Surface: The Discarded Tools

Been a while since I've released a mod, I think this one will be better than the others.

Back Story (Not really implimented the current demo. Probably gonna change):

Spoiler

After Ballos's destruction the Island stopped falling and the inhabitants were saved. However the same could not be said for the countries of The Surface. as the Island began to rise again, parts of the Earth began to rise from the ground. the cities and their people unfortunate to have been on those land masses were severed from their lands and were trapped on the newly formed islands much like the original. half of the already massacred populations of the surface survived this catastrophe.

15 years later, the human race is now a threatened species due to environmental hazards and increase population of androids. The once supreme united world government now struggles to remain in control of the last fragments of civilization due to inside corruption of power, the growing threat of the Great Mimiga Comune and their full conscious control over the red flower, and a multitude of other issues.

screenshot:

Spoiler

download:

Spoiler

original:https://www.dropbox.com/s/wal4nwo55ahdwzv/surface.zip?dl=0
quickfix:https://www.dropbox.com/s/zjbf2ve578ns8za/surface%28quickfix%29.zip?dl=0

hacks:

Spoiler

Carrot lord's physics editor, the 60fps hack, Randolfs weapon hacks

graphics: Goerge Bobicles
music: Nights and Reala org done by Zenix

 

So far it's REALLY good (Only made it to the vertical section after the boss) but I'm noticing a distinct lack of save points...

 

The dorrway's text, where you start out, isnt scripted properly.

Also, save points would be nice... I beat the halberd spammer, then promptly died on the boss that comes after. Even with that, I still died copious amounts of times...

That being said, I enjoyed it.
It was challenging, and, well... I quite liked the play style of it, if that makes sense. The controlls/physics seemed rather floaty to me, but thats just personal.
Over all, it was unique, and, well... Likable.
I also just realized how catchy the theme I made for you is. Me gusta.
Over all, this mod gets my rating of...
Complete it!

....
..
. Nobody gets that reference ...

 

Over all, this mod gets my rating of...
Complete it!
....
Nobody gets that reference ...

Is Jirard really that obscure

 

I'm noticing a distinct lack of save points...

The dorrway's text, where you start out, isnt scripted properly.
Also save points would be nice...

quickfix:https://www.dropbox.com/s/zjbf2ve578ns8za/surface%28quickfix%29.zip?dl=0

Spoiler

I added an additional save point and the script was fixed

 

"You were never seen again..."



"...Were you?"

LOL

 

based on the screenshot alone I'm going to guess that this mod has a lot of bright tiles and blocks, to which i promptly respond with a no to.
that being said, i haven't actually played this yet! when i get the chance to, i will. until then, that screenshot hurts my eyes

 

This is Abstract to say the least. I love the physics and whatnot but the difficulty isn't set up properly it starts out hard and only gets harder. But it's still a great mod, I've only made it to the curly recolors.

 

"You were never seen again..."



"...Were you?"

LOL

you didn't read it right

 

Decided to give the demo a spin. Didn't do my usual log of notes due to it being short, so I'll just give a short list on noteworthy things:
- The intro music was a tad bit too intense. Didn't help much that it jumps into Moonsong for the title screen. (Polar was the one to first notice this, but I thought that I should point it out)
- I can't tell if the various errors in the dialogue with the deceased standing smiling cat were intentional or not (and as such won't point them out).
- It's generally a good idea to keep Basils on the ground so it doesn't look like they're sliding across thin air, though that won't be an issue if you're planning to change their sprites.
- The "Haliberd" in the Haliberd Spammer's name should be spelled "Halberd."
- When fighting the horde of Curly reskins, I noticed something problematic: all you need to do to spawn in the next wave of Curly reskins is to kill the one that causes the boss health bar to visibly drop. This will end up leaving the other Curly reskins intact, which will more or less swamp you in bullets, depending on the wave. If this was intentional, it's kinda oof.
- I enjoyed the custom music you used, and in particular the 2nd boss's theme.

Overall I rate this demo shazam/10 keep up the good work.

 

Decided to give the demo a spin. Didn't do my usual log of notes due to it being short, so I'll just give a short list on noteworthy things:
- The intro music was a tad bit too intense. Didn't help much that it jumps into Moonsong for the title screen. (Polar was the one to first notice this, but I thought that I should point it out)
- I can't tell if the various errors in the dialogue with the deceased standing smiling cat were intentional or not (and as such won't point them out).

I made all the text instantanious so that fast readers or people who already read it don't have to wait as long if you're talking about that. If not please tell me what errors you think you might have found.

- When fighting the horde of Curly reskins, I noticed something problematic: all you need to do to spawn in the next wave of Curly reskins is to kill the one that causes the boss health bar to visibly drop. This will end up leaving the other Curly reskins intact, which will more or less swamp you in bullets, depending on the wave. If this was intentional, it's kinda oof.

