[beta v0.2] forgotten myths ~puh-sye-dun~

here's another beta of my 8-bits game, forgotten myths ~puh-sye-dun~.

http://board.flashkit.com/board/

http://board.flashkit.com/board/



thanks :)

marmotte, I LOVE it. It beginning to remind me of my 2 most favorite NES games, Zelda 2 and Faxanadu.

I ran into a bug with the jumping every so often. I couldn't jump unless it hit the jump button over and over again. Besides that, it seems smoove as butter.

I didn't finish the maze because I lost my patience. It feels completely random, which is what a maze should be I guess. But I'd prefer to see some more level layouts that are like the first section. I'll have to finish it before I have a final judgment.

I like the design of some rooms in the the maze. I like the room where you have to cross the bridge of disappearing blocks over the lava (with 2 spiders at the top). I like the sort of "traps" you have. There's one room where you drop down a well and fall down 2 screens, it's a pain to get out of the room after that (with so many bricks).

I love how you use an item when you run out of life (if you have one). The angel idea is pretty clever as well. I was thinking of making the angel's save points but I don't think the game needs any real saving (depending on how big you want to make it). It makes it much more rewarding if you have to sit down and play skillyfully to get through the game, be able to save can often makes it too easy.

I was gonna say that the punch is too weak but I'm kind of mixed right now. There's enough water around to keep your sword but you've really got to be paying attention. I think there needs to be some sort of warning sign to let you know that you're getting low on sword power.

Anyway, a beautiful game you've got going. Any idea of how big the full game is going to be?

Very nice work! :)

smooth :)

i too gave up in the maze. actually *ahem* i got a little reckless/careless and died :p

dont know if this would make it too easy, or kind of nullify the draining sword thing, but maybe you could put your sword away, and it doesnt lose strength when away. of course then u have to take the extra time to whip it out...

i didnt get very far... are u planning on adding lots of stuff? like new/different weapons ect. ?

thanks mates.

Son of Bryce
that's already an impressive comment you have there. cool!

apparently you was not far away from the boss, only a few screens (3 max according to what i've heard)

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I couldn't jump unless it hit the jump button over and over again.

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well, it's just that i absolutely wanted to avoid the fact that when you let your finger on the "attack" or "jump" button, it launches the animation constantly. so for jumping again, you need to release the jump key, then push again... i didn't encounter any bug where you have to repetedly push "jump" to actually jump. the attack key uses the same method, and you are not complaining about that... or i missunderstood what you said :)

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I'd prefer to see some more level layouts that are like the first section

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that's what i planned... let's say that the 1st maze will be in fact the stage 3 or 4 at the end.

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I like the room where you have to cross the bridge of disappearing blocks over the lava (with 2 spiders at the top)

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yep, this one might be challenging ;)

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I think there needs to be some sort of warning sign to let you know that you're getting low on sword power.

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v good point. do you remember those ultra annoying "bip" sounds when you almost run out of life in zelda, for example? i might use something like that.

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I was thinking of making the angel's save points

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well, there are only check points during transition levels, so you'll have to pass an entire stage if you want your progresses to be saved. the current demo doesn't have any save feature unfortunately, so if you reload completely the game you'll have to re-do the 1st area again.

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It beginning to remind me of my 2 most favorite NES games, Zelda 2 and Faxanadu

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i never really played faxanadu, but that's true that there's a little bit of zelda 2 feeling. just the hero looks a bit like link in the platform parts of zelda 2, i think... and those spiders look similar, but i really need to reboot zelda 2 to check that.

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Any idea of how big the full game is going to be?

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yep. you'll encounter 4 mazes in total (so that you can upgrade your life and water up to 8 slots each). each maze will be separated by srolling stages. so that means also 4 bosses and a final one... i'm also planning to add "game rooms", not only shops.



>flashl!ght<
thanks also for playing that game. no, i didn't plan to add new weapons, just upgrades of your sword...

your sword switching is an excellent idea though. but it will change a lot of things in the game. too many probably... anyway, there are enough water spots, no? i'm able to cross the entire 1st area (up to the check point) without restoring my sword ;)

Marmotte you hit that classic nes feel right on the head. I loved the game. Played if for a long time, currently found only 1 bug. Well not really a bug more of a map design error.

