Good to hear. By the way, can the first painting in Load-Bearing Grid be gotten by anyone other than Matt? I had assumed you wanted everything to be obtainable by every character, so if that's not the case...maybe you could tweak the mid-world convos to provide hints on who to bring where, so astute players know who to choose going in and aren't forced to go back, switch characters, and replay levels they've already beaten in order to get 100% (and maybe let players switch characters from the overworld's pause menu if it isn't too much trouble).
...and speaking of Matt, I noticed another minor graphical inconsistency: when he has the float power, he mysteriously gains white gloves when crawling that are absent in all his other frames:
EDIT: Wait, if updating breaks stuff, why not just use the older version? The game as-is works fine and plays well, and most--if not all--of my requests would only involve minor tweaks like recoloring sprites.
EDIT 2: Hey, did you mean for the Waste Disposal Plant to play the Nice Day theme? Normally, I would've just written it off as an odd choice, but given the other unintentional little issues, I thought I'd just make sure.
I try to stay on the most recent version of Game Maker since I need to make sure all my asset packs work whenever Yoyo changes things, but it didn't occur to me to check if all my games still work (it's been years since I opened the DDG2 project last so there's been a lot of changes in the meantime). Thankfully it doesn't seem to be a super complicated thing to fix.
I've been trying to avoid reusing the same theming for too many levels in a row so it might've been a weird choice, but I'll have to check if I need to re-evaluate it. (Nice Day is supposed to be the 'main' overworld theme that shows up whenever a level is just kinda generic even if it IS inside a themed world)
Anyone can get the painting, there's a sequence of invisible blocks below that are the "regular" way to get it.
Oof, not a fan of invisible blocks being a requirement. I've hated that ever since Lost Levels 5-1, where for years I assumed the only way past was to take the vine to the World 6 Warp Zone. It wasn't until I stumbled across a YouTube video about a "world 9" that I'd never heard of that required beating the game without using warp zones to access and I was like "wait, how do I get past world 5 without the warp zone?" and looked it up that I discovered the truth, and to be honest, I'm still not over it; no wonder Nintendo of America reskinned Doki Doki Panic instead of localizing that title.
I didn't even know that invisible blocks were in this game until now, so I guess my recommendation would be...don't have them at all? Do something else instead? Maybe in the sequel, you can design the early levels in such a way to guide players into hitting them naturally and safely and/or having obvious clues like holes or markings on background objects to indicate their location, then slowly work your way up to having more subtle clues before finally having end-game level design like what you did here..but right now, as-is? No, you didn't earn that invisible block placement.
By the way, I realized I misunderstood what you were saying about the boss powerup not overwriting the player's current powerup because I went into the first boss with the float power, which *did* get replaced even though I would have considered that to be a powerup as well (just not one with a weapon). It wasn't until I reached the Metal Underpass boss with the Reinforcement's bomb power and died that I realized it actually gives me the Fireball power instead. In that case, I think it might actually be a better idea to have the boss room powerup overwrite the player's current power anyway so, for example, players don't end up fighting the Sand Queen with melee weapons when the game would have given them the Mega Buster instead (I went in with the cat-claw power but happened to have a Mega Buster in reserve, so I just barely avoided the issue). The thing you brought up about letting players choose their own power still works since their current one would just go into reserve where they can simply bring it right back out.
Also, is it just me, or is the Gaping Abyss a bit of a difficulty spike for world 3 due to the instant death pit? I'm sure the boss could work as-is in a later world, after the difficulty has ramped up to match it...but the easier solution might be to cover the hole with spikes so the player only loses some HP for getting knocked off instead of dying outright.
EDIT: Okay, so apparently Caldera Keep was supposed to be world 3, but I think my point still stands. Also, in Yal's convo for Caldera Keep, he says "moment of surprise" instead of "element of surprise." Was that an attempt at characterization that I didn't get, or did you just forget the expression? Will he be corrected if I pick the right character the same way Sugar quips at Tomato in her Metal Underpass convo?
EDIT 2: Actually, after playing it a bit more, I think Caldera Keep is actually harder than Metal Underpass and they should have their painting requirements swapped to represent this. It feels like this world has more blind jumps/drops than average, where you can't see if there's a hazard or floor below you until you jump down. In particular, Dining Hall of Hell doesn't have certain platforms visible from a safe distance even if you hold down to pan the camera down...unless you bring in the cat claw power from another level and climb down certain walls. Maybe you were trying to indicate them with the chandelier chains, but just like with the invisible blocks, you need to build up to that, for example by having a preceding chandelier level that isn't so dark so the chains can be seen clearly. Still way better than Fun In The Basement, though.
