Version 0.3 (Beta!)

[NealCruco]

These levels are hard! At least for me. I'm slowly making progress, though; eventually I figure exactly what to do, and then I manage to actually do it.
I've found two glitches and a typo in the game so far. I haven't yet used the editor, so I have no feedback there.
The first glitch:

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Shocktopus is standing on something, as you can see. But there's nothing between the spikes and a sheer drop. What's up with that?


The second glitch:

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This one takes a bit of explaining. I hit that switch, jumped onto the blocks that appeared, and grabbed the star. The instant I touched it, Shocktopus froze. He could face left or right, and that was all. He wasn't falling, but couldn't move or jump. Charging him produced the sound, but not the visual effects. And as you may have noticed, my star count went to three after grabbing that star, even though I hadn't even neared the other two.


The typo:

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I shouldn't have to explain this one.

[testtubegames]

Most notably, the magnetic fields do not appear when you first put them down. I've seen this happen with other tiles (guns, for example), but they are erratic and instead of not appearing, only their outlines disappear when I delete them. (playing fixes it.)

Ah, I see. I'll see what I can do about that. I'm going through on my second pass of the game -- enhancing things that I wanted to enhance (this *is* unity, after all, so if I've got more power, let's use it!)... and brushing up the graphics and polish. So far it's just been a port - but I hadn't gotten a chance to improve on the ol' game. And of course, I've got my sights set on these bugs / confusions that you've found.

I've found two glitches and a typo in the game so far. I haven't yet used the editor, so I have no feedback there.

Ah, the old star-disappears-but-doesn't-disappear-and-kills-the-game bug. I thought I'd ferreted that one out, but I guess it's back. Thanks for the other two bugs, as well. The first one has to do with some hitbox decisions I made in the game (you're a square... and spikes have a smaller hitbox than sand tiles to make the game less frustrating... hence how you can 'stand' on the very corner of a box without getting killed by the spikes). Maybe I'll figure out a more graceful way of handling it, making you fall off the tile, say.

[A Random Player]

Huh, my star count for most levels have reset to 0. It's now

Code: Select all

33333
33333
33333

33332
33331
00000

0000X
10000
000XX

Where X denotes unbeaten levels. I'm reasonably sure I'd beaten them all (or at least I hadn't skipped those levels. Compare to my earlier list, though remember I'd got some more stars later on.).
Additionally, my editor levels are now all 0 except for 1 1 star.

I did do a virus scan and restart between now and my last play, though, though it might not have been the cause.
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Also, can we have signs in the level editor? Would allow for some cool additions to levels (like easter eggs).

Edit: Oh, and the O switch is a lot smaller than the rest.

[NealCruco]

Yesterday, I was experimenting with the "grab star, freeze game" bug I reported above. I found that there was a way to grab that star without freezing the game. Turn on the switch and jump onto the blocks that appear. Now, jump off them to the right and charge Shocktopus. He should swing around, come back up on the left side of those blocks, and hit the star. Yet he won't freeze; he'll keep moving. Now, if you use the magnetic field correctly, you can avoid the spikes and get him to land at the level exit. Go through, and you'll see that you've been credited with all three stars. I thought exploiting that bug would just affect that level, but now weird things are cropping up. For example:

I just discovered that levels 33-45 unlocked themselves. They are shown as complete, with no stars earned...but the last time I played the game, I hadn't beaten levels 30, 31, and 33. Since I had three unlocked but uncompleted levels, everything beyond 33 was locked. Not anymore.

I had previously completed level 29, but now it's showing as uncompleted.

After beating level 31 today, the current from that level began appearing in every other level. Fortunately, it was just cosmetic, and didn't actually add magnetic fields to the levels. Relaunching fixed it, but it came back. This time, level 29's current was the one appearing. I went to level 31 and beat it (with the out-of-place current). Then I went to level 33. Guess what happened? Level 29 and level 31's current appeared in that level! Again, relaunching fixed it, but it'll probably come back.

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An example of this glitch.

glitch.png (190.23 KiB) Viewed 17501 times

[testtubegames]

Yikes - I'll need to take another look at the unlock/save/load mechanisms! Sounds like quite a few things are going kooky with the game for some reason. I'm not sure why those things would be happening, but I'm certain that they should *not* be happening. (Here's hoping it's a clear solution, and I don't have to invoke gremlins)

The persistent currents are indeed a bug. That just comes down to the clearing algorithm (it misses those tiles because they are animated and drawn differently), so that will be fixed in the next version.

I can definitely add signs into the level editor. You'll be able to add some cool depth/creativity to the levels with them.

[Stargate38]

How do I complete level 34? I'm able to reach the star at bottom, but I can't figure out how to get back up.

EDIT: I used Key #3 to download it.

EDIT2: WHY does the game take so long to paste text when I hit Ctrl-V to paste into the level editor?

[testtubegames]

How do I complete level 34?
EDIT2: WHY does the game take so long to paste text when I hit Ctrl-V to paste into the level editor?

In level 34, are you having trouble completing the level at all? Or just with that bottom star? While it *is* hard to get the bottom star and return to the world of the living, it's do-able. The slight electric forces will help you out, changing how your loop-de-loops curve. After that, it's a matter of some wall jumps.

And I'm not sure about that level editor pasting. That really should not happen at all - the game isn't doing anything significant when you press paste. Really it's just the text box working. But no parsing or extra steps are going on until you press 'load'. So that *is* strange. I take it you're on a pc? Anyone else seeing these problems?

[NealCruco]

I have a desktop shortcut to Shocktopus...and the icon just changed. Did you push out an update and not tell anyone?

[testtubegames]

Ha, I wish I had that power! Whatever happened to your icon was not 'cause of me. I do know that sometimes old icons stick around for a while even if a new one supposedly replaces it. (Almost as if they are cached.) Then, occasionally and unexpectedly, the new icon appears.

So I'd guess you had been seeing the icon from the older version, and v 0.3's icon just appeared for you.

[NealCruco]

Except v0.3 is the first version I installed. I never installed any earlier versions.