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Messages - GoldwaterDLS

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1
Fan Games / Re: Megaman: Revenge of the Fallen Release Thread
« on: December 03, 2014, 12:09:40 PM »
My thoughts on the game:

[spoiler]I finally beat it! Goodness gracious. This game was quite the ride of emotions for me, I must admit. However, aside from the few frustrating elements at play, I did find myself enjoying the majority of the experience. So, I guess I'll start with the things I liked.

I really was awed by the game's scope; it is freaking massive. I can tell that a lot of work and thought went into designing these levels, that each branching path (and there were many) presented a unique challenge. Even though most of the features in these levels are returning from previous titles, they're presented in such a way that it feels like a brand new experience. I also like that this stylistic choice is justified by the plot of the game.

My favorite part of the game was when I began my hunt for the secrets (I had a meltdown before this, but I'll get to that later). This is when I could really appreciate just how intricate the level design was in this game. The upgrade modules really were quite useful and inventive, and they should be, considering the punishment one must endure to find them. I have to say that the game became even more enjoyable for me once I had all of the upgrades in my possession. (I'll also elaborate a bit more on that later as well.)

I appreciated that each boss in the game had some brand new attacks and patterns at their disposal. Actually, some of the boss fights scarcely resembled their official counterparts. Again, this really helped make the game feel like a brand new experience.

The story of the game was quite simple and to the point. I'm certainly not faulting the game for that, considering it really helped bring home that classic Mega Man vibe. I'd also say it was a wise choice on your part since fan game plots (especially Mega Man ones, strangely enough) tend to fall under a lot of scrutiny. Though, I'm not sure what to make of the very, very end of the game. [spoiler]It seems to have some very depressing implications. Also, I was a bit disturbed by Wily's suddenly suicidal objective.[/spoiler]
I'm also kinda sad that it is impossible for our games to exist within the same fanonuity, but oh well.

Now for some of things that didn't work well for me. There was, undoubtedly, an abundance of spikes and instant death traps in this game. I feel the otherwise innovative level design was marred by this constant feeling of dread; you could rarely make a single mistake because the consequence was always death. This also hampered my experience with Unlimited, unfortunately. However, once I got that Spike Guard upgrade, I was finally able to appreciate the levels much more, because I could actually start playing the game without tensing up at every spike jump. It was quite liberating.

For the most part, enemy placement was very well done. My biggest gripe though, was that there was often some floating enemy that would appear at the very end of huge stretch of dropping, moving, decaying platforms that would knock me into a pit. It could be that I'm slow on the trigger, but it seemed there was very little time to react to these enemies once they appeared. Stone Man and Tornado Man's stages were often guilty of this. [spoiler]Also, during the Wily Machine 5 chase, the appearance of the instant death drillers seemed a bit unfair. In fact, a lot of the chase seemed pretty trial and error.[/spoiler]

The checkpoints tended to be a bit inconsistent. For instance, I was under the impression that every stage would have two temporary checkpoints between two permanent checkpoints. However, it seems that some stages had no temporary checkpoints at all. This became especially glaring in Stone Man's stage where a floating enemy sabotaged my platforming maneuvers and I started at the beginning of the stage, despite being right next to the permanent checkpoint. When the Mega Man Killers came into the picture, this flaw became much, much worse.

Now, as I said before, I found most bosses to be very fair and challenging. However, whenever a boss had an attack that spiraled outward (Star Man, Punk... a few others), they were impossible to dodge. I try to use "impossible" very carefully, but here there is no denying it. Only by sheer luck was I able to dodge these attacks by sliding through them. Otherwise, it's a guaranteed hit, and considering how much damage these attacks deal, it's extremely frustrating. Tornado Man's tornadoes seem to ascend a bit too quickly to be fairly dodged; I absolutely couldn't defeat him until I had acquired his weakness. Considering also that you can barely dodge his tornadoes a full speed, the inclusion of indestructible clouds that impede your movement was a little too much. Then there was Punk: Aside from the aforementioned undodgeable attack, he also had a tendency to stun lock you and reduce you to half health in one shot. Considering you had to defeat him before getting to a checkpoint... well, colorful words were used.

This is a fairly minor one. While I found it amusing that the game uses the Mega Man Rocks charge shot, it carries the same problem it did in that game; it takes far too long to charge. It does have a considerable damage output, but I'm not sure if that offsets just how long it takes. On a positive note, I'm glad you reduced the volume of the noise it made.