I was able to crouch and walk into the spot, but not get back out...

oh damn, you are right! in that case, it's impossible to get out.
that's because of small things like that that i need hardcore beta-testers. thanks for the info, mate! it should be very frustrating to get stuck at this point and have to reload the whole game again. wait until i write the password system ;)

anyway, did someone meet and defeat the boss yet? i know, it's an involvment to get that far...

your game rocks. i like how you used the classic font from the old NES games for text. nice graphics, i like the clouds in level 2. great idea with the sword, makes the game more interesting.

only one request - at one point you enter a room, and there's a floating diety or something, hovering over a warp (or hole i guess). could you stop the gameplay so we have to see what the guy says before we can proceed? because i wanted to read what he said but walked into the hole before he finished.

good job, i already saved the link as a favorite.

astrocalder

astrocalder
thanks a lot for your interest... i also think that the whole sword idea adds something very original to the game...

about your freeze idea, there's no problem to add that code, so i already used freezes here and there. i'm not usre that everybody will be patient enough to wait though: apparently that maze level is difficult, so far nobody found the boss (or?), so it means that each time they begin from the start of that maze world, they'll have to wait for the text to be finished. i remember that in "kid icarus" (NES), when you enter a shop you have to wait for the whole text to be finished, it was frustrating...
anyway, i'll think about that ;-) it's just a simple addition after all

thanks also about your bookmark, that means that i'll post the game in a fixed URL, now it changes often when i upload new betas.

> some progresses so far:
- i'm actually coding the password system. the password window and its interactions are done, i just need to create the whole encryption/decryption and it's done (i know where i'm going, so it shouldn't take too long)

- also, you sword is now upgradable. i tried to launch the game with full power, the sword attacks with very efficient power waves. note that it will be upgraded each time you find another water slot...

you are right.
i finally found someone that reads the FAQ *cough* nah, kiddin ;)

thanks.

Really great game! I couldn't find my way out of the maze though, so i gave up...

I found a bug though.. i lost my sword, got to a room with sacred water, got in to it and took the sword, and the swordbar showed up, not my sword. It was there when i left the room though...

PM, marmotte..

tonypa, that screenshot is the proof that you kept playing even after dying and dying again, which is a very good point against your "no chance will try it more then 2 minutes" :D

btw thanks, it's another level design error from me, doh!!!

yep, the game is hard. but not too hard i guess? oh, this is in no way a coffee break game, more something in which you need to get involved (yep, i'll lose a lot of audiance, but real players will say thanks)

you don't need to run fast to the next water spot, just go into all the ones you encounter, there are enough water all around. remember that it's possible to run all through level 1 without foinf into water, with the sword intact... and the mazed has water all around too, like every 2 rooms... oh damn, i wanted to be original ;) no please, not another too classical platform game!

and yep, you can open a chest if you hit it with your punch or sword (or wait, maybe it was another bug... was the chest almost out of screen by any chance?)

T1ger
weird bug. how did you take the sword? were you jumping? i'll do some tests, i never found that one, even though i played so much...

I was jumping yes. I'll try to replicate it tmrw.

I have to say that was done very well. I enjoyed it. I havent gotten to the boss but im going bacl to try again. Keep it up.

How did you use the old nes style text? did you make a engine to write out the coding itself? If so could you givew a little advice on how to do so.

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Originally posted by crowebird
How did you use the old nes style text? did you make a engine to write out the coding itself? If so could you givew a little advice on how to do so.

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funnily enough, i just answered to a very similar question here
here's what i wrote:

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i didn't created the font by myself, i used a free one. you can find some very good pixel fonts over the net.
i was very lucky to find a site (that is apparently no more) containing a fantastic set of video game fonts...
now of course, there's that terrible flash bug that fills a whole lot of pixel fonts, so i alway use the fonts as gif images. of course it's harder to display scores and stuff like that when you are using fonts as images instead of dynamic text, but it looks really better (you can add colors and gradiants to the fonts, animate them etc...)

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about how i did it, take a look here, the thread is filled with open sources and a lot of advices (i bet it's not the latest version of the open source i have there, but you can look of how it works)

ok thanks,

I played!
I mapped (by hand)
I WON!

Very addictive game... Challenging for those who don't map things out (like the old days.. I remember flowchart mapping Zelda :D )

-pXw

Yes, but I wasn't playing the game 100% of the time during the two hours... :p

But thanks to the EXCELLENT pause feature, I was able to stop playing, do something else and go back like nothing happened.

Remember, kids, pause features rock!

-pXw

I have to say excellent job on making a password system that works, how long did it take you to develope it?

