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TumbleSeed

TumbleSeed is a deceptively deep roguelike about balancing a seed up a dangerous and ever-changing mountain. · By aeiowu, dlask, benedictfritz

Bugs Sticky

A topic by aeiowu created Dec 01, 2016 Views: 4,953 Replies: 208
Viewing posts 1 to 82
Developer

Post 'em in here in as much detail (images helpful!) as humanly/reasonably possible.

  • I was given a choice between an Antidote Seed and an Antidote Seed, which seemed unfair and disappointing
  • I saw one of these white puffy guys trapped inside a hole walking back and forth and flashing
Developer (2 edits)
  1. Whoa weird! I haven't seen matching seed choices before. Will definitely go an hunt this one down. Were you given this choice inside one of the rooms about halfway up the biome? (We refer to these as crystal rooms) Just want to make sure I'm looking in the right place. Also, there's a chance this is a symptom of something else- could you possibly send us your player log (If you haven't already shutdown and restarted the game, that's when it resets).

    * If you're playing on Windows, go to where the game installed, open the TumbleSeed_Data folder and grab output_log.txt
    * If you're playing on OSX, hold the option key and select "Go" at the top of your screen. Select "Library" and go down to the follow location: ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
  2. And yeah some of the lil grubs seem to get stuck in a weird state on top of holes every so often :(

Thanks for the report!

I started playing again before I saw this, but I saw it again, this time with two Claymores. It was inside a crystal room, yes. Here's that output log: http://pastebin.com/zp4hKY4B

Developer

Wow, yeah and no null errors in there. I'm gonna try and look into this first thing tomorrow! Thanks for stickin with it.

I'm having the same issue in current playthru.

output log: http://pastebin.com/Sw9hcEab

Developer

[wonders if that code somehow just got deleted at some point]

[looks]

Oh, yup, somehow that code just got lost at some point during a refactor. My fault!! Will be fixed in the next build. Sorry!!!

Developer

Woo! I was gonna say I'd never seen this before haha. Thanks all! :]

In the main menu (where you can press up to view the leaderboards or down to view options), pressing left or right on the controller appears to try to navigate up/down, but immediately navigates back. In other words, it seems like it's responding to any amount of "up" or "down" input, which is too sensitive and results in jittery movement when pressing left or right. I'm using an Xbox One controller.

Developer

Ahhh good catch- we may not be deadzoning the menu input. Noted!

Sometimes quitting to menu during a run and then starting a new one makes the seed get stuck at fixed x position and jitter back and forth, kinda like when something's stuck between overlapping colliders. Then there's a copy of the seed helicopter sprite at the seed x and the camp boundary Y. If you move through the boundary (seems to be no collision when this is happening) then things go back to normal.

Sidenote: having a great time so far!



Developer

Oh crazy, thanks for the report and going the extra mile to make those gifs! that's really helpful, we'll look into it. :)

played some more, looks like the x jittering is tied to the movement of the stuck helicopter seed (same jittering as when you hit the spring then stop moving up)

Looks like if you get a shield from the Shield Seed and you die with the shield, the shield persists to your next life:
Developer

Ahh good catch. I though we fixed the cleanup issue with seeds that "equip" you with stuff, but apparently not :]

Hi! I am not sure if this is a feature I have not figured out or a bug - but at two times, holes have appeared right where I am rolling. The first time a hole suddenly appeared right next to me (In the place I just had been). Second time a huge hole appeared where I was hanging out, killing me. Did not spot any animations or indications for a hole to appear there. I think this was..once in the 3rd area and once in the 2nd area.

My theory is that this hole creation where the player rolls is in fact a feature- but I didn't spot any feedback or warnings for it and it felt like a bug so I figured I'd tell! :)

Developer

haha yep! it's a "feature". Not the best messaged feature/gameplay in the game but it's a sinkhole and when you roll over that part of the ground, it appears and starts to fade in so you gotta get outta there before the hole fully appears and you fall in. We'll add some sounds and better animation for this eventually, but yea, that's what it is for now. They become much more prevalent as you go up the mountain so good to know about for sure. :)

Ah cool! I really like the idea itself because when I noticed it I became much more alert, making sure to plant checkpoints more frequently.

A few things I noticed tonight. On the death recap screen, the background behind the gems count is too small:

This might be by design, but I found that gems on the ground in the post-forest camp are kinda hard to see:

After going into a button challenge room, starting the challenge, then leaving the room before the timer expires, the challenge UI (timer and gem count) remained on the upper right corner of the play area until I quit the game.

Vert Laser Seed has a planting cost of 0 crystals? Is that by design? If so, there's a small grammatical error, as it says "Costs 0 crystal to plant".

Developer

Good catches on the details!

This might be by design, but I found that gems on the ground in the post-forest camp are kinda hard to see:

Yeah, this isn't super intentional and will probably change. Camps still have a lot of artwork yet to happen (eventually they'll all look very different and have visuals tied to the biome you just came from)

Vert Laser Seed has a planting cost of 0 crystals? Is that by design? If so, there's a small grammatical error, as it says "Costs 0 crystal to plant".

It's intentionally 0 crystals -- it was previously a bow-and-arrow instead of a laser which made it a pretty weak weapon so we changed its cost to 0 to make it more enticing. I think it's definitely strong now as a laser, so we may change it back to costing 1, but either way we need to account for suits being free so that's a UI change we'll have to make. Thanks!

I generally use a dvorak keyboard layout, and the game seems to hard-check for up/down arrows, w and s. With dvorak, w and s are actually o and . which doesn't work out so well. It would be great if these keys were rebindable, or if the game could detect by keyboard layout.

Developer

Oh interesting! We'll have to look into solutions for that. Sorry about that! Do you have a controller you can use in the meantime?

After hitting the spring into the second camp, my seed was inside the camp but the balance stick was stuck below the camp. I took a screenshot, but accidentally overwrote it, so you get an mspaint recreation of the events:

I couldn't move the stick up, but could move it down. After moving it down far enough my seed fell down, and I could resume moving up again. Unfortunately, as you can see in the screenshot, the spring was already sprung, so I was stuck.

