Messages

I use the partial sprite grabber for importing sprites from sprite-sheets. I think it remains useful for some.

I still need to find a way to get 50% trust.

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I already showed the wrench to Matt. Is there anything else I could do?

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Always try to give the 'nicest' answers when you talk to Matt or other people.

Maybe you didn't miss getting the trust up, but you get some trust subtracted sometime?

I tried about everything and got lots of boost, but one time I tried talking to Matt about everything and 10% were subtracted. I think I got another subtraction of 10% for something else. I really don't want to replay the whole game to get the good ending, that's why I was asking whether there are any other possibilities to boost the trust. I also hoped finding the second and third newspaper article would boost it again, but I can't seem to do anything with the articles and when I go into the reactor room with 40% trust and all articles, I get a bad ending... Will I have to play it again?

I still need to find a way to get 50% trust.

Spoiler

I already showed the wrench to Matt. Is there anything else I could do?

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I do see a backup switch in pressure room with two valves one of them is close and the other is open. I did try open/closing valves including using backup switch and still no success. I do have dirty clothes.

Spoiler

Hint: Try to place something burning onto something else on a pretty high location.

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I finished the game once with this bad ending:

Spoiler

I was handcuffed to the lantern at the end.

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I want to discover both other bad endings and the good one.

Spoiler

For the good one: I've already found the second newspaper article, but I can't show it to Matthew. I need a hint on where the third one is and how I can play Matthew etc. I also only have 40% trust, is there a good way to gain 10% more?

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Thanks for the great game again.

And, sorry, Matt, I can't go back to take a loot at the device-code, keep trying though, the game is really great.

That was great, I really enjoyed it extensively. A really great game which had great visuals, great immersion and a really interesting story. I just finished with one of the bad endings and can't wait to get the good one (or see the others). I'll post in the hints-thread soon.

So, congratulations, the game was really pretty much perfect except for maybe minor spelling mistakes. One of the best ones I've played.

Looks great, I am downloading right-away (after the great "Darkside Adventures" - although I under stand this game will be different) and will be back in a few minutes bugging you with hint-requests, as usual!

Looks cool. Make sure to play that star wars bar theme (cantina) when that sax-player is on the screen. I love it!

Hehe, thanks for the tips. I did this part now (only to find out that a little later, you need to do similar stuff again - now with a triple-jump). I like those features, however I personally think the whole system with the jumping buddy is a bit too much for my taste. The fact that jumping on him costs stars doesn't make sense to me, but isn't that much of a problem, it's more annoying that he will only stay in place for very few seconds giving you barely time to run away from him to get a running-jump - I've been screaming at him to stay numerous times now, whenever I want to take a big jump only for him to move away when I'm in the air right in front of him... I'm probably doing something wrong, but those sequences take me very long to perform and are highly annoying/frustrating. Still, I can't stop playing the game, which is a very good sign, I just hope those long jumps will soon be over...

I can't figure out how to get by the locked door with a sign telling me to kill all evil beings nearby. There are two of those little blue guys around in both upper corners of the room, who send out a small and a big ball every few seconds. I can't reach them and I can't get up in the middle - not with the help of my buddy or with the double-jump.

A hint?

Cool to see that you take criticism seriously, I can't wait for a new version (or for your next platformer). How do you write them anyways? Using C++ or some kind of creation system? Also, if you post at Gamedev.net, I'd advise you not to post in the Announcements-forum, but in the Image of the Day-forum, it'll get more looks over there and your screen-shots are looking great anyways.

Keep it up!

EDIT: Just read this...

The game was made with Clickteam's Multimedia Fusion 2.

That answers my question above...

Okay, I'll take my time to give you a more detailed feedback of your game, Bernie.

First of all, I wouldn't do this, if I wouldn't be absolutely happy with what you created. I think "Darkside Adventures" is an amazing fun game that I'd rather have on my hard-drive than any kind of emulator and Super Mario part.

Some points though:

- Your level-design is outstanding, however I now think I've found a major-annoyance: I'm on the tower-level and the bar of blocks follow me (like in Super Mario). It's a rather hard and long way to get there, and once this bar gets you, it's game over. You've lost all lifes. This is the first time I've lost the will to keep on playing the game, because it's just so hard to nail those run-up-the-wall-jumps the first time and the game doesn't even give you a second chance and makes you start the whole hard level all over. The other tricky parts where always well covered with a save-station right in front of them, which is part of your great game-design, but this part really seems off to me.

- I loved how you made the player go back and collect 800 diamonds before letting him pass on that tower station as well. First, I thought: "Oh no. I'll have to go back and look for all those big things. That can't be fun", but your game taught me better. After a little while it was great fun to search for all those hidden items, especially since once you found them and finished the level, the game would save that progress. This was all really great, however I think you could've explained what the player should do a tad bit better. Your sign in front of the tower with this message confused me and still confuses me. I think it should rather say: "You'll need 800 diamonds to pass, go find them!" or something other than giving you trading-prices.