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Remember, kids, pause features rock!

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well, yep.

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I have to say excellent job on making a password system that works, how long did it take you to develope it?

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well, as i stated it was a very long night, so let's say an evening and a night then ;) but i did know how to work with it before (i'll have to put it as demo, just to find if someone is able to decrypt it... but it's risky for me) anyway, i think it works weird enough not to be easily decrypted

Good stuff!
What puzzles me is there's high hit, but no low hit (as far as I remember that' how you wanted it to be, but still low hit might be useful sometimes...)

thanks rabbitkiller. yes, i'm thinking about adding a crouch+attack animation... not sure though...

anyway, i just updated the demo!
it can be found here in a dedicated (and small) page. so feel free to look around. main addition: the password system. cool! feel free to test all that out.

thanks!

great game (even though i'm not a big fan of platform games).

One thing: Can you only buy one item in the shop at a time, or is this a bug? I had 21 gold left after buying the water, but I couldn't buy life, which cost only 15 gold.

mmmhhh... this might happen when you pause the game during the money being "smoothly decreased" (i don't know how to explain that, but basically when you buy an item, your money decreases slowly instead of suddently...) SO, when you pause during that period of time, and unpause, the money isn't decreasing anymore, BUT your real amount of money is saved.
in your example, it might show 20 hearts, but in fact you have 8... anyway, as soon as you grab another coin, it shows correctly again. yep, i'll work on that.

did it happened that way? else it's a very rare bug, because i didn't stop playing, buying stuffs all around (started the game with different values as well, like 999 coins). always worked for me :confused:

I think it was something on my side. I didn't pause, but everything started getting really shakey and rigid, until I left the room.

Oh. Another SMALL bug. Nothing serious. I killed a spider, and now I can't get the gold!

yep, i need to look for that too. the coins can get stuck inside walls sometimes... nothing too hard to fix

anyway, about the problem in the room: did the slowdowns appear when you was jumping, like big slowdown until you land again? i had that twice and thought it was the computer doing some other calculations (i have always too many things open at the same time)

when I jumped, the char stopped in mid air, until I let go of the spacebar. When I walked, he would give one step, and then freeze, until I let go of the arrow key, and then he'd stop anyway.

thanks for the infos, it happened to me twice (i played a long time, you cannot imagine how long it takes to play everywhere). this is really a weird thing... and i really don't know what is causing it :confused:

apparently it happened to me only when a room contained text if i remember, but as you noticed it's a very rare bug. definitely weird...

I had fun playing it :)

I do actually think the difficulty is well balanced : i gave it a kick go the first time, then quit the game, but the second time, i went throuh the whole first level without too much difficulty

If i had a complaint, it would be about the slightly too slow animations, and the really forgiving controls that make jumping not too realistic, but i guess that's the point of the game - those two-ways plateformes are a really nice touch, and true, i also love that disapearing bridge you made :)
( i actually think this one could be tougher though, as it is possible to cross it with aiming the solid pillars )

The Sword idea is excellent - i really does add some challenge in the game and varies the gameplay :)

I showed it to several friends, and Kid Icarus (i don't know it myself) came instantly to most of them, so i guess you can be proud of the job done !!!

OMG lux, you are still around here! great! :D

ha, that bridge was too easy? don't forget to visit some other rooms, the challenge is... more challenging there ;) nothing too impossible so far, but i have some good ideas for later levels...

you are the 2nd person to complain about the jump scheme... i bet it's not because of the jumping code, but the "i'm more standing than jumping" animation, no? if so, i planned to draw a better one...

Yep - posting less, but still peaking from time to time :)

About the jump, i think it would be both : adding supplementary animations wouldn't hurt for sure :)

About the jumping code, when i was saying 'forgiving' i was meaning that the amount of control you have on your caracter while he is in the air seems greater than normal ; it seems to me that the caracter is more "slightly flying" than jumping actually ...
but that's not nessecerly a critisism : it is also part of your gameplay, and fits well in the game, so i'm not sure you should change it - i was just giving a neutral feedback about it :)

I was amazed when You told me about the technic You've done Your maps. The first Up-scrolling-level was ok. It showed me something Your "engine" can do. But when I (finally) entered the maze... I was shocked (in positive meaning of course). It looked like a real commercial game.

I must say, Marmotte You little devil, You've done it again! :D


Actually, I didn't figured out, were maps still dynamically loaded at the start of each level (world) or not, but looks like very, very (very) potential game AND game-engine.

