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[Melly]

I believe the game should have been called "Billy Bob and the Temple of Aaaaarrugh".

And then I'm killed with rocks for an overused reference.

EDIT: Gave the game a chance. I imagine there's no way to attack the enemies, so I feel those snakes are in too great numbers and it's very difficult to avoid them, if it's even possible.

The graphics look amazing, and I like the Prince of Persia feel to the controls.

I was hurt just by touching the pillars on the side when they were on the ground. I should only be hurt by them if they crushed me.

I got to the leap of faith, then the game showed an area with water but my character was gone and nothing happened.

Overall it's really promissing and I hope someone takes the game and finishes it.

[Tadakuni Amano]

I believe the game should have been called "Billy Bob and the Temple of Aaaaarrugh".

And then I'm killed with rocks for an overused reference.

EDIT: Gave the game a chance. I imagine there's no way to attack the enemies, so I feel those snakes are in too great numbers and it's very difficult to avoid them, if it's even possible.

The graphics look amazing, and I like the Prince of Persia feel to the controls.

I was hurt just by touching the pillars on the side when they were on the ground. I should only be hurt by them if they crushed me.

I got to the leap of faith, then the game showed an area with water but my character was gone and nothing happened.

Overall it's really promissing and I hope someone takes the game and finishes it.

The controls will be hopefully be clarified by the person who takes the game next. You can pick up rocks from the piles of rocks with C and then press C again to throw the rock at the closest enemy and kill it.

The big pillars will have spikes on the edges of them in the future as well. For now they're just placeholder graphics.

Also the area with water should not mark the end of the game. There are still two more levels after that. I guess you might have encountered another one of those bugs that occurs during the transition from level 1 to 2. I might clean those up tonight, but that's probably the last I'll be doing.

If you try again and just walk off the side rather than jump, hopefully your character will appear in the next area.

[ArmchairArmada]

A lot of people seem to be dropping out late in development.  Even though I am far over the deadline and still have A LOT left to do I figured I will still keep working on Ooze a little bit each day.  There are currently five games free, so I would not really be stealing anyone else's opportunity to work on something.  If people keep quitting this project will never be completed.  I say forget the deadline, do whatever needs to be done, and keep working on it a little at a time.  But that's just my opinion.

[Tadakuni Amano]

I fixed up the level switching glitch with a quick but not too clean fix. There should be no more bugs unless they were intentional (Like the collision event with the skeleton that will automatically warp the player to the next level).

[hamburger]

Really enjoyed this, quite a fun set of mechanics, really charming little game.

One really really minor thing, I understood pressing Escape was supposed to take you back to the main menu. I know you explain how to quit out if you do press escape but I think it would be nice if that was consistent across all the final games. Will be annoying if each game does it their own way.

Thanks man, I'm glad you enjoyed it. There's a lot more I wanted to do, but I guess that's always the case.

Have most games actually been implementing Escape this way, quit to front screen? I think I remember there being some inconclusive discussion about this before. The problem is that people complained about accidentally losing progress, plus it seems awkward (and un-NES-like) not to have a pause key. If I were to follow the proscribed scheme, I would be tempted to add an option to the front screen - "restart last level played." Whatever the consensus is, I'll adhere Bits 'N Pieces to it.

[hamburger]

Your Bits and Pieces is pretty cute! I played it for quite a while, but I find it too difficult and frustrating to get very far through...

Sorry about the difficulty. I guess player movement is extremely hair-triggerish. After spending a long time fooling around with the basic locomotion, I decided that these wild, slightly floaty and ultra-responsive leaps make for the most interesting gameplay, supportive of my vision of steering through clouds of enemies. But it's extreme. I might try globally slowing down the game. Do you think that might help?

I'm not seeing a lot of resemblance to the original game though, could you clarify that for me?

As a gamer and developer I'm very abstract and analytical, so for me the remaking process was naturally more about analyzing and expanding on the gameplay mechanics than developing the original's story, setting, or visuals.

Playing the original, the only faint hints of fulfilling gameplay that I encountered were the moments when the player needs to not just blindly jump forward, but actually steer his jumps backward to avoid a crowd of marching enemies.

Strategic jumping in crowds.

I took this concept and expanded it as far as I could. For more complex jumps I made the fov much larger, gave the player crazy powerful jumps with precision controls, and added enemies to fill up the sky instead of just the foot soldiers. The original vision was a platformer bullet hell, where you're jumping through patterned clouds of enemies.

Visually, the original had two level palettes, the gray rocky dismal one and the green grassy happy one. I went with the same two paradigms, starting happy and green, and getting progressively darker and less colorful and more ominous as the game goes on. (The original goes the other way, from grey to green, then it loops back to level 1.)

Story/setting, well, I tried to maintain a creepiness in the atmosphere. Instead of the scary purple and green monsters, I made creepy little mysterious things.

Also I riffed on the game title. The game is all about the bits and pieces that make up our bodies and our souls. Those of humans and those of the hive.
As the bird consciousness puts it, "Your bits are neurons and muscles; my bits are bird brains and feathers."

[L]

THEY CAME
the space shooter with an unfortunate name,
is now done.

WINDOWS BUILD V1.3

Thanks to easyname for the music, and the #pigscene guys for bugtesting!

Quick questions:
* Are you supposed to be able to fly off the top left corner of the screen and be invincible for the entire game? I think not.
* Do the powerups really do anything?

