Homebrew REQ : People to make puzzle levels...

[Jayenkai]

Thanks, keep 'em coming!

I've not actually had time to try any of these, yet. I'm keeping them until I'm happy the game's going to play properly, and not leave behind any obscure sprites on the screen!
It's alright if your sprites are going off the edge of the screen, but trying to transfer blocks from the background layer, into sprites, moving them around, and then transferring them back again (whilst falling) is indeed something I tend to get slightly annoyed by

It doesn't help that PA_Lib (or perhaps the DS itself, I'm not too sure) delays sprite animation changes by about 1 frame, so you kinda have to change them a little earlier than you oughta, or the things seem to flicker!
Grr!


It's nearly there.

Background, editor, frontend to do..
I'll probably reuse the background from the PC one, I've got an idea of how the frontend should work, and that just leaves the entire editor to do from scratch.. Woot!
..
And it'd be nice to have the whole file system going so that the editor actually saved, too!

Geeze, that's a lot to do in a day, when you think about it!

Better not have any relatives annoyingly turn up tomorrow, again!

 

[nickbaker50]

I am trying to make a level pack, however i do not know how to use the editor. I made 3 great levels, pressed save on each. Then when I went to see where they were I could not find them. Also when you try to test levels in the editor, the r button makes you go to a random level. Is there any way to exit the tester in case your level is impossible?

 

[Jayenkai]

Possibly.. I'm sure I'd have made one!

..
um, try escape!?

 

[nickbaker50]

TY it worked, I feel stupid for not thinking of that. Also, I found my levels, I din't notice the arrows on the sides, i'm not thinking straight today. Also I finished a seven level pack, however two are duds I don't know how to get rid of.

EDIT:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dr8jt5
Ignore levels 4&5. I dont know how to remove them.

Edit2:
Looked at some other peoples levels, cryed a little, and doubted myself...
No but seriously, if our games aren't good enough to get in, will their be a way to import them?
And if I do get in:
Name:NickBaker50
LevelPak:..."Goin Bananas" (it sucks I know, but its better than monkey vomit. If you think of something better feel free to rename it)

 

[jurassicplayer]

Woot! I reached a marking point (going by fives)! So now I have ten levels and that evil level.
Jurassicplayer - Sui Generis
Jurassicplayer - SpareTime

 

[Jayenkai]

This has been slightly rushed..
..
I had a nap!

Worklog
Day Five : Sunday, 22nd November, 2009

The fifth and final day for the beta release, and it's ready and raring to go.

Download the Beta

Unfortunately, I fell asleep halfway through coding the menu, and I'm heading off to work in an hour.
Dangit..

It's not TOO much of a problem, but .. No editor... Yet
Sorry...

I'll probably have the editor done by tomorrow, so it'll be thrown in and beta 2 will be upped.

Meanwhile, this is more or less just the same as the PC one.
I've not gotten around to "Nice stuff" yet, so there's no saving of your progression, there's no scores, there's nothing like that.. It won't even load your own levels, due to .. well, no editor, so I haven't bothered doing any filing stuff, yet.

But it is at the very least a nice playable beta version of the game, and not bad at all for 5 days work..!

Give it a whirl, and let me know if you see anything really oddly wrong with the game.

Also, let me know if blocks seem to vanish in a slightly different way than they do in the PC game. Those kinds of things are very easy to break, but may make certain levels impossible.

Left trigger quits to the menu, Right trigger resets a level.


Things I've noticed in the past few minutes.
1. I should probably make A the jumpy button, too!
2. Needs ingame music!
3. There's something odd going on with tsunamii's last level. I'll have to have a good look at that.
4. I've not organised the levels properly yet. I'll get around to that before the proper release.

Let me know, guys! And keep up the level making!!

 

[nickbaker50]

I just found an error, sadly in one of my levels.=[
On the second level I did not put the monkey in a specific place. Hes suppose to appear on the top left blue block. Instead he appears in the middle of the dirt.

Hey I found a wayto skiplevels, for intsance lets say you want to skip to level 4 of my pack. All you have to do I sunlock level four of another pack, hover over it, and then just keep pressing down.

Also you used the wrong pack
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzy52twzmon
is the right one, however it still has the glitched monkey on the 2nd level.

 

[Jayenkai]

Like I said, I'll organise the levels later.

The "level skip" is actually easier.. Tap any level!
I left it half/half skippable so you could try out all the levels without having to work your way through.
That'll be locked up properly come Tuesday's proper release, but I'm leaving it playable for the meantime.

