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Messages - Simon

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3166
Lix Main / Re: Basher staircases, keep/cull
« on: July 09, 2015, 10:32:12 PM »
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Let's be honest.  "We" here consists solely of NaOH (and you, but that will always be the case as you're the primary game developer) AFAIK.
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I've made the shoveller in 2011 to make basher staircases easier than in L1.
I'm not familiar with this detail.  Is it a case of having more animation frames and/or better masks that make it easier to achieve walkable steps with the technique?

<NaOH> <ccexplore> "We" here consists solely of NaOH
<NaOH> hehe
<SimonN> It's true. I wondered, but was not hesitant, when drawing sprites in 2011 about it


I was sailing in open waters when drawing the Lemmings-to-Lix replacement sprite. Bashing from top to bottom seemed the normal thing to do, because L1/L2/L3 all did it. I knew about basher staircases, and had to decide what to do with them. I didn't like how it was a precision move in L1. They should be either done away with, or made easier than in L1. I settled on the latter back then.

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I'm pretty sure this is the first time this was ever brought up.

It crossed my mind occasionally, but that's normal with most mechanics; so I have never brought it up. NaOH has brought it up a single time before, we didn't discuss it as deeply as today then.

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We are hardly at the point where "we" (other than NaOH) are in agreement of this being a bug.

Right. Though not being 100 % fond, I made the active decision to have basher staircases in 2011. I've changed my view about it from back then.

I wonder if it's a neutral side effect, or an unwanted side effect, when the horizontal tunneler is frequently used to make 45-degree upwards slopes in multiplayer. Had I felt everyone would agree that this is unwanted, I'd have spared making another dreaded cull topic. >_>;

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[...] is at least understandably not the direction one might want the game to get into.

Right, the multiplayer is the main reason to consider no-basher-staircases. Speed mining, or mine-build-mine-build, all use at least one skill moving in the general direction where it would normally go.

-- Simon

3167
Lix Main / Re: Basher staircases, keep/cull
« on: July 09, 2015, 09:45:41 PM »
Revolution: Interesting, that never came to mind until now. So whoever was involved with that seems to have disagreed with basher staircases, too. ;-)

Möbius, I'm sorry how I didn't list you with the level designers in my opening post. You've built a ton of cool stuff for the Lix community pack. >_> If you have insight on whether existing levels might break, I'm all ears.

More from IRC:

[23:26] <NaOH> right, that little slope [basher relics at the bottom of the tunnel after a full swing] could be used to climb a steel block
[23:26] <NaOH> if the slope is in the right spot
[23:26] <NaOH> with the upswing
[shovel from bottom to top] , you could have a sharp bottom edge and a curvy top edge

And now I'm reading Proxima's and ccx's response.

-- Simon

3168
Lix Main / Re: Basher staircases, keep/cull
« on: July 09, 2015, 08:48:32 PM »
About that concern, a completely new anim can make the tunnel head always look like after a full swing, and slowly advance this shape. Clones had a basher like this.

I'd like very much to keep the basher always interruptable, yeah.

-- Simon

3169
Lix Main / Basher staircases, keep/cull
« on: July 09, 2015, 07:48:56 PM »
Hi folks,

in IRC, we've been considering to remove basher staircases from Lix.

Proposed change: Shovel from bottom up, not from top down.

I've made the shoveller in 2011 to make basher staircases easier than in L1. But is it a desirable thing to copy from L1?

<SimonN> especially on maps that are a big chunk of terrain, with two players trying to get to the opposite side each. The basher staircase is a must here
<SimonN> This kind of map is somewhat common.
<SimonN> so, basher staircases are a standard move, enabled by a strange combination of skills.


<NaOH> When playing [Lix multiplayer] with a new player, I feel like they will see this trick and think 'wow, this game requires fiendish exploits of the exact nature of how the skills are executed to be good at' and be disappointed.
<SimonN> this is how expert play in many oldschool video games appear to the newbs
<SimonN> getting good at the regular things and exploiting bugs to a point where they become standard maneuvers
<NaOH> That's a common practice, sure, but I don't know if I would consider that good game design.
<SimonN> and while new players don't know the game too well yet, they have a good sense of what feels like a bug and what is merely surprising
<SimonN> it's bad game design
[to make people rely on what's perceived as a bug]

Clam/Rubix/geoo/Proxima/Steve: How many existing levels do you expect to be affected?

-- Simon

3170
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so I don't need to start a new topic every time I have a question.

The whole board is exactly for this purpose. Making a fresh topic for each unrelated question is a Good Thing. Much easier to scan and search. <_<

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when do you think newcomers learn to reverse a Lemming's direction using a builder to build into the ground?

Early on from trial and error.

Even though they know it, people do not use it to solve levels for a surprisingly long time. People tend to get stuck on Boundary Line, and Postcard from Lemmingland, and No Added Colors or Lemmings. All these levels have at least one standard route involving building into a walkable step to turn.

If you expect new users to play your pack, maybe make a dedicated level.

All new users play the original games though, before venturing into other people's packs.

-- Simon

3171
NeoLemmix Main / Re: Save requirement: show during play (July 2015)
« on: July 06, 2015, 08:43:22 PM »
To leverage my strong opinions, I have to commend the user option for absolute values instead of percentages. It's possible to argue violently about what should be default setting, but I want to be nice right now. :8():

-- Simon

3172
Levels for v10 or older / Re: NeoLemmix Introduction Pack (WIP)
« on: July 05, 2015, 03:32:51 PM »
This is extremely valuable.

This is also an excellent thing to ship with your engine/editor release, so you can deliver batteries-included.

I discourage pack designers from making full-blown tutorials about basic rules of the game. Tutorials in a pack eat up space and make the pack harder to filter for interesting levels. If a pack designer doesn't unlock all levels, even though they should, tutorials become a huge burden and outright kill the desire to play whatever is locked beneath them.