[deathtotheweird]

In Bits and Pieces it's a frankenstein-type (I think) figure being attacked in a graveyard by werewolves, skeletons and swamp things.  

I think the goal was to remake the games into better versions of themselves. Even though Critical Bypass was a major remake, I can still see the original's influence. When I play Bits and Pieces, I don't see that. I see no connection to the original in your remake. Not a bad game, but do you think it would be appropriate for the goal of this project?

[Dragonmaw]

Billy Bob felt like it needed more fluid jumping. That was my main complaint while playing it. Otherwise, it was pretty awesome!

Neon, you should keep working on Meong. It looks awesome!

[Nate Kling]

I vote for neon to stay working on his game as well!    Sorry you had a rough time with some people here but its not all bad.  It does sound pretty harsh for being banned for such an arbitrary and irrelevant rule.  I don't even quite get how zelda is a meme or why it matters but anyways please stay and finish!

[Pishtaco]

Storm over the Desert: http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1277020693

I still need to put in the music, but otherwise I think we're done. I made the beginning of the game slightly easier. The delay when playing back mp3s in flash sucks.

[Dragonmaw]

Storm over the Desert: http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1277020693

I still need to put in the music, but otherwise I think we're done. I made the beginning of the game slightly easier. The delay when playing back mp3s in flash sucks.

The delay at the start or in general? The delay in general can be fixed by setting an MP3 to stream instead of just play. Delay at start is a loading issue.

As for your game, it has a really awesome concept, the art is fantastic and amazing, and I love the whole formation deal. It does get a little boring after a while, though. I started losing interest a few minutes in, and only stuck with it to see if the enemies changed. I was only really engaged immediately before the fortress where you destroy the robot head. Still, I think it's amazing. Up until after you destroy the second wall, though, is just so tedious.

[Pishtaco]

The delay at the start or in general? The delay in general can be fixed by setting an MP3 to stream instead of just play. Delay at start is a loading issue.

My problem is that I want, say, the firing sound to start at the moment that you press the key. But the mp3 sound was created by Audacity, which introduces a short silence at the start. I also get the impression that flash can introduce some delay each time (although I may have misunderstood this).

[Dragonmaw]

My problem is that I want, say, the firing sound to start at the moment that you press the key. But the mp3 sound was created by Audacity, which introduces a short silence at the start. I also get the impression that flash can introduce some delay each time (although I may have misunderstood this).

Curiously, I've never had this issue with Audacity. What OS are you using, and what version of Audacity? Flash can indeed cause delay, although you can alleviate (or eliminate) this by adding a preloader if it is online. Does it delay in HDD playback, or only through browser? Also, see above post edit for feedback on the gameplay.

[Pishtaco]

As for your game, it has a really awesome concept, the art is fantastic and amazing, and I love the whole formation deal. It does get a little boring after a while, though. I started losing interest a few minutes in, and only stuck with it to see if the enemies changed. I was only really engaged immediately before the fortress where you destroy the robot head. Still, I think it's amazing. Up until after you destroy the second wall, though, is just so tedious.

Thanks very much for the feedback. The art is by unsilentwill.

I kind of agree about the feel of the game. The last part with the waves of tanks feels like silly, wacky action, while the rest ends up a bit slow and empty. The idea is that it should be fun just to navigate around obstacles, but this doesn't quite come off. I wonder if this could be fixed just by changing the tone of the game, with music or with, say, text taunts from Saddam.

[Pishtaco]

Curiously, I've never had this issue with Audacity. What OS are you using, and what version of Audacity? Flash can indeed cause delay, although you can alleviate (or eliminate) this by adding a preloader if it is online. Does it delay in HDD playback, or only through browser? Also, see above post edit for feedback on the gameplay.

It's audacity 1.3.12 on Windows 7. Probably what's relevant is the version of Lame, which I don't know but which should be recent. I made it in FlashDevelop with flixel, and have only tested it in the debug flash player - not sure what you mean by HDD playback. The sounds are all embedded.

What happens is - take a 44100 Hz project in audacity, and export it as an mp3. If you then open the mp3, there's 0.05 seconds of silence added at the start (although the delay in the game feels like more than this).

[increpare]

Pishtaco, I really like the feel of the game (though I'm finding it pretty damned hard).

[L]

Storm over the Desert: http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1277020693

I still need to put in the music, but otherwise I think we're done. I made the beginning of the game slightly easier. The delay when playing back mp3s in flash sucks.

Nice. One final suggestion: mention in the opening text that the tanks' machine guns automatically fire on infantry.

[Perrin]

Pishtaco, I really like the feel of the game (though I'm finding it pretty damned hard).

I echo this sentiment, really like it but very hard. Not that to me that's a criticism.


I'm now currently pondering whether or not to pick up one of the other spare games now Critical Bypass is done. But do something in 2D I could finish in 1 week rather than 4. Guess I should have a look what's available and see if I could find one that inspires me.

EDIT: Currently uploading Critical Bypass v1.2, with some more feedback changes:
- firing time shortened, and made framerate independent (oops!)
- some unfair cannons removed, some moved and some scaled up
- player health increased
- firing window enlarged (so you should be able to grab the purple things swinging left)
- cannon lasers changed to same colour as monster lasers for player feedback consistancy

[Dragonmaw]

Given the treatment you gave Critical Bypass, Perrin, I'd be excited to see your take on Megalonia. Just my 2 cents