Developer

Oh no this is, like, my least favorite bug -- I've seen it once before. Super sorry. Will look into resolving it soon since I know how frustrating this one is.

I just ran into this one, as well. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, since I haven't repeated this yet, but I was carrying the blue bubble for the teleporter, going into Region 3. (I see that's the same place Jamie ran into this?)

Also, I was almost able to get out of it, since I was able to lower the balance stick, but not raise it. Once it got so far down that the town wasn't visible anymore, the seed dropped down and I was able to resume using the stick as normal. The spring was sprung, though, so I couldn't progress up into the town...

  1. When I started a new game, I immediately pressed up on both control sticks (like you do). The seed got a big kick to the left. Might have been a physics glitch; I know Unity physics can occasionally be weird.
  2. Three-button bonus crates can sometimes appear off-screen below you without any indication that they've done so. I've also had one block my forward progress, without any way to break it.
Developer

Nice catches -- will look into both of these.

I'm guessing the crate blocked off the only way up? Crazy!

Here's a really stupid tiny one: When you press A to switch seeds, the crystal indicator on the left shifts a little bit, almost like it's changing fonts or something?


Looks like Vert Thorn Seed is using the Horizontal Thorn Seed sprite in play, but the seed selector shows it with the correct sprite.


Developer

Nice catch!

If my controller becomes disconnected the game should automatically pause.

Developer

Hadn't considered this but it's a great call

(2 edits)

Having a ton of fun! Some bugs and thoughts.

  • The yellow shield persists after single death.
  • The blue shield persists after all deaths and starting an entirely new game, only cleared after restarting TS.
  • Horizontal flying, vertical shooting, hammer looking enemy spawned 2 on top of each other facing opposite directions and were stuck and flashing.
  • Resolution size text partially hidden behind window showing graphic.
  • Bombbud appeared as only eye and fuse in selection zone.
  • Jungle rain is not visible most of the time, only saw it once?

Love the game! It is really really good.

Developer

Thank you!! Resolution size text, and shield issues will definitely be fixed in the next build. The others have been noted as well!

A few bugs I discovered while playing, starting with the most major one:

  • Was using a PS4 controller on macOS Sierra, and while it is capable of switching between keyboard and controller on the fly as inputs are detected, if the PS4 controller is ever unplugged and plugged back in, no more inputs will be detected on it until the game is fully turned off and on again. Not sure if this happens on other machines/controllers.
  • If the jumping spider that chases you around the first area jumps past your crossbar vine, it appears to jump underneath it, layering wise, which looks strange.

and a couple of harmless visual bugs I can't seem to recreate:

  • Late in the tutorial, upon using my third charge the of crystal seed, 5 crystals seemed to pop out, but after landing only 3 of them stayed. Haven't seen it happen since though.
  • Another time while using a crystal seed in one of the safe areas, the crystals that popped out had their shadows layered in front of the crystals themselves, producing a dark shape on top of them, as opposed to behind them. I also saw this happen only once.
Developer

Was using a PS4 controller on macOS Sierra, and while it is capable of switching between keyboard and controller on the fly as inputs are detected, if the PS4 controller is ever unplugged and plugged back in, no more inputs will be detected on it until the game is fully turned off and on again. Not sure if this happens on other machines/controllers

Yikes, thank you for figuring this one out! That's brutal! Will definitely look into this. Appreciate you reporting all these :)

Developer (1 edit)

So unfortunately right now Unity's input system on OSX does not allow for controllers to be plugged in after startup...I'll look into alternatives though- I have some ideas! >:)

Haven't fully diagnosed this but I think there are some issues with the music system, occasionally there will just be silence (in an actual biome, not the camps) and then the next music starts up when you reach another biome.

Also I had one of those black dashing/spinning guys end up in a camp once. Seems like the "dash" function doesn't check for the walls properly? (side note: maybe a glossary of all the enemies' names w/ pictures would help us communicate better on here?)

Developer

(side note: maybe a glossary of all the enemies' names w/ pictures would help us communicate better on here?)

This might be a good idea – we were kind of curious what names people would come up with on their own but it might be worth it just for bug reports/discussions

(12 edits)

So had a hang. Not sure exactly what happened, I had just teleported up on a new run. I got hurt somehow on the right most part of the orange teleport bubble trail? I don't remember seeing any enemy there. The trail started being displayed and it hung in the middle where there is the gap for like 5-10 seconds. Then it started animating again for a second until it got to the left most part where it hung for good and did not clear after maybe 2 minutes. The music/sfx was not affected.

Ah! Poked around this morning and saw there is a log file that luckily I didn't clear. Relevant parts:

(Filename: /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/VerticalWorld/VerticalWorldState.cs Line: 534)
Warning, trying to get spawn data for a biome that doesn't have any: PostJungleCamp
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:Internal_Log(LogType, String, Object)
UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:LogFormat(LogType, Object, String, Object[])
UnityEngine.Logger:Log(LogType, Object, Object)
UnityEngine.Debug:LogWarning(Object, Object)
WorldSpawner:GetBiomeSpawnData(Biome) (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/NewSpawning/WorldSpawner.cs:788)
VerticalWorldState:CurrentContentParent() (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/VerticalWorld/VerticalWorldState.cs:534)
AuraManager:DropCurrentAura() (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraManager.cs:161)
AuraManager:PickUpAuraOfType(AuraType) (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraManager.cs:85)
AuraPickup:PickUp() (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraPickup.cs:41)
Pickup:OnTriggerEnter2D(Collider2D) (at /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Pickups/Pickup.cs:16)

(Filename: /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/NewSpawning/WorldSpawner.cs Line: 788)
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
 at VerticalWorldState.CurrentContentParent () [0x0002b] in /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/VerticalWorld/VerticalWorldState.cs:534 
 at AuraManager.DropCurrentAura () [0x0005c] in /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraManager.cs:161 
 at AuraManager.PickUpAuraOfType (AuraType auraType) [0x00011] in /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraManager.cs:85 
 at AuraPickup.PickUp () [0x00000] in /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Auras/AuraPickup.cs:41 
 at Pickup.OnTriggerEnter2D (UnityEngine.Collider2D other) [0x00030] in /Users/benedictfritz/games/TumbleSeed/Assets/Scripts/Pickups/Pickup.cs:16

Those 2 error were repeated many many times. Sending full log in email.

