[Lachesis]

Janson couldn't spell back then, so maybe. I didn't fix the "Ameoba Caves" levels' names either, so I probably won't fix that one.

[Lachesis]

Added most of the remaining levels without tracks to the untracked folder for everybody who didn't like the ones that were there

Plans for improved world/level file selecting and user-made scripts emulating some of the missing functionality in ZED have been considered but this would rely on Robotic having the ability to read directories.

[Lachesis]

GM found a bug that amazingly enough was in the original

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

That's a lot of amoebae. How'd that happen?

[Lachesis]

When the bomber is trapped between two walls, it overwrites one of them based on various conditions. Bombers can't move through amoeba, so when an amoeba corners it against a wall, it eats straight through it. The row of bricks in the middle of the screen is missing a portion on the right because of it. It's easy enough to replicate in the original if you can prevent the spirits from overwriting the bomber. I fixed it in the port as soon as GM caught it.

GM's been doing a play-through of the game. Once I've gotten his feedback and we have the ending and soundtrack finished, actual betas will probably go out.

[Lachesis]

19:59:39 <GreaseMonkey> ok uhh some notes
19:59:56 <GreaseMonkey> firstly, board is scanned bottom to top, not top to bottom
I know. This is a gigantic chore and I haven't started fixing it yet, but I'll start doing that when I have a chance...

20:03:27 <GreaseMonkey> secondly, gold not only falls but if it lands on your head you die
Fixed in my current copy; I changed this for the treasure (the staff has its gravity subroutine commented out because I don't think it was supposed to fall anyway) since stacking treasure looks terrible and it's kinda dumb to be like "Here's some score haha you're dead idiot." Bombs are understandable because they're a puzzle piece that explodes, falls, pushes when lit, treasure not so much.

20:12:31 <GreaseMonkey> - lots of things can fall, http://i.imgur.com/h2Mpb.png helps
The only thing that needed fixing based on that picture was text and treasure, and I fixed those in my version.

20:13:09 <GreaseMonkey> - bombs explode in a chain reaction
20:13:30 <GreaseMonkey> well, at least if the rightmost one is explodey
Inconsistent behavior based on direction was completely removed, and the fix for it (skip flag) is part of why changing the scan direction is a huge pain. Amoeba and explosions should not grow instantly in two directions and progress one char at a time in the other two. My amoebas and explosions have the same speed in any direction and I'd like to keep it this way kthx

20:22:36 <GreaseMonkey> i suspect the level wraps top-to-bottom
20:23:03 <GreaseMonkey> though probably not directly
I'll have to investigate this. This might be harder to fix than it sounds.

20:28:52 <GreaseMonkey> also, amoeba grows faster as it goes left than it does as it goes right
20:29:03 <GreaseMonkey> i think i'll say up/left
In the original? This made getting the extra life in level 31 impossible if you have the cycles set high enough. I'll say good riddance to this. In mine? It shouldn't happen at all. The skip flag gets checked and cleared in the scan loop before any object can do anything so there's no reason it'd be different between amoeba and say, anything else that uses the skip flag.

20:30:34 <GreaseMonkey> also apparently amoeba eats gold: http://www.digitalmz...ndpost&p=254354
Yeah, I have a list of stuff it's supposed to be eating but isn't. The hard part about adding more things to the amoeba's list is that it increases the amoeba's already not so flattering resource usage each time I add something until I find a better way.

23:15:15 <GreaseMonkey> ok wrt the water level extending horizontally, it doesn't wrap around the sides... and while it does extend instantly in one direction, due to the RTL scanning it extends left, not right
Water surface extending needs to happen both directions so I don't really think this is avoidable. Changing the scan should "fix" this

23:16:28 <GreaseMonkey> you may be aware that climbers turn ladders white
I got rid of this except for black ladders because it was terrible. Look at level 34 in the MZX version and you'll see it still happens, look at level 41 and you'll see it doesn't affect the grey ladders anymore

edit: Also, after level 12 and level 24, there probably shouldn't be any more compo music added unless it's a compo specifically for getting this stupid soundtrack finished

edit2: now that I think about it, that's a good idea. Get like 4 people rounded up, give them zeux sortpack and instead of a theme, tell them individually which level and give them a screenshot

[smilymzx]

Baby Bonnie Hood: Yes, it's a typo, it was meant to be ''Caverns of Demons''!

