Strife

Sweet! Thanks guys! There is actually a Steam object for MMF2, but it requires the Steam developer's kit, which they don't give you unless your game is Greenlit. So, Clickteam doesn't pass it out unless you meet that condition.

Bada bing bada boom: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galaxytrail/freedom-planet-high-speed-platform-game I should also mention that our Kickstarter video reveals Milla as a playable character. Go ahead and watch it if you want to see some of her abilities.

That last bit is true, and that's why I've contemplated removing keystones altogether. Afterall, if they don't have a unique function and aren't very desirable as a collectable, then why keep them? Though, again, their usefulness may increase as the game gets harder, and there's also the fact that Dragon Valley is made to be super easy and it's as simple as breathing for most of the testers by now. xD So I'll wait on making a decision until later down the road when I get a better feel for which players will need them. In the meantime, I could remove keystones from Hard mode. I think I'll do that, actually. As far as elemental attack go, that seems like something I could experiment with, so long as it doesn't cause too much imbalance. Afterall, one of the most appealing things about Streak's Mecha Madness fangame was the various elements Sonic could harness - even though each element revolved around the same concept of throwing enemies across the room, they still felt different and varied. Maybe elemental attacks cause the same damage as normal ones, but inflict double damage on the opposing element and do half damage to enemies of the same element. In addition, there could be different types of breakable walls that could only be destroyed with the correct elemental attack.

Since I'd rather not risk any significant changes breaking the current build of the game, I have officially released version 1.3 to the public. It's available on our download page as always: http://freedomplanet.galaxytrail.com/download.htm For those of you who have already tested it, the only significant changes are a fix to one of the ceilings that players could get hung up on, a tweak to Lilac's swimming in which she cannot use the Dragon Cyclone for 0.5 seconds after jumping out of the water, and altered graphics for the keystones. I'm just waiting on one of my VAs to send me their lines, and after that, I'll be submitting our Kickstarter video for review. I hope I can get that done later tonight.

Ah, that makes sense. ^^ I suppose, then, that what I should really be doing is looking at how other action games with health bars deal with powerups, such as the Megaman series. In a typical Megaman game, there are really only four types of pickups: Health, energy, extra lives, and E-Tanks. I already have the first three in FP, and the player already has enough health that E-Tanks wouldn't be very useful until the final stages. Action games with health instead tend to offer powerups that provide extra weapons or abilities for the player, but since every character in FP already has their own unique attacks, adding more attacks on top of that would be a headache and something I'd rather save for the sequel when I can think about it from the moment of conception. This begs the question of whether or not there is a place for keystones in this game - or, at least, if they should be spawned by enemies in the first place. Perhaps I would be able to give them a more powerful effect if they were exclusive to treasure chests. As far as the shields go, I will at least keep the shield crystals in the game, because they do have the additional benefit of protecting the player from recoil for one attack. This can be a boon to speedrunners because it allows them to tank through a single hit without slowing down. There are also a couple of stages that are centered around a specific element type (i.e. a fire/lava stage) and keeping a shield for these would have a massive benefit, rending the player immune to some of the stage's more dangerous sections.

I've had some time to think about this, and I have another idea that I'll crosspost from Sonic Retro. How about this: When a keystone is collected, it acts like a temporary powerup that briefly gives you the same benefits as the shield it represents. For example, collecting an Earth keystone would pull crystals towards you for 10 seconds. Collecting two keystones of the same color in a row would give you the power for 20 seconds. So how is this any different from the shield powerups? With shields, you have a permanent effect that disappears if you are hit. With the keystones, you have a temporary effect, but it stays with you even if you are attacked. This could make keystones feel more valueble since the player is given an immediate benefit instead of having to wait to collect 5 of them in a row. Consequentially, shield crystals would also feel a little more rewarding since they would become the only way to collect shields. I have a few more ideas that might work, but this one would involve the least amount of work to implement. xD Does it at least seem better than the current system?