Then finally we have Wily's Fortress. My problem here is quite simple: There is no save. While I am aware that previous Mega Man titles force you to go all in at this point, they did not have the distinction of being nearly as long nor as difficult as the fortress presented in this game. I had nearly beaten the game once before, but circumstances forced me to end my game early. I had hoped that my progress had saved up to that point, because I had no indication otherwise. Well... You can imagine how it went once I found out this was not the case. I was pretty blind with rage at that point, so I'm not sure if I can recall everything I did. I may or may not have placed a curse on your descendants and ate a kitten somewhere in there. I can't be sure. However, I do recall placing the game in the recycle bin and falling into a rage induced coma.

Though... it then called to me from the bin. And I knew... I knew I must finish it. And I did! Thankfully, my second time through the fortress went significantly quicker than before (though, it was also facilitated by the secret items I had gathered). Still, my point stands about the fortress (Not to mention, Let's Players and Perfect Runners are going to hate you for designing it that way).

Now, I know my negatives list stretched a bit longer than my praises, but that's only because it's easier to point out the flaws than it is to praise every bit the game does right. It does a lot right, make no mistake. Aside from the few moments the game made me channel Satan, I really enjoyed the experience and felt especially rewarded for having completed it.[/spoiler]

Some bugs (that may contain spoilers):
[spoiler]
-I was able to cheese my way into some paths by using Yamato Spear. Though, I must beg you to not take this away.
-However, cheesing my away into a path in Stone Man's stage resulted in me getting stuck outside the level. I was going backward along the Mini M Tank path; when I went down one of the ladders, I ended up flying off to the side of it and being stuck in the wall.
-Shooting a Ballonboo with Yamato Spear resulted in... a duplicate Mega Man being created. Said Mega Man fell on spikes then killed us both.
-Does Tornado Man's stage have two teleporters? Because the one I encountered (with the character Easter Egg) just took me back to the middle of the stage rather than Knight Man's stage.
-When I was using Rush Marine in the second fortress stage I ended up colliding with a spike. Thankfully I had the guard, but I ended up being completely immune to spikes for the rest of the level.
-Mega Man's color doesn't change if he switches weapons on a ladder.
-If he doesn't move, Mega Man remains unharmed if he rides a cloud into the slide of a spike. It's like if he were to collide with a wall. However, this did allow me to fudge a certain segment in that stage.
-Why are Coltons immune to buster shots? That doesn't seem right. Also, some of them seem placed in such a way that their first bullet is guaranteed to tag you. And they hurt, a lot.
-I had an instance of a Metall Swim turning semitransparent and invulnerable after attacking it with my buster.
-Magnet Missiles sometimes fail to do damage to the Yellow Devil MK-II.
[/spoiler]

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Fan Games / Re: Mega Man 42 - Released!
« on: November 02, 2013, 10:04:58 AM »
Hey, congratulations on the release of your game! I gave it a go and, aside from a few issues, I found myself enjoying the experience quite a bit. I know you're aiming to update the artwork eventually, so I'm not going to harp on you about that aspect. In fact, there's something strangely appealing to me about the sprite work in its current form, though I'm not sure what it is. The music is a mixed bag, I'd say; while some tunes were generally quite pleasant (Sky Man, Ombuds Man, Zombie Man), there are a few I think could use a bit more work. Missile Man's theme seemed rather repetitive and lacked the fast-paced, explosive nature you'd expect from a missile themed Robot Master. While I thought the instrumentation of Sand Man's theme was more fitting for his stage, the melody was simply dissonant. Again, those were the only two tracks that I really had any quarrel with.

I found the majority of the level design to be fluid and inventive, though I did encounter some hiccups along the way (namely one evil room later in the game). There were also instances where having a special weapon seemed mandatory for smooth progression, otherwise you were guaranteed to take hits. These areas might have been easily traversable if it weren't for some of the incredibly large hitboxes on pretty much all of the projectiles. For instance, the shielded enemies that throw grenades at you are next to impossible to dodge simply because the explosions in this game have a hitbox nearly twice the size of the actual sprite. This was one of my biggest frustrations, especially against the final boss, but I'll talk about that later. Aside from the hitboxes, I thought most of the boss battles were fair with a nice sense of variety.

The weapons were well suited to deal with each Robot Master and made sense thematically. I probably didn't look at the weapons as in-depth as I should have, but I tend to be more of buster dueler when it comes to Mega Man games. Still, I found myself using the weapons in a variety of situations; Brain Man's weapon was particularly useful in taking out those obnoxious bouncing ball enemies, despite being fairly slow. Also, Sand Man's weapon was a very unique concept and, now that I think about it, I probably should have used it against those Joe-type enemies.

