egomassive's Knytt Stories Plus mod

I was experimenting with the crumbling block (Bank 15 Obj 38) and noticed something weird when I placed a Delete trigger on top of it (not on the same position, but one tile above).

I hadn't thought of that possibility. There's an invisible detector that's being deleted. For gray blocks it protrudes from the top. For purple blocks it outlines them. I might be able to prevent it's interaction with delete objects.

Generally though, be careful how you use delete objects. They can do crazy things. For example, the sign background can get stuck on screen if you delete all the sign objects while a sign is being displayed. I consider that a level design mistake (like a wall-swim) rather than a bug.

An error I've noticed while playing Deep Freeze: if you activate a shift with sound, the sound doesn't stop if you die. Tested with "Use alternate death".

@VG: I looked into the crumbling-block/delete-object conflict and It will have to stay. The detectors are an object created during the render cycles. These objects have a tag which is used to position them. This is the same tag the delete object uses to identify what it should destroy. So, if I change the tag to prevent deletion it won't be positioned properly. If I create the detector after the render cycle, I could change the tag and position it properly, but this would mess up what happens when you transition to a new screen and find yourself in a crumbling block --it should be destroyed before you even see it.

@GrayFace: I'm sure that does take away from the effect of the alternate-death. The only sound you should hear is the static. I'll add it to my list of things to look into.

It'd have been neat if this issue could be fixed, but based on what you explained, I agree it's probably not worth the trouble and the risk of breaking other stuff for such an uncommon use case. I was just trying to make a visible trigger on top of a crumbling block disappear after activation, but it's not that big of a deal if it stays visible. Thanks for looking into this anyway

@GrayFace: I'm sure that does take away from the effect of the alternate-death. The only sound you should hear is the static. I'll add it to my list of things to look into.

I don't know actually. In original KS sounds aren't stopped at death either I think. It only becomes a problem in Deep Freeze, because when that long teleportation sound doesn't stop after death it feels like a bug. In levels that don't use long sounds it's probably better to keep sounds playing even in alt. death. Maybe it should be a setting in World.ini whether to stop sounds after death or not.

One feature Deep Freeze begs for: if you trigger a timed shift while it's executing, currently it plays sound again (does nothing else). It would be good to have an option to make subsequent triggers completely ignored while it's executing. Maybe just a level-wide switch, because most levels would need it one way or the other.

Quote from: egomassive on August 11, 2017, 20:55:18

@GrayFace: I'm sure that does take away from the effect of the alternate-death. The only sound you should hear is the static. I'll add it to my list of things to look into.

I don't know actually. In original KS sounds aren't stopped at death either I think. It only becomes a problem in Deep Freeze, because when that long teleportation sound doesn't stop after death it feels like a bug. In levels that don't use long sounds it's probably better to keep sounds playing even in alt. death. Maybe it should be a setting in World.ini whether to stop sounds after death or not.

One feature Deep Freeze begs for: if you trigger a timed shift while it's executing, currently it plays sound again (does nothing else). It would be good to have an option to make subsequent triggers completely ignored while it's executing. Maybe just a level-wide switch, because most levels would need it one way or the other.

I've just remembered that Ultigonio wanted a way to prevent use of alternate-death with that level. This is probably the reason. Since the alt-death is imitating Knytt rather than Knytt Stories I guess I ought to go see what happens in that game. (Does any object even make a noise on that game?)

It could be a good idea to prevent the sound from playing again specifically if it's tied to a timed shift. I have to be careful that I don't break any existing levels though. Having designers opt in would guarantee that no existing levels would be broken, but I feel like it would be too obscure of an instruction for most people to understand its purpose. It would never be used like slow-fade ambiance.

One feature Deep Freeze begs for: if you trigger a timed shift while it's executing, currently it plays sound again (does nothing else). It would be good to have an option to make subsequent triggers completely ignored while it's executing. Maybe just a level-wide switch, because most levels would need it one way or the other.

I'm assuming you're bringing these things up because you're just now digging into Deep Freeze, so I'll stick this detail behind a spoiler if that's the case and you haven't finished the level yet:

I've just remembered that Ultigonio wanted a way to prevent use of alternate-death with that level. This is probably the reason. Since the alt-death is imitating Knytt rather than Knytt Stories I guess I ought to go see what happens in that game. (Does any object even make a noise on that game?)

You know, that does sound vaguely familiar.  If it was possible to kill trigger sounds on death for both death effects, that would be great, as well - the countdown sounds playing after death was a minor complaint I got from playtesters who weren't familiar with KS's limitations.  That said, I believe this was a functionality we spoke about way back when, and I think it was decided that there wasn't much that could be done about it.

It could be a good idea to prevent the sound from playing again specifically if it's tied to a timed shift. I have to be careful that I don't break any existing levels though. Having designers opt in would guarantee that no existing levels would be broken, but I feel like it would be too obscure of an instruction for most people to understand its purpose. It would never be used like slow-fade ambiance.

Well, it could be auto-added to World.ini of new levels.

I'm assuming you're bringing these things up because you're just now digging into Deep Freeze, so I'll stick this detail behind a spoiler if that's the case and you haven't finished the level yet:

No, I've finished it, and wrote a response in the thread

The difficulty with this one is that the the game still needs to be able to activate triggers so to play sounds from other shifts, since Deep Freeze starts incorporating the use of multiple, concurrent timed shifts.  Unless you could call the ID of the specific instance of that specific sound played from that specific trigger, I'm not really sure how possible this would be.

I don't mean whether or not the sound is playing (it's actually impossible to find out because for that all sound emitting code in KS would have to be changed and in MMF2 it has to be done manually), but the timeout of shift itself (e.g. ShiftTime(A)), which isn't a problem.

You know, that does sound vaguely familiar.  If it was possible to kill trigger sounds on death for both death effects, that would be great, as well - the countdown sounds playing after death was a minor complaint I got from playtesters who weren't familiar with KS's limitations.  That said, I believe this was a functionality we spoke about way back when, and I think it was decided that there wasn't much that could be done about it.

Nothing can be done to stop shift sounds specifically, but a call to "Stop all sounds" function could be good enough.

@GrayFace: Default for new levels, that idea deserves a star. *gives star*

I misunderstood how Deep Freeze works. I thought delayed shifts produce sound when they are triggered, but they produce it when they end their job and Ultigonio uses triggers to produce init sound. It would be good to have a separate activation sound setting. I've added it as ShiftStartSound(A) to KS Ex.

We've just been fantasizing over at the new Niff-discord-chat https://discord.gg/UgY9JSD about what if me and you merge KS+ and KS Ex. How realistic do you think the idea is?

I don't want to speak in egomassive's place, but I don't think there are any more major additions planned for KS+? The ethos of KS+ as I understand it is a slightly enhanced version of the original Knytt Stories that allows for a few more possibilities, while KS Ex allows for many more features and generally has fewer limitations. I'd personally prefer these two different versions to continue co-existing rather than become one, but if anything, maybe it would make more sense to merge the features of KS+ into KS Ex.

Is the Redo feature in level editor working for anyone? In my case, it always seems to be disabled (greyed out and unselectable in the menu) even right after I've used the Undo command, so I'm never able to cancel any undoing.

Redo's not doing anything for me, either.