EDIT 3: And while I'm at it, the camera takes too long to pan down after the player starts holding down. It kills the pace, especially with how frequently the player is expected to do it. It should only take around half a second.
Yeah, overwriting the float cake is a special case because you need to have SOME means of attacking a boss for the fight to be possible (I forgot about that, it's been 6 years...)
The chains are supposed to indicate chandeliers (every chandelier has chains and there's no troll chains that just end in the middle of nowhere)
Frozen enemies instantly shatter and die when hit by melee attacks, though you'd need to either be in multiplayer or have a reserve whip to hotswap to in order to do this. (They also don't become solid if the player is partially inside them upon creation so if you're close enough you can slip through them, but it's hard to do that without being in contact damage range...)
I'll add "faster screen scrolling" and "tells for Icon of Sin" to the todo list. When refamiliaring myself to the game I also noticed its divekick attack has like zero warning so that'll also need some tweaks.
(So far a lot of the things you've suggested have been fixed and I've started to chip away at the compatibility issues)
Dang, I was just about to add "or by keeping another weapon in reserve" to my killing-frozen-enemies comment because I JUST beat The Bay's Medbay where I figured that out--and then near the end of that level, I experienced a situation where I had my ice flower in reserve but got hit and lost my equipped sword power, once again leaving me no way to kill frozen enemies in those narrow halls.
To be clear, the main thing I was trying to get at with my initial comment is that the ice power should have a way to kill enemies on its own, like how Metroid lets you keep shooting a frozen enemy with the ice beam to keep dealing damage. Maybe you could do the same thing with your ice power? EDIT: I know the New Super Mario Bros. games don't let you do this, but what those games DO let you do is grab and throw the frozen enemy to break them against a wall, and since your game doesn't have a grabbing mechanic, I went with the Metroid suggestion instead.
By the way, my issue with the chandelier chains wasn't worry over the possibility of troll chains, but rather that the chains don't stand out too well and that the ones for secret-path chandeliers are placed right beside the chains for the platform you're already on, so you won't really notice them unless (and sometimes even if) you know ahead of time that's what you need to look out for. That's why I thought I had to use the cat claw power at first (because I straight-up didn't see the chains for secret-path chandeliers on my first playthrough) and why I suggested having that level be preceded with another chandelier level where the chains stand out better, because it COULD work as-is if it was properly built up to. ...though I guess you could also just directly make the chains in that level stand out better; that'd probably be easier. What if you recolored them to be bright yellow to match the chains in the level's overworld icon? I think that could work.
Oh, and thanks for responding to me. Not all developers do this.
EDIT: I also had some clipping-off issues with the vertically-moving blocks in Torrential Tower, including one time where I swung the sword while standing on one of the sets of three blocks beside the third painting and ended up falling straight through it. I tried reinstalling the game in case something happened on my end, and while a quick replay didn't reproduce any of the floaties' issues in Water Gun Warzone, I did still clip off a block once during my second Torrential Tower playthrough. EDIT 5: To add a bit more detail, it always seemed to happen when I fell pretty much directly on the left-half or right-half of a 2x2 block (such as the beach balls or vertically moving blocks); it didn't happen if I was closer to the center (or at least it not as often), though the time I fell through the longer floaty, I was in front of what would be its second tile from the left.
EDIT 2: In Brickwork Pipeworks, it's very easy to off-screen the fireball demons' fireballs before they get launched, to the point I did it unintentionally a couple times.
EDIT 4: Umi-Bozu's hands appear in pretty much the exact spot I am when I jump to throw my axes at its face, so I suddenly take damage when there was nothing there before. Maybe you could have his hands come in from the bottom or top of the screen instead of just abruptly materializing? Maybe you could have a harmless black cloud appear and then have the hand scale into the screen from the cloud before becoming harmful?
I noticed the Umi-bozu unfair hand damage during test playing other bugfixes and fixed that already. 👍
I'll see what I can do with the collision issues (the current version of Game Maker has a completely different collision engine so maybe it'll be fixed because of that). The floaties are only ever approached from the top so for them I could probably cheat and make them a lot taller than they are visually so it's not possible to clip through them. I've not observed the issues with falling through 2x2 blocks myself so I gotta look into that... maybe the sword is the answer, since it could affect your hitbox (melee animations use a different sprite from everything else and while they SHOULDN'T affect collision masks, "shouldn't" and "won't" aren't the same thing...)
