Nifflas' Support Forum

Being Creative => Development Showcase => Topic started by: Hempuli on March 11, 2010, 09:25:52

Title: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 11, 2010, 09:25:52

Hi there! I haven't been around much lately, but since I've tended to post about my games here, let's do it once again.

It seems it's time for another platformer-with-a-twist, this time in a similar fashion to Flickerstrings! Jump, Copy, Paste features a mechanic that at least I haven't seen earlier, and it circles around copying and pasting parts of the game levels. The game was supposed to have a story of some sort, but due to an immensely infuriating and nonsense glitch I decided to get done with the game quickly.

* CONTROLS *

A + D = move about
W = jump
Left mouse button = choose the area to copy, release to perform. After copying, you can select a new area with another left click.
Right mouse button = paste the copied area.
R = restart
Esc = Quit

Download the game (http://www.hempuli.com/JCPniff.zip)

screenshots:
(http://www.hempuli.com/jcp2.png)
(http://www.hempuli.com/jcp3.png)

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Razzorman on March 11, 2010, 11:04:10

Absolutely awesome. :D
I'm stumped at level 7 though. How do you get past the razorblades?
Nevermind.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: the Jack on March 11, 2010, 17:48:50

This looks awesome and sounds even better -- I love the gameplay mechanic, completely original afaik.

Not going to try it out just yet, as I already have browser + KS Editor + KS + 4 GIMP windows open & don't want to overtax my laptop. Am downloading, though!

One question: How League-of-Crap-Players-friendly is it? (That is, how frustrating will it be for someone with 35-year-old reflexes as opposed to 15-year-old reflexes?) If I'm going to fall in love with the game but not be able to get very far playing it, I'd at least like to know to prepare myself for the disappointment.  :/

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 11, 2010, 19:10:31

The game shouldn't require any reflexes. It's purely a puzzle game, though the puzzles are probably quite easy to solve, too.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: pumpkin on March 11, 2010, 20:37:47

Stuck on level 6, cant get past the stupid killing light thing...

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 11, 2010, 20:57:26

Quote from: pumpkin on March 11, 2010, 20:37:47

Stuck on level 6, cant get past the stupid killing light thing...

You probably mean either 5 or 7, and in both you have to press the buttons to open the laser.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: pumpkin on March 11, 2010, 20:58:57

OOps meant level 4

Hehe I got it. Fun game!! C)p

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: AClockworkLemon on March 13, 2010, 05:17:58

what program did you make this in?

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 13, 2010, 10:15:19

Multimedia Fusion 2, as usual.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Firecat on March 13, 2010, 15:19:29

I think I ruined it  O_o.

Also this game reminds me of GENERIC and that Text=Plataforms game which name i dont remenber

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Gorfinhofin on March 16, 2010, 07:57:27

Oh man. New Hempuli game. I love Hempuli games. Be right back, I'm going to go play with it.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: AClockworkLemon on March 16, 2010, 08:03:34

Quote from: Firecat on March 13, 2010, 15:19:29

I think I ruined it  O_o.

Next time try selecting a whole bunch of lights and spamming them everywhere  XD
LLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8D

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Purple Pineapple on March 17, 2010, 00:28:01

Quote from: Gorfinhofin on March 16, 2010, 07:57:27

Oh man. New Hempuli game. I love Hempuli games. Be right back, I'm going to go play with it.

QFT. Unfortunately, Hempuli seems to always release games right when I'm pressed for time, so  I cant even download it right now.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: the Jack on March 19, 2010, 06:14:31

Finally got a chance to try JCP... and I'm already stuck. On level 4, where pumpkin was, only I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong!

