aim it completely vertically upward while jumping.

Guess what Marty. It seems to load faster now. In longer feels bogged down like in the other 2 versions prior to this.

The grapling hook does need some fixing (such as the momentum while swining Bionic Commando style) but I feel it will work in the end. One thing I'm bothered is that the grappling release is always associated with the jump button and is a bit of a hassle for people wanting to just drop down. I'll see what my folks at MM Boards have to say.

I also have the black screen problem. What version of Game Maker is this?

I'm using Game Maker 8. Maybe it's because I'm using a surface? Here, try using the No Surfaces version.

Does Game Maker 7 also have surfaces?

Great build so far. Keep up the great work.

I how you fixed the underwater rebound thing with the Puff (the older build made the Adventurer bounce opposite of what he was attacking under certain conditions. I'm still trying to narrow which conditions they are).

Tried out this latest build and I noticed once while in the water, trying to spinattack a yellow puff in a corner, that I made a sudden high-speed "bounce" to the other side after hitting it. I'm still trying to recreate how I did that, but so far the rest look solid.

Oh, and I like the scarf much better now. Although a few sticklers:

• It'd be nice if the hero/Ralph does an action like slashing in a statinary position, the scarf doesn't remain pointed downward.
• The same idea when he keeps running on a wall. Either the scarf remains flowing or he stops his jogging animation when touching it.

Edit: Wow, didn't realize new post. Nice sprites!

Edit 2: I think I might have a redesign idea on that bird of paradise idea if it isn't too late.

Is the latest build up for download? I'm excited!

[USB pad support would be nice.]

About the stomping- Double Tapping the down button feels fine to me. If some people are having trouble doing it, would increasing the window of time for pressing the button a second time help?

It might have to do more with "accidental activation" (since Down is also linked with interacting with objects). You can, for example, activate the sign post and reset while trying to stomp the Puff monster. I think its more for balance than convenience.

I can wait to see what they say, though...

Edit: Stuff they said...

I don't think double tapping is hard, it's more of an accessibility thing. Some people find double tapping hard. It's OK if it's double press down though.

It's not that the motion itself is hard, but the motion combined with the gravity of jumping.

For example, if you're standing right next to an enemy you want to stomp, doing a forward jump and immediate stomp on it is a bit laboring because it takes three button presses (one long hold to position him above the enemy and two quick presses to get him to stomp), and by then you're past the peak of the jump so you'll probably end up hitting or bouncing off the enemy before it comes out. IMHO a move like that is only ideal if you can do it without too much effort at the peak of the jump, at least.

Edit: But it could be that I'm just not used to playing games on a keyboard. USB pad support would be nice.

The demo looks good! Nice pixelart. I unfortunately can't run executables on this machine so I can only give impressions from what I'm seeing, so please take my comments without much seriousness.

1- I agree with Gojira about the text wrapping-- it needs to be preprocessed.

2- The screen seems to constantly re-center vertically whereever there's enough stage data to do so. For example, when you're under the Puppetmaster or at the right side of the stage with the pink house, almost half the screen gets filled up with the ground. Also because of that, the screen shakes vertically when you get hit at some areas of the stage, while it doesn't at some others.

For the latter part of #2, there's a few very easy ways to prevent that, like prohibiting vertical scrolling unless the character hops/falls for more than a designated amount of pixels.

Other than that, it's just some aesthetics that needs completion. BTW, love that paddle-ball.

Oh, and I also tried the areal combos thing. Pretty neat, although it would be nice an manageble if enemies can be juggled upwards to take advantage of it. 2D Devil May Cry? Hmmm...  

Tried your latest build. Some comments:

• Scarf isn't flowy enough, especially in water. It also looks more like a string instead of a scarf...(I suggest you make it look like it's fluttering up and down while you move, and make it more than just one pixel in width.)
• When Ralph's head reaches the edge of the water's surface, it should begin to splash. Instead sometimes when he's swimming it seems like he's still floating above water. Speaking of which...
• Bubbles while in water (your previous engine had this)
• I still find it odd that his idle animation while in water is still the pingpong paddle and...
• He just plops to the ground instead of going through his spinning death routine when he suffucates in the water during his idle animation.

Edit: Looks like F9 does screencap and F4 does fullscreen. I also noticed there was a Dark Cavern ogg file in the music folder and some Item Get themes. Are they suppose to be cued?