Awesome job so far on the game, I still think it will go well!

This post has been edited by smilymzx: 10 June 2011 - 09:33 PM

[iamgreaser]

smilymzx, on 11 June 2011 - 10:32 AM, said:

Baby Bonnie Hood: Yes, it's a typo, it was meant to be ''Caverns of Demons''!

Actually I think it's meant to be "Caverns of Deimos".



Anyhow, some clarifications which we're discussing over IRC.

"23:15:15 <GreaseMonkey> ok wrt the water level extending horizontally, it doesn't wrap around the sides... and while it does extend instantly in one direction, due to the RTL scanning it extends left, not right"
The water does extend both ways in the original, too. It's just that the direction it extends instantly is to the left.

"The only thing that needed fixing based on that picture was text and treasure, and I fixed those in my version."
Some of the animated phases of things didn't fall either. I believe litbombs do in the MZX version, but in the MZX version I have right now, animated crates stay there until they stop showing off how shiny they are. Lachesis informs me that the animated phases are fixed now, so showing off how shiny you are doesn't stop you from falling. You can take your bling off now.

I think that's it.

[Lachesis]

I wouldn't be so fast to assume that. Where are all of the demons??????

I fixed the scan direction thing, so now missiles should be working perfectly, as well as stacked falling boxes and filling water surface

Here's a level that shows it in action



(ZED means it's being played from the editor. The last two screenshots were played from ZED too which is why they said 01 instead of 07 and whatever level the other one will end up being in the level pack)

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Lachesis, on 11 June 2011 - 12:52 AM, said:

I wouldn't be so fast to assume that. Where are all of the demons??????

Where indeed? I think there's only been one demon in the entire Zeux series, and he ended up being just a virtual simulation.

[Lachesis]

Betas are just about ready to send out! The soundtrack isn't done but basically everything else is! Sign up in this here thread now and receive delicious beta candy in the mail

[Lachesis]

Order the beta now and you'll receive a shamwow free of charge

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

My experience with Labrynth is limited (as in shareware limited), but I'll be happy to help with the testing anyway.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Lachesis, on 13 June 2011 - 02:17 AM, said:

Order the beta now and you'll receive a shamwow free of charge

You can use it as a shammy AND a towel?!

[Lachesis]

Lancer-X, on 12 June 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

You can use it as a shammy AND a towel?!

Sure can. Want to beta test?

[Dr Lancer-X]

Lachesis, on 13 June 2011 - 02:40 PM, said:

Sure can. Want to beta test?

Nah, I've already got a Zorbeez.

[Lachesis]

Um, can anybody here play guitar and/or violin and if so do you have recording hardware that isn't shit

lolilover: but if you beta test now, I can throw in a slap chop at no extra cost!

This post has been edited by Lachesis: 17 June 2011 - 08:36 PM

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Is there a chance that Labrynth's original music can be used as an alternate soundtrack for this game? If so, they'll probably have to be converted to OGG or something.

[Lachesis]

If somebody can figure out how to convert the CMFs to OGG... part of the problem is that the new soundtrack required me to overwrite the old music filenames, so I'd have to send another copy of ZEUX.DAT out with the music. The original plan was to just cover all of the original music but we decided not to because half of the original music consisted of covers of popular songs, and I couldn't trace the other half to original authors.

[Lachesis]

RyanThunder converted the old soundtrack to OGG, which will be an optional download with the rest of the game at release. I also fixed a couple of bugs in the Options menu as a result of this. Go team!

As of now, there is a copy of the original ZEUX.DAT named as ZEUXOST.DAT which can be loaded in Labyrinth of Zeux's menus, but I may change it to an option in the menu... I hate creating special-case options like that, though. The current implementation loads the old music using the same code as ZEUX.DAT and another world I'm currently working on.

[Lachesis]

Lachesis, on 17 June 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

Um, can anybody here play guitar and/or violin and if so do you have recording hardware that isn't shit

If so, Visit My Website (MP3 of progress for recording purposes can be provided later)

edit: the violin ffz at measure 50 is supposed to be ffp and the first 9 measures are the music for level 50 and won't be recorded for the ending

This post has been edited by Lachesis: 20 June 2011 - 05:37 PM

[Lachesis]

If anybody wants to make levels for the upcoming level pack, and plan on using sprites, they'll need to manually patch the game engine:

Board "~f@4 Game "; 1,23 'Control'; line 6
Change the vlayer settings to:

set "VLAYER_SIZE" "(20000)"
set "VLAYER_WIDTH" "(2000)"

If anybody needs sprites taller than 9 (9!!!!!) chars, adjust VLAYER_SIZE and please tell me. Don't use the first row of the vlayer (y=0)... you'll know immediately if you've done this.

Sprites are completely unused during gameplay, but various different sprites are used for the popup boxes in the main menu and in the editor, as well as the editor's cursor. Make sure you completely reset your sprites in INIT.

The overlay is also unused, aside from the player's char. Particle effects (like the snow in that screenshot I posted) can be done on the overlay.

Attempts to use the message row will not do anything. The status bar uses the message row.

The board can be used too, and even has the bonus of being cleared every frame. Is it recommended? Well, I guess if you really want to... just don't screw up the robots behind the message row or import any other robots to the gameplay board.

Don't mess with the default player at all. The default player is happy at 0,23. The player's position is stored in the "px" counter (to get the x and y coordinates, modulo and divide px by 80, respectively. It's probably better not to modify px though). To kill the player, send "ENGINE" to "#p_death". There will be a cycle delay but the effect will be immediate during the next cycle.

If your level uses external assets (character sets, palettes), name them after the level and load them after the INIT label of the script robot. Load no files afterward, because that will make it a giant pain in the ass for me when I move the files to the expansion assets directory and merge the script robots. The world script robot will basically look like:

: "MAIN"
goto "#init&currentLevel&"
: "l"
goto "#script&currentLevel&"
cycle 1
goto "l"

The convention for script files is [level name].RBT. Export the last 12 lines of the robot at 3,23 on the Game board for a script template.

Scripts aren't meant to replace large portions of the gameplay, but they can be used to introduce new enemies or add effects to levels. The inclusion of files such as these is based on the original game's (hard coded) inclusions of such for levels 1 and 49, which have been emulated to the best of my ability/patience in the port.

This post has been edited by Lachesis: 19 August 2011 - 02:18 AM

[Lachesis]

Until the soundtrack and level pack are entirely done, I'll release tracks as they are finished. Place them in the music folder. ZEUX.DAT replaces the one that's in the main folder.

ZEUX.DAT
Level 30
Level 45

[Lachesis]

[Lachesis]

I've made a few significant updates and fixes to ZED 201x. I'm willing to give out the updated editor/global robots before Gold Edition is released, but in return, anybody who requests and receives them must create a level for the level pack. Gold Edition will not be released until the soundtrack is complete and the level pack is complete, and I don't find it particularly likely that anybody will make any other expansion worlds for Labyrinth of Zeux afterward.

Current changes:

Added flood fill (f) to editor.
Added text mode (F2) to editor.  By extension, the text entry dialogue boxes (world select, level title, etc.) now accept more key combinations.
ALT+Arrows in draw mode draws continuously now.
Character select now wraps and displays char number
Color select accepts numeric/text input for quick selection.
Multiple "Save As?" dialogue fixes.

I'll also take suggestions... I know the stuff I make is about as popular to use as PZX, based on feedback (none), but it'd be nice to have at least one other person use ZED 201x, so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting my time (I am)

[Lachesis]

ZEUX.DAT
Level 12

[Lachesis]

Level 41

no, I didn't make a ZEUX.DAT update this time, do it yourself, and while you're at it, make a level for the level pack

This post has been edited by Lachesis: 28 August 2011 - 02:24 AM

[Lachesis]

Level 18
Level 37

Replace these into the game from ZED 201x or wait for the next release. ZX_18 is a replacement for a track that I removed before release -- the cut track will be included in the bonus folder of Gold Edition. ZX_37 is the track I had originally started making for level 37 but got stuck and instead replaced it with some stupid mutant ants song I made in a compo, but now it has a proper track.

[Lachesis]

Broke Mah Food Processor :(

[Lachesis]

Level 31