I'm having trouble figuring out how much of what you said about the shielding is based around the fact that you can probably clear DV with your eyes closed since you've played through it so many times. xD; In later stages, there are hazards that would act as fairly effective shield breakers, such as flamethrowers and the like, since they're constantly overlapping the player. Perhaps keystones should offer a different benefit - something a little more passive so that the player doesn't have to remind themselves that they have an ability they can use from it. I for one know that even if there's some special ability I can use from collecting them, I would forgot to use it most of the time. That, and I'd have to find another button to map. <.< - Maybe the player's maximum number of petals begins at 3, and collecting a keystone adds another petal up to a maximum of 7 - but, like the Mario Galaxy example mentioned, the extra petal slots could not be recovered if hit. - Maybe each keystone collected up to 5 would add a multiplier to the number of crystals and petals obtained from an item box. Smashing one of these item boxes would remove one of your keystones as a result. - The chests scattered around the stages are locked and require a keystone to open. Opening them rewards you with a powerup. - Collecting 5 keystones subtracts a certain number of seconds from the timer. Also, I fixed that troublesome ceiling. Should be okay in the next update. ^^

Yeah, I get what you're saying - which, actually, would be further justification for the new system of increasing a shield's durability the more keystones you collect. But it does seem like they serve a limited purpose depending on the current stage. (Fire shields are infinitely useful in a fire stage since they render you immune to most enemies, for example.) I just thought of another possibility - What if all the shields acted like the invincibility powerup, in that they render the player immune to damage but only lasted for a set period of time? This being the case, being attacked with the same element would net you either a crystal or petal bonus, while being attacked with the opposing element would destroy the shield instantly. Meanwhile, the actual invincibility power would grant total immunity and crystal bonuses across the board.

If I can figure it out, I would love to include an updater so that I make sure everyone has the latest build. It's possible, but would require a plethora of extensions that aren't compatible with the exporters, so I don't know how it's gonna work yet. What I could do, possibly, is hire someone else to program a "launcher" for the game that automatically checks for updates. That would be ideal. Anyway, thanks!

The file should be updated now with fixes for some of the mentioned bugs: http://www.mediafire.com/?j5650qe4jzm7o14 Haven't gotten around to fixing the spiral slide yet, but hopefully it's not something most players will run into on their first run. In addition, collecting 5 keystones with a shield will not replace your current shield but allow it to endure an additional attack.

- The original plan with the bike was to have it cease moving when the energy was fully depleted, but this would require me to add physics to the bike, so I haven't done it yet. - Aye, I'm trying to set a good impression. While I liked the old title screen theme, it may come across as too "ear-raping" for some people depending on what speaker setup they have. The new title screen jingle also matches the full theme song quite nicely (which begins roughly the same way but then continues into a 3-minute long track with a few lyrical bits). - It's the same voice actress as Lilac, actually. She auditioned for an unrelated project and didn't get chosen, so I decided to use her audition clips for the dojo. Perhaps it's some kind of unknown trainer in the background. :3 - I'm not looking forward to drawing a "run while rotating" animation for each of the characters. xD For now, it's just rolling. - Funny story - Bike!Carol couldn't grab handlebars at first, but I figured hey, why not, as long as it's visible that she's struggling really hard to do it? xD - That seems like an okay workaround for the shields. Of course, if the player is really good and collects 5 keystones with a shield, keystones cease being important. Someone on Retro recommended that collecting 5 keystones with a shield would strengthen the current shield so that it can take more hits, but that the extra hits would deplete more rapidly than getting hit normally. So, for example, collecting 10 keystones after getting a shield would increase its strength to Level 3, which would protect the player for 1.5 seconds of overlapping a hazard.

I need to learn how to introduce my villains in such a badass way...

I disabled pausing in the Academy for when the stage is cleared, which should hopefully eliminate that glitch. I'm still working on the others. The Dragon Cyclone may need a key reassignment, since I've gotten a couple of complaints so far about it being activated on accident. A couple of ideas: - Up + Jump while in midair. Given that some people don't even know her uppercut exists, I may have no choice but to spell it out for the player at some point. - Press Attack twice while in midair. This might come more naturally, but begs the issue of whether or not it will still be used accidentally.

The platform glitch, ceiling glitch and miniboss glitches have been squished. Also the spikeball glitch in the academy. I've also attempted a fix for the Cacteon glitch (the spikey green enemies) which should hopefully stop them from inflicting damage if the player is dead. Thanks bud! =D I have no clue why the game would crash when setting up joypads... The only thing that might be causing it is the fact that I exclusively use the Joypad 2 object now rather than both Joypad and Joypad 2 interchangeably, since the former was causing lag with the sound effects in the non-demo stages.

