43 replies to this topic

[Yal]

About "Fork"... isn't it technically a trident?

Also, the monster that uses the ability is named "Trident Knight". "Masher" was the Dream Land 2 equivalent of Mace Knight.

Um... Well... I... Um... I'll fix it in the sequel.

[greep]

This is a really good game! It's pretty rediculously hard though: I'm even having trouble on easy tbh. I'll get around to it, though, currently at block 6. TBH, I think you should make an additional "slightly easier" setting, with either more lives per continue, more hearts after death/retain ability after death.

Also, that darkness effect is really nice. Could you provide the code for it? I'm using a really crappy darkness effect and I'm not really sure how to improve upon it.

Edited by greep, 26 May 2011 - 09:32 AM.

[Yal]

This is a really good game! It's pretty rediculously hard though: I'm even having trouble on easy tbh.

Whee! Thanks!
I like difficult games. Too few games today actually have you practice playing them and actually challenge you; and games you can practically walk trough without problems doesn't have that much of a replay value since you eventually realise that you're just walking from one cutscene to another without having fun.

The game gets slightly easier if you turn off the darkness though, but it doesn't look as good.

Also, that darkness effect is really nice. Could you provide the code for it? I'm using a really crappy darkness effect and I'm not really sure how to improve upon it.

I could give you the code, but I don't recommend you to use it in GM8 since the effect is actually creating and destroying a sprite 15 times per second; this is over ten times slower in GM8 than GM6 (which I used to make Kirbyvania).

The main idea is something like this:
- I have a gradient circle sprite with black in the center and fully transparent white at the edges.
- During the "darkness step", each light source paints this circle stretched in different sizes (bosses emit more light than candles, for instance) after the screen has been cleared in white.
( - A cool side-effect from this was that when circles are drawn on top of each other because light sources are intersecting, the area where they intersect gets more black, and the light will appear brighter.)
- Then I copy part of the screen to a sprite.
- Then I create a black sprite the size of 12.5% of the screen
- I use the part of the screen as an alpha mask to make the black sprite partially transparent; white pixels on the mask gives 255-alpha, totally opaque black pixels on the mask while black pixels give fully transparent pixels, grayscale mask pixels lead to half-transparent pixels.

Finally I let an object with a depth of -100000000 something draw the sprite stretched 4 times in both x and y directions.


You could likely use surfaces instead of sprites; I couldn't because my computer's graphics card was too old and had trouble handling surfaces. God knows how Game Maker managed to draw the internal backbuffer surface...

[greep]

This is a really good game! It's pretty rediculously hard though: I'm even having trouble on easy tbh.

Whee! Thanks!
I like difficult games. Too few games today actually have you practice playing them and actually challenge you; and games you can practically walk trough without problems doesn't have that much of a replay value since you eventually realise that you're just walking from one cutscene to another without having fun.

The game gets slightly easier if you turn off the darkness though, but it doesn't look as good.

Well I can definately agree about lack of difficulty being a problem. I mean when someone beats the hardest difficulty of half-life 2 with nothing but a crowbar, you know something's wrong with today's games.

But really the problem is the highest difficulties are lacking. Without having a difficulty that at least half of the players can even beat, well you lose those players. There's nothing lost by having a very easy setting in addition to whatever you have, and it's usually as simple as 5 minutes of coding.

[Zeddy]

I mean when someone beats the hardest difficulty of half-life 2 with nothing but a crowbar, you know something's wrong with today's games.

Are you talking about this speedrun?

• The speedrun was done "in 134 segments" and the final output lasted for two hours and eleven minutes. This means he saved on an average once every minute. I presume most segments were replayed repeatedly until he got it right. For example, the part where he uses the RPG-launcher to kill the gunship was a decision made after days of trial and error.
• He uses a macro to aid him with an advanced movement technique that lets him travel on foot in what looks like at least twice as fast as your normal sprinting speed. Due to this, it doesn't even matter what weapons he uses most of the time because he runs past everything.
• He doesn't strictly speaking use only the crowbar, either. The physics engine is heavily utilized to throw explosive barrels, enemy grenades and other object in the environment.
• In the last stretch of the game he goes "screw this" and uses the gravity gun.

