runouw.com

All right. Here's my take.

I am personally loving the LL LD. I am actually in the middle of making my first ever level series in it.

That being said, I do have a few minor issues with the designer. (All are understandable, this being a Beta, but might be annoying to testers.)

A) Slightly incomplete interface - There are several things that are not labeled in the Items Panel, like the color change box and the delta negate box (though you can figure it out by their settings dialog), and the foreground/background layer buttons are not labeled in any way, not even in a hover-over tool-tip-text. (It was a while before I found them and figured out how they work.)

B) Scaling items is inconvenient because it takes a trigger to make the items scale, and they can only be seen in their scaled size while the level is being played. I ran headlong into this while trying to create a scaled tree you could climb for a level of mine. I ended up having to use delta tiles to measure out the size of things in the test mode and placing them in empty air in the appropriate spot in the design mode.

C) VERY minor morph tile issue - I love caves, and the tiles for cave bottoms are nice, but the cave roof tiles only have the 45 degree and flat and nothing else. I would like some more ceiling tile variants at least for the Cave set.

Otherwise, love love love love love the new game & LD. Thank you, Runouw.

Speaking of series', I'm actually working on my first Last Legacy level right now.
I'm seven months late but better late than never.

And while I'm here I may as well speak some more about my thoughts on the game.

*Ahem* Alright, as I've already mentioned earlier in this topic, I'm amazed by the level designer of the game, regardless of the few issues there are right now. (As for Doram's suggestions, I was already aware of #1 as I'm sure Runouw was. You make a good point about #2, and I can't believe I hadn't thought about this earlier when I was using the scale function. As far #3, I probably never would've noticed as I'm not too big of a cave person; really good catch on that, though.) The gameplay itself is what bothers me, though. There seems to be a ton of emphasis being put on the designer and not enough on the gameplay itself. I'm trying my best not to sound harsh here; I think the usability of the designer more than makes up for this issue. That said, I'm just not loving the Knight. He feels a bit stiff most of the time, contrary to Mario who always felt flexible in his movements. And I can understand, being a popular character and all, lots of people would naturally prefer Mario over the Knight. I'm not speaking from that point of view. I'm speaking from my preference based on how much fun each of them is to play as. I really hope I get to see some tweaks in the gameplay design of the knight later in the future. A lot of us may forget that SM63's gameplay and design came way before the level designer ever did, which explains why the gameplay seems so perfected and great, while Last Legacy is pretty much the opposite in this case. Therefore, I can understand that at this stage in development, certain aspects of a massive game such as this won't be on par with other aspects. I really hope Runouw addresses this issue; gameplay is almost pivotal to the fun and accessibility of any type of platformer.

And while I'm talking about suggestions, I may as well make another one for the level designer. I noticed that if you slow down time using the Time trigger, your character won't jump as high as he normally does; the slower you set the time, the lower your character jumps. I'm guessing this is simply due to a small programming error, so from what I'm making of it, it shouldn't be too hard to fix.

As for the stuff I mentioned being known, I am indeed sorry. I haven't had time to go through the prodigious suggestion threads to see what people have already mentioned.

As for the rest of your comments, well, part of the "stiffness" of the knight character has to do with how he's animated. Runouw already said (if I remember correctly) that his artistic powers are not legendary, even if his coding powers are, and had said that if someone else had anything better, to let him know. I personally think a contest or something might get some of the better pixel/flash artists out here to focus for a minute and actually commit to producing something. A completed pixel or vector Knight sprite sheet would save Runouw a lot of time and energy too. Slap a trophy on the thing and we may get a better looking Knight. (Give it a couple of months, though. Short contests can cause problems too, as the last LDC proved.)

The other part of the stiffness is the small move set (essentially Run, Jump, Slash, and Delta), which takes us to the next topic: On the gameplay issue, there is still a LOT not implemented, from the lava and spikes to the MP and other magics other than Delta. I agree that the gameplay feels a bit unfinished, but the fact that this is still Beta need not be repeated again otherwise.

If I had any suggestions for the move set, it would be a long range attack, and a faster means of movement. The long range could be throwing the sword, or possibly a magic fireball, and the movement could be a dive or dash, possibly with sword extended to serve as both movement and attack. All of that has also probably been suggested before, I'm sure, but there it is.

I agree that the LD is a blessed triumph in its own right, as it stands now, and once the game's other details are stamped down and inserted into the LD, I'm sure it will be the creative and powerful experience we are all wishing for. Good luck, Runouw.