Developer

I have a hunch on this. Right now teleport orbs aren't being cleared properly when you restart the game, so it looks like it's looking for some object in the world that belonged to the *previous* world in which the orphaned teleport orb belonged. Will dig into the log in the e-mail. Any bugs that cause crashes are super high priority so thank you!!

Not sure if it helps, but I had an orange teleport bubble with me and had just started a run having just teleported up to that camp. There were certainly other orphaned orange bubbles strewn about though. Not sure how I got hurt there, I guess if it had to do with dangling references or something all bets are off.

Bugs:
  • I returned to a hole, the kind where you get to choose between 2 classes, after passing it so far that it went under the bottom of the screen. When the screen changed to what's in the hole, the camera was still centered on the player, instead of above the player, resulting in the class descriptions appearing above the top of the screen.
  • I planted a crystal plant (the 3rd one) right next to a wall. One of the crystals that spawned out of it went into a wall. :(
Not so much a bug, but maybe:
  • One of those tiny green flies from the first region followed me into the town between Region 1 and 2. I thought I could keep an eye on it, but I apparently lost track. Due to the light color of the body and the white wings, it pretty much disappeared against the white floor background. Of course, I ran into it. Just seemed a bit unfair.
Developer

Good catches on these. The flies are definitely not supposed to enter camps, and definitely looking into mineral spawning problems. Thanks!!

bug report: i played the game too much

Developer

LOL BEST BUG YET. My favorite kind of bug. Great bug. Thank you

If you want to continue with the sort-of roman numerals, here are some bigger numbers:

  • L: 50
  • C: 100
  • D: 500
  • M: 1000
  • I had a spring plot spawn in such a way that it would catapult you into a wall. Granted, one could steer away from the wall while flying up but then one would quickly find oneself above a nearby hole. Pic
  • Quitting the game during a "You fell into a hole, now watch your progress reset"-cutscene causes the red screenflash when starting a new game and causes some unexpected behavior.
Developer

Quitting the game during a "You fell into a hole, now watch your progress reset"-cutscene causes the red screenflash when starting a new game and causes some unexpected behavior.

Just repro'd this. Great catch!! That's a nasty one. Won't get the fix into this next build coming hopefully today, but will definitely look into it for the next one!

I had a spring plot spawn in such a way that it would catapult you into a wall. Granted, one could steer away from the wall while flying up but then one would quickly find oneself above a nearby hole.

This is sort of intentional that the placement of certain plants affects their usefulness and your decision on whether to use it or not. Does it feel unfair?

This is sort of intentional that the placement of certain plants affects their usefulness and your decision on whether to use it or not. Does it feel unfair?

No, it just felt a bit awkward being catapulted into a wall.

I found a crystal in a perspectively impossible spot

And teleseeding into a hole lead to some very unexpected behavior and the inevitable end of the run:

Developer

That crystal looks like it might be from a previous run and was never destroyed.

Good find on teleseeding into a hole! Can't believe we never tested that! haha

Developer

I wonder if crystals just have a z sorting issue as well. I know we recently optimized some z ordering logic and ive seen this side effect before with crystals. We'll look into it!

I managed to double die. I had 1 heart and took a projectile hit while I was falling into a hole, and both death animations and sounds played at the same time--the tumbling down and the falling over and dying. No need to rub it in, TS!

Developer

Hahaha TS knows how to celebrate a defeat

Weird.

On the new Alpha build that dropped really recently.

I got to past the first area and went onto the jumppad. But my vine didn't follow and my sticks would only register down and not up. My little seed was shaking furiously as I couldn't help but move further and further away from him. Eventually, my seed dropped down to the previous level (where my vine was stuck, and I regained the ability to go upwards once the seed landed on my vine again.

Happened at the top of the desert this time.

Developer

Thank you for the screenshot!! I actually have a hunch now what this might be!!

Often when I go into a shop, I can't read the text bubbles unless I navigate between the purple buttons.


Was carrying the blue teleporter thing up to the blue area. Was also doing the "finish the forest in under two minutes" quest. When I finished the quest, the blue teleporter indicator was gone. When I got to the blue area, nothing happened.

Timed quest seemed to cause the game to forget I was carrying the blue dev-art circle. :P

Oh! I might be wrong. I misunderstood how they work and that you could drop them. They are really hard to see when dropped :)

Developer

Yeah the teleporter orbs are Peak Programmer Art right now haha sorry!

Mines seem to remain after death. Which is super weird. (this is my after my 2nd death after dropping those mines, the level changes, but the mines persist)

Don't know if this always happens or, if not, how to repo.

Sometimes to hilarious results!

Rotating laser turrets ignore cloak.

The explosion throwing turrets ignore cloak too.

Developer

Thanks!! We always miss these

Bit of a soft lock here: I fell into a hole in Desert and the letterbox came up and I could hear the sound of respawning at the bottom of the biome but the camera didn't follow. Was shaping up to be a pretty good run, too! Ah, well.

Developer

Ah dang! You didn't happen to grab a log, did you? That's a really weird one

Forgot to grab a log but if I see this again I'll make sure to post it.

  • There was a grub on top of a plot. I planted a thorn seed on the plot, the grub wasn't killed, and I didn't get a thorn.
  • One of the red torpedo shaped enemies that dig new holes leapt up in the air, and then came down on a spring plant that existed above it, triggering the plant and the torpedo-thing glitched out simultaneously trying to fall like normal AND be propelled up by the plant.
  • There was a grub that got trapped in a hole. I'm not sure if it spawned there, or it somehow wondered in. Maybe the collider was overlapping the hole when it spawned? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B21bNGf_7lj6cV92S...