 

[jurassicplayer]

Apart from having Munky spawn in the far upper right corner of the grid (thus in the dirt) when not assigned a position, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong. I'm not sure if this is a glitch (it might be) but when you press A at any edge, he will attempt his going over an empty space sort of jump, even when there is nothing on the receiving end. Pretty much he jumps off a cliff and is one block farther than if he just fell.

Something else that probably everyone can live with, is the speed of the blocks vanishing. I can grab and put the block down and then repeat cycle without the blocks vanishing xD (it could be helpful in some cases...like when we screw up but catch it quickly enough).

Also, I was wondering if the L/R button configurations are the final ones (my L/R buttons are so clogged with dust, they fail minutes after I attempt cleaning). I mean, its totally no problem as long as I can complete the levels, but if some of the other keys aren't used for something else, it would be nice to have like the menu key as the start button or something like that and the L/R buttons for less needed stuff (like changing song tracks o.0?).

Oh, just while I remember it, maybe one of those "nice extras" after MunkyBlocks is closer to finished could be having a button to press and use the directional keys to move the view (just to look at the other parts of the map apart from the main map on the top screen).

 

[Jayenkai]

Spawn's Topside
Oh, yeah.. That's right.. The PC one plopped him down when there was no placed start, didn't it.
Aaah!!
OK, I'll have a play with that.

Jump Glitch
The A-Jump-Cliff thing is in the original. I think! Isn't it?!
Let's him hop over to things he might not otherwise reach.

... Uhoh! It's NOT!
.. I must've added it in when I made Munky's Block.
Dang..
..
OK, vote time, 'cos I'm in the last couple of days here!
Let me know, should it stay, or should it go!?


Block Go Speed
I had to put a slight delay, for sprite purposes, whilst the engine switches a block from being a sprite, to being part of the background layer again. (would've been easier to have kept ALL blocks as sprites, but what with the 128 sprite limit, that'd actually limit your levels..)

I can shorten it a frame, see how much that alters it, but I don't think it'll do too much.. Not sure..
Probably better to slow down munky's re-eating.

L/R
My other DSLite has a broken hinge, with a completely knackered R trigger, so I know fully well how bad that can be. Quit and Redo buttons have been drawn, and are going in once the editor's all nice and finished.

Change Music Tracks?
... You know, I've only made one track, so far!!

Scroll button
*bangs head* I can't believe I didn't think of that!!! DUR!!!


Teeny-Worklog
Extra graphics drawn, starting on the editor.

Worklog Update
Editor coming together nicely.

Worklog 2nd Update
I was silly to imagine I could do the entire thing before I have to go to work.
The editor is SO CLOSE, it's insane. I was literally just about to add saving in, but I'm now making tea and getting ready for work.
Bah, time sucks!

Later on tonight I'll get that done, but I guess we're not going to get Beta2 out the door.
..Proper release in the morning!

Yikes!!!

 

[nickbaker50]

Im looking at the editor and I think I see things that aren't in the pc version... besides the brown gate that might just be a cursor, I also see a key. There are also a few other blocks I can't fully make out. If I'm wrong and those aren't new features(they might just be menu options) I'm still glad that the editor is cleaner than the pc editor. Hope I can get on tomorrow to dl it.

 

[jurassicplayer]

I'm pretty sure that the editor options are the ground, movable block, unmovable block, and then a key (which could possibly mean save? or maybe those extra additions to the DS version?). From the looks of it, our maps can be a little more complex if that button and the gate do what I think they do xD.

As for the "hopping over to things he might not otherwise reach", I'm totally all for this new thing. Either way, I don't think this currently lowers the complexity of any of our maps and it gives us more ways to fiddle with the maps we make from now on.

I only realized the block thing because of one of my levels (the one that has an 8-bit mario out of falling blocks xD) ended up differently than on the PC. Surprisingly enough, the level is still complete-able (maybe even harder to complete o.0?) so having Munky eat slower would probably be fine.

Everything looks awesome though xD! This will be one of the newest additions to my stash of homebrew things!

 

[Jayenkai]

Indeed!
Shock horror!! New stuff!!

The gates and keys are all taken from Munky's Block (which a few of you have already found, here)

They're not amazing things, but they do add something, and will give you many new puzzle possibilities.

The "1 block" rule of Munky's Block obviously doesn't fit within the rules of this game, but you can still use blocks to hold doors open, by setting them on top of the big red buttons.
There's also keys + gates.. Or, there are in the editor, I'm about to go and add the functionality of those into the game.

Now's as good a time as any to add a..

Worklog
Day Six : Monday, 23rd November 2009

What a long day!!

Editor complete, saving complete.
Not much added to the titlescreen, but I did bother to draw a logo in typical "Space Monkeys" style.

Doors and buttons added, keys and gates yet to be done.

