Nice! It crashed once, but regular saving made that a non-issue. Tendency to stick in the blocks (and occasionally go right through the crumbly ones!) but it grabbed me.
Might make a nice Iphone game if it was expanded and the glitches ironed out.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Ah, the glitches. I've spent a disproportionate amount of time after the fact trying to figure out how to solve the snagging issue. It seems the root issue is a problem with the Box 2 D physics engine that Stencyl uses for collision detection. Normally, it creates solid collision blocks for tile-based terrain, but with maps made up of lots of little actors, the player tends to get stuck on edges.
Though I'm still proud of the final boss. I call it the Corrupted Core. :3
The instant-crumbling blocks keep making The Final Exam unbeatable. Once I get past the first three locks I fall through the crumblies and straight into the death-blocks.
Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!This rocks! I really appreciate the gravity system too; I tried to make something like this on gamemaker 7 and I couldn't get it to work at all. Tying the gravity to the middle was an awesome idea.
edited 25th Apr '12 3:06:11 PM by Erock
If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.I have a huge favor to ask from anyone who's still interested in this game.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74940256/Corebound%20%28Test%29.swf
Play through to levels 5/6 and see if the framerate starts acting up. I've solved the snagging issue (yes, I did have to resort to code to do so; I've basically built my own engine for constructing snag-free collision shapes!), but I've run into that most frustrating scenario: the inconsistently-reproducible issue. Testing in Stencyl or straight off my hard drive, the framerate is slashed on those two levels just for having the Crumble Blocks around; testing in a Chrome browser window, however, the game runs smooth as silk from start to finish.
Testers with different browsers would be helpful, yes. IE, Firefox, Chrome. I just want to be sure that no one has an issue playing the game in a browser on those two levels.
(Also, further plans for 1.1: Better music! Achievements! Secrets!)
edited 26th Apr '12 9:47:18 PM by Ryusui
Cleared it in 5:51 minutes; no glitches. Congrats. I use IE 8.
edited 27th Apr '12 2:37:57 AM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.18:21. Damn. Kinda pathetic. o.o
Excellent little game, though. I was especially fond of the boss, even if Stage 6 was a bit tedious (but still clever).
For those having trouble with the boss:
Two red squares orbit it at all times, and it shorts other red squares at regular intervals. These additional red squares travel in entirely linear paths. If you can nail the timing of the circling squares and the linear ones, and then reconcile those timings, you can stay on top of the boss and usually jump once to avoid both squares. Then you just it hit you with keys until you have three. Easier said than done though, right?
I have to give you particular props with the game's tutorial. The first level draws you naturally to the key, and as you try to figure out how to get down, the game's physics become self-evident and thus provide the player with their first solution. In this kind of tutorial, the mechanics alone are doing the speaking and that's the best kind of tutorial there is, so that's a 10/10 on those grounds. Invisible, natural and useful all in one.
The great thing about games like this based on a single mechanic is that solutions are never far away, so it's about manipulating what you know for best effect. Portal is very much the modern equivalent of simple, single-mechanic games like this. Everything is so clear that one immediately arrives at ideas for how to pass the next obstacle, up to and including the boss. Contrast this with stuff like the arcane complexities of modern RPGs and the like, especially JRPGs and you'll see how, despite the wealth of mechanics, more complex games often limit themselves because of the "silver bullet" principle. Because there's usually a mechanic dedicated to overcoming a certain type of obstacle, overcoming said obstacles becomes a rote task learned by heart.
The graphics and sound might be limited, but this is honest to goodness an excellent game from a mechanical point of view. There's a bug or two in there, but this is the kind of mechanic that can deliver simple fun and a deeper level of problem-solving at the same time. Extremely well done — the limitations don't even enter into it.
Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — WatchWow. That's kind of Nintendo Hard which makes deaths that aren't your fault (i.e. clipping through yellow bricks onto red, getting stuck on a yellow that crumbles) all the more frustrating.
Still I'm on Firefox and it didn't play too badly. The dodging and slinging around with gravity was actually fun.
I hope you don't space the key releases on lvl 7 out in future; I'm of the opinion that it takes long enough to gather them considering it's still just as easy to die once you have all of them. I even died immediately in upon landing on the unlockable bricks near the eye and hadn't a clue what happened.
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Thanks. To be honest, my original idea was something of a Terraria/Minecraft-type game, where you'd dig to the surface from a little safehouse at the core of a planet, but then I implemented the gravity-switching mechanic and realized it was the perfect gimmick for a puzzle platformer. So yeah, LD #23 has been an educational experience. I even learned a few basics of Box 2 D in the aftermath trying to implement "snagless" play: normally, for tile-based terrain, the engine consolidates their collision shapes into a single big block, so I managed to replicate that for my actors. My solution is probably a bit over-complicated, but it works - and it still supports the lock and crumble blocks, which I couldn't have done if I'd simply switched the whole game to tile-based.
By the way:
One achievement I plan on adding is for defeating the Corrupted Core the hard way - one key at a time. And yes, he does speed up with each one you use: both his firing rate and the speed of his two orbiters. I've done it myself, just to be sure it was possible - yes, I normally just wait and grab the three keys like everyone else. ;)
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He probably shot at the exact time you jumped in.
Snagging? Are you sure you're playing the new "Test" version that says "Version 1.1 BETA" on the title screen? One of my other testers discovered a bit of snagging, but that was because I still had the lock blocks set as solid - it's fixed already.
edited 27th Apr '12 8:52:55 AM by Ryusui
I really, really like this idea, and would love to see some more levels for it. Beat it, but don't remember my time.
Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

For Ludum Dare #23 Game Jam.
Check it out.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=12635