DSS Ideal X (v2)

[CHz]

Hi! I finally overcame writer's block and finished my level!

It's 10x10-ish. It's not terribly hard, so despite the larger size as far as custom levels go, it shouldn't take that long to run through. The GOAL was to go middle-of-the-road with the difficulty, somewhere in the same ballpark as the original game's, but I may have undershot it in some areas and overshot it in others (the split corridor and final area in particular). Lemme know if you hit a room that unreasonably socks you in the face.

There's kind of a stock plot in there, but it's pretty loose and not a whole lot is explained. It was more of a shell for me to play with pacing and scripting. Feel free to fill in the gaps with your favorite sci-fi tropes!

Here are some pictures, if that's your kind of thing:









Okay that's enough stalling, linky time: > download this sucker < (version 2).


If you're still here, here are couple of known issues:

Out of Phase is more aggravating than I intended it to be. There's a timing difference between moving platforms bouncing off walls and bouncing off the bounding box, which is why there's that gap on the bottom to keep everything synced. Sucks really hard to land on that shelf. Also, I'd like it if the vertical platform were four tiles over to the left so none of the paths overlapped, but that's only possible at the moment by adding walls, and that would screw up the design.

Missile Command falls victim to the moving-platforms-in-a-warp-room bug. The ghost platforms shouldn't make the room any easier, but they might mess with your first flip.

Also here is a changelog for people with lots of free time:

Version 2

• Easier: Power of the Press/Beeline, Gravitation (well, I think so at least).
• Swapped Gravitation and Wandering Ghosts.
• Three of the trinket rooms used to lock you in, so there was no way to exit until you got the trinket. They're supposed to be optional, so that's no good. Added a way out to each so you can bail out at the beginning if you want.
• Added a hint to Moat about hitting the R key to respawn if you fall while trying to cross the gap in Crossing. There used to be spikes there if you wanted to suicide, but it's better this way.
• Swapped the enemy types of Crossing and Exchange and moved Crossing's right gate enemies a little bit. Turns out that, if you were pixel perfect, you could flip up from Moat, land on the exact corner of the ledge, and sneak by the enemies!
• Sprinkled in a few extra sad faces to some exchanges. Emotion is good!

[ortoslon]

difficulty spikes at Power to the Press/Beeline. i suffered through that but quit out of desperation when i saw the screen after that

[CHz]

difficulty spikes at Power to the Press/Beeline.

I think I agree; some of that is pretty fiddly even for me. That's a sequence I came back and made adjustments to a few times, but maybe not enough of them.

i suffered through that but quit out of desperation when i saw the screen after that

So you didn't try it? Just checking because, despite its looks, I don't think Gravitation is terribly more difficult than the Press/Beeline sequence. 100% just my perception, though. I've thought about trashing the conveyer belts from that room altogether, but never did because I felt it was manageable even with them.

(That room also used to be way harder. There were even enemies going along the bottom at one point. That was highly moronic.)

Thanks for the brief thoughts! It's hard to get a feel on a level when you're the only one playing it.

[ortoslon]

i tried Gravitation about ten times, then quit

[PJBottomz]

I can predict that this will likely be a featured level! It looks good.

[Sendy]

Gravitation looked ridiculous for the first few tries, but then I realized what I had to do, and got it after two more tries... That to me means good puzzle design, but I can see where others might find it too hard. Very good level, what I've played so far...

[CHz]

Alright, I reduced the number of enemies in Power of the Press and Beeline and spaced things out a little more, so that sequence should hopefully be a little easier. It's supposed to be a step up in difficulty, but not as much of one as it ended up being. It's only the second area, after all!

Also, I adjusted Gravitation by removing one of the gutters and spreading the remaining three out. That let me increase the conveyer belts by two tiles apiece (4 -> 6), so there's more room for maneuvering down there.

More importantly, I swapped it with a room from the final area. I like Gravitation, but it's too hard for that point in the game and fits in a lot better with the tenser levels in the final area. The room I switched it with, Wandering Ghosts, always seemed to me to be too easy for the final area, so I think the swap makes both areas better. I may make some changes to Wandering Ghosts later based on what you guys think, because stacked moving platforms can be finicky, but I think there's enough margin of error there to keep it from being too frustrating.

