Dimension 333333 version hell, and a possible sequel

[Sendy]

333333 sequel report, I have 4 rooms with a yellow colour theme and the gimmick of having to use dissolving platforms as unlocks - only I've wracked my brain to come up with some fiendish puzzles beyond the obvious "unlock the door then survive the enemys and spikes" of levels like Dust Switch.

Graphicswise I'm going for a very layered look - with colour themed episodes like in 333333, but with a LOT more Direct Mode. In fact, everything is covered in Direct Mode, to add hints of secondary and tertiary colour schemes in the backgrounds, to provide continuity (so a screenshot map would look almost completely continuous), and to just make novel objects and more varied terrain.

I'm determined to squeeze every last puzzle and fun thing to do I can out of this game engine while keeping the difficulty around VVVVVV level, maybe a smidgen harder.

Again if someone can disclose the script I need to change enemy speed, I'd be much obliged, but there's no hurry, this game is going to take probably at least 6 months to make.

[SJMistery]

you could use the one way tiles as a puzzle for one section, and include weird gravitrons on another, if you need ideas

[ZeNewDragon]

I hate it when levels use the Gravitron, to be honest.

[Sendy]

I'm finding no shortage of ideas, funnily enough. When I finished my first level I thought that was pretty much it. But there are so many permutations of gimmicks and design choices. One of the levels will feature fairly easy challenges but 5 or 6 of  them between each checkpoint. I've got a fairly easy falling level planned - 20 screens of falling while you dodge the spikes, but no sharp turns or nasty suprises, so it's more reflexes than luck and muscle memory.

And the potential of the dissolving platform as both a switch and a one-shot walkway around spikes is yeilding so much puzzle potential.

Now I think I've worked out how to change the movement speeds of both platforms and enemies (nobody answered my question earlier in the thread so it's just a hypothesis), there should be a lot to play with. Slower moving platforms means more can be asked of the player while they ride them

[allison]

I'm finding no shortage of ideas, funnily enough. When I finished my first level I thought that was pretty much it. But there are so many permutations of gimmicks and design choices. One of the levels will feature fairly easy challenges but 5 or 6 of  them between each checkpoint. I've got a fairly easy falling level planned - 20 screens of falling while you dodge the spikes, but no sharp turns or nasty suprises, so it's more reflexes than luck and muscle memory.

And the potential of the dissolving platform as both a switch and a one-shot walkway around spikes is yeilding so much puzzle potential.

Now I think I've worked out how to change the movement speeds of both platforms and enemies (nobody answered my question earlier in the thread so it's just a hypothesis), there should be a lot to play with. Slower moving platforms means more can be asked of the player while they ride them

Platform speed can be modified by opening the level in a text editor and changing the "platv" stat for the screen you want to have slower or faster platforms. Changing enemy speed is a bit more complicated; you have to use the internal scripting exploit and createentity to create enemies with different speed values.

Hope this helps...

[Sendy]

Thanks, that does help. It looked like there was a speed variable for enemies, too, which could be tweaked in the text. At the moment script exploits are beyond my knowledge horizon.

[FIQ]

Hi, I haven't been here for months, and only saw this now, but since 333333 was always my personal favorite, I just wanted to jump in and say that I'd love to see a new level by you.

There is a few level archives, but there isn't a full list of VVVVVV levels anywhere. I suppose I could mirror one on my host, but what do you have in mind exactly?

You mentioned that there's a bug with the tOLP teleporters -- what about it? and is it present in my own level (where the system was taken from) assuming you have tested it?

I can see if I can make anything useful out of the related VVVVVV source parts Terry posted a few days ago regarding music blob creation.

A note on custom graphics (and music) - VVVVVV now has all its' resources in a .zip file. You can copy this, place it somewhere (I forgot where, but I can look it up), extract the content and replace it with your own data. It has to replicate the in-game graphics behaviour (e.g. walls must still be walls in the edits and so on). With music, you have a lot more freedom - you can (in theory) push 16 tracks of your own, make a vvvmusic.vvv blob with them (with the same name and format as the originals, e.g. 14piercingthesky.ogg for example) and then they will correspond to the same numbers as the normal VVVVVV music. Remember that there is some tracks that you "can't access" (you can, and it's trivial to do, no idea why it was done this way in first place), and you have to insert invalid characters into a music() command to access them -- for example music(7a) (normally music(7) would result in Popular Potpurri, e.g. track 10).

In theory, since there isn't a tool for making custom music blobs right now.

Also, where can I find your music?

Good luck!

Thanks, that does help. It looked like there was a speed variable for enemies, too, which could be tweaked in the text. At the moment script exploits are beyond my knowledge horizon.

There is in fact a property for enemy speed, but it's unused, and thus you have to use the so-called "internal scripting exploit" to make any use of it. The exception is if you want to make an enemy stationary outright, which is possible by merely editing the entity data in the .vvvvvv file by hand.

Internal scripting in general is a bit weird -- even if you know how to do it, you might occasionally need to resort to kludge solutions because it can only do so much. (for example, to create an enemy, you need to make the enemy, but also make sure that it is made properly in all cases, never becoming made twice, and ensuring that it gets executed in first place, and so on. In the end, the scripts end up being fairly messy (as can be seen in script heavy levels)...
For enemy creation in particular, the necessary call lacks enough parameters for full control (basically, each internal script is converted to an internal VVVVVV function call and the function call takes 8 parameters while the scripting call only has 5), so no enemy border defining is possible, but otherwise works if you do it right.

[Sendy]

Thanks FIQ, that's really helpful.

You can find my music here. Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sendy

And I have a full album for sale (or just listening to) here: https://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases

If you like chip music and artists like Squarepusher, Wisp, and u-Ziq, you might enjoy it.

[The Snikle Force]

I am still trying to beat the original...But I would LOVE to see a sequel!