Spoiler: this is probably going to be really embarrassing once I figure it out... (click to show/hide)

At first I figured I must need to C&P and/or push the brown box to get past or turn off the killer-light (that's not meant to be a laser, is it...?) but the little guy just walks right through the box, and it doesn't paste. I can't paste blocks to make a low-ceilinged tunnel for going past the light, C&Ping the yellow goal things just increases the total number I need to collect before the doors open, I can't press the button by pasting or paste-dropping blocks onto it, and I can't C&P the little guy past the light, either. I even tried making a tunnel off the left side of the screen to see if I'd come around to the right side... no dice.

I am completely stumped! Can somebody drop me a hint?

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: pumpkin on March 19, 2010, 18:16:05

All you need to do is copy the area around the crate, not just the crate itself. If I remember correctly the area under it is darker, so it should just poof  away when you paste it above the button.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Purple Pineapple on March 20, 2010, 01:15:35

Dibs on a walkthrough

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: the Jack on March 20, 2010, 01:50:13

Well, that was... completely non-intuitive. The instructions really didn't suggest that the game mechanic worked that way at all.

And now I'm on level 5, where some other completely non-intuitive puzzle solution is doubtless staring me in the face. Did it really seem like explaining which objects the little guy can -- and can't -- interact with directly (buttons, boxes, whatever the heck I was supposed to use in level 5) would have 'ruined' the puzzle? If so, that's... really not the best way to design a puzzle game.

I'm kinda bummed out. I like the concept of this game, I'd really been looking forward to playing it, and the first three levels gave me a taste of how much fun it should have been. They also suggested that this was going to be the kind of game where most or all levels have multiple possible solutions, like Magic Pen (http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/), which is one of my favourite puzzle games.

But "ha ha, guess how the game mechanic works!" is approximately 80% less fun than pixel-hunting (which ruins way too many point-and-click games and which is itself less fun than trimming my grandfather's toenails) and if every other level is going to be me trying every "obvious" solution and non-obvious solution, getting more and more frustrated, only to eventually go begging for help or finding a walkthrough... that's not fun. I feel like I'm trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that's missing enough pieces to render any actual jigsaw strategy (other than randomly trying to match every two pieces in every possible combination) useless.

---

Okay, so when I clicked "Preview" to double-check my comment before posting, I spotted a very, very, very (read: too) subtle clue in the first post in the thread which led me to be able to get past level 5. I can't begin to imagine how anyone who finds the game via someplace other than this thread would ever figure that out. That was a triumph of non-intuitive, non-logical, non-obvious "solutions".

Level 6 was just the sort of gameplay I'd been expecting from JCP, and I thoroughly enjoyed beating it. The gory death animations of the enemies were a nice touch.

Now, though, I'm at level 7. I figured out how to turn on the one light & turn off the other -- because all that required were deductions which flowed naturally from what I already knew about the game mechanics -- but I frankly just don't care enough anymore to try to figure out what to do about the circular saws. (I'd been hoping they would be rendered harmless along with the killer light, but I guess I should have known that would've made too much sense.) It's a "puzzle" with a solution that's not going to frustrate me any less once I know what it is.

Honestly, when a game that could be as fun as Jump, Copy, Paste manages to be at its best is instead continually sucking the fun right out of itself, that is tragic.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Purple Pineapple on March 20, 2010, 04:45:54

Quote from: the Jack on March 20, 2010, 01:50:13

I can't begin to imagine how anyone who finds the game via someplace other than this thread would ever figure that out. That was a triumph of non-intuitive, non-logical, non-obvious "solutions".

Uhm.. I didn't spot anything in the first post, and I got past level 5 just fine.

Anyway, the videos are up: [Part 1 (1-10)] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM-3luHPZt0) [Part 2 (11-16)] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKNq4y7ohE)

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: AClockworkLemon on March 20, 2010, 06:12:58

um... i'm pretty sure the readme explains pretty much all you need to know about the game mechanics. anyway,

Spoiler: circular saws (click to show/hide)

c'mon, these are easy! if they are attached to deletable ground, select a bit of nothing and paste it onto the center of the circular saw, the 'axle'. this will destroy it.
Else, a good ol sliver of copied ground will allow you to pass by unharmed....

