"VR Training" - A hodge-podge 5x5 debut level.

Capn Muffin · April 12, 2012, 02:24:58 AM

Hello! First off, I'd like to give a thanks to Terry for making this wonderful game--I'm quite the fan. So thank you!

This is kind of my guinea pig. It started off as experimentation to try out different ideas and I decided to turn it into a full on level. Because of this it may feel very stitched together, lacking some of game niceties such as a learning curve, introducing ideas slowly, and so forth. On the plus side I think it has some nifty features and clever obstacle gimmicks. First, a few screens.

Name/Story: VR Training (training.vvvvvv)
The crew has built and installed a virtual training course on the ship in case the events of VVVVVV occur again. Veridian takes it for a spin.

Style: It's 5x5 with a central hub. Compact design with obstacles usually limited to a single room. Fairly linear, the focus on challenges rather than exploration.

Difficulty: Not for newbies. It's taxing for the most part, but checkpoints are plentiful and nothing is pull-your-hair-out difficult.

Features:
- A map built into the game that shows you room lay-out as well as locations of Trinkets, Crew, and Warp Tokens.
- "Trinket Gate" that requires them all to open.
- "Bosses". Yup, there are bosses in this game. Think of them as extra hard rooms where you have to slowly open up the exit while surviving.

I'm looking for people to give this a try and supply some feedback. Primarily if any rooms are too hard, presence of bugs, and first and fore most... is it fun?!

Arthur · April 13, 2012, 09:25:59 AM

Excellent level! I loved many room designs as the boss rooms, or some rooms on the path to Victoria. The difficulty is exactly what I like (hard, but not as much as some levels like Golden spiral), and I agree with you: it's definitely not for newbies! But there are still some issues:

In the room after the emerald boss, some players (like me) may want to go left when they come from the boss (me, for example), and go to the wrong part of the level.
No boss room on the path to Vermillion?
"Need for Speed" needs more checkpoints.
You didn't use direct mode to make some rooms look better (if you don't know what it is, download version 2.1 in the VVVVVV Tech support forum)

FIQ · April 13, 2012, 03:12:43 PM

Nice level, liked it very much!
I didn't really like the trinket right after Emerald, took around 400 deaths for me (yes, I fail :p), but other than that, perfect!

Bugs:
1: In The Zipper, you might want to position the quicksand block so they doesn't collide with the moving platforms. As you might have noticed, that makes them glitchy (if this is intended - "Don't exploit glitches!" apply)
2: In some rooms, like the room right before Emerald (plumber.. something?), you can make so the enemies doesn't hit the shaft at all by hitting the quicksand blocks and die. Not anything major though.
3: In Darn Stairs (this was the room I did the worst in, @trinket, by the way), if you destroy the first quicksand block at the topleft, then the one under it, and die in a specific manner, you can get the enemy stuck at the quicksand block, forcing you to return to Emerald and jump back.
4: In Trash Compactor, you've forgotten a row at the bottom. This makes it possible to do a major shortcut and rescue Verdigris immediately by jumping at the start, going left all the time, then jump down and end up with Verdigris. This COULD have worked for Victoria as well - but is prevented by -- ironically -- another bug (the 5th one)
5: You've made the top wall in Hello World at the left too wide (1 pixel too much), which introduces minor glitches when jumping down that direction from Trash Compactor.
6 (this bug is VVVVVV's fault): Quitting the level at the Peak-A-Boo room will not exit the level properly (you have to quit twice). This happens due to Viridian being in the top AND the bottom at the same time.
7: If you've got all the trinkets and jump to the map teleporter while the "turn off gravity lines" script hasn't executed yet, the room willl flash, but will not manage to turn off the gravity line until you're in the map room, with interesting consequences. This can be done on purpose by going to the map when the lines are off, going back, and then going to the map again immediately.

IMO, you should make "Your End" a boss room, I was quite disappointed when I found out there was none there (especially since the entrance is pretty much the same, except for the lack of "WARNING - WARNING".

You should try out the 2.1 beta, it has some additions to the level editor, including hiding the room name when your cursor is at the bottom of the level, This way, you could have seen this.

Terry · April 13, 2012, 03:13:30 PM

Checked this one out. It's one of the better player levels in a while!

There's some very imaginative room designs in here (Particularly liked the wave room, the oh I forgot one, and the bosses), but on the whole I think it's just too difficult for anyone except hardcore players to get much out of. Still, excellent first effort!

Capn Muffin · April 14, 2012, 12:56:54 AM

Perfect! Very useful feed-back, I appreciate it.