Still needs an onscreen quit button, but it's at least been drawn!

Many bug fixes yet to do, editor took AGES!!

9 hours to go.
!

 

[Jayenkai]

Whoops, that's more than 9 hours!

No matter, got it all done, I think!

Download Munky Blocks DS here!

If I missed anything, let me know.
And, yes, the editor does go a wee bit tweaky, not sure why, but it doesn't affect it at all, and carries on as if nothing's wrong!
If I can figure out WTF's causing that, I'll fix it. Probably some stupid number I mistyped, or something!

...
And, I expect more levels!!!

Ta muchly, especially to the 3 level makers.

 

[Tsunii]

Whoops, that's more than 9 hours!

No matter, got it all done, I think!

Download Munky Blocks DS here!

If I missed anything, let me know.
And, yes, the editor does go a wee bit tweaky, not sure why, but it doesn't affect it at all, and carries on as if nothing's wrong!
If I can figure out WTF's causing that, I'll fix it. Probably some stupid number I mistyped, or something!

...
And, I expect more levels!!!

Ta muchly, especially to the 3 level makers.

if you include them in the game i'll post 1 or 2 more levelpaks with doors and stuff later today

if not i'll still make some

btw great work

 

[Jayenkai]

When I did JNKPlatDS08, last year, the collection of incoming levels spurred on follow-up releases.
I don't see why the same can't happen here.

If you want to build up a nice new set of levels, I'll happily bundle them together for a "Week 2" release next Tuesday.

Additionally, if you can think of any other blocks/obstacles you'd like to see, let me know, and I'll see what I can do for week 2.
(the pulley system from Munky's Block seemed a bit too daunting for this week. I might attempt to do it for next week... but don't hold me to that, 'cos I have to start a completely different game, now!)


And, of course, the other world'y graphics.
If anyone would like to contribute a different set of tiles, here's your starting point.

Those little coloured tiles in the top right, btw, are the background!

 

[jurassicplayer]

xD Its awesome! I think maybe I'll make a couple extremely long levels when I get the chance (a couple weeks from now? lot to do recently xD) and then put them all together with that horrible level from before xD and call it something like the "Hour Long Munky". I totally need to test out some new mind boggling puzzles to make.

-edit-
I just found out that NickBaker50's level 2, my level 6, your Set Two level 5, Three's a Crowd level 6, and Tsunii's level 5 still spawns outside of the stage for some reason, its only like a couple blocks away from the stage. Or maybe its my ds....(unfortunately I can't say anything about the levels after since I can't get to them xD)

The scroll is awesome and seems to work correctly in any case, although I did notice that for some reason, in a certain spot, Munky's sprite was drawn in the middle of the screen, but when the scroll is release, everything is still fine with Munky in the same place as we left him.

 

[nickbaker50]

I like the game, and I have already made my first level, I made it on accident while screwing around, and when I tested it it took me a while to beat it. Also I'm interested in making a tile pack. If I finish it by tuesday do you think you could get it in the update?

 

[Tsunii]

xD Its awesome! I think maybe I'll make a couple extremely long levels when I get the chance (a couple weeks from now? lot to do recently xD) and then put them all together with that horrible level from before xD and call it something like the "Hour Long Munky". I totally need to test out some new mind boggling puzzles to make.

-edit-
I just found out that NickBaker50's level 2, my level 6, your Set Two level 5, Three's a Crowd level 6, and Tsunii's level 5 still spawns outside of the stage for some reason, its only like a couple blocks away from the stage. Or maybe its my ds....(unfortunately I can't say anything about the levels after since I can't get to them xD)

The scroll is awesome and seems to work correctly in any case, although I did notice that for some reason, in a certain spot, Munky's sprite was drawn in the middle of the screen, but when the scroll is release, everything is still fine with Munky in the same place as we left him.

hmmm looks like i forgot to set a fixed spawnpoint on that level
will remake the whole package and add some more levels for the week2 release

@ jayenkai:
is the new game you have in the making also for the ds?

 

[Jayenkai]

Dang, so they do.. Could've sworn I fixed that!! WTF?!!

*sigh* there's a week 2 fix for you!

Note : Do NOT fix the levels, It's a game bug, not a level bug!

*lightbulb*
Oh, and I just realised what it is, too...
It's 'cos I offset the PC maps slightly, to center it in the level area, but forgot to offset munky.... So he's slightly to the left+up, from where he oughta be.


New game is PC.
And new game is currently at the following point.
"Hmm.. OK... Now that I've drawn a nice looking platform, wtf am I going to do with it!!"
And so goes the thoughts behind AGameAWeek.. It's 95% unplanned chaos!