I wanted to wait on updating the demo until we were closer to a release, but I'd like to make a good first impression for our upcoming Kickstarter. Therefore, I've updated the demo to include our latest content for Dragon Valley, including Lilac and Carol's new abilities and the 16% increase in gravity I mentioned previously. I'll let you guys test it first to make sure that nothing is horribly broken: http://www.mediafire.com/?9te5yh8v86ycmq4

As a matter of fact, I was the one who originally made the TVTropes page. Being an avid Troper myself I simply couldn't resist. xD; Now that it's up there, though, I'm going to leave it as-is and see how it ends up expanding once the game is released.

You're not alone with regards to planning out levels before building them. In fact, when I build levels, I absolutely have to outline them first on paper or else I'll get stuck. There's honestly no better level editor than the human mind; the tricky part is exporting it from your mind to your computer.

So the latest build of Multimedia Fusion 2 (build 256) has an optimization for PC games that makes Freedom Planet run like greased lightning. Levels that ran at 40-50 FPS for me before now run at the full 60 FPS. Unfortunately, the build also breaks many of the enemies and bosses that have gravity/physics enabled, such that they only work when onscreen. (This is because the optimization has to do with streamlining the way collision detection works when there are multiple layers above the first one.) The issue is apparently being worked on, though, so until then I'll just keep using the previous build. I've also come to realize that the Joypad object, for whatever reason, causes a tiny but noticeable lag spike when sound effects are played, so I've taken it out and I'm now using the Joypad 2 object exclusively (which is the one that can cause those "cannot find joystick2.mfx" errors). Man, I really hate MMF2's limited options with controller input...

The S tunnel was rather automated as well, such that you were better off just coasting through it or else a glitch might happen. So, with that said, the spiral slide isn't too bad. The thing about 3D Sonic games leading up to '06 is that not only did they have automated sections, but the autopilot would stay on for a noticeable amount of time. You could spend upwards of 15+ seconds doing nothing, whereas I find it's a lot more tolerable and useful when it takes no more than 2-3 seconds to coast through an autopiloted section. Not only that, but when auto sections are used properly, they can act as decent transitions between different parts of a stage - especially if their main purpose is to launch the player away at their maximum running speed, as is the case with DV's spiral slide.

The latter person's style is quite lovely! Though, I have a feeling that they wouldn't feel inspired enough to work on anything that doesn't involve their own OCs. A lot of artists are like that, actually. Anyway, small update - I've replaced one of the most obviously Sonic-ripped gimmicks, the S tunnel, with a spiral slide: It seems to be less buggy than the S tunnel too, though I haven't tested it very much yet.

I'll keep you in mind for when I start finalizing the script and need extra proofreaders. Thanks! I've been putting thought on what I want to do with the cutscenes, and I would consider scouting out some options to get a professional animation studio to help out. The thing is, I have no idea where I should be looking. xD The only place I'm familiar with is DeviantArt, which is somewhat limited. I could just search individual websites of animators, but first I need to know who is accepting commissions. I doubt if most of the people watching this page know anyone worthwhile, but if you do know of some animators who would be willing to work for money, let me know and I'll start making up a list of candidates. I'm leaning towards someone with a style akin to Japanese anime, but that's not a super-strict requirement.

A bit of good news! I managed to get in touch with Ziyo Ling again and update her on all the progress we've made since the beginning. She says that she'll support us all the way regardless of whether or not we sell it, and she doesn't mind the changes we made to Lilac as far as turning her into a dragon. She was actually concerned about it herself (I.e. Proto-Lilac being too similar to Sonic). So, that's a huge weight off my shoulders. On another note, I have Mercury (from Retro, not sure if he has an account here) acting as another proofreader for the story, and we've been touching it up to make sure that everything makes sense and the characters act consistently.

Aye, the number of bug reports is not proportional to the messiness of a game. I'm overall pretty satisfied with how smoothly it plays so far, and there hasn't really been a bug that I haven't been able to fix eventually. That being said, I'm somewhat amused at the explosion of replies here, so I think we made our points clear enough. xD I've been busy getting ready to move back to Denmark this past week, so I haven't had time to work on much besides a revamped theme song. The title screen theme is not only getting a makeover, but it's being stretched out into an anime-styled track about 3 minutes long for the credits. I may or may not be able to give it lyrics depending on how busy my VA for Lilac is. She's quite the singer!

I'm still waiting for Sonic Three Sequels After the Sequel Before the Sequel. xD Seriously, though, it's about time someone attempted and finished a free-roaming Sonic game. Good luck to ye, sire!

Well, he's the only one taking the time to post about 'em, for sure. ^_~ In any case, I have read your posts Alden, so thanks! I'll get to the bottom of anything I haven't yet fixed.