Castle of Fire - A tribute to the Atari 2600 game, Dragonfire

[nihilyst]

I've never encountered the highscore screen problem again. So, probably, I something must have gone wrong with my machine.

[Akatosh]

It makes me alternatively scream with frustration and relief due to temporary lack of frustration. Which is to say, I like it, but my neighbors probably don't appreciate. 

[Snake]

New version 1.1 released! Get your copy now, jackass!

All the fixes are listed in the first post along with the download link.

Quit Screen
I'm sorry to everybody who hated the default quit GUI popping up when pressing END. It's still in there like that.
I tried my best and nothing still worked. I even went as far as making the pause screen a whole different room. Like I said, I'm sorry, but it's one of those things that I can't do without help. Maybe for the next version... if there is one.

But anyway, I did my best with the rest of the things everybody suggested, so enjoy!


--Snake

[nihilyst]

Okay, now it's really challenging. I'll try to beat it at least once.

[Radiant]

Okay, I got a little further this time. It's a definite improvement, and everything is visible now.

The concept of the game is nice, but it needs some polishing. What I'm playing here feels more like a public beta than like a finished game.

Issues:
* You can't skip the intro (the part where you zoom in on the door) by pressing escape.
* Likewise, you can't skip through the dialog (with the dragon) - you can't even use enter to skip to the next line. If this were an adventure game, I would immediately stop playing upon noticing that.
* Gamma settings reset at game over; they should be stored in the config.
* The bridge scenes are too random - it is possible for two fireballs to launch simultaneously, which is an instant kill. Furthermore, if you are on the left side of the screen, you can't see the fireballs coming early enough to react. And yet furthermore, collision detection is too wide; you can die for simply being near a fireball.
* I find the rooms a decent challenge so far, but lose all my lives to the bridge scenes. Imho the game would be better with more rooms and less bridges; incidentally, most castles in real life have more rooms than they have bridges.
* Sound effects would be nice.
* In the third room, if you below a treasure-with-spike, you will pick up the treasure and ignore the spike.

[nihilyst]

Issues:
* Likewise, you can't skip through the dialog (with the dragon) - you can't even use enter to skip to the next line. If this were an adventure game, I would immediately stop playing upon noticing that.

I could skip the dialog with ESC. EDIT: Ah, now I got what you meant. Yeah, you're right. You can only skip the whole dialog, but not the single lines.

* The bridge scenes are too random - it is possible for two fireballs to launch simultaneously, which is an instant kill.

It isn't, in fact, since the upper one is faster than the lower one. It's possible (but nonetheless hard) to dodge them.

* I find the rooms a decent challenge so far, but lose all my lives to the bridge scenes. Imho the game would be better with more rooms and less bridges; incidentally, most castles in real life have more rooms than they have bridges.

Agreed. But the bridge scenes are easy once you get the pattern. Now I usually die in the two dragon rooms.

cheers
nihilyst

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Ah, now I got what you meant. Yeah, you're right. You can only skip the whole dialog, but not the single lines.

That was what I'd previously meant, BTW.

EDIT -

*No more extra lives until all rooms are completed
*Increased difficulty

You increased the difficulty of what is already a hard game?

Looks like this one will be sitting on my shelf. Damn. You could at least have made it a selectable "hard mode". :'(

[Snake]

* You can't skip the intro (the part where you zoom in on the door) by pressing escape.

No, you can't. I stated that in the readme file. I tried doing this with the cutscene commands but I think the reason why it didn't work is because all of it is a bunch of wait commands.

* Likewise, you can't skip through the dialog (with the dragon) - you can't even use enter to skip to the next line. If this were an adventure game, I would immediately stop playing upon noticing that.

Yes, you can. Pressing ESC skips the entire thing.
This is the only dialog in the game. You do NOT experience this again the second time through. Once you have read it once, you can skip the whole thing.
Indeed, if this were an adventure game, the individual lines would be skipable - why wouldn't they be?
Hopefully it's not that big of a drawback.