- Your enemies are as great as your game- and level-design, however one thing about jumping enemies (especially those green blobs that jump and spawn a small mine and the jumping cannonballs) always confused me. When you jump on them while they jump themselves it seems to be kinda random who gets the damage. In lots of situations, I jumped on them the first time while they sat on the ground (which damaged them correctly), then I hit them a second time (same thing happens), and while falling down to hit the final third time, they jump up to do their attack and I get hurt, which didn't seem very logical.

- One or two times I managed to touch a level boundary in a corner and somehow died instantly.

- Just an idea: I would've liked to see some possibilities to choose levels - even if the player needs to do both anyways, it would've just felt great to see two levels unlock themselves after finishing one.


That's it, I think, I'll add more comments if I can think of more or remember those aspects I forgot now while typing the post. Again, I want to make sure you understand that this game is one of the best one-man-productions I have ever played. You should announce it on GameDev.net as you did with Kitty, I'm sure there'll be tons more fans!

Yep, your game is great, Bernie. I enjoyed Kitty but this is way better, in my opinion, although it takes a little bit to get used to the controls! I love it although I'm stuck!

Hehe, thanks to everybody again, I really appreciate your interest. Both paint-overs are really well, however I now think I need to reconsider my choice of resolution (as I said before). If I'll stick to 320x240, I'll take both your images, ProgZ and Mikko, as references, if I'll go with something higher, I'll take the posted sprite-sheet (and the others over at the website that offers the sheet) for reference.

Thanks again!

SURFACE BLAST
_________________________________________________________

Surface Blast is an old-school, side-scrolling shooter. I have put two or three complete days of work in the summer of 2006 into the project. Its game-play consists of pushing the trigger button, picking up power-ups and enjoying the graphics for now. Speaking of the artwork: most sprites are taken from the Metal Slug games, simply copied, adapted, taken apart and put together differently.
     For the technically interested, it's written in C++ using SDL. The game uses parallax-mapping for the backgrounds, which basically means that those bigger, yellow houses that you can see in two of the screen-shots move by faster than the white-grayish houses even further in the background, while the grass in the foreground moves by really fast and gives you more of a three-dimensional illusion, while actually staying two-dimensional. The rest is all pretty much standard, although I personally also like the bullet-shells that come out of the end of your machine gun and then fall back depending on your current movement, physically at least half-way correct.
     Anyways, enough talk. Here are three screen-shots showcasing the same level, enemies, a little bit of the GUI and the player with bullets and shells of course:

Empty shells falling through the air (notice that the shots went through enemies back when the screen-shot was taken)...




Another scene from the same level...




This is the most current image showing the new GUI (notice that the blue bar in the left-lower corner is gone and replaced
with a health-bar right over the player's plane and that enemies take damage now and flash orange for a millisecond when hit)...

I don't know yet whether I'll finish Surface Blast or not (and when).

here:

Now THAT's useful! Big thank you for posting this sprite-sheet, man!

Try simple 3D model for better reference!
I always do that.

That's actually a good idea - why didn't I think of this!? Thanks!

I think that to make it look better (not that it looks bad) you need to focus on two things when designing for such a low resolution:

- use as few colours as possible
- avoid any extraneous details

I would like to do a paintover, but it won't be today ...

Thanks, Misja. I'll definitely try to stick to your two tips there! About the paintover: don't worry, I know you're working on more important things...


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Okay, even those sprites from the sheet, that Fabiano posted, are more then two times bigger than what my current resolution allows. I guess it's just not possible to draw good looking sprites in isometric perspective for a realtime-strategy game in 320x200 or 320x240, without having tanks as huge as half of the screen.

Having said this, I'm currently rethinking the choice of perspective and will likely change it to 640x480 in order to be able to use those sprites from the reference-sheet as... well... reference to draw my own stuff.

Thanks to everybody's participation and help, that was much appreciated, it seems like some threads just wait to be bumped up again. If I wouldn't have done this, I would've never got this great resource from Fabiano!

Thanks!

Unfortunately my game runs at 320x240 in fullscreen-mode (not using AGS by the way) and the sprite is still rather big - approximately half of the size of what I posted here (on my screen). I don't want to draw it in a simplified way, but I also think it looks to chaotic and confusing.

I'm bumping this, because it's about to fall off the front page and my question/request still hasn't found any feedback.

Also, I want to show you how my cannon ruins the sprite, so you can see for yourself. Here:



Looks like complete crap now, doesn't it? Quickly, somebody, do it BETTER!!

I guessed the lock-code, but don't remember it completely.

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three pins were down, I think none were next to each other and the leftmost was one of three down ones.

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Nope, it was completely real-time. Played a lot like StarCraft with technologies and stuff. When you created new units there were cool bubble-effects, I think. If I could only remember more about it... I think the logo before the main menu was displayed showed a small stylized cannon or a tank jumping around on a battlefield or something...

Sorry for not being able to give more information, maybe somebody else has an idea?