Coloring the chains yellow gold would be possible, I don't think they're used anywhere else where it could clash.
Enemy projectiles being destroyed offscreen is a feature so I don't wanna fix it even if it IS a cheese, generally if something is unfair in the player's favor it's OK as long (as it doesn't trivialize the game)
Still not sure about the best way to handle ice blocks, it's gonna be frustrating for the player if it's too easy to destroy them accidentally when a puzzle requires you to freeze an enemy to use as a platform.
To clarify about the clipping: most of the time, I clipped OFF of the 2x2 blocks, not through them. I'd be about to land, then suddenly my position would jump one or two units to the left and I'd fall off beside the block. It's also not just the sword power because the one time it happened on my replay, I had the fireball power. ...but I guess it's moot if the engine update fixes things on its own.
For the ice power killing frozen enemies on accident, you could do what NES Metroid did and make it weaker than your base powers, so it'd take two hits to kill an enemy that would otherwise instantly die from jumping on it once, three hits to kill an enemy that'd normally take two, etc. You could maybe also make it so that the first shot that freezes the enemy doesn't deal damage itself.
Anyway, I noticed that the second painting in Dismemberment Ward is blocked by a wall of bricks, but the only powerups in that level are the green Mega Buster and an Ice Flower, so nothing that can actually break through a wall of bricks. All of the previous levels DO have the powerups necessary to get their paintings, so again I ask: was this intentional? I had saved and quit right before this level, so I went in without a power and had to back out and replay it after pulling a sword carrot from my inventory.
Also, it'd be nice if the penguin cop let us know that the rock power isn't used by pushing the attack/run button, but instead by pushing down; that took me a minute to figure out.
EDIT: Would be nice if it was easier to figure out which paths lead to the paintings in Teleporter Maze since you can't go back once you enter a teleporter. All the other levels let you backtrack if you realize you missed a painting.
I don't remember my intentions from 9 years ago on a level-by-level basis, but I do remember having a bit of a general troll outlook on the powerups given in levels: they shouldn't be the best tool for the job, they should be the worst powerup for the job whenever possible (outside of the levels that introduce a new powerup that should show them off in a positive light) so that you don't end up having a trivial experience because you always get the powerup you need right when you need it. The only real exception to this is giving you the cat sunflower / balloon cake when there's a climbing / tricky jumping section coming up, but even there I would often hand them out before a combat section (or have a second powerup that replaces the active one right before the part you need to climb, etc) so there's still a bit of challenge involved in getting the powerup to where it needs to be.
(That said, I replaced the mega buster in that level with a bomb now)
The teleporters are implemented in a way that's absolutely horrible (destination coordinates are hardcoded numbers in the sending teleporter, the receiving end can't be traced back without checking every possible sender) so I don't know what I can reasonably do here. (When test playing I got lost for like 20 minutes trying to figure the exit path out, lol)
Oh wow, you responded quickly this time!
Anyway, about the teleporter level, I think the easiest band-aid solution would be to dig a hole in the ground before the finish line and put a new IN teleporter in there that leads back to the third painting's room. I went back to check, and all other rooms have their own IN teleporters that (eventually) lead to previous rooms, effectively allowing the backtracking I'm asking for (even if unintentionally sometimes); the only exception is the goal room. If you're feeling generous, you could maybe even add an extra room in the top-right of the level for the teleporter to stop by first before sending the player back to the third painting's room; that way, players who already have the paintings but are curious will get a small bonus instead of just being sent back.
By the way, since the Snow Queen abruptly summons hazard snow around her after she finishes teleporting, I think the teleportation-effect snow should be widened to cover that entire attack area instead of just the spot where the boss is spawning. Maybe you could even have some flashing bomb-snow appear there that's harmless at first but "explodes" when the hazard-snow appears.
Oh, and maybe have some warning for the boss's stalagmites, too.
Also, I know you said you don't want to overdo it with the stronger powerups, but I gotta admit, I'm a little disappointed that each boss room doesn't give you a different one; the Snow Queen just gives you the same whip as Patient Zero. Like, not even the long whip instead? I don't think you'd have to worry about the long whip reaching past the hazard snow, so it wouldn't make the fight that much easier (it may even mean the stalagmites don't need a warning since you'd be far away enough that the first one or two would be the warning), but oh well. I wouldn't mind if you didn't take this suggestion.