So, my least favorite aspect of the game would definitely be some of the engine aspects; I'm aware that this game is a callback to Mega Man 1, but the knockback in this game is too extreme. Not only does it send you back a huge distance, but it also hurls you downward. If there was one aspect of the game that I'd recommend fixing first, it would be that (though, I do have another one in the spoiler tag). My favorite aspect of the game would be the Robot Masters themselves; some of them are completely ridiculous, but that's why they're so fun. There were so many nice creative touches along the way, such as the padded cells in Mad Man's stage and the breaking in and out of the glass in Ombuds Man's stage. The only stage that I really felt lacked that creative charm was Missile Man's stage; it just seemed rather empty at times and had some frustrating enemy placements. Overall, this game was a fun and challenging experience (I missed the use of E-tanks, but it sure made me work for my victory) and I would certainly playthrough it again, given you fix up some of the more frustrating issues. Some of those issues are listed below and have to deal with the last few stages.

[spoiler]While the first two fortress stages were easy enough to get through, those Joe enemies were extremely irritating, given that they frequently appeared in clumps and had practically undodgeable attacks. I noticed they also sometimes threw their explosives in a completely random direction, though this proved to be beneficial for getting past them. I actually quite enjoyed your spin on the Yellow Devil; it made the fight far less tedious then those fights tend to be, given you discovered its weakness.

I do not like the third fortress stage at all, even though it's short. This is all due to that one room with the four evil jumps in a row. First, I really hate those types of low ceiling jumps, but to force the player to do four times (over spikes) is just downright mean. The boss was interesting, even though it was difficult to anticipate his attacks. I only managed to beat him by camping in a corner and mashing the shoot button.

My biggest complaint about the fortress stages is directed at the final boss. I was really enjoying the game up to this point, but this boss really put me over the edge. Yes, it was a difficult boss and I'd be perfectly fine with that, however this comes back to hitbox issue. Pretty much every explosion and projectile fired from the boss, in all of its forms, seem to have hitboxes much larger than the actual sprites. I'd be standing nearly ten pixels away from an explosion and still get tagged. This was especially frustrating because I knew I needed all of my health intact for the final form. This is the one aspect of this game that I'd outright consider a dick move. First, I've never been a fan of having to use a particular special weapon to take down a boss, but I could still cope with that. No, it was the choice of weapon that infuriated me; the paint weapon has barely any horizontal movement to it, so it requires you to be right next to the boss for it work. However, since the boss alternates its attacks randomly, you never know when he'll decide to do that four ball attack, which appears right where you need to be. This essentially leaves the player praying that the boss will use the other attacks and the battle ultimately comes down to luck. I feel this can be fixed easily if you give the paint weapon more range or you change where the orbs appear during that attack. Otherwise it is completely unfair. Sorry if I come of as a little extreme in this part, but I'm conveying the genuine frustration this caused me, especially since this happened right before the finish line. This is the only thing in the game that I feel absolutely needs to be fixed, because otherwise I can definitely see myself playing through this again and enjoying it.[/spoiler]

Thanks for the game!

3
Fan Games / Re: Mega Man: Rock Force
« on: August 30, 2013, 07:24:19 AM »
Of course! I endeavor to listen to all the feedback I can to help improve this experience. I must admit, Joseph, your analysis was vital in helping me update the game to its current state, so I thank you for that. All the feedback has been helpful; the positive ones keep me motivated to work on the game, and some of the meaner ones, despite sometimes crushing my spirits, help me to identify the issues with the game and where to focus my efforts. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite able to address all the recommendations, bugs, and complaints for the game in this update (I figured the game had already been down for too long), but hopefully what has been changed will make the game much smoother and more enjoyable for now.

Thanks again, everyone, for the feedback! Your continued input will certainly help the game.

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Fan Games / Re: Mega Man: Rock Force
« on: August 12, 2013, 12:32:01 PM »
Thanks to everyone who has posted a response so far! I really appreciate the feedback I've been getting; a lot of common issues I've been seeing seem to be checkpoints, explosion rates, knockback, and the MM1 styled spikes. So, in the next update, I'm planning on implementing more options that will allow the player to customize their experience, such as: choose how spikes damage mega man, how many check points should appear per level, etc. I certainly don't want this game to be a frustrating experience for anyone.

