YYYYYY

[Robson]

New stuff Updated version is in the first post.

For the game:

- Warping! There's two types:
  - 1. The VVVVVV-type, which is a one-way warp to a set place within the campaign.
  - 2. A new type, which is a two-way warp that sends you somewhere within the same room.  These warp tokens are in sets of two, which are colour-coded, so you know where you will end up.
  Both types also work as checkpoints. I've created a very short test campaign, so you guys can play with the warping. I've made a video demo of me playing the warp campaign.

- When the player steps on a dissolvable tile, all connected tiles turn from + to ÷. Tiles that are about to vanish are shown as -. This should hopefully make it easier to process all the stuff going on. I've also made all the types of dissolving tiles a bit lighter.

- Written the credits, although I haven't included them in the development version. I'll put them in when I release the game properly.

For the editor:

 - Added a settings window, where you can specify the room name, if it's one-switch, terminal messages, teleport locations, etc, etc
 - The overly complicated saving system has gone! Saving is just one-click now.
 - You can now open multiple files at once, by dragging them all from explorer to the editor window.
 - Added a "Do you want to save?" prompt when closing, to make sure changes aren't accidentally lost.

I've updated the editor guide and the video demonstration.

[The Brass]

Teleporters work fine. I don't see a reason for their letters changing; the teleporters never change gameplay-wise, and the changing gives an impression of non-staticness. I also don't think the short-distance ones should be checkpoints - that could disrupt more complex puzzles, or make them too easy.

The new dissolvers are definitely an improvement.

Also, could you make it so that when you are holding a direction button in a terminal/souvenir prompt and press space, you start moving? In the current version, you have to start holding the move key after exiting the terminal, which is bothersome when going for speed.

[Shasharala]

The teleporters work just fine.

Good job.  You've put a lot of work into this game!
What's left to do?

[Robson]

My Redder Rambling is done!

Thanks for your comments guys. I'm glad you like the teleporters

I've been separating my time between the engine and writing the first campaign. I originally planned to have dissolving tiles as the main theme for the campaign, then use all the other game features on one or two rooms with the dissolving tiles. However, after reading loads of design guidelines, I've decided not to do that. This is because the constant introduction of new game features would make the entire campaign feel like a tutorial. I want to introduce a very small number of game features to the player, then explore those throughout the entire campaign. This should also give it more of a VVVVVV feel.

So I've decided to have a major theme of dissolving tiles and a minor theme of word enemies. The campaign will be 16 rooms in a 4x4 square.

Most of my engine time has been devoted to videos. A video is saved when you complete or quit a campaign, which you can replay and share with people. Video files are tiny, because I only record the keystrokes and they are compressed. For example, here's a one-minute video:
 
di2kaj25bqdn2pj2hap2l2k2l2ihb405b4bsdl0ufj0jx
x3haxxxvf41xs1vhexsh0whcq1x41x40muelbvhhg
p5hhdk2hfm2hh0mbq14e5b5asc5cla3b52ib3haq
b3eibrc5clb3g2ib25f3bia3bmhbo0

The compression is going to vary per video, but this was 156 bytes. I'll probably include the campaign name at the start of the video, which would allow people to post the contents of a video file into a forum/e-mail/etc. Someone else could come along, copy the video string, open the game, then press a key to play the video (if they have the campaign).

I've also added a permadeath mode and a vertically-flipped mode, which are unlocked when a campaign is completed. I'll release a new version of the game when the videos are done.

Teleporters work fine. I don't see a reason for their letters changing; the teleporters never change gameplay-wise, and the changing gives an impression of non-staticness. I also don't think the short-distance ones should be checkpoints - that could disrupt more complex puzzles, or make them too easy.

The new dissolvers are definitely an improvement.

Also, could you make it so that when you are holding a direction button in a terminal/souvenir prompt and press space, you start moving? In the current version, you have to start holding the move key after exiting the terminal, which is bothersome when going for speed.

Thanks for your feedback! I'll get all these things sorted. I'll probably have slightly different symbols for each colour of teleports, so that text screenshots are understandable.

The teleporters work just fine.

Good job.  You've put a lot of work into this game!
What's left to do?

It feels like YYYYYY is all I do nowadays! I'm really happy with the progress though and I'd do it all again Over the weekend I hit 4040 lines of code, which makes this my biggest game.