(edit: at least the long whip wouldn't make the fight be nearly as easy as the Reinforcements' flame cannon makes that fight; one charged flame drained basically all of its health in seconds. In fact, I suspect that this world as a whole is easier than the previous two; this might need to be the new world 4 and Caldera Keep moved to world 6. Admittedly though, my main issue with Caldera Keep was the blind jumps that you may or may not fix later, whose absence might put it back down in difficulty.)
EDIT: I was thinking about the inventory mechanic some more, and I realized: because you can only use an inventory item in the overworld, it's effectively not much different than just going back to a Reinforcement. This suggestion might require too much overhauling for this game, but for the sequel, I recommend letting the player use inventory items within the levels, but counterbalance this by having fewer powerups throughout the game in the first place. That way, there's more of a risk/reward system because if you keep dying on a hard segment within a level, you can try to use one of your now-much-more-limited inventory items to help you out at the cost of maybe not having it later when you might need it more. Plus, it would justify stuff like the original Dismemberment Ward's second painting because it would be rewarding players for keeping the right item in stock rather than punishing players that didn't go in with the right item equipped in the first place. Oh, and it would provide more incentive to buy powerups from the store, something I almost forgot was a thing.
Revisiting the off-screening of objects, it actually can go against the player in certain situations, such as the falling jet platforms in Flying Battery: I had an instance where I clipped off of one of them as well, right at the exact moment when it shifted from shaking to falling, so I thought "I'll just jump right before the transition happens" except that off-screens them entirely, causing me to fall to my death. I guess just increase the killzone to be a couple units past the screen instead of disappearing things immediately after they're not visible.
And speaking of Flying Battery, I wasn't a fan of how the last green switch in External In-flew-ences was placed over a pit, so you have to be to the left of the switch when you hit it in order to land on the platform. In retrospect, I think you intended for the player to see that shaft while going up the previous one, but in that case, you should put them closer together, maybe even only separated by a single-tile-wide column.
EDIT: Oh, and the blue rocket power could also use an explanation for how to use it since, just like the pink rock power, it also works differently from all the other powers and took me a minute of trial and error to figure out.
EDIT 2: It'd be nice if the coin trails in Very Long Fall didn't lead AWAY from the paintings, because that's another level where you can't really backtrack; the most you can do is go back to a checkpoint from the pause menu. I did appreciate how the level design at least lets you see that you missed it before you hit the next checkpoint, though.
EDIT 3: and speaking of Very Long Fall, I'd appreciate if you plugged up the hole in the lower-right. A previous Flying Battery level lets you duck in those thin tunnels from a jump just fine, but for that one, it never worked.
If you're still reading these, I have a question about the second painting in Hellfire Mountain: it's preceded by a pit and a ghost cat, so I assumed the intention was for the player to bounce off of the ghost cat to reach the platform...except the player doesn't get enough height from bouncing on the ghost cat to reach said platform. I tried both holding the jump button and trying to press+hold it right when I landed on an enemy, but neither increased my bounce height. Plus, there don't seem to be any invisible blocks around, so once again, I felt I had to switch to Matt. It was only right now, as I was typing this message, that I realized your actual intention was for the player to freeze the ghost cat first. Would you be willing to replace the ghost cat and that lone solid tile above it with three flaming skulls? I think that would do a better job of conveying your intentions to the player, especially seeing as this is the first time freezing enemies is required to reach something.
Hey, I think one of us isn't fully understanding the other. I wasn't saying you should design the section to FORCE the player to use ice; I was saying that an obvious series of floating enemies that can't be jumped on would be a better way of subtly conveying your intentions, as opposed to a single enemy that CAN be jumped on and a platform that just barely can't be reached from bouncing on said enemy. In the second chandelier level, the second time the game requires ice for non-Matts without traversal powerups to reach a painting, you use one of those electrified black sphere enemies, and that's a much better clue than the ghost cat since, as I said, they can't be jumped on safely without freezing them, but the platform visibly can't be reached otherwise. All I'm asking is for a similar clue to be implemented in Hellfire Mountain.
