Haunted House Story - Reinforced - version 0.8

ugh... my n00byness senses are tingling... but what is ASM?

 

Assembly hacking.

 

So I finally finished the third demo after having only played the first. It's great... except for the multiple deaths and having to grind up to level 10 to beat a boss. Otherwise, it was good and the ladders were great, although the facts that you can't move left or right kinda bothered me. I will also say that at the second-to-last room, the enemies were getting stuck on the ladders.
(The music is really good too, by the way. Did you make it yourself?)

Spoiler

The flamethrower was called Machine Gun, still.
Also, that item got music... To be honest, I kinda laughed at it because it was weird and didn't really fit.
The boss I had to grind to level 10 to beat was... er, that skull boss in the second segment. Even with the flamethrower.

 

So I finally finished the third demo after having only played the first. It's great... except for the multiple deaths and having to grind up to level 10 to beat a boss. Otherwise, it was good and the ladders were great, although the facts that you can't move left or right kinda bothered me. I will also say that at the second-to-last room, the enemies were getting stuck on the ladders.
(The music is really good too, by the way. Did you make it yourself?)

Spoiler

The flamethrower was called Machine Gun, still.
Also, that item got music... To be honest, I kinda laughed at it because it was weird and didn't really fit.
The boss I had to grind to level 10 to beat was... er, that skull boss in the second segment. Even with the flamethrower.

Well, I removed moving sideways on ladders because you could slide on them and it looked really weird, and you could easily fall off them. If someone else reports it too, I'll try to find a way to get around both issues at once.
To be honest, they don't really get stuck on ladders, they only are too fast and can't handle contact with blocks well. I'll try to find a way around.

The music, yeah, I made it myself. Most songs are remakes of NES themes, you can check that in the Readme file.

Spoiler

Maybe I'll make them explode on contact with walls, because they are Rocket Skulls and with such speed and a rocket engine... well, you get the idea.

Oh, I noticed that I forgot to rename it some time after I released the demo. I was at school and never fixed this, though. I'll change it in the next update.
The "Got Item" music is bad, I know. Already decided I'll change it.
Oh, so Skulasson is so troublesome... To be honest, I really think I should either change his AI or lower his HP and damage, when I think about him now. I guess I'll do that and hope he doesn't get nerfed too much by accident then.

Thank you for playing.

 

Actually, let me explain why the boss was so troublesome.

Spoiler

His health isn't much of an issue, and I never jumped into him since I spammed the flamethrower at him. It was, mainly, the Helmet Skulls and the Wisps. The Skulls did 8 damage when I was at level 5, 6 when I was at 10, while the wisps dealt 9 damage at level 5, and ??? at level 10 (I'm assuming 7, though.)The rocks weren't a problem, as I had enough leg room to dodge them. I'd say maybe spawn those Skulls every 2-3 rounds, and the wisps... Honestly, I didn't have a problem with them, as I could easily shoot them away since they went down easily, but the Skulls took a few sword hits to kill and a lot of flamethrower hits to kill. I do think that making the Skulls spawn every so often rather than all the time would even it out, as the skulls jump and it's hard to kill them easily.

About the ladders, I suggest one thing: Placing an H/V trigger somewhere on the ladder that makes the blocks next to it solid, so you can't fall off them, and when you land, the blocks unsolidify. However, it could crash the game in an infinite loop (as it's be <FLJXXXX:YYYY<FL+XXXX(blah blah) then <FL-XXXX(blah blah) and then it'd go over and over and over and crash.)

 

Oh, I see.

Spoiler

Well, it's all about his AI, then. Okay, I'll either delay the skull-spawning or completely replace it with something else.

I would prefer not to use H/V triggers... that would require too much work and be too troublesome. I'll try to find a workaround by fiddling with ladder code a bit.

 

Help me please...

Spoiler

How do I climb the ladders? I can't figure it out.

 

Help me please...

Spoiler

How do I climb the ladders? I can't figure it out.

push the up key

 

push the up key

Don't work. Edit: nevermind thanks.
By the way, Awesome mod randolf. Just... everything about it!

 

Don't miss it, the next update is here. Not really a lot of content, but several neat improvement, like ladder improvements, enhanced death animation, plus I put more emphasis on dialogues and stuff this time, so it's not just blind running and killing everything.

Download the 0.4 here.

 

Woo more catchin' up

Can't beat the skull boss, I'm at Lv7. Dunno if you changed it yet but I agree with lowering its max health and/or removing the armor skulls entirely, especially when the level gains are so random and there's almost no need to grind before reaching it. Like the mod though, the ladders work very well

 

It lives.
0.5 is alive.

After over 2 years, it's back. I don't know how I returned to it, and I am aware there is not a ton of new content, but there have been a lot of balance changes and remembering what is what...
Anyway, give it a shot.
It's back on track.

EDIT: constructive criticism is more than welcome, also if there are any game-breaking bugs tell me so I can fix them asap

=====

MINOR UPDATE:

Fixed:
- Barry's dialogue skipflag
- spriteset in Segment III Outer
0.501

 

Alright, so I have a bit of a dilemma.
With the current state of the level-up system, it's extremely difficult to really balance the mod out, mostly because of the RNG (which I planned to reduce a bit with the next update, especially on Redgon) and because of how different in terms of power the enemies are. Also, while I wanted to keep the world quite open at first, I found myself making it more and more compact with every release, reducing the amount of interesting locations and generally removing the purpose of visiting previously visited locations completely. So I decided to ask here (if anyone's concerned) and maybe gather some ideas.