It's difficult to know what's left. At the beginning I had my big list of essential things todo, but now I mostly write things when they randomly pop into my head. I'd very roughly say the stuff left to do is:

- Finish videos Done
- Do The Brass's suggestions Done
- When the player finishes a campaign, give an option to save a map of the explored areas. Like this Done
- Investigate horizontally flipping maps
- Have a separate pause screen and quit screen Done
- Expand the number of possible rooms per campaign from 61 to infinity Done
- Possibly add a save function Done

- Finish the first campaign
- Write the second campaign

[reDo]

 i love VVVVVV and YYYYYY looks also good that will be my second favourite game after VVVVVV thx for this game
 

[Robson]

Thanks reDo - I hope you like the finished game

I've made lots of progress on the first campaign and the engine. A new development version has been released, which has:

Videos

A video is automatically saved when you win/quit/lose a campaign. Video files are very tiny, so don't worry about them taking up lots of space. Here's a "how to" guide:

Play a video - Select the campaign from the menu, then select the "Play Video" menu item. All the videos for that campaign will be displayed, with details (i.e. win/quit/lose, turns, deaths, souvenirs, etc).
Play faster or slower - Press left to play the video slower. Press right to play the video faster. Press your invert gravity key to return to normal speed.
Share a video - Go to the campaign folder and open the video file, which will end with y6r. Copy the contents of the file and then paste it into an e-mail/forum/etc. For example:

y6r:Video 2 levels::
Win, Grade A, 0/0 souvenirs, 1 deaths, 537 turns:
C3e3Db03dG3I2fD503CaFaKb2hBa0cBaCaCaEaEaGaHaDbCaFf
L3F3E3D3B3B3A3LaJ3E3F3E3C3C3B3CcAa3C5LJ5K3lGfG52gF
30jB3LE3wD3CqDpLL0405I4J5

Play a video from an e-mail/forum/etc - Copy the video data, then open YYYYYY and press V. The video will be saved to a file, so you can replay it as much as you like. To replay it, go to the campaign menu, then select the "Play Video" menu item. The video will be in the list, with "(pasted)" after the name.
Disable recording - If you don't want to save videos of your games, open the settings.ini file and change the videos>record setting to false.
Delete a video - Open the campaign folder and delete the video file, which will end with y6r.

With future updates I'll make some of these things more user-friendly.

Super Cellulatron

It's the YYYYYY demake of the Super Gravitron! I've tried to make it very different to the super gravitron, whilst still maintaining the same fast-pace. Currently it doesn't have a quick way to restart, but I'll sort that in a future version.

Campaign Unlocks

After completing a campaign, you can now play it in permadeath mode and/or vertically flipped mode.

Smaller stuff

- I've split the pause screen into a pause screen and a quit screen. Press escape to go to the quit screen. Press enter/m/p to access the pause screen. This should avoid accidental quitting. Pressing the X button on the window now takes you to the quit screen, instead of immediately closing with no warning.

- Outside of the playing area is now dark grey, to make it easier to see the boundaries of the playing area.

- If you hold left/right, then dismiss the map or souvenir/terminal messages, you'll immediately move left/right.

- Room warps no longer work as checkpoints.

- Warp characters are now static.

- Minimum room size reduced from 14x14 to 2x2 (because 1x1 wouldn't make sense).

- Room filenames can now be anything, so there's no longer a maximum of ~75 rooms per campaign. You could have hundreds, if you wanted to.

[Mika]

Hi, I gave it a try, keep it up .. and:
- idea: how about changing the player char @ to pqdb for left/right and upside-down clarity?
- crash: Subscript out of range error if you flick back and forth between Test levels rooms 1 and "Spikes"
- bug: if a white deadly tile (spike, word, ..) kills you, it stays red when you're respawned

[Robson]

Hi, I gave it a try, keep it up .. and:
- idea: how about changing the player char @ to pqdb for left/right and upside-down clarity?
- crash: Subscript out of range error if you flick back and forth between Test levels rooms 1 and "Spikes"
- bug: if a white deadly tile (spike, word, ..) kills you, it stays red when you're respawned

Thanks for your feedback Mika!

- idea - Cool idea! In the official campaign I'm avoiding any one-height corridors, but I think this would be useful anyway. I'll add it into the settings.ini file, so people can use pqdb if they'd like to.
- crash - Whoops! Well spotted. I'll make sure that's fixed for the next version.
- bug - That's a feature I thought it would be nice to paint the spikes red, so the player can see where they've died. In a future version it'll be possible to export a full map of the campaign when you complete it, so you can look back and see all the places where you died. Here's an example.

[Shasharala]

Whoa!  I love your idea for the super cellutron! 

[arcticwolf15]

I just finished a campaign I am working on, but when I try to play it, it says either "file not found" or "runtime error". Is there any way to fix this? The other campaigns work fine. In case there is an error with the programming, I have uploaded the .zip folder file, which can be downloaded here. Thank you. This is my first post.

[Robson]

Wow! I wasn't expecting anyone to make a whole campaign so soon - this is awesome

I would love to play this, but unfortunately I have to go to sleep, so I can be up for work tomorrow I'm going to play this as soon as I get home!