Anyway, I've beaten the game and gotten all the keys, and to reiterate: I think the game is good overall; decent graphics, good humor, fun gameplay, solid level design, and the hints for missed keys are also just as helpful as I was hoping they'd be, even if said hints are a bit out of the way. I just have a few final points of feedback:
1) There's no cat claw powerup in Unstable Footing Underside, so the only way to get the key is to bring the power in from elsewhere. Once again, I feel the need to point out that all other worlds' keys can be gotten using the powers within each of their respective levels (and that this would be a non-issue if Inventory items could be used within levels--even if only at checkpoints). Also, I think you should add one more coin to the bottom of that coin trail that leads to the Underside's key.
2) I know now that the long whip was taken by the Rich Reaper, so I'm not sure what a good whip replacement would be for the Snow Queen or Dan Maku. However, I do think some of their patterns could use some clearer tells: when Mr. 44 is about to stomp, have it move upward for a split second, and likewise, right before the Rich Reaper dashes to the other side of the arena, have him move backwards for a split second. Also, instead of the Rich Reaper's melee attack appearing all at once, have each purple arc appear one after the other.
3) When a zombie is coming out of the ground, there should be some indication of this happening on the solid tile the zombie is coming out of, because the zombie itself appears behind the player and can result in a cheap hit in the dark levels.
4) The notes in the final world are well written, but I'd appreciate if they appeared in (or at least quickly moved to) a less-obtrusive part of the screen, such as the top or bottom--or better yet, have them appear as standard text boxes that pause the game until the player pushes a button.
5) You did a great job at introducing the shadow ghosts by having the player fall into that gap and having the shadow ghost float by above right afterward. Unfortunately, the first static level (with the gibberish name) does not do a good job of introducing the shadow hands because the ledge looks safe to fall off...right until you do so and crash face-first into the enemy you didn't see. My recommendation is to have the player fall down a one-tile-wide vertical shaft (so there's no room to move left or right), then have it drop the player into a left/right split path except the shadow claws are right there beside the player.
6) A couple more typos: in the ending, Matt says "a ethereal" instead of an ethereal, and one of Jason's lines mentions "asbesthos" (there's not supposed to be an h in asbestos).
7) Personally, I was disappointed that the keys only unlocked more playable characters instead of postgame levels, but I guess different players value different things.
8) The final boss's large downward laser should have a bit more warning since it covers almost the whole arena. Maybe, instead of just having her float there, have the laser instantly show up but expand slowly for the same amount of time she spends waiting in the game's current build. EDIT: For another clue, you could have the laser's slow expansion rate also slowly speed up.
9) Speaking of the final boss, I found the spinning sword weapon to be rather unreliable at destroying the boss's bullets, and I also found that the bomb weapon made it much more clear when the boss suddenly becomes invulnerable while still pretending to react to damage. Would you consider tweaking the boss's pattern so that the bullet spiral has more frequent but smaller gaps that can be slipped through without destroying any bullets, then swap the given weapon for the bomb and move the spinning sword to the world 6 or 7 boss?
10) Is there an alternate ending? If so, are there any in-game hints on how to get said alternate ending? I already got all the paintings and notes.
EDIT: Couple more awkward phrases in the bestiary: Court Mage has "they did the correct choice" when the more natural way to phrase that is "they made the correct choice," and Water Balloon Girl has "water balloons is" instead of are. Oh, and Soul of Art says "it once were" instead of either "it once was" or, depending on what you were going for, "they once were."
If you're still checking this thread, I have a couple more things to add:
1) The invisible block placement for Ominous Clock Tower's third painting is marginally better since it's first one is right next to a wall, but I still only found it by chance, so that level also isn't a great way to introduce them even if Caldera Keep was meant to be before Metal Underpass.
2) If you're willing to make more drastic changes, I'd like it to be possible to kill frozen enemies in ways besides jumping at them from below. The first level after Caldera Keep's Reinforcements has lots of narrow halls, so when I tried out my brand new ice power, I ended up having to sit there and wait for the enemies to thaw before I could progress.
EDIT: Also, the Icon of Sin has a similar issue as Patient Zero did: it should have some indication of how far its melee flame attack will go, especially since the boss room gives the player the short-range sword and the Reinforcements give the player the longer-but-still-melee green whip. Since you don't want to do ! zones, maybe you could show its flame being drawn out during its wind-up pose so players can actively see its length increasing and realize how far they'll need to run away to avoid getting hit.
EDIT 2: The collision on the floaties in Water Gun Warzone is spotty. Sometimes I'd land directly on a beach ball and just clip off of it suddenly, and one time, I did a running jump off of the platform by the third painting and fell straight through one of the longer rafts, into the water.