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 20, 2010, 10:46:10

Quote from: the Jack on March 20, 2010, 01:50:13

And now I'm on level 5, where some other completely non-intuitive puzzle solution is doubtless staring me in the face. Did it really seem like explaining which objects the little guy can -- and can't -- interact with directly (buttons, boxes, whatever the heck I was supposed to use in level 5) would have 'ruined' the puzzle? If so, that's... really not the best way to design a puzzle game.

It's explained quite much as clearly as possible in the readme and level 2: you can copy any object that is not fixed to a darker wall. The darker areas act like incopiable area, so copying anything fixed to them would just immediately make it not work.

Ok, I'm not going to start arguing with you about this thing, since you seem to hate the thing so much. All the other players this far have had no problems whatsoever with the mechanics, and I see no real point to make such a long post just to ramble about the fact that you didn't enjoy the way the puzzles were constructed and that you didn't read the readme.

Now then, relax down a bit. It's sad to hear that you didn't enjoy the game as much as you had hoped, but this far the reactions of other people have shown a bit against your point. :(

Edit: Oh, and thanks for the cool videos Pineapple! I'll fave them straight away! :)

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: the Jack on March 20, 2010, 19:00:23

I never said I didn't read the readme. (Someone else assuming something about me =/= proven fact.) I did read it -- before I ran the executable for the first time, in fact. And I re-read it when I started getting ridiculously stuck; you may have intended for it to address the issues I was having, but it didn't.

You don't have to argue with me or acknowledge any of the issues I raised. The fact that no one else who's tried the game has brought up the issues I have doesn't necessarily mean that the game is fine and I'm a lone doofus; all it means is that ...no one else has brought up those issues. This doesn't necessarily mean that nobody has had similar problems yet -- plenty of people just lurk on these forums, and/or are shy or non-confrontational in general -- nor that no one else could possibly have similar complaints in the future. I would've thought you would want to know that some people's experience with your game was so uneven; clearly that was my mistake.

If you only want glowing feedback, and no constructive criticism, though, you should say so when you make your first post.

edited to add:
After you've considered your response to yohji's comment, below, Hempuli, you might want to think about why you chose to characterise someone who's made as many positive comments about this game as I've done in this thread -- including in my comment immediately before this one -- as someone who "hate(s) the (game) so much." Did my praise just not register? Did you need to mentally remove me from the set of people who like and/or enjoy the game and thus "matter"? Seriously, I'm curious.

I will address why I made "such a long post" for you: Quite logically, it was because I cared about the game. If I didn't care about the game, or if I just hated it, I could indeed have made a short, to-the-point "Thiz game suuk!1" post (or, since I try not to be that rude or immature, kept my dislike to myself). It would've been useless for me to say "Well, I tried it and it seems to be broken," however, without pointing out what flaws I thought the game had.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: yohji on March 20, 2010, 19:32:01

I like this game and pretty much most of Hempuli's other work; but yeah, it did take me a couple of days to realize that

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

the box can be copied. This happened because I tried copying the box and must've missed a row of pixels or something; it didn't copy, and I assumed the box was a background thing that cannot be copied.

It was worse with the next (I think) level, the first one where you have to

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

copy the projectile. That took me even more days to figure out. One button can be pressed by copying a cannon, so it never occurred to me to try copying a projectile. Somehow projectiles did not register in my mind as objects that aren't attached to a dark wall, because, you know, they're not attached to anything. So I tried copying both cannons in smallest rectangles possible, hoping that perhaps a horizontal blast will get the button or that a cannon attached to a dark wall can be selected so that it will copy, etc.; I've no idea how much time it took me.

