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Village forest (Almost done) #2314
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@8bitgentleman Oh also, I just saw your Sword of Duquesne pull when I was making this new pull. I absolutely loved your puzzle level and the pickaxe stuff, but I'm not sure if the Sword of Duquesne fits at all. Maybe we could have the secret entrance go to Oriental Mountains, I was planning on putting the entrance to it inside the mines where the laser lotus cult is. |
I agree, the sword Doesn't really fit There. Another option would be to hide an item there that would help You unlock The Epic. We started to discuss something like this in #2273 If the player collects all of the required items the chamber with The Epic would open. |
I played through this version of the game and to me it seems like a hugely impressive amount of work that you've done. I like all of the new level designs and puzzles individually. But I suppose the main thing to critique is the design of the quests. So my thoughts: It's too long to complete each individual quest. Going through 2 or 3 maps to get to the destination and then backtrack is a pretty big time sink, and gets worse if you are an awful player like me and die a bunch and it puts you back to the start of the map you died in. And for the overall story line, I don't super like the idea of giving Hilda a sister, or having to rely on keys for different maps. For overall accountability to the episode, I don't like the acorns in any of the forest maps (even though they have been in the game pretty much since the onset). Putting in an Acorn King that you have to get a bunch of keys to even get to is very random and feels like a big deviation from the sketch of a video game that was presented in the original episode. Connecting it to Cornelius through magic is a pretty tenuous explanation. I definitely don't think getting to the Valley of Laziness should be predicated on forcing the player through this quest. If I couldn't get to the Valley and I had to keep going through the same levels 4 or 5 times to find a small thing and then backtrack and give the thing to a guy and have the guy make me go somewhere else I would just close the game at that point and never open it again. I do like the quests in the game and it's really exciting to see it implemented further than giving flowers to Hilda - however, I think to have a fully realized set of platform puzzles, and a full set of quests, and a full town in each level feels like too much and feels unfocused, and makes the whole game feel way too long. I hope this comes across as constructive. A lot of the elements are well done and I appreciate the thought process behind it all but as a whole I feel like it all kind of goes in a random direction. |
@didory123 I think the quest and levels need some further tweaking/rearranging to make them more cohesive but overall it's almost there. We should set a time to all be on IRC to discuss this |
Ok this is going to be long, everything I write is so long winded. but i want to be thorough: I'm sorry I didn't offer any direction to go in my earlier post, but I have thought of some ideas that hopefully should outline a clear plan for the forest levels. Adding new levels to the forest levels (like the treeline, or acorn stuff, or the mines) I think should accomplish a few things: -should be optional (story line does not hinge on making the player go through too many different maps) I liked the way that you enter the treeline in the currently released version of the game. I don't like having the sign indicating the two different paths that the player can take. Having a fork in the road leads to annoying backtracking that just takes time with no reward. Having a main path with optional circular offshoots feels more like you are discovering a new thing that you didn't have to see, so that makes the game feel expansive. I don't like how the mine levels and the hippie levels are nested in the mountain levels. From the main pathway of the village forest, I think max we could go one layer deep just for the sake of avoiding confusion as to how to get to the next island. I think if possible, convert some of the new mountain levels to just be trees, and it could go above the village-treeline map. Like the mountains could be treetops instead, at the very top of the treeline, so it makes sense as a progression. I think it actually makes more sense for acorns and squirrels to be among the trees instead of on mountains. Also, I think in the forest and village forest, we need to remove the acorn enemies and focus on puzzles with moving platforms and fish rather than literally having 400 acorns getting pissed off when I walk past them in every single level. All of the acorn enemies, eg, the acorns, large acorns, and squirrels, should be all within the village-treeline offshoot level. At the very top of the treeline could be the acorn king, and it doesn't have to be explained in a quest. A shift in the music is really all that classic platformers offer to indicate that you are now in a boss battle. After you defeat the acorn king, then maybe he drops a sweet weapon, or some other reward that is proportional to the amount of effort expended. Maybe it could be like a parachute so that you don't take damage on freefall. And to exit the map without backtracking you could use the parachute to fall all the way down to the normal ground level and continue on the main path. For the mines, it needs to be in its own offshoot from the main village-forest maps. I don't know if I can explain this adequately in words, but basically, the entrance to the mine is behind a very short but ridiculously difficult puzzle that looks very intimidating, and at the end is the entrance to the mine. So going through a really hard puzzle makes the player feel like they earned it without having to find a key or have a back story. But it is optional, because the player maybe could get a wing hat like in super mario and fly over the whole thing and do a cute, easy sky-based puzzle instead. For the hippie levels: maybe instead of being an offshoot of the forest, it could be an offshoot of the hallway in greendale. ie, maybe