-- Ark 22 -- Adventure/rpg; Complete., Updated 08.11.07 Options

[dimitri]

bleh...i get an unpected error shortly after your name comes up in the intro.

[Srehpog]

musn't have let the music play on my pc then.

Are you sure you downloaded the full package? The music isn't in the game - it's external files that come with the .exe. If you're running it all straight out of the archive, try moving everything to a new folder.

Joypad Support:

OK, now I really do need you. Does this gamepad configuration look good to you:



Imagine pressing those buttons as they are - what would you change? Answer ye all! Also, am I right in assuming most basic joypads have at least eight buttons? Am I right? Help. I need a lot of input on this, it's a big step.

Control change:

Minor one: Pause button P is now gone. It's ESC instead. How to quit, you say? Pause menu option added. Cutscenes are still ESC-quit though, so watch out.

If you're still playing Ark I'd quite like to know what you're finding - especially those new message boxes - do you find any missing keys? Important!

bleh...i get an unpected error shortly after your name comes up in the intro.

Er.....I really don't know what that could be. The only functions called after the intro name thing are discard_all(), instance_destroy(), draw_text(), and so on. There's nothing there which could be a parameter error like undefined save files, and they're the only things I know which can cause unexpected error....

This post has been edited by Srehpog: Mar 1 2007, 12:39 PM

[Monkey939]

this so cool.
it may have took 2 years but it was sure worth it.
liked the graphics.

brilliant stuff mate

[arao]

HA!
I return!
ummm...
yeah, haven't downloaded the newest release yet...
but, yeah...
god, sreh, and here i thought you were done
anyways, i'll dl the new version soon...
and as a question, was there an alternate ending? other than the non-100% one?
b/c i have lost mine...
anyways, it's great to be back

[Srehpog]

Yeah, I thought I was done too. Apparently not. March 1st is Ark's 3rd birthday, so I'll probably aim to finish up by a couple of weeks after that. Then, I guess I'll just post it absolutely everywhere. Regarding game endings, there are only two: the one you get for getting everything, and the one you get for anything less.

News:

To all two-ish of you who are still reading this.....hmm. It's a time of a lot of work but relatively little excitement. Basically, joypad support, which I thought would be simple, in fact for consistency requires changes as profound as modifying a boss attack, rewriting the message script, and, unfortunately, find-replacing every single instance of the phrase 'show_message' in all the object code, room code, timelines and scripts. Boring, painful, but probably worth it.

The results, however, don't look too bad:





....so yeah. A lot to do. The fact that there are no more message boxes now means the game can run in exclusive graphics mode, so perhaps I'll stick some fancy fade-ins and -outs or some image_gamma fun somewhere. I'll see. There's unlikely to be another update for still quite a while, but when it comes, it will probably be the last.

This post has been edited by Srehpog: Mar 1 2007, 12:40 PM

[mr.pacman0]

i'll TRY to playtest, i'm not really sure, btw, awe-some text boxes, they're great!
btw, found a glitch, sometimes, when you talk with somebody, you have your walking animation for a bit...

This post has been edited by mr.pacman0: Feb 26 2006, 09:30 AM

[GmDude66]

I have asked Shehpog for help and this 2nd puzzle in the 3-room.

He sent back this image via PM:


Just thought I would post here for others use!

~Derek~

[TyrantX]

What up, Srehpog? I would just like to say that this is a very nice game. It's hard to find a good RPG nowadays, and yours is very memorable. I like how it focus on the puzzle and story development aspects of the game, rather than slashing baddies for experience. (Although that works too.) I liked the sound effects and the music for the first dungeon. Those cutscenes were a nice touch. Did you use external resources? I noticed that the load time is relatively short for a game of this size. I remember Megabot taking 20 minutes to load on my system and it was 9.7 MB.

I'm in the middle of chapter 2 right now, and I'm trying to find a way through the blizzard. Could you tell me, if the map doesn't help, what do you need to get through the blizzard? And are those things that attack you from the water invincible?

There is one bug(not really) though. It is in the beginning of the game after you get the disk decrypted and all that. When you talk to the head chef(guy behind the counter in the kitchen) asks you to "Serve this plate!", there are no shortcut keys(Z, X, C) offered on that message prompt.

Other than that, this game was pretty polished up and bug-free. Again, kudos on the game.

[mr.pacman0]

  What up, Srehpog? I would just like to say that this is a very nice game. It's hard to find a good RPG nowadays, and yours is very memorable. I like how it focus on the puzzle and story development aspects of the game, rather than slashing baddies for experience. (Although that works too.) I liked the sound effects and the music for the first dungeon. Those cutscenes were a nice touch. Did you use external resources? I noticed that the load time is relatively short for a game of this size. I remember Megabot taking 20 minutes to load on my system and it was 9.7 MB.

I'm in the middle of chapter 2 right now, and I'm trying to find a way through the blizzard. Could you tell me, if the map doesn't help, what do you need to get through the blizzard? And are those things that attack you from the water invincible?

There is one bug(not really) though. It is in the beginning of the game after you get the disk decrypted and all that. When you talk to the head chef(guy behind the counter in the kitchen) asks you to "Serve this plate!", there are no shortcut keys(Z, X, C) offered on that message prompt.

Other than that, this game was pretty polished up and bug-free. Again, kudos on the game. 

That, my friend, is called a glitch...

[TyrantX]

Oh, and there was one other thing I wanted to suggest, Srehpog. I think you should zoom the view in a a few levels. You can see too much in the current view. Just a suggestion, but I think it will actually make the game more interesting if it's more "zoomed" in on the hero.