After I figured the solution out, the game became quite enjoyable and interesting, just the right difficulty and all... But those two levels, particularly the second one, were a huge problem for me.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Purple Pineapple on March 20, 2010, 20:21:34

It's interesting the way everyone's having trouble with the earlier levels.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 20, 2010, 20:27:08

Quote from: the Jack on March 20, 2010, 19:00:23

I never said I didn't read the readme. (Someone else assuming something about me =/= proven fact.) I did read it -- before I ran the executable for the first time, in fact. And I re-read it when I started getting ridiculously stuck; you may have intended for it to address the issues I was having, but it didn't.

You don't have to argue with me or acknowledge any of the issues I raised. The fact that no one else who's tried the game has brought up the issues I have doesn't necessarily mean that the game is fine and I'm a lone doofus; all it means is that ...no one else has brought up those issues. This doesn't necessarily mean that nobody has had similar problems yet -- plenty of people just lurk on these forums, and/or are shy or non-confrontational in general -- nor that no one else could possibly have similar complaints. I would've thought you would want to know that some people's experience with your game was so uneven; clearly that was my mistake.

If you only want glowing feedback, and no constructive criticism, though, you should say so when you make your first post.

Hey, please, don't just go angry and start attacking. If nobody else has said about having problems with the game, I don't have any other choice but to think everything is fine. The reason why I mentioned other people's positive attitude was because your point wasn't really about the amount of information given to the player, but rather that the puzzle structure I had made was "a triumph of non-intuitive, non-logical, non-obvious "solutions"". If no one else has complained about the puzzle structure and you make a long post criticizing exactly that, I don't think I should instantly agree. I can add even more information about the copiable objects to the readme or even the game itself, sure, but looking at your posts that wouldn't really do it because it seems you'd want to fully redesign the whole of the game.

Could you calm down a bit, and explain why it was you thought the puzzles to be what you said them to be? It seems you had problems with copying the different objects in the levels, and using them to interact with the other stuff in the levels. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but I would hardly call your post constructive, since you didn't really mention what it was that made the levels non-intuitive or nonlogical in your opinion.

You mentioned being confused with what the player could interact. I agree that it is actually quite confusing not to be able to touch that ceiling button, but otherwise it seems to have been clear that also the laser bullets could be copied. I'll probably add the possibility to touch the button, so thanks for pointing that out. :)

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: the Jack on March 21, 2010, 03:59:11

This is heavily spoilered, mostly for length, but there are potential gameplay spoilers also.

Spoiler: Who's angry? (click to show/hide)

Quote from: Hempuli on March 20, 2010, 20:27:08

Hey, please, don't just go angry and start attacking. If nobody else has said about having problems with the game, I don't have any other choice but to think everything is fine. The reason why I mentioned other people's positive attitude was because your point wasn't really about the amount of information given to the player, but rather that the puzzle structure I had made was "a triumph of non-intuitive, non-logical, non-obvious "solutions"". If no one else has complained about the puzzle structure and you make a long post criticizing exactly that, I don't think I should instantly agree. I can add even more information about the copiable objects to the readme or even the game itself, sure, but looking at your posts that wouldn't really do it because it seems you'd want to fully redesign the whole of the game.

Could you calm down a bit, and explain why it was you thought the puzzles to be what you said them to be?

Telling the other person that they are "angry", "attacking" and need to "calm down" is rarely a productive way to engage with them. (Unless their post consists entirely of all-caps swearing. In that case those descriptions would probably be accurate.) It's frequently taken as belittling or invalidating what the other person is saying -- after all, when people are angry/not calm, they're generally not thinking as clearly as they would be otherwise. And it also puts you at risk of looking like the kind of person who relies on these kinds of tactics (http://www.derailingfordummies.com/), specifically #23 (http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#notlistening), but you've edged towards 3/5, 13/14, and 18, as well. I don't think that was your intention, which is why I'm letting you know how it came across.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you weren't intentionally being insulting with those repeated mischaracterisations of my mental state. Just so we're clear, though? I'm not angry and I am calm. I was frustrated when I made the post you took issue with, yes, but I didn't just bang it out in 3 minutes of keyboard abuse; I put careful thought into every sentence. That's pretty much how I write all my forum posts.