Since, obviously, there is a need to introduce new features, this dedicated pack is excellent.

Experience has shown how new people want to play L1 first, only then dive into custom packs. We can assume enough familiarity with L1 to skip introducing their skills. Should you want to include tutorials about L1 stuff sometime, make it a separate, skippable rating.

When pack designers are going to use strange tricks or features, I'm okay with selected, specific tutorials before such levels. That is normal, good design.

-- Simon

3173
Put caption right into tag (click to show/hide)

-- Simon

3174
Contests / Re: Official Level Design Contest #5 (Voting)
« on: July 05, 2015, 10:54:58 AM »
I've called in a spontaneous IRL meeting with Ichotolot this afternoon, to get a more detailed look at what I haven't solved yet. 8-)

-- Simon

3175
Palmtree: Removed the right-hatch-only backroute found by Nepster, version 1.2 in update topic. Bumpy terrain and flinging is breeding grounds for fiddly backroutes.

Anything that uses both hatches is perfect, even if it's not 100 % what I imagine. IIRC, geoo has the intended solution, and Ichotolot had a deviation that's still good.
 
-- Simon

3176
-- Simon

3177
NeoLemmix Main / Re: My experience with NeoLemmix so far
« on: June 25, 2015, 08:55:13 AM »
other formats [...] aren't explicitly intended to be supported.

I assume this means "supported by the lib". You've given lots of support for it already.

Does the lib outright refuse to load a file with an unwanted ending?

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if [...] a format other than OGG or IT doesn't work at some point [...] I'm probably not going to try too hard to fix it.

In that case, the forced rename has put users in the worst of all situations. They won't see at a glance which files have stopped working.

-- Simon

3178
Lix Main / Re: Exploders in Lix, with/without fling/timing?
« on: June 24, 2015, 06:54:24 AM »
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An exploder assignment in a replay doesn't carry information about whether the exploder is timed or not. This is inferred by the number of players.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster. [...] always record their position as if they were untimed

I'm willing to solve this in a different way.

Reasoning for own suggestion: Replays have always stored the recording game's version. The game knows the rules of older versions. Upon loading a replay, if the replay is old, it's silently forward-converted. The file remains untouched. At this time, the game knows exactly whether or not to shift the assignment.

Should the rules change again, the replay forward convertor will grow some more moss, because it will be deciding between several different rules. The moss will grow all in one single function that's called once at replay loading.

About storing exploding time: I'm using replay data both for replays and for networking games. I'd like to keep this for simplicity. The assignment carries information about directional force. Assignments with the false directional force aren't carried out when replaying. Storing directional force is good for networked team games. If we store the time of explosion instead of assignment, several assumptions of the running game break, and need special cases.

Another idea is to store time of the assignment, but explicitly store timed/untimed with each assignment.

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I am making a longer animation for the non-fling exploder. I'll show sprites when it's done. The exploder will stand still while going through the anim, as before. Thus, the crater is at the same position as when played back in the current Lix version. The explosion will happen a few frames later.

This is also potentially going to cause issues, particularly if other lixes pass through at the same time.

Yes, it's a physics change and may break some replays. This is accepted. Level pack managers can batch-verify their replay collection. There will be a WIP release before inflicting the change on everyone, to see whether the new anim is worth the break.

-- Simon

3179
Lix Main / Re: Exploders in Lix, with/without fling/timing?
« on: June 23, 2015, 12:00:11 PM »
Random properties of the upcoming implementation:

Replays won't record (change active skill in the skillbar) anymore. Instead, each assignment is augmented with information about the assigned skill. This makes the skillbar solely part of the GUI, like fast-forward. Playing back a replay will not change skills in the panel. Changing skills in the panel will not interrupt a playback.

I have written and tested backwards compatibility for older replays. Exploder assignments in older singleplayer replays will be moved forward in time. When playing back such an old singleplayer replay, the untimed exploder makes a crater at the same position as when played back in the currently released Lix versions. :8:()[:

An exploder assignment in a replay doesn't carry information about whether the exploder is timed or not. This is inferred by the number of players.

Exploder mass-assignments from the nuke are untimed in singleplayer, timed in multiplayer. :8():

I am making a longer animation for the non-fling exploder. I'll show sprites when it's done. The exploder will stand still while going through the anim, as before. Thus, the crater is at the same position as when played back in the current Lix version. The explosion will happen a few frames later.

Exploders in mid-air will not go through the anim, but explode instantly. This is also unlike the current version.

From the new anim, it's less obvious that exploders can be assigned in mid-air. We have to think about this. :lix-suspicious:

-- Simon

3180
Forum Games / Re: Family Feud 2015
« on: June 19, 2015, 03:33:45 PM »
A google-intensive round for the feud questions, but extremely fun games. Thanks!

<SimonN> feud results, feud results
<Proxima> indeed :) I enjoyed this round
<Proxima> you and NaOH were on a good wavelength, you submitted the same answers to all standard-scoring questions except Q1
<SimonN> Ravenclaw have two Chasers (Simon, bsmith), one Beater (Crane), three Seekers (namida, geoo, Akseli) and one Keeper (Proxima) (score 80)
<SimonN> :D :D :D :D
<SimonN> yeah, it didn't work out all the time for points, but the answers matched up often
<Ramond> Proxima is back!
<Proxima> yes :) hello
<SimonN> my prediction was that exactly one of geoo and NaOH would seek for Ravenclaw, and if both seek there, then the strong opposition doesn't get points either, so I should get a non-seeker role on the team
<SimonN> and my first hunch, which I erased before sending, was to seek for Hufflepuff >_>


-- Simon

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