* Gamma settings reset at game over; they should be stored in the config.

I'm very simple when it comes to scripting. If you want to let me know how, your more than welcome, but I won't garauntee that I'll understand what the fuck you're talking about and not ask you to explain better - I get overwhelmed very quickly.
It took me just about a year to make this game when it would only take someone with your know-how to make it in a week - given the time of course.

* The bridge scenes are too random - it is possible for two fireballs to launch simultaneously, which is an instant kill. Furthermore, if you are on the left side of the screen, you can't see the fireballs coming early enough to react.

Yes, sometimes the fireballs come out at the same time. Each fireball is it's own speed and are released at different times. So by coincidence, yes, it happens and you feel like you're gypped. This also happens in Dragonfire - one of the most underrated games of all time.
If you're watching the left side of the screen (on the long bridges) you have plenty of time to make a decision. It takes time. You get better the more you play, and even better with patience.

And yet furthermore, collision detection is too wide; you can die for simply being near a fireball.

Everything besides the spikes, FireGuys and the laval pits are all using the pixel perfect collision detection. I've never once experienced the feeling of that.
Maybe it just seems that way when they are traveling quickly and you jump just a bit too late?

* I find the rooms a decent challenge so far, but lose all my lives to the bridge scenes. Imho the game would be better with more rooms and less bridges; incidentally, most castles in real life have more rooms than they have bridges.

If I wasn't making this game because I love Dragonfire so much, I would agree. I really like the dungeon scenes myself. But it wouldn't be a tribute if every room wasn't bridge-dungeon-bridge-dungeon, I wouldn't like the game - so why make it?
That's what the game is all about - running from bridge to dungeon taking as many treasures as you can and doing it again with the next bridge. It wouldn't be the same.

* Sound effects would be nice.

You don't hear them? Maybe the music is too loud...
I can adjust it for the next release. But, yeah, there are SFX.
Does anyone else hear them besides me?

* In the third room, if you below a treasure-with-spike, you will pick up the treasure and ignore the spike.

I know. I tried doing something to avoid this, but couldn't (I'm talking about my own personal scripting ability). But they're still there to poke you incase you get too cocky.

I hope you all enjoy the game,

--EDIT--

You increased the difficulty of what is already a hard game?
Looks like this one will be sitting on my shelf.

When people are getting through the game 4 times, still having 8 lives and committing suicide just to be done with it, yeah, I felt that had to be done. I thought it might even it out a bit.


--Snake

[nihilyst]

I hear the sounds, but too bad you got rid of the extra lives. I quite liked the garp gliss.

I didn't beat it yet, but I'm getting better.

[egamer]

I tried running the game in full-screen mode, and now I can change the brightness and play the game.  But when I use up my lives and go back to the intro, I have to change the brightness again, even though I haven't even closed the program.  Shouldn't the game remember the brightness if you go back to the beginning without closing the program?

I haven't tried the latest version; this is from version 1.0.

[TheJBurger]

You increased the difficulty of what is already a hard game?
Looks like this one will be sitting on my shelf.

When people are getting through the game 4 times, still having 8 lives and committing suicide just to be done with it, yeah, I felt that had to be done. I thought it might even it out a bit.
--Snake

I don't think the first of half of the game's difficulty is the problem with that, I think it's the extra lives given when you complete the game and the decreased difficulty of the second half.

The first half of the game was pretty challenging in the first version, and I only got better through increased practice. You might want to be careful since any more player frustration may just ward off large portions of your audience.

So, I suggest leaving the first half as-is from the first version, and lessen the number of lives given when you complete the game.

Don't get me wrong though, I like the game a lot and it's tons of fun.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Ok, just played the new 1.1. Indeed, the first bridge scene is now too hard for me. Are you sure you can't be persuaded to make an "EASY" mode?