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Is it just me or the jump button is broken? When I press jump, it sometimes feels like pressing it twice doing short jumps esp. while holding jump. I'm on Joy2key.
Yeah, it's not your controller that's having the issue. I'm not sure why, but for some reason joytokey doesn't like to cooperate with my game. I think it might have something to do with the jump button being assigned to the shift key, but I think someone circumvented this issue by first changing the jump and shoot keys to keyboard letters in the game's options menu, then mapping those letters to joytokey. I haven't yet tested it myself. Xpadder works with the game too, though that program isn't free anymore.

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The stage select highlighted Crypt Man from the get go. This unfairly emphasizes it as the first boss. Maybe consider putting the cursor on Rock?
That's a good idea; his stage definitely is one of the most difficult of the first eight. I'll be changing the hands too, since it was the initial idea of mine to have the hands grab Mega Man and pull him off the screen. Still, I used instant kill on the whole sprite for testing purposes and I guess I really never thought to change it since the result would have been death anyway. I suppose I could also have so that when it grabs him, the player has to wiggle to break free of the hand while it causes damage, and if the player doesn't get loose in time, it kills them. Though, I'm not sure how I'd convey that the wiggling is necessary.

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Likewise with the music, Charademan's theme not withstanding. (Its terrible imo sorry)
About Charade Man's theme: I'm sorry. Yeah, that was one of the few tracks I composed for the game along with a few others (I hope they didn't stick out too greatly compared to Kevvviiinnn's music). I definitely wouldn't mind another musician redoing Charade Man's theme, since I'm really not that familiar with famitracker. Though, I'd still want it to keep that zany feel to it.

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Original / Re: Wily's Skull Castles: Best Skull Flair
« on: August 12, 2013, 11:33:56 AM »
Putting aside my bias for Mega Man 6, I'd have to say that Skull Castle 7 has my favorite design of the group; it's definitely one of the less cluttered, more symmetrical Skull Castles. Though, Skull Castle 10 is certainly in contention for the top with its intimidating design and sheer size.

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Fan Games / Mega Man: Rock Force
« on: August 10, 2013, 02:43:31 PM »

Hey, everyone! I'm really excited to introduce you to a fan game project I've been working on for a little more than two years now, Mega Man: Rock Force. As a fan of the 8-bit series, pariticularly Mega Man 6 and 3, I've always dreamed of creating a classic Mega Man game of my own someday. Thanks to a college class in Game Maker (oddly, the only useful thing I got out of college), I was finally able to realize that goal in an 8-bit styled Mega Man fan game.

In this game, Mega Man has founded a team of Robot Masters to help him maintain peace in a world wearied by the threat of Dr. Wily. One day, however, a group of mysterious Robot Masters began defying their creators, driving all humans away from their work places. Mega Man's newly established team, the Rock Force, is sent to subdue this unusual threat, but is seemingly captured in the process. Thus, it is up to Mega Man, once again, to stop these new Robot Masters, save his friends, and get to the bottom of this mysterious rebellion.

Here are a few screens from the game:




Also, here is a quick trailer I made to demonstrate my game to someone. I apologize for the quality as I am sorely lacking in decent video capturing and editing software. Plus, this was intended as a rough demonstration.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGXFwj0878[/youtube]

If you would like to download a completed version of the game or find out more about the game, please visit this website: http://megamanrockforce.com/rockforcemain.html

I really hope you enjoy the game!

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Off The Wall / Re: The Mystery of the Forum Users - Take 4
« on: August 10, 2013, 10:53:56 AM »
Hello!

I've actually been visiting these forums for a while as a guest, mostly observing, admittedly, the fan games forum to keep an eye on people's projects. I love the Mega Man classic series as it is the series I grew up with, so I really enjoy the various 8-bit styled projects that have been developed or are currently in development. I'm not sure if I could actually get tired of the classic formula as long as they keep developing new robot masters and challenges for the player to overcome, though I think a few might disagree with me in that regard. It is because of my love for fan games and the Mega Man classic series that I have developed and completed my own fan game project, Mega Man: Rock Force. I am eager to post about it in the fan games forum, if that wouldn't upset anybody too greatly.

Though, fan gaming isn't all I'm interested in; I also enjoy drawing, composing music, and writing. If you'd like to see some of my artwork, I do have an account on DevianArt called Goldwater (though, I haven't posted anything there for quite some time.) I also have written a fantasy novel and am currently in the process of writing another. I haven't yet made an attempt at publishing the first novel however, mainly because editing it has proven to be quite the daunting task. Also, many of my projects and artwork have been put aside to focus on completing my fan game project, so I'm a bit anxious to introduce it to the public and finally move on to different things.

I hope to contribute good things to this community.

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