Hmm...an art contest for the game might work, if Runouw is up for it. And I think we could get something really good going if we expanded this knowledge upon The Spriters Resource. The obvious downside there is that lots of members on TSR aren't members of Runouw.com, so we may have to think of something more than a trophy as far as rewards go. But I can guarentee if Runouw puts in the time to announce a contest both here and there, it will be well worth the effort. As far as any other details about the contest go, maybe we could bring this to F23 to further discuss plans, if you and the other mods are serious about this.

Blablob wrote:I have to admit, when I first started using Last Legacy I was definitely a little overwhelmed by the complexity of the triggers, and I never really gave too much look into it afterwards. But looking back now I can wholly regret that decision. I'm tinkering with some of the items now and I am amazed by how simple the process is to do almost anything you want. In about 2 minutes I created somewhat of a boss battle using triggers to scale up an enemy, while also locking on to him. It's far from the best that Last Legacy has to offer, but I'd say it's better than fighting Big Bully, eh?

The trigger system is about as complicated as the SMRPG script. It looks drastically overwhelming the first time, but after using it, experimenting with it, and just out right screwing around, you find it's actually not hard to use. I would love to finish some of the LL levels that have been in development hell lately, I can't for various reasons.

Blablob wrote:I'm not certain I've completely mastered this designer yet, but I've pretty much used every event at this point, none of them giving me any problem whatsoever. That said, I do have three suggestions:

• I think an event within the enemy object that allows you to control how many hits it needs before it dies would be great. I also think certain events can be used based on the health of the enemy. (e.g after 2 hits it scales up a bit, 2 more hits it scales up more, etc.) I think enemy damage would also be appropriate, so you can control how powerful an enemy is. This could have massive potential for boss battles...

That's been in the suggestion thread. Only, there's nothing about trigger being different based on what the enemy health is. Frankly, though, if you make a custom boss, you could make the health system your self.

Blablob wrote:

• An ability to copy&paste events would be excellent, seeing as I'm usually using a few events more than once in a trigger.

You can just copy paste the trigger, then add in the parts that aren't in the original. But I agree, it would be nice.

Blablob wrote:Regardless of these suggestions I'm still amazed by how simple the whole trigger-feature is. Give it a second look, guys.

I tend to use my ROM hacking experience a lot, but it's because it's so true. With both the LL trigger system, and the SMRPG scripts, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of options, plus I hadn't a clue what they did. After playing around a bit, it surprised me how easy something so complicated looking can really be.

The game is still in beta (I dare even call it alpha) so it's not finished. I'm a bit of a code geek with an OCD issue. As such I can actually explain some of the well known glitches like the Knight/Mage jumping shorter when time is slowed down. One of my development hell levels is Wham Bam Rock. I actually thought of a solution to it though. It's just, I don't use LL, or even SM63 much anymore.

Also, I'm going to compare and contrast SM63 to LL a bit. I will use some lines other people said previously in this topic mind you.

SM63 had most of the game mechanics worked out by the time the LD was made. LL's mechanics are being made alongside the LD.

LL is currently in beta, SM63 isn't.

SM63 had an easy to use tile system where you had to place tiles that matched. LL on the other hand, has a morphing feature, which removes most of the need. HOWEVER, SM63 has more options because it lacks the auto morph as you get to personally choose what tiles to use. LL does not have this, so most of the terrain will look similar. However, this is pretty much required given the ability to remove tiles.

LL has a trigger system, SM63 doesn't. Although it takes some time to master them, triggers give more opportunities than just switches, moving blocks, (which are in LL) and bullies.

Both SM63 and LL have unique potential. SM63 has glitches, and LL has triggers. Both glitches and triggers take awhile to learn. Both yield awesome results when used PROPERLY.

LL has scaling, which, while certain hit boxes are unedited, and it's a bit hard to work with, SM63 lacks scaling for all but certain objects. Namely, the moving block, that's about it.

I can actually explain some of the glitches in the game like the short jumping of you guys want me to. (though we should probably do that in the LL forum) Heck, I could explain why some of the SM63 glitches work while I'm at it! ROM hacking really helps out when LDing requires coding, albeit to a minor degree compared to making a game.

Edit: I just realized when the most recent post was...

One thing about LL Designer is that I can quite easily enter the code but then I can't test it or look at it.
I'm more familiar with SM63 Designer though, so that's probably why I'm finding it difficult to work it.

I would be posting levels, if I had decent access to Flash. When I get that accesss, I plan to start my series, called Noxeria.

U just gotta get used to it. There are youtube tutorials, but it's still easy without them after 3 or 4 tries.

You can actually figure out most trigger/switch related issues in the LD. However, you have to be able to understand what you're actually looking at. Otherwise it just looks like a mess. Believe me, moving the start point for testing purposes helps a bit.

You want levels? You get levels just give me some time to hammer the switch tutorial into my head..