I also got a surprise plot that was hiding behind a log (perspective was hiding it). Luckily, I think I planted something like a crystal seed or a heart, but if I was another class that could have ended poorly.

I'm surprised that this hasn't come up in this thread: The Mace Seed is pretty broken.

  • The mace disappears on contact with none enemies (like walls).
  • I think it disappeared when a thorn took out an enemy.
  • I've had it disappear when standing still, and nothing is around me.

I have had the exact same experience, just haven't put in a report yet.

Developer

Yikes, thanks guys! This is a fun one normally -- I'll try to get it back in ASAP

I was in one of the rooms where you choose between 2 seeds (is thera a name for those?), and I chose a Quad Laser seed over a Poison seed. For some reason I had a shield above my seed, afterward...

Developer

0.0 wuuuut hahaha that's bizarre. I'll try to repro here.

rooms where you choose between 2 seeds (is thera a name for those?)

"Crystal rooms" is what we usually call them

Quad Laser seems to be broken...or I don't know how to use it.

I've planted a couple now that charge up, don't fire, and even when I run over them again, nothing happens. It makes a sound like something happened and then charges again.

Developer

They were broken in alpha 0.4a but should've been fixed in 0.45a. Are you playing on the latest?

I'm on the latest version.

The next time it pops up, I'll try it again.

I don't know what this is, but it's freakin' me out.

I just found out they hurt, because they ended my run...

Developer

Image doesn't seem to work :(

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B21bNGf_7lj6cjdBWDdnbnJtS2M/view?usp=sharing

Developer

That looks like leftover lasers from a quad laser. Maybe this is related to your other quad laser issues hmmm

Homing Seed doesn't lock onto purple-should-be-pink flying mobs that follow you.

Thankfully, it doesn't seem to lock onto you instead, but it fires off at an other enemy, even one that is not on screen.

Is homing seed supposed to be able to be reused?

If so, when you run over it, it has an animation, but nothing happens (no time depleting status bar, no 2nd homing shot, etc).

Developer

Not supposed to be able to be reused -- that's a weird bug with how the general planting system is implemented. Noted, though!

Homing seed's description doesn't mention the purple shrapnel. I think it should.

Planted Flytrap didn't activate when a pink spider landed on it.

I was the Gardener Seed and planted next to a Crystal Room entrance. The entrance was filled with a plot. "Whatevs" I say to myself just before I plant on it, resulting in me re-entering the Crystal Room since it was still being treated as a door, by the game...I also seem to have lost the crystals that spawned from said plant, but that's beside the point.

I ran into the "balance beam not responding to up input after entering the town" bug, and I was able to repeat it.

Both times I was flush against the white wall above the launch pad. I'm guessing that whatever bit of code that is preventing the beam from raising while hitting a ceiling is still in effect after hitting the pad.

Funny enough, this bug persisted into the next run, after I exited to main menu and hit space to start a new one.

Developer

Oh INTERESTING. So you, like, approached the spring from the top?

The level is hidden when you have a ton of hearts and you roll over to the right side. Turns out I rely on that thing a lot and stumble around a bunch when I can't see it.

Developer

i hear ya, i have an idea for how to fix this. it bugs me too

Here are some notes from my first two sessions. I haven't made it super far in the game yet, as I'm still getting used to the control scheme, so if any of my suggestions/criticisms/bugs are misguided, let me know. Everything is marked with game versions because I played yesterday with 0.45 and today with 0.5. I'll be up front and say that I didn't read though all of the bugs in the thread, so if there are repeats, sorry about that!


General Notes

  • This game is a lot of fun so far. Of course there's that initial "arg, this is pretty difficult and has a non-traditional control scheme", but once you get over that it's very rewarding to feel yourself get better at controlling your movement, understanding how to navigate the stages, and interact with different seeds.
  • Music is top notch.
  • "Crystal Room" sounds like a room where you'd spend crystals, the fact that the crystal rooms are free seeds and the "Shop" is the room where you spend crystals seems a little confusing, I might just be missing something though.
  • How in the world does a seed roll over water?



Interface

  • (0.45) The color of the speech bubble for the folks in the post-forest camp (maybe all camps?) blends in with the color of the background (both white), could use some contrast. In a similar vein, the "I can talk to this guy" indicator tends to blend in at the bank as well.
  • (0.45) (1920x1080) Icons in the menu seem like they need to be higher resolution or vectorized.
  • (0.45) Quitting the game from the main menu: For some reason my instincts always tell me to look for a "quit" option in the menu available from the bottom screen (the one that has the "resolution" and "fullscreen" options at the moment. I realize you can just hit circle/escape in the initial screen to exit, but having it also available in the options menu might make sense as well, just a personal preference/QoL addition really.
  • (0.45) I picked up a seed from a crate that showed up after hitting three purple buttons. When I picked up this seed (homing seed, doubt that matters), it was automatically equipped but I had to open up the seed menu to find out what kind of seed it was. It would be nice if there were an alert on the screen that said "Homing Seed" or something like that so I knew what I picked up without having to go check.
  • (0.5) After hitting A or X to access the seed selection menu, it would be nice to be able to naturally exit it without selecting a new seed (B or Circle).



Gameplay

  • (0.5) I found myself wanting the "back to checkpoint" animation to be faster, I feel like it takes me out of the flow of the game by creating downtime.
  • (0.5) Similarly, the time it takes to begin a new run after losing feels a little long also.
  • (0.5) I don't know quite how I feel about newly obtained seeds being equipped automatically. I feel like generally if you've got a strategy going, a new seed isn't usually going to be used immediately most of the time.
  • (0.5) The default seed seems like it should be the crystal seed rather than the checkpoint seed, seeing as it's the only one (that I've seen) that doesn't cost any crystals to plant and using the checkpoint on the first few plots is pretty much worthless, even for a super beginner player. In fact, any of the seeds other than the checkpoint seed seem to be more useful at the very beginning.



