Quests, save scumming & game updates!

Quests

I’ve been working on adding in means of acquiring more money in the game, as there are some fun things to spend it on. 

To do this I’ve added in some additional quests and areas that can be explored but aren’t necessarily needed to progress the main story/complete the game. Exploration is a big part of the game and I want there to be plenty to discover for the curious who aren’t just firing through to completion.

These quests can also be tied up with decisions, for example a quest has been added that involves speaking to a character on the first planet, which won’t be possible if you chose to… dispatch them. Another new location you can visit won’t be the same depending on decisions made earlier in the game (giving one of two possible quests), which should all add up for a good amount of replay value.

Saving

I’ve been known to save scum, I’ll admit it! Going as far back to keeping my finger in Fighting Fantasy books and turning the pages right back if the potion the wizened imp gave me turned out to be deadly, no thanks! Playing Fallout 2? I wonder what would happen if I attacked this pers… uhoh—RELOAD.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, when I need to stop playing a game, for example that RL task I’ve been shirking needs doing, I want to be able to save and switch it off right then. Finding a campfire or leaving the game paused isn’t always ideal in adult life.

For that reason, it was really important for me to have an in game menu that let me save anywhere, anytime, even if that did cause a lot of minor development issues, it’s how I like to play. I had this in my very first game (Tales of Monsterland) and it’s in Fall from Space.

However, I received some feedback, probably a year or two ago at this point, that just having the option to save anywhere can feel like a chore for some people who might take it as far as to feel the need to save before every fight (or jump!).

So with the addition of difficulty modes (see last dev blog), I’ve got a chance to implement a different solution for these people, and for those who want a little more challenge –

Easy & Normal mode

Save anywhere!*

Hard & Fallen mode

Save only in safe locations, towns or on board your ship **

*There are a very few locations where you can’t save, due to the in game menu locking, during Boss fights and other areas which otherwise would cause complications. To keep this in universe, I pretend this is due to ‘environmental conditions’ in these areas, but I assume no one is fooled.

**As a rule of thumb, if you’re in platformer/action mode, you can’t save without teleporting to your ship or visiting a non action/topdown location first.

Combat and collisions

After dealing with the fiddliness of Game Boy collisions, knock back etc, by having simple close combat in Tales of Monsterland, I swore Fall from Space would just use projectile attacks, to save the many hassles and complications it brought about. I didn’t actually stick to this for longer than a week, but I can see why older Game Boy games didn’t use multiple hits or knock back/solid type enemies. 

There’s been more work on tightening this all up and I think it’s coming together well, the projectiles used in combat have been reworked, which is tricky because of the limitations of how many unique ones can be used across the game, but it’s all feeling a lot more solid than before. In addition minor bugs have been fixed.

This has made it into the latest build of the demo, along with improvements such as –

• Hitting the start menu freezes the player animation, no more running man
• Projectile shooting enemies range increased significantly to account for the extra screen real estate ‘look ahead’ added
• All 12 secret disks now hidden (each unlock Game Boy printer artwork)
• Added in some secret secrets that I don’t think have ever been in a Game Boy game before…
• Impact sprite (also improved) now doesn’t follow player if quickly rolling or stepping back! It sticks to enemy rather than player's fist
• Enemies attack animation is less interrupted by the player attacking at the same time
• Getting hit in close combat while facing away from the enemy knocks back correctly