Hmmm....so I'm seeing odd behavior now.

 

I have a scenario where I need to have a trigger area activate some off-screen dialogue. This is basically to guide the player how to open a door infront of them.

 

So the way it was set up in the previous version is as so:

 

This worked fine before. The character hit the trigger area, it played the dialogue telling them to go get an axe, then the door would only unlock if they hit the weapon trigger with an axe.

Since the update, now the door opens as soon as they hit the dialogue, even though the trigger area is not targetting the door or the weapon trigger. It's almost like trigger areas or weapon triggers are now acting like they were using trigger links. I'm not seeing anything about that in the patch notes, so is this a bug or expected behavior?

 

Edit: Here's a screenshot of play mode, showing the door open even though my character has no weapon and is still in the dialogue.

Very strage. Investigating now, but (if you don't mind) could you send your game XML to scotttykoski@gmail.com?

I can't think of anything that would have changed to cause this, but we will certainly add this to our list of things to tests.

Update: What's really weird about that layout is that deleting those Weapon Gizmos (in the level editor) is deleting ALL adjacent gizmos. Definitely a bug that we'll look into.

The good news is that, in Alpha1a there's a cleaner way to set this up.

Place the door, then use the Erase options to only delete the Key Locks. You can then place some weapon triggers that, once triggered, will open the door.

I'm pretty sure the above setup gives the results you're looking for, but please let me know if there's something that still not working as expected.

Hey Scott,

1. I'd be happy to still send you the XML as more examples are always good...however where is the XML stored?
2. That new method is AWESOME. That makes it even cleaner. While I hope we eventually have "multigizmos" on the same square, this is a great improvement for doors, at minimum.

 

Your games can be found in your "Documents/My Games/The Video Game Machine/Generated Games" folder.

And yeah, I'll be totally honest, I didn't even know if that 'Weapon Gizmos on Doors' method would even work   A happy accident that weapons gizmo try to activate any prop tile they on.

Do you have any examples of how you'd use stacking gizmos?  I'd really like to keep gizmos 1 per-tile (where you could use linkers to trigger multiple targets) but I'd be curious what situations you're thinking of.

Thanks again for the feedback, and sorry that your existing gizmo setup got messed up. We'll figure out what's wrong and get it for the  Alpha 2 build.

I think keeping gizmos on one-per-tile could still work fine. I think the biggest issue is scenarios like this one, where I want dialogue, another trigger type, and another gizmo in the same area. Real estate becomes real sparse.

The biggest real example I can think of: I really want to be able to start dialogue from the start location, however since you can't stack gizmos (or add a target to the starting location) I have to make it so you start the level then move in any direction to start the dialogue. With tile stacking I could just place a trigger area underneath the start gizmo.

(Additionally, I really wish you could toggle the dialogue sparkle on/off

The crossbow leaves an arrow behind on the spot you were standing when shooting.  

 

Hey Drymetal,

I tried to repro this in the upcoming Alpha 2 build and it seems to be fixed. That update still needs to get approved by QA, and since we're out this week it may not hit your hands until mid-July. Thanks for you patience, and I'll let you guys know when that update is live.

Thanks!

When should we expect a new build?  I'm anxious to jump back in!

Patience

Sorry for the lack in info. VGM is 100% still in the works, but we took a break as we wrapped up some other projects and are waiting to get a dedicated Producer on the game. Basically I was wearing too many hats, and it was obvious that the game needs a proper manager helping to set priorities and guide the schedule.

We'll let you know when things kick back into high-gear!

Thanks for the info. I really like it so far. I hope gets some love.

I hope this program gets the attention it deserves.  Right now it is pretty limited in assets, controls, etc, but I like what I see and this has a massive amount of potential.

Are there any plans to make the games exportable (complied) to various formats like HTML, Android, Windows, etc?  I seriously hope you have plans for this as this would be the deal maker/breaker for the success of this app.

Are there any plans to allow people to import there own pixel graphics, spirit sheets or anything like that?

Are there any plans to allow people to import there own music and sound f/x?

 

Suggestions;

 

It desperately needs user controlled key mapping.

It needs blocks that allow one-way and two-way movement (that is, blocks where you can travel through them in only one or two directions instead of only blocks that block movement all together) (i.e. you can climb up through a ground block but not climb down, or, you can go left through a block but not return back).

 

It needs a portal gizmo to teleport the player and/or enemies to a selected location (with selectable teleportation effects).

It needs customization of the health bars, score, etc (look, location on screen, etc)

 

Anyway, I'm sure you guys have a ton of things planned for this, but I thought I would throw in a few suggestions.

Any updates on this.  There has been no official post for almost a year?