Audio

  • (0.45) Maybe fade/cut the audio when you open the menu during the game; it gives more of a feeling of things being paused. Again this is definitely personal preference but I think audio continuity (or in this case, discontinuity) helps with the flow of the game.
  • (0.5) I had a bug in the second biome where as soon as one of those horizontal full screen lasers was off the screen, to the bottom, the audio for the laser charging kept repeating itself until I went back down.



Seed Specific

  • (0.45) Slow seed: The animation after planting, when the slow effect is activated, is too abrasive in my opinion. It completely obscures your view of the entire screen for the duration of the animation. Perhaps this is for balancing, but I find it annoying more than anything.
  • (0.45) (screenshot 1, screenshot 2) Crystal seed: I used the crystal seed on a plot near the side of the side of the map; I watch it spawn 3 total crystals (I picked up one before I took the screenshot), but one of them is inaccessible beyond the right side of the map, this seems unfair if it's intentional.
  • (0.5) Teleseed: The terminology "telefragging" has the potential to confuse and/or go over the head of someone who doesn't know what it is. More precise language might be helpful.
Developer

How in the world does a seed roll over water?

Hahaha "it floats" is our internal logic. Hopefully we'll have some sort of bobbing effect so that makes more sense

I picked up a seed from a crate that showed up after hitting three purple buttons. When I picked up this seed (homing seed, doubt that matters), it was automatically equipped but I had to open up the seed menu to find out what kind of seed it was. It would be nice if there were an alert on the screen that said "Homing Seed" or something like that so I knew what I picked up without having to go check.

Good idea! Seeds from crates are pretty rare so I always forget that's a place where seeds appear, so good catch!

The default seed seems like it should be the crystal seed rather than the checkpoint seed, seeing as it's the only one (that I've seen) that doesn't cost any crystals to plant and using the checkpoint on the first few plots is pretty much worthless, even for a super beginner player. In fact, any of the seeds other than the checkpoint seed seem to be more useful at the very beginning.

Yeah, this is something I struggle with. To us, the checkpoint seed sort of *is* the character of the TumbleSeed. So it's sort of that in his default state TS plants checkpoints. Haven't talked about this much with other people on the dev team, but it's something I've been mulling over personally.

Thank you for such detailed and precise notes, it is truly appreciated!! A lot of things you noted are already on our to-do, but it's always good to hear those issues again as they bump them to the top of our minds. Specifically with world generation stuff David just wrote some code the last couple weeks that should make world generation way way faster, we just have to integrate it. Again -- great notes, thanks!!

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Yeah, this is something I struggle with. To us, the checkpoint seed sort of *is* the character of the TumbleSeed. So it's sort of that in his default state TS plants checkpoints. Haven't talked about this much with other people on the dev team, but it's something I've been mulling over personally.

Yeah, I can totally understand that commitment to the character. Its actually a very interesting conversation to be having and I'd like to hear what other people have to say as well. I think a big argument for changing the default is to appease the nature of roguelikes. By making the default seed the checkpoint seed you're establishing a meta where the beginning of every run begins exactly the same: the player has to switch to a different seed than the one equipped. That sort of goes against the idea of varied gameplay, in a way.

Related: Have you considered starting the player with more crystals so that the approach to the beginning of the first biome, as far as plots go, has more potential for variance?

Developer

Related: Have you considered starting the player with more crystals so that the approach to the beginning of the first biome, as far as plots go, has more potential for variance?

Hopefully forcing players to mine and kill enemies for more crystals and how they go about that is in and of itself an interesting initial strategy decision with some variance. Do you start off with the crystal seed and get more crystals and avoid enemies? Are there some crystals lying around so you can jump-start your economy by picking them up, getting some thorns, and kill some big enemies for crystals? Do you use the prevalence and ease of access of plots in the first biome to instead plant as many hearts as possible so you can get a head start on health and worry about economy later?

All this to say that my hypothesis is that adding to the initial crystal count would remove decisions -- whether or not you want to get more crystals, and how you want to go about getting them -- rather than adding decisions.

The beginning of the game is not always the most exciting, and we've spent a lot of time worrying about making it as interesting as possible without making players feel like the optimal strategy is to restart until they get a nice initial spawn/randomness (i.e. the more strong variance we add, the more immediately restarting until you get good initial variance is rewarded).

This latest build from today actually attempts to address that a bit by making killing large enemies worth a lot more crystals. My early play has now shifted to trying to get as many thorns as possible and not only kill enemies, but avoid killing low health enemies which is its own challenge. So, things are still changing and we are definitely open to ideas on this problem!

Sorry this was rambling!!

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Definitely not rambling, thanks for all the insight. I would say a portion of my suggestion definitely comes from my lack of experience with the game, so I guess I need to play some more!

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Had a couple people over playing last night and they liked it a lot.

Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere, but we found if you quit on purpose to restart a run, you keep thorns and other items like that from the last run. We also had the seed spawn at the location of the quit rather than the beginning although that didn't happen when I tried it again with 0.5 just now but the thorns did. We could move the bar up to meet it past the gate as well if that help diagnose.

The spike sound effect plays even if it is off screen which can be confusing. It also plays on the title screen if you quit out of a game while they are in sound range.

Also big thing, we wanted an SFX and especially music volume badly

Developer

Glad you had a good time with your friends! Stories like that always make my day haha

Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere, but we found if you quit on purpose to restart a run, you keep thorns and other items like that from the last run.

Sorry yeah that's in our bug tracker -- didn't get around to it for this week. This makes the missing "restart" button especially egregious -- sincere apologies!

Also big thing, we wanted an SFX and especially music volume badly

I know David was just mentioning in Slack that he's dying to get those in too so we feel your pain.

This small quality-of-life stuff is a killer, I know. They keep getting pushed back as we try to figure out the last design pieces in the game so we can really focus in on finishing/polishing. I appreciate you reporting them, definitely motivates me!

