Strife

You wouldn't be the first one, actually. xD I wonder if I should put arrow markings on the logs to kinda hint to the player that it can be pushed like the gray block earlier in the stage.

Make sure that xinput1_3.dll is in your system directory (which is usually located in C:\Windows\system32). The file should be included with Freedom Planet, but if not, you can find it here: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?xinput1_3 If the message doesn't go away after this, try disabling your firewall. If that doesn't work, update your system to the latest version of DirectX. Beyond that, I'm not sure. @Djawed - Those are some valid points, but I think I'd like to cut players some slack in the first stage. I find that it's generally a good idea to make the first stage easy yet fun, so that it gives the player confidence in their ability to master the game mechanics and motivates them to continue further. If they die too much on the first stage, they might assume that the entire game is going to be just as difficult and give up. Of course, I'm not going to change much; I'll probably just reduce the damage that the boss does so that the player is allowed to make a lot more mistakes. It won't feel much easier, but they'll be more likely to pass the stage.

Thanks Jwiwo! Also, the ladder glitch has been fixed. Now I'm working on a glitch where the boss music plays instead of the regular stage music if you die during the end-of-stage fight.

Thanks guys! I'll get to work on that ladder glitch. ^^ The feedback I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive... almost to the point of surrealism. I didn't quite expect to receive so much support, so, my thanks goes out to everyone who helped out so far and tried out the game. That being said, the most common criticism I've gotten is with the difficulty, along with a couple of glitches here or there. So I'll be releasing an update soon with the following adjustments: - Logs will always fall over when hit with a roll, no matter how fast you're travelling. - Minor physics adjustments during the boulder chase so that the boulder can still be outrun if you jump or roll. - During the end-of-level boss fight, the falling boulders will be destructible with normal attacks. In the current build, only rolling into a ball or boosting will destroy them. - During the end-of-level boss fight, damage from all of the boss's attacks will be cut in half, so while the boss itself will behave the same, players will be allowed to make a lot more mistakes. This combined with the fact that boulders will be easier to destroy should help make it more fair for an entry-level boss.

Duckboy - Oh dear! That bug has to be fixed. xD I'm trying to replicate myself but without luck... did that spiky palm tree hit you while you were climbing up or something? In any case, thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed the demo! EightBitDragon - Wow, that's incredible! If only you were to finish the spikes, then she'd look spot-on. =D It's so cool to see her in 3D.

Yeah, I don't intend for the boulder chase to be harder than the actual boss. xD I'll try and make some subtle physics adjustments during the chase so that players can still jump and perform other actions without it slowing them down too much. I'm thinking that air drag is the main issue there, along with deceleration while rolling. If I remove those two things during the chase, that might be enough.

The boulder chase definitely wasn't a cakewalk to implement, because I had to account for a ton of "what if" situations that the player could exploit to skip it. xD In any case, Lilac can make it through the boulder chase if you just hold right the entire time up until you reach the ramp that throws the boulder in the air. From there, boost forward and you should be able to outrun it to the boss arena without a scratch. For Carol, catch those long strings of jump pads on the ground as you pass over them.

Our first demo is now available for download! You can find it on our official website: http://freedomplanet.galaxytrail.com/ We should have a working mirror link on there if the file on sagexpo.org still isn't working for you guys. The demo lets you play through the first stage, Dragon Valley, as Lilac. There are also a couple of unlockable bonus features that you may know about already. The journey has just begun for us, so what you see in this demo is by no means what it will look or play like in the final version of the game. Do we have something special on our hands? You decide!

Thanks Lark! Also, yes, SAGE is experiencing some downtime right now. =/ They said that they're working on it.

I would seriously commission you guys for Freedom Planet if I didn't already have a smashing pair of composers helping me out. xD That being said, I never did get to the end of the first version of the game, so this ought to give me a reason to pick it up again.

Ooh, not bad at all! The music and sounds effects are sweet - reminds me of the old DOS/Amiga games.