When you really know something is wrong is when a player can literally walk through the final stage of a game on the hardest difficulty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvSU6ufMCFU

[greep]

Whoo, this game does get quite a bit easier with a little practice just beat it with 8 lives left on easy, when I couldn't beat it period the last run.

Actually I've just read about that halife 2 bit (it wasn't a speedrun, just crowbar only w/rockets where necessary and of course the upgraded gravity gun), I'm fairly sure the one I was talking about was done mostly legitmately as the techniques he described would work, but I still am not sure if he didn't cheat a little at the end of anti-citizen one, as I don't see how that's possible without ranged weapons.

and heh, I like the title, crysis 2 in a nutshell -.-

Although, quite ironically, that seems to be the best way to beat block 6 in kirbyvania. I cringe to think how actually fighting your way through that block would be like.

Edited by greep, 27 May 2011 - 10:07 PM.

[Yal]

TBH, I think you should make an additional "slightly easier" setting, with either more lives per continue, more hearts after death/retain ability after death.

BTW, it's already possible to increase Reset Hearts to 10 in the options screen, and increase lives per continue to 5. Should've pointed that out, but what you suggest is already in there.

Whoo, this game does get quite a bit easier with a little practice

All things gets easier with practice. Glad you noticed how fun it is to actually get good at a game.

I cringe to think how actually fighting your way through that block would be like.

Block 6 is one of the two blocks in the entire game where you can get the secret Lv-5 Whip. With that, it gets a lot easier. With the secret, but easily accessible, Lv-4 whip, it gets a bit easier since Bone Pillars die in one hit. But yeah, there's a lot of flying (and avoiding gears and thwomps) in block 6, and not a lot of fighting. Not really intended, just a result of the vertical stage layout.

[greep]

Well I think it'd be a bit easier to fight your way through it if you had something with vertical attack like beam, which only seems to be available in levels I don't want to use it in

Edit: I guess that's a self answering problem as beam is bad against beam mooks :/

Edited by greep, 31 May 2011 - 12:53 AM.

[Yal]

Try using the Shift-Inhale feature. Hold Shift to inhale, even when you have a power. Pretty useful.

[Yal]

I'm delighted to share the news that Kirbyvania has been mentioned in Der Spiegel, which is the first newspaper/magazine mention I've gotten for any of my games!

[Zeddy]

I saw that in the signature a while ago. Kudos! Where's the article?

[Yal]

It's here: http://www.spiegel.d...,825825,00.html
It's also in the first post somewhere near the top.

I exaggerated its importance a slight bit since it's not about just Kirbyvania, but apparently Kirbyvania was the top 3 game of a top-10 list. I'm so proud!

[Zeddy]

Reading through it with Google translate it doesn't so much seem like a Top 10 list as much as a "Here's five crazy game series combinations in no specific order." That's still really cool, though! Press coverage!

[Phosfor]

lol, looks very great

I love Castlevania, then I love Kirby ^^

Really amazing

[Evil_Nazgul0616]

Whispy Woods can actually kill you!?

what dark sorcery is this!


This game is hard, but it's fun! good job!

[Insert Name Here]

This game is...... Amazing 0_0

[Yal]

Whispy Woods can actually kill you!?

Yup. Could do that in Kirby's Dream Land: Hard Mode too when he dropped Gordos instead of apples.

[boxyman_16]

Nice job! Plays great!

[Yal]

Thx! ^___^

[Yal]

Bump. I'm thinking (a bit) about making a sequel. Would having Pikachu as a playable character be too much out-of-the-blue? I'm thinking that apart from Kirby, Pikachu is the cutest Nintendo character, and a character focused entirely on ranged attacks and dashes could provide a complement to Kirby's versatile but slow playing style.