Arcen Games
General Category => Tidalis => Topic started by: x4000 on April 23, 2010, 05:33:43 pm
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This version is now out. It's one of the hugest we've done so far in terms of both content and in file size (over 10x as large as most releases in file size). Lots of goodies here!
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Initial implementation of usable item system
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- white blocks no longer allow chains involving multiple colors
- if multiple streams hit a non-hit block on the exact frame, all of them will now be absorbed in the resulting emit rather than only one of them being selected at seeming-random to be absorbed and the rest passing through.
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added basic check on color frequency checkboxes to prevent setting all base colors (1-6 for standard, 7-8 for sun and moon mode) to zero frequency, which causes crashes (will need to work more on empty-string case and add hard-checks against these crashes later)
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-Color reactive blocks now have a shape overlay that makes them usable for people with color blindness.
-A new shapes block set has been added specifically for people with color blindness.
-A new special block has been added: Wall (Passable). Completely indestructible, and not affected by gravity. Blocks land on top of it, but streams pass right through it.
-A new special block has been added: Wall (Solid). Completely indestructible, and not affected by gravity. Blocks land on top of it, and streams are blocked by it.
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-Rebalanced adventure levels 8, 23, 25, and 28.
-Rebalanced adventure level 29.
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Added "Make Something Up!" button to custom game menu that randomizes the game options for those seeking an... interesting experience.
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Converted score data type from 32-bit integer to 64-bit integer, for edge cases where play can wind up with 60-deep combos of 80+ chains each and crazy stuff like that.
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-The random number generators have been updated to be multiplayer-compatible.
-A new Jeweled Palace Theme is now complete.
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-Fixed a bug that was causing the difficulty level of a board to be reset on "play again."
-A new River theme has been added.
-Added a new Water weather type, for use in the River theme.
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Great new changes!
Haven’t found the new water weather type, is it accessible thru any of the editors ???
I would suggest you consider also rebalance lvl 26, it is very hard as it is, haven't got past it yet, for me at least it's more luck than skill involved now if I succeed in getting more than 3 combos of 3+ depth. Maybe make the blocks drop slower?
Also the new item system seems interesting, will make new types of more dynamic puzzles possible :)
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The new weather type is referring to a background weather effect, such as snow for windy mountaintop and rain for open plains cloudy and rainy mud flats. You can see the water one in action on the new River theme, which is 4th from the bottom in the list.
As for level 26, which aspect of it is being most difficult for you? The 4-block limit or the 3-deep combos? If the latter, have you played the current versions of levels 12, 15, and 19? I've been trying to introduce people to combos earlier on in the game so they can complete levels such as this and 16.
I'm guessing the limit is the problem, though. I think I'll approach that by making the lose condition 2 or 3 chains of 4+ blocks, or something of that sort. I'm not able to make blocks drop slower for this one puzzle without using featherweight mode, which would seriously complicate things because the streams would then move upward. I'd find it really helpful if you could tell me more about your approach for this level. Are you setting everything up and then letting it happen, or are you rotating blocks as streams are going and blocks are clearing? This doesn't strike me as a very luck-based level because it's common to find enough sets of 3 to make a 3-deep combo without having to work at it, but making sure that streams don't hit too many blocks can definitely take a good amount of thought, which is (I think) where the challenge for this level lies and is what makes it interesting. When I'm playing it, I try to set everything up beforehand, and then fix it on-the-fly in case I overlooked something.
Anyway, more info would be helpful. In the meantime, I'll try loosening the lose condition a bit.
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Right now my current approach is to identify and executing suitable combos, while making 'saves' with short chains to prevent the stacks from getting too high. However, the main way in which I lose is that I’m a bit too hasty in executing new combos, due to the time pleasure, without being sure that the chains won’t get longer than 4 blocks or that I will lose track of the combos when they get 3+ deep. You are probably right in that the foremost problem is that the loss condition is a bit too strict, because if I accidently trigger a chain of 5+ blocks now I’m done for.
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For the next version, I've made it so you have to do 3 chains that are 5 or more blocks for you to lose. If you'd like to see that in action before the release so you can give earlier feedback, you can go into the level editor and open up _26.dat in Levels for Tidalis Main Story and change the lose objective from 1 to 3 and then give that a try. With this, it's definitely a lot more forgiving, while still having the challenge I intended for the level. I'm open to making more modifications, though, if it's still too difficult.
Thanks for the feedback! As I've said elsewhere, I'm not the best judge of difficulty given how much experience I have with this game, so comments like this are incredibly helpful. :)
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I did said change in the editor, took a couple of tries, but I did it :D
I still think it's hard, but it has a good balance now, soften it more and you might lose the challenge of completing it.
Personally I found the subsequent levels 27, 28, 29 much easier to complete than 26. Maybe move them about a little later?
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Sounds like you like the change. I'll leave the difficulty as-is unless I get more feedback saying it's too hard. Moving it to later in the adventure sounds like a good plan. Perhaps it'd be more suited for somewhere in the 30-35 range, and then I can throw together a new 26. I don't want to have a purely increasing difficulty throughout the game, but I also don't want the levels after a hard level to be too much easier. :) I'll shuffle it around within the next couple days.
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Cool, I like the new themes. :) Things keep getting better and better. I also intend to experiment with these new walls eventually.
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Lots more big things coming in the next two weeks, too. :)
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My game says version 0.406, even though at the time of this post, 0.406 was upcoming. Looks like the version number is wrong.
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That's really weird; mine says 0.405, as does the current development version. Is this the Mac or Windows version?
I'm not sure how something like that could have happened; perhaps someone else on staff might know.
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Windows. Its not a 1 time thing either. I can consistently just open up the game and it says 0.406. I looked in the update folder and i have a 405.zip and a 406.zip and the updatelist.txt has 405 406.
Don't know how but it looks like my game jumped a version.
After closer inspection it appears that 405.zip contains the contents of the 0.405 patch. Here is the 0.406 patch that i have. I'm guessing that the dll's included are identical to those of 0.405.
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Wow, you are quick on the draw. :p
When I was releasing .405, there was a problem with something with it -- a crash bug that was breaking the updater. So then I was considering going straight to .406, but then wound up fixing the .405 instead. But there was about 20 minutes there where I was trying a couple of things, and looks like you updated right in that period. My suggestion would be to manually download the real 0.405 and just unzip it into your directory from here: https://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/405.zip (https://tidalis.s3.amazonaws.com/updates/405.zip)
Sorry for the confusion there! People are super fast on finding the AI War updates after they are posted, but I didn't realize we were quite to that stage yet with Tidalis. ;)
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If my memory serves me right, you said on 0.405 release that it was two patches in one. I got the update while it said that. It doesn't say that anymore though.
Thanks though. I'll get that 405.zip and use that so future updates don't cause any issues.
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If my memory serves me right, you said on 0.405 release that it was two patches in one. I got the update while it said that. It doesn't say that anymore though.
Yeah, that was up for about 20 minutes max. :)
Thanks though. I'll get that 405.zip and use that so future updates don't cause any issues.
That should do it -- sorry again for the confusion! I'll make the next version 0.407 just to be on the safe side, too.
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That's a good idea, just in case someone else ninja'd that update.
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Yep. :)