Build 53: Signposts and Goombas

[weasel]

Well I took a break from Protonaut to work on my game SteamBirds (http://armorgames.com/play/5426/steambirds), which is now launched and taken care of. Time to get back to work on our favorite little subatomic astronaut!

It's been several months since the unofficial launch of Protonaut and there seems to be something missing. After giving it some thought, I've decided that the tutorial wasn't engaging enough... And there wasn't enough conflict. So the big new additions this time around:

- In-game customizable SIGNPOSTS
- Little Gabbo creatures that try to eat you!

Full changelog follows.

[weasel]

BUILD 53:

EDITOR CHANGES:

One of the biggest complaints I had - and one of the most critical - is the new user experience is horrible. Giving people a bunch of text on level-launch, and not giving them access to it again later - or at the appropriate times - was very bad. Most people didn't even read the level text, then went on to complain that there was no help!

To rectify this situation I decided to switch up how helpful text was delivered. Contextual help, customizable right from the level editor. I call these "signposts," and have the awesome side effect of making levels even more personizable for the users.

- Added new "Signpost" object to the editor (Structure Menu, hotkey "5"). After you draw the box, a dialogue will open where you can type whatever you would like to appear on the sign.
- Signs have full variable support:
%JUMP%, %LEFT%, %RIGHT%, %AIMUP%, %AIMDOWN%, %RESET%, %FIRE% all map to movement controls. %COUNT% is how many times the sign has been triggered.
- Signpost editing: Select the signpost you wish to edit by clicking on it with the move tool. Then press "Y" to edit the text within. Or you can just delete the old signpost and draw a new one.

I really think the new signposts add a whole new level of clarity and enjoyment in the levels. A sample build of level 1 (http://www.protonaut.net/?level=1000) really made this come alive.

Some other editor-oriented fixes:

- Changed "Grid lines" hotkey to "J" (it was conflicting with the "L"evel menu)
- Fixed the "A" hotkey spazzing out
- Fixed the "S" hotkey not properly pulling out the save tab
- Stopped the menu hotkeys from working when you have the Save dialogue open

GAMEPLAY CHANGES:

Nitrogen explosions have always been very unstable, and the reason is twofold: the blast radius is irregular (not a perfect circle), and the blast strength drops exponentially the farther you are from the Nitrogen. That means you had to "live dangerously" and get as close as possible before firing at it, if you wanted to do a NitroJump. Fixed:

- Nitrogen explosions now propel you at a constant rate - it no longer matters how close you get (as long as you are within the blast radius - I'll try to get some graphics in for that). That should make explosion-jumping and predictability much easier.

Another problem with the Nitrogen explosions is if you are jumping upwards when one detonates below you, you will fly off the top of the screen due to velocity multiplication. If you are falling rapdily, the Nitrogen can hardly even slow you. I did a bit of a hack to make the detonations more predictable:

- Nitrogen explosions zero your Y velocity before applying the force (similar to walljumping - your downward vector won't diminish the bump you get)

GENERAL CHANGES:

- The "lowered by age" (timed bayesian ratings) of levels use the number of published levels newer than it as a baseline - not the time elapsed since publishing. That means unpublishing your (or anyone elses) newer levels will increase the ratings on older ones.

Some prompts now have readability improved with some better UI handling - should reduce some confusion:

- You can now click on the phrase "login to vote" to login.
- Changed wording on "Login to vote" and "vote already cast" to be more clear in all situations

A lot of people were complaining that the control scheme was wrong. I'd have people in an equal number of camps tell me that jump should be SPACE, SHIFT, and UP. It was frustrating. I also had complaints that the game had no mouse support, and that the controls weren't customizable. Obviously something was very wrong.

After toying with several setups I eventually settled on a new standard layout: WAD for Jump/Left/Right, and full mouse control for aiming and firing. Wooo! It's a LOT of fun to play with and makes firing even more enjoyable:

- AIMING NOW CONTROLLED BY THE MOUSE. No menu option for you to toggle back to keyboard yet.

People have always said they love to shoot; that firing in this game is one of the most enjoyable aspects of it. Making mouse controls was just one step to make it more fun - but I changed up a few other things to make it even more fun:

- Changed up firing and reaction sounds
- Made projectiles collide with each other - it's almost a fun minigame trying to juggle one in the air for a while, bouncing it off of more projectiles!
- Added some baddies to shoot at! (Gabbo - '6' from the Editor Isotopes menu)

That's right, there's now some bad dudes that wander around getting all up in your face! Something menacing to shoot at, finally!

As time goes on I'll add a new flying dude and a few others.

I reworked the main menu to be more central. A lot of folks never returned to the Main Menu (only accessible by hitting ESC) once the game started and thus it seemed fairly pointless. Moving the game controls back to the Main Menu only will really help put a stronger focus there:

- Made the "play" and "controls" buttons more obvious on the main menu

A few other generic bugfixes:

- Stopped the volume sliders from sticking
- Made letting go of the mouse button always release control of the volume sliders no matter where the mouse is.
- Logging in or signing up now restores your voting options for a level, without having to replay it
- Logging out removes the ability to vote
- Fixed the GameOver screen - it no longer constantly updates when your vote is submitted, thus stealing cursor focus

OFFICIAL LEVELS:

I'm going to have to re-do all the tutorials to make way for the new signposts and Gabbo dudes. It'll take some time!

Here's what I have so far (Bold were updated in this release):

Tutorial 01: 1000 Collecting and Jumping
Tutorial 02: 795 Firing
Tutorial 03: 805 Nitrogen
Tutorial 04: 806 Hydrogen
Tutorial 05: 827 Single Bonds
Tutorial 06: 796 Double bonds
Tutorial 07: 807 Ghost Bonds
Tutorial 08: 923 Carbon/Iron intro
Tutorial 09: 809 Wall-Jumping
Tutorial 10: 891 Wall-Climbing

Trial 11: 857 Mine Shaft
Trial 12: 887 Invaders
Trial 13: 854 The Hive
Trial 14: 855 Swing Sets
Trial 15: 873 Stepping Stones
Trial 16: 856 Raiders
Trial 17: 861 Descent
Trial 18: 860 Palindrome
Trial 19: 885 Tumbler
Trial 20: 761 Labyrinth
Trial 21: 889 Shepherd
Trial 22: 882 Monty Hall
Trial 23: 735 Rig the System
Trial 24: 747 Venture
Trial 25: 723 Overcomplicated

[weasel]

PS: Replays don't record mouse movement yet. So replays are so very very broken it's not even funny.

[OfficiallyHaphazard]

Nice, looking forward to trying it. Lucky for you, replays should be even smaller now, since all you have to do is record the angle of each shot and ignore all other mouse movement.

[weasel]

Nice, looking forward to trying it. Lucky for you, replays should be even smaller now, since all you have to do is record the angle of each shot and ignore all other mouse movement.

That's... brilliant! OMG I LOVE YOU

I was dreading this fix so hard I've been putting it off, but I never saw the simple solution. :doh: