The Menace from Triton

Enlighted (6935)

15-07-2020, 21:34

santiontanon wrote:

About respawning, you should have immunity for a couple of seconds, but it's a good point! I'll maintain the immunity longer and maybe keep it until you get out of the part you are colliding with (up to a limit, other wise you couk=ld cheat by going quickly to the lower part of the screen and hide inside the wall until the level is over haha)

You could test if you are colliding when you respawn and stop immunity just after you end colliding (once the normal 2 seconds have passed)

By santiontanon

Paragon (1807)

16-07-2020, 08:19

Yep, I agree, I think I need some collision detection during the invulnerability time (or the multiple respawn points you suggested earlier). In the most recent update, for now I increased the invulnerability time from 80 frames to 128 frames, just to lessen this problem. But I'll code a better solution, maybe during the weekend!

New version v1.0.2, which I have verified can be now played beginning to end and the last boss should spawn (such a stupid bug, really haha): https://github.com/santiontanon/triton/releases/tag/v1.0.2

By Sandy Brand

Champion (301)

20-07-2020, 21:22

Nice game!

By santiontanon

Paragon (1807)

20-07-2020, 23:40

Thanks Sandy!

And game was updated to v1.1: https://github.com/santiontanon/triton/releases/tag/v1.1

By Uninteresting

Champion (352)

13-09-2020, 11:58

Do you prefer getting development suggestions on github or here? I have some more, but feel free to not do anything about these, as you can rightfully say these are only due to me being a poor gamer.

1) The turrets on always leave the powerup capsule on the higher character row. With ground turrets this is fine, but with ceiling turrets the capsule is right next to the ceiling. Later in the game, I crashed several times into the ceiling while trying to grab those.
2) Alternatively, a bit bigger collision box with the powerup capsules. I feel I've had the tail wing and maybe a part of the cockpit overlap with the capsule (I was moving up and left towards it) and it didn't register the capture. Maybe because the tip of the ship is the one collecting it?
3) Shootable pebble barriers (akin to stage 2 in Nemesis). I have the faintest memory that if I shoot forward in Nemesis at those fields and do not move vertically, I can fly through the hole in the barrier. This isn't the case in TMfT, but honestly I'm not sure this is the case in Nemesis either.
4) Adding a type of dynamic difficulty curve. I had managed to make my way to Triton, but then gave up after some dozens of tries. I look at Nemesis again for inspiration. I noticed that if I play it long enough without dying (maybe up to level 3 or 4?), the opening phase enemy formations will start shooting at me. After I die, they stop doing that. In TMfT I might tie the fine-tuned difficulty to, say, how many of the last eight tries at the levels were failures.

By santiontanon

Paragon (1807)

13-09-2020, 21:43

Hi Uninteresting! here is fine Thanks a lot for the feedback!

1) I like the idea of dropping power capsules one tile lower in the ceiling turrets! Added to my to-do list!!
2) I use the same collision routine as for background collisions to save space in the ROM! I'll see if I have space for adding a second collision routine for capsules after I add all the improvements I want to add in the final version. I think this would be great to add, so, I hope I have the space!
3) Yeah, you are the third person to give me that feedback. I'll see what can I do, the problem is that the bullet does not come out from the "vertical center" of the ship, but from a bit below because of the sprite I use. So, it's a bit off center. I'll see what I can do, but this is a bit trickier, as doing this would imply either redrawing the ship so that I can make bullets come out of the "vertical center", or making bullet collision be off-center (potentially looking weird). So, need to think more about it!
4) Hmmm... I'm not a fan of dynamic difficulty... so, I really do not want to implement this. I'll see if I can lower the difficulty of the last level though.

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback!!! Added a bunch of things to the to do list!

By Uninteresting

Champion (352)

13-09-2020, 22:07

It's your game, so don't feel bad about not doing 4) or 3). I just thought it was better for me to list suggestions before you have physical copies of the game made (if that is in the cards) rather than after that.

By santiontanon

Paragon (1807)

13-09-2020, 22:16

Absolutely!! Thanks a lot! Some times addressing feedback is hard, but I note all of these things in my to do list anyway, as who knows if all of a sudden one day I figure out an easy way to solve it hehe. It is also very useful to learn about the "pain points" of the game, so that if I cannot fix it at least I can learn for the next one

By Uninteresting

Champion (352)

13-09-2020, 22:33

I feel a lot of modern video game design is about subtly weaving the illusion that the player is playing better than they honestly are. Be it coyote time in platformers, enemies in FPS games always missing their first shot, health draining slower when the player is low on health, reported 95% hit probability tweaked to be actually 99% probability to hit, ...

If you make Sons of Triton Strike Back: The Revenge one day, maybe you'll have thought of these things in advance.

By santiontanon

Paragon (1807)

12-10-2020, 01:24

Just a couple of updates on the game. I just finished testing all the improvements and fixes that will go to the final physical cartridge version, and sent a "gold" version to MATRA. So, the final version of the game will be available soon

Thanks for all the feedback received, as I tried to address everything I could! A few things I ran out of space for, but hopefully the final release is a better balanced game, with less bugs, and a bit more enjoyable (including the ability to save your progress via the usual password system).

Also, I just wrote a blog post explaining some of the technical details in the game for anyone who is interested It can be found in my blog as usual: http://santiontanon.blogspot.com/2020/10/quick-technical-ove...