Also -- and since I don't think you're currently following Knytt Stories forums here, which is mostly where I post, I wouldn't expect you to have been aware of this -- but not only do I not habitually attack other people's work just to be a jerk, I do make a point of defending other people's work from commenters who are just insulting it without offering any constructive criticism. At least some of the people who have been contributing to this thread have seen me defending other forum-users' work and taking "haters" to task for being disrespectful of those works, in fact. You should feel free to look at my comment history (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?action=profile;u=1861;sa=showPosts) and see for yourself, rather than continuing to jump to deeply mistaken conclusions about my attitude and motivations.

Spoiler: This thread's not that long yet, let's look at what's actually been said so far: (click to show/hide)

Now that we have that out of the way...

If you truly believe that a point being made by only one person out of a total number of seven people (the number of unique users, besides you but including me, who have responded in this thread) means you "don't have any other choice" but to ignore it... well, then I'm not even going to try to argue that point. You might, however, want to refer again to what I said above about how "(t)he fact that no one else who's tried the game has brought up the issues I have doesn't necessarily mean that the game is fine and I'm a lone doofus". Or you might want to re-read the early comments in this thread and note that other players did have trouble at the exact same places I did, though their comments also show that, after posting about it, they eventually figured out what to do on their own (or after someone else helped them via a walkthrough, PM or other non-forum communication; I don't know for certain, as they didn't say and I didn't ask them).

I don't think you necessarily need to "redesign the whole of the game."

Spoiler: But... are the instructions in the readme "complete" or not? (click to show/hide)

I had been presuming -- partly because there is only limited information provided in both the readme and in the tutorial levels within the game, and more so since you stated above that "It's explained quite much as clearly as possible in the readme and level 2" [emphasis mine] -- that you had made a deliberate decision not to clarify any of the game mechanics not already explained in either place. I was, for that reason, further presuming (and this is, apparently, my mistake, for which I am now apologising: sorry) that any game mechanic you had chosen not to explain was therefore intended as a puzzle for the player to figure out.

If, however, you did not intend for players to be stumped by:

• how to successfully copy the box (i.e., to select part of the dark square underneath along with it, which is the opposite of what the readme currently suggests);
• the idea that projectiles are C&P-able objects;
• which objects could be interacted with only by C&P, not touching (e.g. the box);
• which objects could interact with which other objects (e.g. the projectiles can touch the player, the projectiles can touch the buttons, but the player cannot touch the buttons);
• the one button in level seven that, unlike previous buttons, can (and must) be pressed directly by the little guy;
• whatever causes the two different results in the screenshot below*;
• and, judging from my experiences so far, additional issues in later levels...

...then yes, you should add more information to the readme.

Spoiler: Specific suggestions: (click to show/hide)

As one specific suggestion, instead of (or in addition to) saying "you cannot copy darker walls," adding something like "if your selection area includes any part of a dark wall, that part of the selection will paste as if the dark wall was empty space instead" would make this much clearer. What the readme and game say now implies that attempting to copy an area which includes a dark wall will result in nothing being copied, even if the selection area also includes copy-able walls or items, which of course is not the case.

You might also want to clarify that selecting only works by clicking where the player intends the top-left corner of their selection to go, and dragging down and to the right. (Since Windows, Mac OS, and most programs for both operating systems allow selections to begin at any corner, this is not obvious and caused me some trouble before I realised that selections worked this way in JCP. I would imagine left-handed players, and possibly other players who use drag-to-select frequently such as Photoshoppers or other digital artists, might be more likely to be tripped up by the down-and-right-only selection mechanic.) Alternately, you could make selecting from more than the one corner possible, but I have no idea how difficult that would be to implement with MMF2, if it's even possible.