[egamer]

I just tried version 1.1.  It's better that the brightness defaults to 100%.  But why have a brightness control at all if you can only see anything at 100%?

[Snake]

*Increased difficulty

Alright, hang on.

The only things I changed were the following:
Note: The speed of the fireballs have not been changed either (not even in the next few changes...)
*The bridges with Gargoyals:
  I changed the timing for the gargoyals' fireballs.
*The Long bridges:
  Same thing, I changed the timing.
*The White and Black dragons:
  Before, when you died or first entered, you almost had enough time to get
  all of the treasures before they started shooting at you. I changed the timing
  of the fireballs release.
*The Black Dragon:
  Double fireballs - like the Double Dragons

Other than those few things, everything else is exactly the way it was before in v1.0.

If you guys all agree, I can change the gargoyals so it isn't as hard, but I'd like to keep the other ones.

--EDIT--
Hey, guys,
I just played through the game twice and indeed it is harder than the last version, but I think because of the extra lives.
The first time I got 19,245 at the 3rd black dragon.
The second time I only made it to the second double dragons because I lost so many lives earlier.

Would you like me to add in a couple lives? I think there were 5 before, don't want to do that again, I think it was too many.
Or I can give the player 4 lives apon finished all rooms.
How would you like it done? I'd like to find an equal medium here without implementing "Easy Mode" and "Hard Mode" - I'd rather wait until I make a 2nd one... IF I make a 2nd one.

Please let me know what you think,


--Snake

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, my comments about easy mode refer actually to stuff like the speed of the fireballs in the bridge - maybe even a quick warning about which direction the fireball will come from. Or allow a quicksave like on emulators. Or even just allow to save after each level.

Or I can just accept the fact I don't have the reflexes.

[CodeJunkie]

I've just skimmed over the 2nd page of this thread, but I have some opinions on the difficulty.  Version 1.0 was easy with experience and lives were too plentiful.  However replaying the game through exactly the same levels to increase score is to put it plainly boring after a while.  Getting much further than finishing all the rooms a first time should be very rare.  I'd suggest giving no lives at all for finishing and leave some lives in the rooms in mostly risky places.  What would be nice is if on subsequent playthroughs the lives decreased and moved to more dangerous locations.  Have you considered lives per score landmark (with increasing intervals possibly)?

Regarding the bridges, I thought the difficulty was a rocky road.  In v1.0 they started off easily enough, but were quite repetitive, and then the long stretches were very difficult until you notice that it's not random, where it then becomes very easy.  Version 1.1 seemed to use the complicated pattern earlier, and having gargoyles too was very difficult.  Something more like v1.0 for the bridges is better, but the gargoyles in later levels make some nice very hard parts.  I haven't reached the end outdoor levels, but on v1.0 these were a breeze.

The rest of the game was great fun, nice graphics and movement.  The soundtrack fits the game well too by the way.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm a massive fan of platformers and so I think you've done an excellent job.  I greatly enjoy seeing AGS used for more than just the usual point and click puzzle fest! 

Edit:  I notice that if you are facing to the right (and standing still) the jump animation uses the left-facing direction.

[Dualnames]

http://ledzepforever.googlepages.com/CoFv11.rar

Here's a mirror link with version v1.1. Tell me if you want them coming or not.

[MYKAYEL]

FINALLY!!! Downloading ^^ Been looking forward to this, but been busy lately with my new job (Working at EA GAMES)

[Pet Terry]

Oh sweet, Snake finally finished a game! Congrats on that, man!

I really love the atmosphere, you've managed to capture the classic arcade game mood really well. Some sound effects here and there would have probably made it more lively, but that's pretty much the only "negative" thing I have to say about it. Also, the lack save/load system is a good thing, makes it feel more like an arcade game. And the music is excellent!

Great job, Snake and team. Now bring us Leitor's Edge!!

Oh by the way, the contents of the first post have disappeared as if by magic, probably due to the recent server maintenance.