I've encountered a problem with having to kill a number of npc's in order to move on(if you kill 2 within the same shot of which can happen even if you set the bullet to 1# of hits, the script won't work)so I had it so that if you tried to rush through the waves, you would have a harder time. the other reason why I keep the other curly reskins alive is so that even if you memorize which ones you must kill, it won't be a cake walk.

thank you for your analysis and opinion

 

Oh neat this sounds right up my alley.

Spoiler

-I thought that bat in the background was the first enemy you hoodwinker
-Those physics tho
-The Mesas throw the wrong part of the tileset at you, I suggest reorganising it unless they're just placeholders
-No but really these physics completely throw any concept of precision out of the window. You may want to at least think about lowering the top speed or acceleration or something because playing an entire mod like this would be completely insufferable with CS's screen and tile size.
-The lack of healing at the second save point makes things unnecessarily difficult too, considering how easy it is to get hit, both before and after it. I eventually got back to full by killing the Mesas on retries but that isn't ideal. Nice death explosion on the boss though.
-The not-Curly fight has... issues. There's some potential in the idea, but at the moment it's very slow and rather cheap. Even though it got slightly better once I figured out that only one needed to be killed each round, most of them still have to be taken out one at a time because there's nowhere to hide on a level if one's still alive. It gets even worse on the final wave where it's basically imposslble to avoid a hit when they spawn in. Meanwhile at other times it's possible to just sit under a hole and wear them down. If you want this to work it either needs some actual hiding spots or at least no enemies that spawn on the same level.

This is really a bit wonky to be enjoyable. The high speed only serves to make things more difficult and there's no matching theme. This bright blue castle (?) and its oddball setup don't make me think of the surface at all, or anything really. The only exterior shot (or characterisation) appears in the game startup scene. Some sort of intro and framing would help a lot, as would making the speed come from an optional item, or in some temporary section that's actually suited to it, or something.

Surface mods are an underexplored idea and if that's what you really want to do that's great, but if so this needs to be a lot more recognisable.

 

I made all the text instantanious so that fast readers or people who already read it don't have to wait as long if you're talking about that. If not please tell me what errors you think you might have found.

Oh, I was talking more about typos. The instantaneous text worked pretty well.
I decided to read through and rewrite the hint kitty's dialogue, fixing most instances of awkward, misspelled, and/or missing words that I found...

Spoiler

"Listen to a message from the modder?"
"Hey there, Goerge here talking through... a deceased smiling cat that's standing..."
"That's a thing now."
"I was originally going to use these cats to help the player if they got stuck,"
"but I think I've made this demo pretty straightforward."
"The only thing you may not get is that there is an unseen platform far to your left. Thanks to how agile you are, the jump shouldn't be a problem."
"I'm sure very few people wouldn't notice that, though, when first playing this demo."
"This kitty may be utterly pointless..."

While you don't have to use what I wrote down to the letter, it'd be worth it to compare and contrast the two. Most of it was slightly awkward wording or missing words, but if you want specific typos...

Spoiler

"hey there," should be "Hey there,"
"deceased smiling cat thats standing" should be "deceased smiling cat that's standing"
"Thats a thing now." should be "That's a thing now."
"I've made this demo pretty straight forward." should be "I've made this demo pretty straightforward."

 

Man, I can't wait for this mod!
One thing though.
The weapon UI looks a little bit...weird.

 

I feel like a lot of the mods being made lately are ridiculously challenging...

 

Quick dumb question, where did you get the 60 fps hack..?

 

Quick dumb question, where did you get the 60 fps hack..?

I got it from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVueHO9nzWA

 

I got it from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVueHO9nzWA

I'm glad my video helped someone

 

Pretty damn good, if a bit short.
The halberdier boss respawns even if you save after he's dead.

 

Alright, I don't know why people keep saying this is all amazing and such.

Not to rain on your daisy parade, but this is pretty bad. I'll outline why:

I got as far as the area with the horizontal and vertical blocks (so far). However, I don't have time to waste going through the same area OVER and OVER again with RIDICULOUS physics. The physics are really, really bad and irritating and it makes for an unenjoyable gameplay experience.

The interface at the top left of the screen clashes with the backgrounds that are in place. The tiling and backgrounds themselves clash among themselves and make the maps look cluttered rather than smooth and well designed.

The mod is ridiculously difficult, which is not fun. The fact that you can die in about two and a half hits from the Butes only adds on to the really terrible physics and all the platforming and precision jumping you need to do with said physics.

This mod has potential and seems interesting, but you should focus on either making this mod story-based or challenge-based. Having both together is likely to result in one of the two being neglected.

EDIT:

Two bosses in a row, with no save points or health regen, and even if you use all that nice XP that the Halberd Spammer leaves to use the MG to jump up to the Save Point, there's no flag that stops the Halberd Spammer from coming back when you reload! That's just poor TSC and foresight.

Also, I lose two of my weapons in the process of entering the door? How does that work?