there is a vent in the hallway that is slanted, and if you straighten it (like the slanted painting in the house) it reveals a hidden door, and it has some more hippie puzzles. But it would all take place within the vents and maybe boiler room of the school. And then you could exit to the outside, and continue on to the forest as is originally intended. i quickly drew some things to make it more clear how I think the forest levels should be strutctured, and i have some suggestions for the beginning forest levels.: main theme for everything is that the reward for doing something has to be equal to the effort of the player. So we have to come up with really sick rewards for taking the hard route over the easy route. I think weapons are good, but we can only design and give so many distinct weapons. maybe a huge sum of coins is good, but then it makes every cool weapon and armor too easy to get. Or maybe it could be a way to earn costumes, like the player can only start off with the base greendale 7 and earn random outfits in the game. Costumes are good because they don't really offer any real advantage to the player, but make the game seem more fun. And when you choose an outfit at the beginning the novelty wears off very quickly that you are wearing a costume, so letting the player discover new costumes and change often in the game is a pretty cheap way to inject frequent novelty to keep the player highly interested. |
@kcig Thanks for the suggestions! Those were exactly the kind of constructive criticisms I wanted to hear. I agree with you whole-heartedly that the quest right now sucks, I'm gonna admit to it. The biggest hurdle I've had with this project was the quest part. I've always had trouble figuring out how to write a cohesive and engaging story that ties into the game nicely, which was honestly the main reason it took so long for me to finish these levels. I loved your ideas for restructuring the levels as well. I'm still not really sure about making the quest optional because otherwise the player can breeze through the levels really easily, but I see your point about the player exploring and discovering cool things on his/her own. The costume thing is a good idea, it's honestly one of the best incentives we have in the game for players to try and unlock all the different features in the game. @8bitgentleman You are absolutely right, we should gather together and try to discuss how to tackle this. I could really use input from others on these levels. |
Ok I've played through the current version and I have comments. Hold onto your hat cause there's a lot! Mountains Mines -In general the laser lotus areas should be weirder weirder weirder! Stoner's Peak Area -The sounds for the hemp plant are the same as the frogs, it's a bit strange. -The suspicious door in the bushes won't open -Where would the oriental levels fit into this? There should be a place where we can put them in the future. One potential option is to use the breakable block code from the Sword of Dunesque pull that I submitted a while ago ( it doesn't really fit with the levels now ) and add in a blocked off area right at the top of the stairs when you enter the mine. Random Thoughts -The backtracking to the town took the most time. Could you add a oneway shortcut so you end up in the treetops right next to the town? Overall it's looking great and it was a lot of fun to play through. |
Starting this off by saying I've been testing the levels individually rather than playing through properly and I haven't done any of the quests. I think I've said some of what I'm going to say before but obviously not on this pull request. Please could you draw a map showing how all the levels are connected to one another? Even with the signs, I'm not always sure where I want to be headed or if I've been to all the levels. Also, what's with the "return" levels? What's happening with reddfawks' oriental levels? You've touched some of them. What about the old village forest levels? I liked them, especially the cave one with the spikes. I assume acorn boss is still a work in progress and in the wrong place (is he going in the far left of acorn peak with the cute little acorns - I love those bushes)? His health bar is wrong and he starts twitching if you jump up and down on his head. Did we generalise the boss hud yet? I had code for it somewhere. I don't like the big acorns but if we're keeping them, can we fix their outlines which at the moment are too thick. Tilda has a spelling mistake in her dialog - "gong" instead of "going". I haven't read through all the npcs' text yet. Some I think are still a bit long but since I'm not sure what information is important I'll shut up about it. The green mushroom sprite is a bit rough and floats off the ground. What's it for? In village-forest-3 there is a bit of background missing behind the bottom bridge In the mines, some of the slopes are acting up, there's half a lantern missing (might be covered by hidden door sprite) and I think there's something causing a bit of lag somewhere. I'll be less vague when I work out what's causing it. The level names also seem to be getting ridiculously long in these levels. Wasn't there a level with a bear in a pit? In stoners peak, the npc looks the wrong way when you talk to him and crashes if you ask about quests. Is that the end and you just backtrack after that? I still hate the laser lotus - looks and functionality is fine (except the guy with glasses, he looks weird) -. I don't think it makes any sense to have Laser Lotuses in the game (Cornelius wasn't even a Buddhist - he has a regular funeral). Any chance he would just be a regular cult leader/alchemist or something? I don't like the wall of text before the boss battle - you shouldn't have to explain why he's there. I'm very happy it only shows up once and not every time you die. If you open inventory and try to change weapons, he'll attack you two or three times before you've got your weapon out, could be I'm playing 1 level at a time but I can't get out once I've beaten him & maybe move the floor down a bit? Sorry for the moaning, overall this is really awesome. |
@8bitgentleman @edisonout Whew, thanks for the detailed playthroughs!