A few bugs from 0.5a:

Had the seeds in a seed cave appear "on top" of the crystals [pictured below]. Then, when I took one, the other didn't disappear.

Some of the enemies don't appear to draw in quite the correct order when they're on nearly the same location vertically. Also, it seems weird that the vertical maggots don't have the same ridges as the horizontal maggots:

Saw forest shadows on a quest speech bubble:

In the tutorial, it seems like it might be a good idea to avoid putting the weather vane in front of the very first plot:

Well, that was interesting.

I just got insta-killed by a vertical-moving grub. I think it's because it was moving up and I was up against a log (as in, underneath the log). Maybe, since I wasn't able to pop up into flight, it just hit me for all my 3 hearts in the same instant. That's my best guess.....This happened pretty much in the first screen.

Developer

Yeah, that sounds like a good guess :(

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http://i.imgur.com/SjD6spI.jpg I picked up a Bomb aura in town, and this happened upon the meter filling up for the first time. I haven't left the town yet, so I don't know what happens next. (It'll be an adventure! :D)

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Alright, two things happened:

1. I slipped into a shop and the graphics glitch followed me, exactly as it appeared in the picture. As in, it didn't refresh or start over, but remained exactly as it looked in town. Difference was that a bomb started charging and exploded. I guess the bombs are prevented from spawning in town, but the shop isn't considered "in town" by the aura.

2. When I left the town, things started behaving as expected.


I would recommend not having the countdown start until you have left town. Don't want to be planting a bomb just as you enter a new region.

Developer

Yikes thanks for catching this. That graphical glitch usually happens when an object can't figure out how to be parented and it just freaks tf out

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Claymore Aura had one definite bug and one potential bug.

1. The mines were still there the next time I came back to the forest town.

2. Do you want auras to plant mines/bombs in town? The Claymore Aura started that up, immediately, without waiting to get out of town.

http://i.imgur.com/EiHPeMB.jpg

Also, I got hurt when I came in contact with the spring pad, exiting that town. Maybe there was a claymore under it?

It let me through the second time.

Developer

Yeah I'm not sure if we want those things in towns... maybe not? But maybe that's part of the risk? Might be worth trying not doing it

I just picked up the Re-Roll Aura, but it doesn't tell me how to "spend" it. I went into a shop, hoping to find something to help me undersand, but I still have no idea how it's done.

Developer

Honestly I think it might be broken right now I need to double-check. Apologies! There's usually a little circle that you can roll over with a 🔄 emoji above it that you roll over while holding the aura

Just had this too! :)

I don't think homing aura is working properly. I aimed and shot a pistol right at a pink spider and the shot was green and curved around the spider and hit nothing.

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* By ragequitting when falling down a hole, the playerspeed is lowered until the game is restarted.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp7o4ngHGK4&feature=youtu.be

* This may not be a bug but 100% of my friends are confused about the hitboxes when seeing the tutorial area - since your ingame friends have no hitbox but looks like they would - they think the game overall has inconsistent hitboxes. It obviously gets better once you're in play but I've gotten less good first impressions from it. Might be worth considering tweaking :)

* Oh here's a small one - a questgiver called me Mr. which might not roll with people who dosen't identify as dudes :) It's the reaction to the "get 15 gems" quest

Developer

since your ingame friends have no hitbox but looks like they would

Interesting point on establishing expectations!

Oh here's a small one - a questgiver called me Mr. which might not roll with people who dosen't identify as dudes :) It's the reaction to the "get 15 gems" quest

Ah yes good call!

Just ran into this bug a second time: Grub is on a plot. I squeeze my way into it, planting a Thorn Seed, but I don't recieve a thorn. This time, the thorn definitely wouldn't have spawned on top of the grub since the grub was on my right side.

Developer

Since you've mentioned this I've noticed it as well. Thanks!

Warpseed is broken in the boss fight, which is a real bummer because it probably cost me winning the game.

Developer

Ah daaang yeah the way we spawn the boss is bizarro and outside the normal systems of the game. Thanks for the heads-up

Thwomps sometimes disappear from the screen, only to reappear later. I'm not sure what causes this behaviour, but they don't seem to be invisible, they seem to temporarily cease to exist. No idea why, but it does happen with some amount of regularity.

I'm pretty sure it's related to the system that handles turning thomps off when you reach a camp, because I can get them to disappear by getting really close to the jump seed to camp, and then cause them to reappear if I back away from the jump seed. It just also happens sometimes in the middle of a level, and I'm not sure why.

I remembered to screen shot it this time.

I have a Thwomp!


Then I move up.


Where did Thwompy go? 😞

Oh, don't worry, Thwomp will come back if you move back down again. But wait, when I move up, he's gone again! Crazy Thwompy! 😂

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When you digseed a used seedplot, and then try to use star on that new seedplot, it plants cloak instead of star.

I figured out what this is. If you select digseed while over a planted plot, and then return to the seed select screen immediately, it thinks you had a slightly different seed selected when you enter the seed selection menu (that is not digseed), so it plants it while the seed selection screen is up. Regardless of what you selected, it has already planted a different seed. I think that seed is in a particular slot (maybe the one right before or right after digseed? I'm not sure), because it's consistent across a run (on one run it was always cloak, on an other it was always vert laser, etc)

Developer

awesome, i've been wondering what that was about, it happens to me as well. thanks for the details/sleuthing on this!

Homing shots seem to work very strangely sometimes. Do they not seek flying monsters? They don't seem to. (Is this a bug? I don't even know)

Developer

sounds like it could be a bit of a bug. or maybe it seeks out the wrong enemy from the player's perspective?

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If so, it seeks a super weird enemy. This has happened when there was only one enemy on screen and the homing shot just flew off to screen upwards in search of... something

I've noticed that they don't seek enemies that are spawned from towers. That may be intentional, maybe not...

Developer

Not intentional! Thanks!