Yeah, I could use a Photoshop macro to help streamline the process of manually outlining all of the sprites in the game. Though, at the same time, attaching the outline directly to the sprites would make them look really fuzzy when rotating, which I believe was an issue in the Sonic Advance games as well. Rendering the outline through a shader effect would help smooth things out. At the moment, it seems that I've eliminated the frame skipping that occurs when new objects are created with the effect, but I still get slowdown in some parts, especially when fighting the snake boss. The computer I'm using is fairly strong too, so I don't want to implement this until it has zero noticeable impact on performance on this machine. Another idea I've been considering is commissioning a more seasoned pixel artist to completely reshade everything in the game (with the possible exception of distant background scenery). If I start a Kickstarter fund later on in development, hiring such a pixel artist might be something to consider.

Special stages? Nah. I already have something "special" planned for those. *puts on sunglasses* But in the full version, I would like to try and expand the Mahjong minigame by adding new tile layouts and such. Minigames like that will offer a nice way for players to replenish their crystal supply in Adventure mode if they're running low (as crystals will be needed in order to continue from the last checkpoint instead of starting the stage from the beginning. This doesn't apply in the demo where you always start from the last checkpoint.)

Alright, the Mahjong minigame is now implemented. You'll be able to access it in the Stage Select screen after collecting all 10 cards in Dragon Valley. They should all be reachable with Lilac.

Here's a last-minute feature that might make it into the SAGE demo. MIGHT. I have to hurry though since we've only got one more day before game updates close. xD Anyway, it's a Mahjong Solitaire minigame, which is basically the Chinese version of Memory. If you don't know how to play, don't worry; I'll make things easy by highlighting the tiles you can select. I'll probably make it so that you need to collect all 10 cards in Dragon Valley before you can unlock it - unless I run into coding problems, in which case I'll just make it playable from the start.

I think you made your point, Shin. No reason to keep repeating the same thing, eh?

That's exactly what I would've done, Shin. ^^ At least if I wanted to give her minimal modifications. Again, I'll just wait until I hear back from Ziyo Ling.

I've thought about just changing the face, actually, and it's something I'm putting into consideration. While the effect on her sprite would be barely noticeable, it would make the larger artwork of her less noticeably fancharacter-esque, since the spikes would be a hairstyle rather than a head shape. Before I make any more attempts at a head revamp though, I will need to make sure that her original creator is okay with any modifications I make. I sent her a message a few days ago, and I estimate it will take her at least 1-2 weeks to respond. If she says No or doesn't get back to me, then I will be unable to change her on moral grounds and we'll have to accept her the way she is.

You're right, that does look better. I've got most of the lag from the effect reduced, but there's a very slight delay whenever objects are created with the effect in place. xP On second thought, I better not risk this screwing up the demo and just work on it after SAGE is over.

Yeah, what I'd like to do is to see if I can trim down the effect so that it doesn't lag, and then give players the option of toggling between it if they think things are too difficult to see in the foreground.

http://community.clickteam.com/showthread.php?t=58727 Hopefully the download link still shows up for folks who aren't logged in.

Pay close attention to Lilac and the turret enemy. I found a nifty Outer Glow effect for MMF2, and I tweaked it so that it gives foreground objects a subtle black outline. It seems to make things easier to see and has a nice cel-shaded feel to it... but it unfortunately causes lag spikes. If I were to add something like this, I would be better off just adding the outline manually to all of the foreground sprites in the game... which could take a while. xD; What do you guys think? Would it be worth it?

Do any of these look like a winning combination? (Note that in the left and right designs, her entire face is skin-colored instead of just the area around her mouth. Also, in the designs with finger gloves, her skirt is replaced with shorts.) Admittedly, she does lose a bit of "edge" without the hair spikes, but if there's any chance of separating her from the Blue Blur, then hair spikes are out of the question. Horns are potentially a decent replacement.

Got bored and drew this, partly to see just how similar/different he'd look compared to Lilac. My style requires full clothing, hence the Riders outfit.

There will be a Settings program included with the game that will allow you to customize the controls and choose an input device.