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[droqen]

Whoa what really o: only level 2 by that point?

KILL MOOORE

The first boss doesn't appear for quite some time! D: (they ramp up quickly after that though)

[mokesmoe]

I'm usually 3 by that point. If I'm lucky I'll be at 4, if I'm unlucky I'll be at 2. (Also to make sure were on the same page I'm going by points earned so I'm counting the start as 0)

Also sometimes I'll spend my third point on rank up.

[droqen]

dread bells: a new deep-game enemy

How do these guys look?
They will seriously mess you up, and the only safe way to deal with them is via stars.
Also, once they mess you up, it makes using stars somewhat more difficult/risky.

//

Gotcha. Hmmmm
Killing enemies is a really important thing--even if you deal with the first boss (or even if it runs away), things ramp up pretty quickly!

Should I make it really clear that killing things is important, and then maybe make it a little more important even, or should I focus on allowing more pacifistic methods to work better?

(The way bosses are now, you definitely have to devote at least a point if not two to abilities which will be boss-effective (all of the abilities are useful even against non-bosses, of course).)

[droqen]

somehow... something's wrong with this picture. i can't quite place what.

New enemy added (not pictured).
I think that I'm pretty okay with where I'm leaving the current roster of enemies!
(Until three months from now, when P0 continues to be unreleased and I think up a whole new tier. Awesome.)

What I need to figure out: MEGA EASY MODE. Super Bunny Hill mode. I'm thinking I need to water down the selection of enemies a whole bunch, which means creating a separate SpawnDeck just for easymode. Dang it.
(I might even limit easy mode to the first three tiers! Scary. Or even give it... its own levelup structure??? eek but no. that wouldn't prepare anyone for anything, ever!)

Oh, also, I need an easier "try again" button. Actually, in general:

I need to work on the post-mortem menu, because right now there ain't one.

P.S. The screenshot above is kinda showing off full-screen mode, which is cool. I like playing P0 fullscreened.

Note to self: ALSO, SOUND EFFECTS FOR THE NEW ENEMY ARE REQUIRED. SOMETHING LIKE MAKING A FART NOISE WITH YOUR MOUTH A.K.A. A "RASPBERRY" (listen. it makes sense. i swear.)

[mokesmoe]

AHHHH what's wrong with that picture! The game's supposed to be taller than wide! And why is the word "level" upside down compared to the scores! And those bubbles look odd for some reason! And why am I yelling‽

[wademcgillis]

  Looking forward to this.

AHHHH what's wrong with that picture! The game's supposed to be taller than wide! And why is the word "level" upside down compared to the scores! And those bubbles look odd for some reason! And why am I yelling‽

Because you're on a zip line!

[BlueSweatshirt]

Note to self: ALSO, SOUND EFFECTS FOR THE NEW ENEMY ARE REQUIRED. SOMETHING LIKE MAKING A FART NOISE WITH YOUR MOUTH A.K.A. A "RASPBERRY" (listen. it makes sense. i swear.)

Chiptune chuckle!

Btw you guys, you're going to hate Droqen and this game once you figure out what made the screen change that way.

[droqen]

Thanks, Wade :D
mokesmoe this game loves you.
to death.

Jakman yessss it's true. all the things he says are true

-----------------

BEGINNER MODE now tells you things like

kill this, get this, and NO STARS LEFT! floating in various places alongside the blinking "HEY PRESS SPACE OR ENTER" whenever you have a level up ready.

'kill this' and 'get this' vanish after you've killed/got enough, respectively (kill three enemies and 'kill this' goes away for the rest of the dive)

I've noticed a lot of people:

1. Don't realize that killing enemies is important (which it totally is)
b) Don't realize that grabbing bubbles is important (ditto)

2. Don't notice the item queue (there's going to be a message to draw attention to it too)

3. Don't realize that there's a star count until they're out and then they get very confused (so: when you're at 3 or fewer stars, it tells you and draws attention to the star count).

4. Basically everyone doesn't figure out the non-intuitive levelup stuff, so BEGINNER MODE forces you to pay attention by means of a blinking yellow notification (at the top of the screen). It also freezes the game right at the beginning; you start with 1 level point to spend in beginner (as opposed to normal, in which you start with 0 but the first bubble you pick up is a level) which you are forced to spend immediately. Lovely.

-----------------

"BUT IT'S PROBABLY CLUTTERED"

It's way cluttered, and a little handy.
And, of course, it's why NORMAL MODE exists (as well as ORTOSLONAUT! and possibly more in the future). It has none of these annoying (and/or helpful) reminders cluttering your screen or your brain.

There is not going to be anything that talks about:

1. Score

2. Depth

3. Health (except for the little tooltip for the healing pickup when it's next in the queue)

[mokesmoe]

"Probability this game loves you:"

[droqen]

<3






it's 0

[droqen]

Q has replaced ESC now.

The problem with ESC is how it interacts with full-screen flash (i.e. it un-full-screens it)

MORE SCREENSHOTS:

[mokesmoe]

Doesn't full-screening flash limit the buttons you can press to arrows and space though?

[droqen]

Apparently not!



Bwahhh
I was loving that vertical build until mr. lightningboots boss came and destroyed my shit >:(



Decided to time approximately how long one round of P0 lasts:

5 minutes to get to a little past the first boss landmark (didn't manage to kill it, but it lingered for a while). Made it to 386.1 smoots (a bit longer than the Harvard Bridge! yay wikipedia)
It's nice that it doesn't take a long time to get to the point where I die.

[mokesmoe]

What? I was just playing a different flash game that did! I was reading a devlog of someone trying to avoid that problem and couldn't! And then you're all like "Nope! Works fine!" And your devlog makes me want to type exclamation marks apparently!

Also that time sounds about right compared to the old version.  (or !)

[droqen]

I'm talking about a locally fullscreen flash game, however, and not... uh, I mean, maybe that person was trying to do a fullscreen in-browser flash game and fullscreen in-browser flash games have that problem? I DUNNO!


!!!

[mokesmoe]

Oh. Yes. That would be correct.

[droqen]

Coming soon: A public demo playtest version with only "BEGINNER MODE".

I prome.

[mokesmoe]

Prome   [prohm]
noun
a city in central Burma, on the Irrawaddy River: location of several noted pagodas. 40,000.

It's also Spanish for average, Catalan for promising, Galician for promo, Hungarian for promoters, Latin for merit, Norwegion for promenade, and Welsh for Drome.

The sentence "I prome." translated from Catalan means "And promising." which kind of works aside from the grammar because the demo does sound promising.

"I prome." translated from Norwegion mean "In the promenade." Which is still not a technically complete sentence, although it is something one could say in normal speech. It also could refer to the game, as the level is kind of like a vertical promenade. Although the game is pretty hectic normally, this is "BEGINNER MODE" where it may be more like a casual stroll.


So there we go. After some research and digging, The sentence "I prome." is referring to the casual nature of the demo version you are going to put out.



Or maybe you just shortened "promise", but why would you do that when you could just type the extra 2 letters?

[droqen]

mokesmoe what what what D: oh god. That was an intense ride right there. I'm not sure what words even mean any more.

I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to prome you, my freind.

[mokesmoe]

And that is how conspiracy theories work. It's possible to make anything mean something if you try hard enough.

I just wanted to prome you, my freind.