Possibly documented elsewhere, but:

  • Dying with an aura shows two dying seeds
  • The bomb aura leaves behind a trail of green which persists between games (like, at camp)

Today, there were 2 instances that I used Red Hot Rock, got hit while I had it active, and then it wouldn't reactivate even though the meter was still there. Is RHR supposed to go away if you're hurt?

Developer

Yeah, should fully disappear. Good catch!

- In camps on a couple plays I have encountered enemies. Encountered both a fly and one of those vertical moving things that shoots horizontally.

Most noticeable art things (Most things seem pretty shippable visually, but these are the things that I notice):

-The orb that you carry up the mountain is exactly the same color as one of the mountain strips, so I took damage and it dropped and blended into the ground. Also the crystal seed blends into camp 2 super easily.

-The totally flat colored orb icon when you're carrying an orb.

-The various recharging bars. If they just had rounded edges and maybe a simple trim I think that'd be more than enough for me.

-The gopher like creatures in zone one that just sit there feel a touch out of style from everything else. Not bad, just a bit too much like animals, whereas everything else feels pretty cohesive.

-

I've played over 4 hours, and I've grown to really enjoy it as an escape, even though I still hit hard gameplay walls. Gotten halfway through the desert.

Developer

awesome! thanks randy :) we'll look into the camps more closely for sure.

yea all the auras are temp as is the other stuff you mentioned, actually working on auras right now haha. they'll sorta look like this: https://cl.ly/101s2o2n3a1S with the gem attached to the vine and a familiar that is attracted to that gem. like little spirit friends that follow and help you.

Ah cool, I dig it!

Some 0.6 bugs:

  1. The cloak seed doesn't work with the dummies in the test room, which kinda defeats the purpose!
  2. Feels like in the latest update the hitbox for falling into holes if you're leaning against a wall changed. Things that definitely didn't kill me before are killing me now, which is really frustrating. Is this intentional?
  3. There's no way to view the hot new seed preview videos in the store! Intentional?
  4. I can't complete the "get a new seed from a Crystal Room" quest. I pick up a seed from the crystal room and the quest isn't marked as completed.

Grabbed Thwompy from the first seed room, but in the test area, it switched me to Avalanche, and then when I left the test room, back to Thwompy.

This took me a little bit to figure out. When you pick a seed, the door to test that seed closes. You have to try before you choose. So what happened is you chose Thwomp, but then tested Avalanche on the other side because you only saw one door.

Oh, goodness, I really don't think that's how it should work.

I think that seed selection in the seed rooms should only be set once you leave the room.

1. Enter a seed room
2. Pick a seed
3. Enter test room
4. Try out seed
5. Leave test room
6. Grab other seed, first seed grabbed returns to its pedestal.
7. Repeat until you leave. When you leave, that's the seed you picked, the other seed disappears if you return to the room.

That makes it all way more discoverable without having to explain how it works. If you enter the room and just try and grab both seeds, it's self evident you can't (because one seed returns when you grab the 2nd) and the "pick and seed and then test it out" is super intuitive.

Developer

for sure, you don't have to pick a seed to try it. that's probably unclear. you can just go to the test spot above the crystal and it'll test that. i think what will end up doing is just not removing the possibility to test seeds even after you pick it up. if that makes sense?

That feels like adding an unnecessary step, though.

If you make it so that you can only pick one seed, and if you pick up the other, the first returns to its spot, you succeed in capturing all the functionality you want, but with one less layer of abstraction.

Especially since the videos of "how does this work" appear over top of the seed. Going near the need you want to test to see what it does, but not touching it, feels super unintuitive.

But, aside from my broader thoughts about flow, your suggestion would certainly be less confusing that the current design.

If you die in a holes-and-buttons challenge room, the music never stops playing, even as you start another run. And the bottom floor of the challenge room doesn't seem to be solid--you can steer yourself left and right with the vine under the floor not touching TS.

Homing shot is still super broken. I regularly fire it when there is only a single enemy within two screen heights and it just wanders off in a random direction.

Developer

i think this might be due to homing tracking to the wrong origin on certain enemies. was it the purple LOS shooting guy in the jungle maybe?

Shai Hulud, my ancient foe (i.e. yellow snake).

But I've noticed the behaviour on a few, I think including the purple LOS guy.

Developer

ah yea, that'd be another one with problematic origin/parenting stuff going on. ok cool, put it on the list, should be able to trakc this down no prob!

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???


log here: http://pastebin.com/VjP2TkN6

Developer

wow thanks for the log and report. never seen this. guessing your specs are windows yea? looks like it miiiight be shader related is why i ask. idk tho

Yeah, Windows.

First shot of Cannon Spore seems to be broken. Either the first shot it shoots is invisible, or it simply isn't firing.

Oh, I get it. There's just a bunch of foliage that I don't expect should stop the cannon shot and does.

You could either make the foliage's hitbox less punitive for projectiles.

Also, I would consider a "cannon shot hit something and dissipates" animation, because it just disappearing looks wrong/confusing.

Developer

for sure, we'll do a death particle fx! thanks for the suggestion

I think this was mentioned before but there's still a softlock if you press A just as you're springing out of a crystal room.

Developer

thanks mike, added!

Sorry for a kinda spoilery screenshot here if you haven't made it to the boss:

This bastard followed me to the cloud! get outta here punk


Developer

haha! yea f'real. doesn't belong here!

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I figured out that bug where you can't see the level! I made a video to show how I replicated it. Seems to happen if you quit while in a crystal/challenge room and then play again.


This screenshot (from when I wasn't capturing footage, unfortunately) is what tipped me off:


Developer

oh awesome, thanks so much mike!

Developer

Just fixed this issue! Turns out if you quit inside of a seed home or while in an underground room they wouldnt get cleaned up properly. Will be fixed in next release! :)

The Vampire aura and the Flytrap seed don't interact properly--if you kill something with a Flytrap, it doesn't give you the heart quarter.

