Strife Posted August 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 I think you made your point, Shin. No reason to keep repeating the same thing, eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duckboy Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Look at Klonoa and Mickey Mouse. They look very similar to Sonic but different enough to not be associated with him. Er no not really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apricity Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Is there any prize for winning it? Is it like this games "special stages"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XeroNazoBlaze Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 I don't have idea of how to play Mahjong and I'm a sucker for unlockables. I hope you add more cool stuff like those, Strife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Is there any prize for winning it?Is it like this games "special stages"? 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.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serephim Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 the black outline thingie is a filter? It actually seems to make the sprites look even better. I like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rawr Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 The one thing about the outline thing that I am not understanding is why you need to have it be an in-engine effect in the first place. While it sounds like you're starting to get a handle on it so it won't impact performance it just seems like it'd be easier on the engine to just take your sprite sheet into photoshop and add a 1px stroke to it (though you might have to touch it up a bit) and re-import it back into the game? Either way you do it though it still looks rad and makes the sprites look a lot better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rawr Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Oh yeah, you bring up a good point there. I never thought of it getting all distorted when rotating. While the rest of the sprite would distort the way you're doing it, at least the outline would stay consistent - so I can see that benefit of it I guess. Good call - I totally didn't even think of that. I've got a fairly strong computer too so I can always do a test for you sometime if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparks Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Downloading it now to give it a clean playthrough! edit: download broke'd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarkSS Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 I'm having problems downloading this. Using your main link I get, "This webpage is not available," and using the mirror link I get, "This file is currently set to private." Are you just previewing the website for now? (Very nice artwork and design btw.) Edit: Downloading from here is working fine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asuma Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Sagexpo.org isn't even loading. =/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Thanks Lark! Also, yes, SAGE is experiencing some downtime right now. =/ They said that they're working on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Has stuff about the demo. Play it first pls. This game. THIS GAME. It kicked my ass hard. But still. This game shows extreme amounts of polish and charm. Hell, when you even see charm the skidding animation... ...you know it's gonna be good. This game is cute, but holy hell is it hard. I got my ass whipped on the boulder part and second worm boss and got a Game Over. That, or maybe I just suck at it. When it comes to bugs, I only encountered one. That's it. It's really just Lilac being able to go through a log when it's wobbling when you tackle it, and when it isn't wobbling anymore...she gets teleported to the top. But other than that, whenever Freedom Planet launches, and if you sell it, I'll take twenty. But GOD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 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. I found that out the hard way, only to have my ass handed to me again by the Worm boss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSF Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 OH FUCK YES. Downloading now. EDIT: It was quite an adventure to get it working... I first tried it on Wine - it works, but I get about only 2/3 of the screen, because it's a bit off. Switching to windowed 1x or 3x inverts the display aside from cutting it, and fullscreen eats up even more space. Might have something to do with my wine setup, but since I didn't want to break my other games nor create another wineprefix, I decided to use virtualbox. I suppose you're using HWA because my direct3d support-less VM only got a frozen screen. Switching to my other VM I was finally able to run it - but still with screen cut offs on window mode. Switching to fullscreen finally fixed everything... except the control. Nothing responded at all. I opened the settings app and found out every button was mapped as "none". No idea how it happened, I previously set controls, maybe it didn't save properly. In any case after setting these, I finally played... EDIT: For any wine users - these issues seem to be related to library option toggling - try using a clean wineprefix, it should work better. ---------------- And goddamn, I tip my hat to you Strife. Presentation is top notch - menus are simple yet fluent (options reminded me of the gunstar heroes menu), and performance was excellent (as a side note, wine also worked well even with the screen cutoffs). The only part where I got a bit of lag was when I killed the boss and the explosions started. It was just a few frames skipped, and since it was a sequence it's no big deal. I acted a bit recklessly and ended up with one life left, with blinking health meter. Some hazards took hell of a lot of petals away and I ended up dying because of it. But difficulty is okay - it's just me acting in a hurry. Keep this up, man. It's simply great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apricity Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Didn't die once but finished with no petals left and just a blinking core so I assume that means I was hella' lucky. I'd love to review this but I'm afraid there's no way I could put into words how awesome this is without insulting somehow. As I said on the Facebook page Strife, top drawer. Top drawer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goshi68 Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Quite fantastic, Strife. Everything, from the graphics, to music, to presentation, is really top-notch. It's just...wow. There isn't really anything to complain about, except that when you're playing as Carol, the boulder can catch up to you as you go up the slopes. When I recorded the game (that shall will be uploaded within the next few days), it happens on the last one, before the boss. But, yeah. Fantastic job, Strife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarkSS Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Funny, I thought the boulder chase was scripted because I just held right until the boss and took absolutely no damage (still cool though!). I'll probably give my own personal review later when I play it more than 2 times through. For now I need to do what I can to get Zero's SAGE face on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duckboy Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 The game is wonderful as expected, and the level of polish in this thing is just unmatched in anything SFGHQ's done before. That being said there are 2 issues that I encountered. EDIT: nevermind there does a appear to be a checkpoint system hooray! Secondly, and the bigger problem, I got stuck here: As soon as I reached the top of the ladder, I froze like this and she wouldn't respond to any of my commands. I have no idea what happened here but I suspect it has something to do with that thing on the right. And I still think it could use some work in distancing itself more from being a Sonic game. BUT. The game is great, it plays wonderfully, the art is awesome, the music is really catchy, it's polished, the gameplay is fantastic (love punching/kicking things, love the spinny cannon...thing Lilac does). Everything is great. And the fact that I can set the controls on it to be used on my xbox controller just completely makes it better than any other game on SFGHQ for that alone. You've got a real winner on your hands here Strife edit: Oh yeah, and if you're wondering how I'm at 18 minutes, I got stuck at the part right after the log waterfalls because I didn't realize I could push the log I knocked over to go down the hole. Felt like an idiot! edit2: Oh yeah the little twirl she does when you jump from the side onto a ladder is such a nice little detail edit3: That rolling boulder part of the stage owns Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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