Thanks again for the suggestions guys, and I'm gonna try to get to all the bugs tonight. |
Ooh, thanks @didory123 |
Finishing the boulder quests crashes the game. |
@niamu Merged with master! |
There are still items that need to be addressed. Added to the first post. |
@niamu That is one hefty list, I could probably take a crack at the Acorn King code soon and work on some dialogue soon. |
I whipped up a working acornboss enemy, if anybody would like to test it out. |
@didory123 It's very ambitious, that's for sure. We'll do all of those items in order and see what we can manage by June 13th. @8bitgentleman and I are focussed on getting boss related stuff done by this weekend so even if Cornelius takes an entire week to polish, I'll still have about a week to work on this. Having a working Acorn King is a huge step to all of this. Burning building is also pretty easy. Should only take about 2 days. to be able to burn down the entire town. Having NPCs flee before the battle will probably look the best as not all of them have running sprites so they can all start to walk off screen as the player is waking up in the town. That's only another day of work. If someone could manage to make a few more sprites for the Town Knight to pull out his sword and swing it, we could make him be the final line of defence for the Tavern building. If that can't be done, we'll scrap that idea and work around it in some other way. |
@didory123 I've rebased everything here and made some fixes on my village-forest branch. I think we should keep this pull request open and I'll show you how to integrate my changes into this pull request so we don't lose the conversation thread here. |
@niamu Hey sorry, I'm not sure if I'll be available in the next couple of days, would it be possible for you to just open another pull if you wanted to merge anything soon? If you don't feel that village forest is ready to go in the next couple of days I could do it when I come back, but if it's good to go I think it'd be better if you just merged it on your end. |
@didory123 I sent you a pull that makes the hermit drug you and send you to the town. |
Also consolidated the quest into a questfile, added doors to stonerspeak, acornboss is hidden if the player hasn't been drugged yet and buddha statues were added to the laser lotus inventory
Climbable nodes are not removed yet.
Player is drugged and sent to the town level
The more I play with it the more I hate the knight attacking. I think that should be removed. |
The doors are still in the stonerpeak, can't forget that.
I sent a pull request to you that finishes up most of this quest. |
Fix misc errors, give climbable nodes the potential to be hideable
Also I'm going to rebase this and the QFO for you, unless you want to, and we can do a handoff like you did with niamu |
@8bitgentleman that sounds great, thank you! Yeah, I don't have any confidence in my rebasing skills right now. |
I've rebased this on my own branch. Jump onto IRC if you want to do the handoff. |
Ok So the stuff that still needs to be done is: |
A few bugs:
Edit:
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@8bitgentleman I fixed the hermit crash. It's hacky, but at least there's no blue screen. https://github.com/bucketh3ad/hawkthorne-journey/tree/village-forest Anything else that is a MUST fix before we merge? |
@bucketh3ad We have to make the mine entrance unenterable unless you got the quest from the old man. Sorry I couldn't work on this tonight, something came up |
Closing due to #2446 |
I'm creating a new pull request for this since the old one was too messy.
What I've got so far isn't a finished product, but it very well could be. I've got the main questline done all the way up to the old hermit, but I wanted to get it tested by other devs first. My main concerns are:
So that's it, it would be awesome if you guys could give this a little run for me and see what you think. I suggest starting all the way from the start, and see what changes I've made. Thanks!
Knight in town will slay the Acorn King with the player if there is only 1 building remaining as a cop-out for now? Not sure what happens to all the NPCs if all of the buildings are gone.Not enough time for this.