I had a quick look at the layout file - if you convert all the letters to lowercase, it will work:

#PAR=400
00000u0
gfed0ts
h00c00r
i00b00q
x00a00p
jklmnov

You probably want the warp in room c to be

#WARP=3 1 2 18

This would take you to room D, near the terminal. The 3 is the layout column (it begins with 0, rather than 1) and the 1 is the layout row (also starts at 0) Then the 2 and 18 are the X and Y within the room. I don't have warps written into the settings window of the level editor yet. Sorry about that, I'll make sure it gets added.

I can't believe I have to go to sleep - I want to play this!!!

[The Brass]

The cellulatron is interesting and has potential, but I don't like the scoring. Staying alive is enough of an achievement. Seeing ungettable £s is annoying, and the tight-tunnel style creates plenty of those situations. I say you should do it by time, or turns as they now seem to be. Maybe have the £s give bonus points.

Is having a level editor for the cellulatron possible?

[Robson]

arcticwolf15

I finally got home from work! I'm liking the jailbreak campaign a whole lot Especially the way you integrated the story with the game objects. I've been fixing a few things in YYYYYY and improving the level editor, so I'll get those things finished soon (most likely tuesday/wednesday night), then I'll release a new version which is fully compatible with your campaign.

The Brass

Removing the gold and doing it by turns is definitely possible. I'd be happy to do that, so I'll get it sorted for the next version.

A level editor for the cellulatron could be rather tricky. However, I could make the cellulatron load a layout from a file, rather than generating it randomly. That way you can edit the layout in a text editor. What did you have in mind?

[James]

Hey, this game is pretty cool. Eventually I'll have to add a demakes/tributes page to the VVVVVV Wiki at http://vvvvvv-wiki.wikispaces.com/ if nobody else does first.

I have a few questions and comments. First, the cellulatron is pretty fun, but I find that if you stay along the edges it's pretty easy. Since there are never any blocks there you just ride to the top on the adjacent column and then fall to near the bottom, then get back on an adjacent block and ride back to the top. Ideally, I think the scrolling blocks should fill the whold width of the screen.

Second, do you have any plans to name the chracters after their colours like in VVVVVV? If so, you should start asking for suggestions on this forum, and choose the best ones. I've certainly got a few suggestions for colour-related character names.

[Robson]

My current plan is to finish the engine for YYYYYY by the end of this week, so I can concentrate on the campaigns. I have two big things to do (saving/loading and exporting maps when a campaign is finished), along with a lot of small things. So hopefully that will be possible.

I've done lots of small things today and will release a new version tomorrow. It'll have all this and anything else I write in:

Super Cellulatron
- Can now be easily restarted
- Removed gold
- Changed the layout generator so that the sides are no longer empty
- Tunnels can wrap around the room
- Every ~100 rows you get one point and the game speed increases slightly (you can easily tell when this occurs, because there will be three blank lines in the layout)

Stuff to help campaign makers
- Uploaded my room design guidelines. The list changes a lot
- Press f5 to jump directly to a room
- Missing map files are displayed when a campaign is started
- Added a toolbar to the level editor, so you can select different tools and see what tile is being drawn
- Added warps to the tiles of the level editor
- Added warps to the settings window of the level editor

Bugs fixed
- Fixed a bug with spike collision wrapping unintentionally

Added stuff
- Added a 'how to' guide for the videos, which is in videos.txt
- The player character can now appear as pqdb, which is based on the direction they are facing. To enable this, change the symbols>player_pqdb setting to true in the settings.ini file
- Direction tiles are now usable when the room is rotated to 90 and 270 degrees

Hey, this game is pretty cool. Eventually I'll have to add a demakes/tributes page to the VVVVVV Wiki at http://vvvvvv-wiki.wikispaces.com/ if nobody else does first.

Thanks James! I'm very impressed with the wiki. Great to read and useful for reference

I have a few questions and comments. First, the cellulatron is pretty fun, but I find that if you stay along the edges it's pretty easy. Since there are never any blocks there you just ride to the top on the adjacent column and then fall to near the bottom, then get back on an adjacent block and ride back to the top. Ideally, I think the scrolling blocks should fill the whold width of the screen.

I've removed the gold and made the blocks go all the way to the edge, so I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the new version (will be released Wednesday night).

Second, do you have any plans to name the chracters after their colours like in VVVVVV? If so, you should start asking for suggestions on this forum, and choose the best ones. I've certainly got a few suggestions for colour-related character names.

Yes! For my campaigns at least. Other people are welcome to do anything they want. I'm not sticking strictly to the shades of the colours, but they are similarish. For example, the main character is called Yvette, but I've used pink instead of violet.

Terry made a few suggestions and more are always appreciated.