This post has been edited by TyrantX: Mar 1 2006, 06:00 AM

[Huggkruka]

How do I get throught eh snowstorm? I have got the map but who has the directions? I've spoken to every god damn NPC in the game, it feels. A hint please?

EDIT: This is so game-boy it hurts(in a good way) Everything is exactly to style. My eyes get's misty when I think of all the work you've put into it. The gameplay is excellent, and my impatience earlier this message is merely my anticipation for the next level speaking. Please let me enjoy this quality game to the end!

This post has been edited by Huggkruka: Mar 2 2006, 01:46 PM

[gamerboy251]

WE NEED A GUIDE PLEASE! you could write up a whole guide on the game post it! PS:This is a gameboySP quality game. Have you contacted any companies to get a lisencing deal?

[ad134]

Looks very good!

Well, GBASP or GBA for that matter cannot handle GM games. Besides, it would take aaaages to move it from one platform to another.

[Srehpog]

News

Not much in the way of big sweeping changes or eye- candy, but possibly one of the most satisfying results I've ever posted:

- Message-boxes work.
- Joystick support works.

....so I'm quite happy. Now all that remains is...

- Mortar Delivery Service
- Joystick configuration screen or F1 subscreen
- Possible visual prettiness using exclusive graphics functions
- Polish

...after which there'll be another (final) update. Might as well wait for it all at once.

Did you use external resources? I noticed that the load time is relatively short for a game of this size. I remember Megabot taking 20 minutes to load on my system and it was 9.7 MB.

Nope, everything's inside the .exe. A lot of it is set to Load-On-Use, so perhaps that's why it loads....quickly? I think it takes ages to load compared with other GM games. I must be impatient....

How do I get throught eh snowstorm? I have got the map but who has the directions? I've spoken to every god damn NPC in the game, it feels. A hint please?

I'm in the middle of chapter 2 right now, and I'm trying to find a way through the blizzard. Could you tell me, if the map doesn't help, what do you need to get through the blizzard? And are those things that attack you from the water invincible?

- Directions: check out all the papers (stand on them and press Enter) on the floor of the hut where you get the map.

- Snakes: completely invincible.

There is one bug(not really) though. It is in the beginning of the game after you get the disk decrypted and all that. When you talk to the head chef(guy behind the counter in the kitchen) asks you to "Serve this plate!", there are no shortcut keys(Z, X, C) offered on that message prompt.

Other than that, this game was pretty polished up and bug-free. Again, kudos on the game. 

Thanks for the bug, but as it turns out, the new message-display system doesn't display ZXC shortcuts anyway, so it's already 'fixed' in a way. Any others can also be considered fixed, except if I moved an answer button and it now produces no result at all, which is extremely serious.

I think you should zoom the view in a a few levels. You can see too much in the current view.

I know, I thought so too. The problem is, nearly everything's purpose-built to viewless 640x480 screens, so it's too late to change that now. Next time, perhaps...

WE NEED A GUIDE PLEASE! you could write up a whole guide on the game post it! PS:This is a gameboySP quality game. Have you contacted any companies to get a lisencing deal?

I'll write a quick walkthrough when I've finished adding these bits and pieces to the game itself. A couple of things still need doing... And no, I haven't contacted anyone, especially not GBA/SP developers, since, as ad134 says, the filesize is too large, the colours aren't paletted, it would require re-coding from scratch, and generally I don't think companies develop fan games no matter what they're like.

[gamerboy251]

this master peice is a fan game?!?!? If it is il bet MONEY its better than the game its based off.

[chris_kurz3]

WOW! this looks awesome! ....only one thing....its 20mb and I have dial-up ...so i beg of you...compress this game in 7zip!!! It will make it WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY smaller!!! I really want to play this....and if u dont have 7zip...get it and use it for ll of your larg games!!

[Srehpog]

this master peice is a fan game?!?!? If it is il bet MONEY its better than the game its based off.

Well, it's not a fan game as such, I shouldn't have termed it so; I meant, more generally, amateur games. Given that Ark is based loosely on the Zelda series, I severely doubt it's better than its source.

News

So very close. Mere days are left; what remains? A joystick/gamepad configuration screen, and a completely revamped title cutscene.

This post has been edited by Srehpog: Mar 6 2006, 07:19 PM

[Kristian]

THIS GAME IS AWESOME!

Im kinda stuck on the bit where all the intent is coming out this hole though

Anyway, real nice work, 3 years well spent

[Scooternew]

I feel that this is still more of a hybrid cross of a WIP and a creation. Of course there are updates being posted, and that is valid - I'm sure you can't miss every bug or get in every thing you want put in the game. I've just seen nearly as many updates and bug fixes go on through this topic as in the WIP topic!

This is great, no doubt. I hope you continue to grant GMC more of your game making ability in the future - but next time, I'd suggest you hold off on the release date to add more things and get rid of more bugs.

I hope I'm not preaching to the choir, either.

I'd like to know something, though. Besides the edited sprites, which you said you got rid of, are all of the custom sprites in this game made by you and only you? If so, that is amazing. I've never seen someone sprite so much for one game. Furthermore, where did you learn to sprite anyway?

[gogokick]

awesome game. I only have one complaint: the view! It burns my eyes because the tiles are too small. I dont mind if they get blured a bit, but I dont wanna worsen my already bad eyesight, you know. So it would be nice if you can add an option that allow players to zoom in. Thank you.