My first idea was keeping the level-up system the same it is, but making the world more open. No more magical doors that open only once, more exploration, more locations you'd like to revisit, oh and sidequests. Basically the idea of what it was now, but with more side-quests and not only the main story. Not sure if that's what appeals to people but hey, you could still progress normally so I guess it wouldn't hurt.
The second idea... is no idea. It's just keeping it the way it is now. Focus on the main story, and making Redgon a beast. No further comments needed.
The third idea is removing the attack & defence completely and instead adding something a bit different. Maybe something like persuasion, or luck (random crits..?), or even dodge. Sounds like the latter would be kinda RNG based too, but not to the extent we have now. It would keep the RPG-ish feel and make the level-up system still relevant, but wouldn't affect the gameplay that much overall. Making the world open in addition to the change would make it EVEN more like an RPG, while keeping the skull slaying. I'm still thinking about the possibilities so-
And the last idea is changing the stats to something different, but keeping the focus on the main story and not really adding many side quests. It'd make it much easier to balance out for sure, but then again... what would I use the new stats for. It's still in the IDEAS subfolder of mine, so..

Anyway, yeh. I'd love some opinions and suggestions.
In the end, I just want to make it enjoyable (by not forgetting to use skipflags).
If you have a different idea to what I have up there, feel free to tell me...
Thanks.

 

I admittedly haven't played the more recent updates due to a shortage of free time, but I still want to chip in since you're still clearly quite passionate about this.

For the balancing issue, I think it could probably be lessened to a degree by trying to lower damage numbers across the board. From what I saw of Dunc's stream, it looked like a good chunk of the difficulty was in getting killed very, very quickly due to not grinding as much as he could have. Take this with a grain of salt due to my aforementioned inexperience with the newer updates, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a go.

For the openness and sidequests issue, I feel that sidequests would be a welcome addition if they were done well. Not every sidequest would have to lead to the best of rewards, but there's no doubt that getting those bonuses makes the player ecstatic; I mean, just look at how hyped Dunc became when he got the Flamethrower. From a more level design-oriented viewpoint, not all these sidequests have to involve backtracking to an earlier area; you could have branching paths along the way forwards that happen to lead to optional bonus areas. Some kind of hint or warning that it isn't the main path could be feasible, but ultimately that would be up to you.

I hope this helps get your gears turning, and good luck!

 

Random idea:
Can you make it speedrunning friendly? As in, establish a minimum player level for each area to create a baseline to check against, after a boss fight. And if you fall under the minimum, set the player's exp to the minimum for that part. That would keep it tough, but never let it become impossible if you skip out on fighting too much. Any extra fighting will just give you extra padding for the next battle.

Oh, I can see it now... Redgon's pacifist run. Minimum EXP!

 

Wake up, wake up, I wanted to release this on my birthday but I absolutely couldn't bring myself to work yesterday. So it's one day after my birthday. Works well enough either way!

Haunted House Story: Reinforced, version 0.6, also knows as... I didn't name it, actually.
All I know is that the plan I had was changed, and instead of an atmosphere update we got...
Storyline fixes!
Gameplay fixed on Redgon and only Redgon!
Quests!
Balance changes!
New dialogue options!
Slightly more balance level-up system!
And probably a few other things I forgot

Either way, it's probably more fun than ever, at least my brother was interested in it instead of complaining like he always does

Download link for version 0.6

Have fun, enjoy!
give feedback please <3

Edit: 0.601 hotfix
Fixed a level-up system bug giving out wrong defence values

Edit 2: 0.602 hotfix
Fixed a softlock related to segment III's secret

Edit 3: 0.603 hotfix
Fixed James' first dialogue script
Fixed end signpost
PS: Seriously, how the hell did it all get past me

11-05-2018
Edit: Apparently something is wrong with both the Ghost boss and the Nightmare where you fight four copies of him
Currently looking into it, I think I know what's wrong

Edit 2: Okay so apparently while I was nerfing the Ghost some old code snippet made it into the game and really messed with the flags, making both the boss and the nightmare either fail to end, or trigger wrong events
0.604 hotfix
Hopefully fixed the Ghost boss & event for good

 

These are my formed impressions.

-This started as pretty fun to play.
-Graphics feel kinda ugly.
-Seeing that "Redgon's Music Blaster" image gave me ominous feeling from the first time I saw it, but music is actually ok.
-Flamethrower is overpowered. After its novelty expired, gameplay became pretty dull and mostly a matter of pointing gun in the right direction.

 

I've been lurking around these forums since like, what, 2013? Today is the day I decided to finally make an account, because I really like this mod!
No, seriously, it's one of the best mods I've played since Jenka's Nightmare and Critter Tower Defense!
It also has a lot of unique things, while still keeping that Cave Story feel, in a good way

Amazing mod, I'm really eager for the next version!

I honestly can't criticize it... keep up the good work!

 

bro, did you just make that steve aoki tomorrowland song into a chiptune? lmao's that fucking awesome.

 

hi hi

after 5 years in development, another update is here!
it contains... a lot. but also not that much. there's roughly the same amount of content, but it's been rewrapped and altered. and slightly reinforced.
i want to realise the original idea of this project, which is turning it into more of an open-world game (to some extent) and let the player explore the place in more than one way. how it will turn out remains to be seen

anyway! new update. what's new?
new dialogue & option picker!
boss overhauls/revamps!
more open exploration!
more music?
..and much more!

download link for version 0.7
doukutsu club page

as of right now, the game might feel a bit shorter compared to the previous update. that's because the entire foundation of the game changes and i want to steer it towards a different direction than it's been going so far. there was a lot of reworking things and tidying everything up, so i hope you understand.

enjoy! ( :