Nice work indeed



(the red bomb-monsters graphics didn't quite look like same style like everything others, but still wow what a game)

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But when I (finally) entered the maze... I was shocked (in positive meaning of course). It looked like a real commercial game.

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thanks a bunch, mate... would you be able to explain why though? i really want to know the difference between the maze world (that looks commercial) and the scrolling world (that looks less commercial apparently). maybe it's a bad new, but actually the game will be more oriented in scrolling worlds (let's say that the maze will be world 1-4, i'm working on the other ones right now, as well as mixing rooms after rooms and little scrolling parts.)

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were maps still dynamically loaded at the start

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well, as i said my engine is very weird and marmottish. my array containing the tile properties of each tile (is it a block, a cloud, does the tile trigger an event, what event it is, is it a disappear/reappear tile, etc) is empty. map = []. then when the game loads a new screen, each tile (put manually in the timeline) fills the array itself. weird, huh? actually i'm not disappointed of not having a tile editor for that game, i like to move the tiles directly in flash too... but yep, it certainly doesn't sound like a professional engine, just an experimental one...

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the amount of control you have on your caracter while he is in the air seems greater than normal

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well, not really lux. in fact when he jumps, he has the same _x movments than when you are walking (so, no "more" playable). but yes, i know what you are talking about, it's more playable than realistic. yes. maybe if i just increase the slide var during your jump, it will be more realistic... but i hope it will not ruin the gameplay too much. anyway, i'm very open to suggestions

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Originally posted by marmotte
would you be able to explain why though? i really want to know the difference between the maze world (that looks commercial) and the scrolling world (that looks less commercial apparently)

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The scrolling part was great. I just thought whole game would be just yet-another-scroller. Never thought the "engine" would be so versatile.

I also like those shops and rooms. It gives more perspective.

Nice start indeed...

It's just extremely good! I've made it to the boss, but i lost my sword, and he was a *bit* difficult to beat without. I suppose it's impossible?

And I have a suggestion. What if you let a piece of heart or a sword upgrade be in one of the shops? Ofcourse with a price of 999 or sth, but it would be cool.

Keep up the good work marmotte! I'm sure gonna play through the whole game when its finished:) And make sure its big, at least 10 bosses;)

TeroLebe
thanks, i understand.
i planned also worlds with horizontal only scrolling, but i'm not sure yet for this one.
btw, i just adjusted the code so that i can do a mix between scrolling parts and room based parts in the same world...

T1ger
yep, the boss is very hard to beat without sword (but everything is possible), that water spot in the room is more than welcome. actually when i do the calculation with the actual variables, you can beat it after 140 punches! good luck :p

ok, more infos about the additional slots: there'll be 4 main bosses in the game (but remember that the mazes will be each 4 worlds, so yep the game will be long and HAHAHA hard!!!). each one will leave an additonal water spot (so total: 8). each time your sword is upgraded, and begins to launch power waves (included in that demo). NOW, about the hearts (did you find the one in the maze?), i'm planning to be "smoother", and just implementing that atm (so old passwords MAY be affected by that additional value): do you remember zelda? you had to find 1/4 hearts. i'm doing the same thing, that way i can put more rewarding bonuses everywhere (i just added some additional rooms in world 1-1, that act like small tuts about things like that)

i'm really happy that you enjoyed it, really...

ok, another thing about the game, i changed a bit some values in the playability. as a result, you walk a little bit faster and your jumps feel more natural, less "i'm flying". i'll post that on the site soon...

I've found the heart piece in the 1-2, but is there a sword upgrade? o_O me must find!

I love the level design too ;) does every door lead to somewhere? like the door locked in in the room where there's a door in west, a well in south, and lots of enemies that you dont have to beat to get through the room?

140 punches?? wow, i'm glad i died with purpose.. hehe..

I found a bug though, it has happened to me a couple times.

(hint to all: use opera, open the game SWF in a window, hit F11, and you have FULLSCREEN FORGOTTEN MYTHS! ;) (you should have a powerful pc though))

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does every door lead to somewhere

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the answer is: yep :D
apparently you are talking about the door leading to a secret and oooh sooo cheap shop...

thanks for the bug. it happened to me too, but fortunately you are never stuck. actually it's quite hard to reproduce, no?

btw, even if you find yourself inside a pile of blocks, you can still escape (the character is pushed outside a bit everytime)