Spoiler: Possible bug? (click to show/hide)

Speaking of making selections... There may be a minor bug affecting certain attempted selections. I've noticed that, when I try to make certain types of selections that are very skinny (only a few pixels) in one dimension -- that is, either a tall, thin selection or a long, thin one -- sometimes the selection "registers" and I get a paste-able copy of what was in the selection area, but other times such narrow-in-one-dimension selections do not copy and thus cannot be pasted. As luck would have it, most of the first few extra-thin selections I tried to make didn't copy properly, and I mistakenly inferred from this that selections had to be a certain minimum width/height. If other players try to replicate this bug and can't, I'll gladly share my computer's specs, but as I'm running a common OS on a decently-fast machine, I suspect this is a general bug.

Spoiler: I was trying to be subtle, but apparently I was too subtle? (click to show/hide)

Quote from: Hempuli on March 20, 2010, 20:27:08

Constructive criticism is always welcome, but I would hardly call your post constructive, since you didn't really mention what it was that made the levels non-intuitive or nonlogical in your opinion.

If you read the conversation preceding that comment, wherein I asked for help with the specific place where I was stuck, and pumpkin explained (as the readme does not) that in order to copy the entire box it's necessary (OK, it's probably possible to make a pixel-perfect selection of just box with no dark floor-tile, but exceedingly difficult due to the limitations of screen resolution and mouse control) to include part of the dark tile beneath it, it's clear what I was responding to when I said "completely non-intuitive."

What I was calling "a triumph of non-intuitive, non-logical, non-obvious 'solutions'" in the second half of that comment was the copyability of projectiles... and I'm not the only player who's commented in this thread about being stumped (at least temporarily) by that. I referred to it in a circumspect way because I routinely try my best to avoid spoiling games for other players -- even when I'm using a spoiler tag, I prefer to hint at spoiler-y information rather than say it straight out. But, since this thread is now full of non-spoiler-tagged discussion of these game mechanics, and you now seem to be saying that you intended for all the game's mechanics to be explained in the readme and/or tutorial levels: The subtle clue in your post that I was referring to was your screenshot showing a projectile in the copied selection.

Spoiler: On the nature of assorted objects in Jump, Copy, Paste: (click to show/hide)

Quote from: Hempuli on March 20, 2010, 20:27:08

You mentioned being confused with what the player could interact. I agree that it is actually quite confusing not to be able to touch that ceiling button, but otherwise it seems to have been clear that also the laser bullets could be copied. I'll probably add the possibility to touch the button, so thanks for pointing that out. :)

Again, I wasn't the only one who thought of the projectiles as transient effects rather than copyable objects, or as merely part of another object which was itself not copyable. As far as the player knows, the steady beam of light isn't copyable as much because it's light as because its emitter is "fixed to" a dark tile. A line in the readme and/or tutorial levels along the lines of, "Both static (unmoving) objects and animated objects can be copied & pasted" would clarify this and cover any other moving objects that don't show up until later in the game as well.

I think making all the buttons touchable by the little guy is an excellent idea, since at least one button has to be touched to pass level 7, and consistency is good. Alternately, you could have some buttons which are touchable and some that aren't, but in that case the two types should be visually distinguished, by size or colour, perhaps.

Spoiler: About the screenshot: (click to show/hide)

* In an effort to understand how copying things on but not "fixed to" dark walls works, I copied the "baddie" using a selection area which included enough of the dark square underneath him to ensure the "baddie" was "fully inside the copy area" as indicated in the readme. When I pasted this selection into an area that contained normal (not dark, thus copyable, paste-able & paste-into-able) wall, however, the "baddie" for some reason zipped -- almost too fast to see -- up and off the screen, despite the blank area around him having replaced the wall. (See the right side of the screenshot; the green arrow pointing to the left indicates where I pasted the "baddie" selection.) I then pasted the same selection in an open area, and the "baddie" simply dropped down to the nearest floor, which I think (?) is the intended behaviour. (See the middle of the screenshot; the green arrow pointing down indicates where I pasted the "baddie" the second time, at roughly the same Y-coordinate as but further left than the first. Obviously the baddie fell down from there, but he was pasted higher up.) I'm not sure what's going on here, if it's a bug or normal game behaviour, so if it's the latter, whatever the mechanism is should probably also be addressed in the readme.