I also made some other minor changes that make this better enough overall for a second release. I updated the link in the first post and added a full changelog, if you're interested in the gory details. Or you can just download it right now!

Thanks to everyone for the comments so far!

[ortoslon]

yes, Wandering Ghosts is too hard for the area you moved it to

i beat the level, it ends with you talking and then just a black screen and i can flip and hear me flipping and i accidentally did something that made you go through your monologue again

[Sendy]

Finished the old version of this a couple of nights ago, absolutely loved it! A couple of aesthetic niggles here and there, and the ghost platforms in Missile Command made me  at first, but overall I enjoyed the polish and interesting challenges. Loving the mangled screens at the end as well!

[CHz]

i beat the level, it ends with you talking and then just a black screen and i can flip and hear me flipping and i accidentally did something that made you go through your monologue again

Bizarre. I can make it display that message only once pretty easily, but as for the real problem, I can't replicate that at all!

I was having some problems with a script in that room earlier: some lines of dialogue would just not display. I think there may be issues with scripts that are too long, since it worked fine after I shortened it. Not sure if that's related at all to what happened to you, since that sounds quite a bit worse. I'll poke at it a little more and see if I can figure anything out.

[PJBottomz]

So, here's my feedback.

FAVORITE ROOM


I loved this room! It was really cool. See, I love rooms like this, where you have to go up or down to avoid getting pushed off your platform and into death. And, the bottom part, was MOAR fun.

NOT FAVORITE ROOM


Eheh... This is actually my SECOND not favorite room. This was okay. I think it was pretty challenging, but...

THE GODDAMN ROOM AFTER THAT IS HORRIBLE!

[Sendy]

Friend or Foe was easy for me as soon as I realized I could just hop into the 'bald patches' in the spikes, and treat the moving platforms as enemies.

My favourite sequence is probably the whole "Either / Or" "Cross Over and Continue" etc group of rooms. Very elegant design there IMO. I enjoyed what I percieved to be a DJ Shadow reference or two, as well

Here are my stats for my second run of the first version of this level:

10 LET TRINKETS=7
20 LET DEATHS=312
30 LET TIMEMINS=45 : LET TIMESECONDS=25
40 PRINT "TRINKETS :"; TRINKETS; " OUT OF 9"
50 PRINT "DEATHS :"; DEATHS
60 PRINT "TIME TAKEN :"; TIMEMINS; "m. "; TIMESECONDS; "s."

RUN

TRINKETS : 7 OUT OF 9
DEATHS : 312
TIME TAKEN : 45m. 25s.

READY.
SYS 64738

(Okay that was the most pointless thing I've done today  )

[CHz]

NOT FAVORITE ROOM
(picture of Friend or Foe)

I would definitely recommend the path Sendy suggested through that room. The title is referring to the moving platforms! (Hint: very foe.)

Eheh... This is actually my SECOND not favorite room. This was okay. I think it was pretty challenging, but...

THE GODDAMN ROOM AFTER THAT IS HORRIBLE!

Catalytic Converter looks a bit more intimidating than it really is. Just take it slowly! Each pit has a couple of safe areas you can stand in to plan your next move, and there are only three enemies you need to pay attention to at any given point: the two moving horizontally and the one inside the next pit.

My favourite sequence is probably the whole "Either / Or" "Cross Over and Continue" etc group of rooms. Very elegant design there IMO.

Thanks! That was my favorite subarea gimmick, which is why I ended up giving that area my favorite BGM.

That area was originally supposed to be one way: enter at the bottom and leave from the top. The idea of making it bidirectional came after I decided on having a crossover room in the one-way version, so designing that latch to work from both sides was a pain. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but I really wish there were a six tile wide disappearing platform so that you didn't have to edge quite so close to trigger it.

TRINKETS : 7 OUT OF 9

If you don't mind my asking, did you find those two and not attempt them / give up, or did you not find them at all? (I basically just want to know if I was as sneaky as I thought I was being.)

[Sendy]

I collected all the trinkets I ever saw... I honestly thought I had them all, until I checked my stats at the end... So I guess you have been as sneaky as you thought you were

[Martze]

This was an excellent level. Very creative, balanced, and funny. Excellent work. You deserve to be featured.