Developer

hmm interesting. seems like this is probably the case with other passive type plants as well. we'll look into it

If an Avalanche is initiated and then you go into a crystal/challenge room, the snowballs still show up in the underworld.

Developer

thanks! added to the list :)

greg is cheating


Developer

lol! new internal score calculation caused this ;)

From today's update: a weird soft lock if you restart while falling:


Note that to get the softlock you have to restart before the falling animation finishes. I tried to do this right near the start, but I could only replicate it once I had moved further up the biome.

Developer

Believe I just fixed this today too! Gonna push it with the other fixes in today's bulk hot fix :P

Teleporters are broken, they send you into nothing-land:

My guess is that this is related to the loading change made in the latest update--you're teleported to an area that hasn't been generated yet.

Developer

Yikes! I'll be sure to get this fix in and I'm gonna try to push new builds today.

Developer

Yeah this was a silly oversight, just fixed it

I hit the spring to go into the next biome from the forest, but apparently I somehow also fell into a hole at the same time, so once I was in the camp for the rainforest it did the whole falling animation and took away several hearts, and then I was somehow in the camp with no seed? Very strange. Hard to replicate because you need a spring to spawn very close to/inside a hole. Easiest way to fix this is probably to just make it so exit springs can't be too close to holes.

Developer

Ahhh good catch Mike. I think I saw this once before- the buffered spawning should do the trick

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Still experiencing this issue. Note that there wasn't even a hole on the spring--no idea why I even "fell". This time I had enough hearts that I didn't die, and the vine never came back, so I just floated here soft-locked.



Developer

Weird! So let me clarify: You hit the spring, and it launched the seed up but also triggered a fall sequence? Did the screen fade and load the camp first and then you saw this? Or whats the context/leadup to this?

Developer

oooh wait I have an idea of what it could be. Did you possible have a good amount of momentum going to hit that spring from the right moving left? Technically the way we do springing you may have fallen in that hole on the left of the spring there (long story short the springing seed and the seed on the vine are separate gameobjects internally and there may be some messed up state)

Your summary is accurate, it launched me up and loaded the camp but also did the whole fall sequence. It just happened to me again, this time at the jungle->desert camp, but I don't remember about the momentum. Maybe. I'll pay better attention next time.

I think you might be right, I was just able to replicate it by hitting a spring with a lot of speed when there was a hole on the other side. The level indicator on the vine went right over the hole. Of course I forgot to capture video before I opened up the game with the intention of replicating a bug! Maybe later.

Got it on video!

Developer

Wow thanks for capturing this! This further confirms my suspicions. I'll try and tackle this one in my next round of bug squashin :]

Developer

Just pushed this fix to our repo :) whenever our next update goes live it should be gone!

One more: the Minemelon sprite looks weird in the seed picker:


Developer (1 edit)

lol this fix will be in today's patch too

If you complete the tutorial with a partially-completed Crystal seed, you'll begin your first run with it still partially completed, so you could get crystals from your first plant.

Developer

was just going to make new builds and read this- great catch! Thanks so much for all these reports dude

I fell into a crystal room at the same instant the ***** **** smashed me, so while the camera went down to the underworld my TumbleSeed was nowhere to be seen. When I pressed A i saw the bottom of the seed switch screen, as if the seed was somewhere above what was visible. I couldn't move the vine at all. Kind of a weird one.

Found another bug with this. Itch doesn't seem to have spoiler tags so: click here

Developer

cool yea this is on the list as well. it just never gets reenabled it seems. thanks mike!

If you have thorns from outside the room, you can use them to kill targets in the cannonspore challenge rooms. This is maybe ok? Your call.

Teleporters aren't disabled if you're in the daily challenge. This feels like cheating! (ignore my daily challenge score today for this reason)

Developer

ahh good catch. i just made it so you can't "restart" from the menu in the daily as well (I think it just makes it a normal "adventure" play if you do, but yeah that shouldn't happen). I'll take care of this now!

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Playing 0.7

- There was a totem thing chasing me and got stuck on a house. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=888589713

- This seems like a bug: I had a quad laser planted and there was a big spider that was triggering it in mid-jump. Seems like it should only trigger when it's on the ground.

Developer

great, thanks for the screenshot gerry! will be a big help. haven't seen that one before but i have a hunch. for the spider: that's a bit of a known ongoing struggle. it's on the list and adding it again per your report. thanks again!

2 little bugs today:

  1. I quit a run with 1 hp and the alert sound played while on the menu screen
  2. I saw a longspore (horizontal) pre-planted plot but when I rolled over it the plot switched to a tallspore (vertical) and it had the effect of a tallspore.
Developer

1) Good call on the menu sound sticking around. I think there are a fair amount of lingering sounds that happen if you quit mid game.

2) We fixed this the other day! It'll be in the next update :)

There are still situations where there are totally obscured holes. This feels super unfair!

Developer

Was it against a wall? Or was it behind something? They shouldn't be behind something, but yeah there's still a chance they sort of just barely stick out of a wall and due to the wall assets look like you shouldn't be able to fall in them. I have a fix in mind, hopefully that's the case you encountered

It was against a wall on the left and there was a wall below it, the hole was fully obscured by the wall below it.

Uh... where's the spring?

(it's not behind that pillar and it's not behind the building.

Developer

oof dats bad. def look into that ASAP. thanks again mike! clutch find

Developer

ok it's fixed! thanks mike!!! should be live in next steam build

If you die in the Snow biome and watch yourself putter down the mountain (without pressing A) the snow effect follows you all the way down and is still there when you start the next round.


Typo in this line of dialogue (should say "The librarians call this" or "the librarian calls this"):


At one point a bunch of the quest dialogues would overflow off my (1080p) screen. Not sure if that's still the case because there's been 2 new builds since I finished all the quests.

Developer

thanks mike, yea those overflows should be fixed in the new builds, i did a pass over them a bit ago. do let us know if you see any though. we will do a final pass over all the dialogue in the game real soon. oh and that snow bug should be fixed in the latest version (we'll probably put that up today?)