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: pumpkin on March 21, 2010, 04:49:44

Ahh... The Jack, well first of all I see completely eye to eye with you on this subject, and when I read your post, I knew that you put some thought into it. It wasn't just "MUH F**KAH FIX YO DAMN LEVEL B***H!". Thank you for explaining yourself in a manner that is serious, and I also understand how PO'd you were at the time of the "box issue", as I was stuck there for a good five hours.

But on the lesser part of this post, you probably should turn down the typing, as it is a little much, but that's just me. I don't know who else is reading/paying attention to this, but I feel I am not alone. Thanks for listening all!! X-P

Title: Re: Jump, Copy, Paste
Post by: Hempuli on March 21, 2010, 11:00:15

Ok, I'll answer those in order.

Quote

who's angry?

Ok, I must agree that in some cases saying "calm down" and "don't attack" may seem provocative, so sorry about that. I must say though that some of your choices of words were a bit provocative by themselves. Sorry about that.

Quote

Let's look at what's actually been said so far

Please note that the game hasn't been posted only to the Nifflas forums, and there was a betatest phase before release. Quite much all of the comments I have got on those other sites have been 'positive' in the sense that people have figured out what to do. I'll say more on this later in this post.

Quote

instructions in the readme

Let's check these in order, again.

• Copying the box -> I didn't think many would have a problem with this, but now when I think about it, it may indeed be confusing to realize that you can actually copy the dark area, it just doesn't appear. Good point, I'll add this to the readme and perhaps make a note to the fourth level itself.
• Projectiles -> You later on mentioned thinking that the laser bullets were parts of the laser cannons. This one is quite much a place where I wanted to make the player realize through thinking that the bullets are actually copiable. I didn't think it would be that hard, since they're anyway separate objects flying far apart from the cannons.
• Touching the box -> At first I intended to make the box pushable and/or stackable, but this would've caused some problems with the copying, so I had to remove it. I'm sorry about that, though, since it would of course be nice to be able to interact with them.
• Sideways buttons -> This is a good point, and I'll add possibility to touch the buttons yourself.
• Button interaction -> My original idea was that the buttons sticking from the ground could be pushed by the player, and the ones hanging from walls were meant for the laser bullets. As I noted above, adding possibility for the player to push the sideways buttons should fix this one.
• Two different results -> This is a bug, I'll look into it.

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Specific suggestion

Good suggestions, related to the points noted earlier. I'll add them to the readme.

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bug?

That is perhaps not specifically a bug, there is indeed a minimum width and height to a copied area (I think it's 3x3 pixels) - this was added to prevent another bug caused by the code I used to copy the areas - if the area was too small, the code would for some suspicious reason copy the whole level, which confused a lot of players until I fixed it. I didn't think the player'll need copied areas that narrow.

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on the nature of...

I kind of answered to the first problem earlier on. I think "you can copy anything that is not fixed to a dark wall" should cover the laser bullets as well, since they fly on their own, not related to the cannons. Of course the clarifications about the dark walls you made should be there, but the bullets don't interact with the dark walls much so I don't think there's a big problem with that. The button thing is indeed a good idea, I'll add it.

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About the screenshot

Yes, this is indeed a bug. The baddie checked that it's overlapping with a wall before the empty air was pasted onto the wall, causing the baddie to flip out (because the engine isn't really prepared to objects being inside walls).

...Ugh, you're right, it happens every time I copy a baddie into a wall. Thanks for noting this, it's quite an annoying one and I'm a bit embarrassed I haven't noted it earlier.

So then, sorry for my prejudices, you made really good points and had very good suggestions for the game! Thank you. :)