I'm working on fixing the bugs mentioned, I hadn't noticed a lot of those, so thank you. As far as the second to last room, I DO want to put a final boss there... I just haven't had a good idea for it yet so I've kinda been sleeping on it.

The "Darn Stairs" room in general is kinda sloppy. I was afraid people would go the wrong way, and they do apparently, hehe. Plus the trinket there is pretty unimaginative so I might scrap the whole thing and place a boss for Vermillion there as requested.

I'm also tweaking the difficulty a bit here and there too, especially in areas where it seems many deaths occur only because of reflexes as opposed to concentration.

ToasterApocalypse · June 13, 2012, 05:53:58 PM

I haven't even made it to a boss yet, this level is too difficult.

Well, that or I'm horrible at VVVVVV.

blue626 · June 14, 2012, 06:32:59 PM

I haven't completed the level yet, but I found some bugs:

In "Peek-A-Boo" if you flip down from any disappearing platform to the floors above, there's a collision error (Viridian flips as he/she touches de floor and goes up slowly, and then flips back; this happens in every collision error, I think.
In "BOSS: SAPPHIRE" some disappearing platforms overlap others. Was there a purpose for this?

I liked the map room where it said the locations of trinkets. I also liked the map trinket.

EDIT: Do you really need to put a checkpoint above the warp token? You'll warp every time you die! In BOSS: SAPPHIRE you could put the checkpoint in the top, before the enemies.

Pyrite · June 15, 2012, 06:02:12 PM

Alright,
1. "Need for Speed" NEEDS checkpoint at the beginning.
2. BOSS - TOPAZ takes a bit of figuring out, but it's actually a good level that doesn't need tweaking.
3. BOSS - SAPPHIRE has a LOT of overlapping platforms, and two spaces missing on the line on top.
4. This is DEFINITELY a hardcore level, and Toaster, you definitely are terrible at this, because I could make it to Topaz with 108 deaths.

blue626 · June 27, 2012, 07:48:44 PM

I still haven't finished, but I rescued

and

(and already had rescued

)
I liked "BOSS: TOPAZ" more than "BOSS: SAPPHIRE".
In "BOSS: TOPAZ", how did you write the arrows? They could be useful in my level.
Also, nobody mentioned the fact that there's no boss to

, so, did I find a shortcut accidentally? All I needed to rescue

was passing through these rooms: the room at the right of "Hello World", "Press R to turn on God Mode" and "Trash Compactor". I suspect that I should have passed twice through "Press R...", the 1st time in the lower part, the 2nd time in the higher part, after the boss. It's possible to pass from the lower to the higher by flipping to the upper part of the platforms and dodging the spikes in the middle and top. If I'm right, you should fix that.

Bearboy · June 28, 2012, 09:44:55 AM

Man, this is so hard i can't get past the 1st room with obstacles! Could you make an easy mode? Cause right now I'm really struggling.

Pyrite · June 28, 2012, 11:12:49 AM

Is Need for Speed on the way to

? It makes up for a boss, that's for sure.

Capn Muffin · June 29, 2012, 06:14:38 PM

Thanks for more feedback and bugs, everyone!

The new version I'm working on has quite a few difficulty tweaks to make things not so challenging. The big problem with the difficulty is the lack of a curve. You're not introduced to ideas or obstacles but rather thrown into the deep end right away. So all I can do is scale it all back a bit.

I'm also dropping a sloppy room in favor of a boss for

so look forward to taking on BOSS: RUBY

Working on the final boss room as well...

blue626 · June 29, 2012, 08:55:36 PM

Did you read my post?
Is the way I wrote in "Press R for God Mode" a shortcut?
Also, I read from the previous posts that the way to

doesn't have a boss too. They also mentioned a "BOSS: EMERALD". So, which of the ways doesn't have a boss? If its the way to

then, you should name it "BOSS: EMERALD" or some other green mineral. You should name the boss to

"BOSS: RUBY" to match the crewmates' colours in both bosses. Note: I only have rescued

,

and

(the last one using the possible shortcut).
How did you write the arrows in "BOSS: TOPAZ"? I don't see anyway to write arrows in my keyboard. It might be possible on your keyboard, but not on my keyboard.

Capn Muffin · June 30, 2012, 04:03:23 PM

If I remember, ^ will create arrows. (shift 6)

Also yeah, I mean the red guy. You skipped the green boss by using that shortcut.

Vallu · June 30, 2012, 08:49:02 PM

This is very creative and good level! I cleared and collected all trinkets! I really love the idea of bosses and you did them very well! This was also very challenging, took me a while to clear. I liked Sapphire boss the most.

Also... ...Now that I cleared this, can I call myself "expert player" now?