Hi guys!
Welcome to the first anniversary of the last post of 2022! Welcome to 2023 into 2024, hehe.
Sooo, I guess I should give an explanation to... Whatever that last post was supposed to be.
Last year, I canned the project, I wanted to move on from it and focus on the future and this mod was holding me back. So I took the last article that was sort of written and striked through it entirely and posted it because the sentiment the article gave then was clearly not mine at the moment.
After I graduated, and summer holidays were rolling in, around July, I stumbled upon it in my folders while organizing things. I played through it again with a fresh mindset and that made me notice things about the mod that needed to change.
I also took in account the criticism the mod got, especially around Chapter 1, Gestation got switched to Graveyard as it's a song you barely hear and you hear Gestation throughout the mod quite often.
And quickly enough, I got into the creative process again of it and it was going much more smoothly than I expected. I made Quote's part that starts Chapter 4(after Dixel talked about how Chapter 3 is quite long and that would strike chapter 4's beginning to become chapter 5's), as you backtrack to the red village to save Curly from the mimigas clutches. Thanks to Dixel's playthrough, I managed to not get into one big hassle!
Suote actually set a flag in his map that I used to set Quote's. Thankfully, that was avoided. :)
I also made the beginning of the end, the first big map that is difficult!!
Cavern of the Fortress.
To explain my process, I want the player to have to go through at least one hard map, very difficult before being able to finish the game. And Cavern of the Fortress is a little gem to me!
It isn't perfect but it works really well!
The first corridor is wonderful, you have activated fans on the battlefield that makes you fall faster, and if you rush in or hesitate, you got a presser that falls on you.
Aaaah I am really proud of this one! It's difficult but not unfair. Just be careful.
Second corridor is correct, knowing you have the machine gun and you skip it all together with Curly, yeaah well to die there, you have to have no health or be wreckless.
Third corridor is a concept that I did not go further with, it is pretty must the Hidden Last Cave presser booster moment but instead you have the MG. I thought of the fact that at Quote's max walk speed and with the machine gun hover, you can pass the pressers pretty smootly. As it got too easy, I added spikes and tighter and tighter surfaces which makes you need to continue running to pass it. I put a save point and a full health restore as I knew it would block a lot of players.
Fourth corridor is chill, I knew the player wouldn't have much health so it was okay, kind of designed it like Castlevania (Have the same two enemies in the corridor), I'm quite happy of the rails platform with the acid drops you have to avoid, I noticed at the end of the level design that I had those in my Npcset, too bad because I thought of using them but I forgot and it's not bad I did as the earlier parts are already difficult.
A thing that I did not planned but that I'm so happy it works well is the level being done backwards with Curly! It works correctly and it's much easy once you got the booster ! That's actually a really good thing too, as you can now breeze through the level after doing it since you got a cool item!
I'm glad the map came out so great because I was truly lazy to make it back then.
You can't leave Quote in the cabin anymore. As if you do so, and try to continue without him, you won't have the air tank and so you'll drown because you don't float. I could not make Quote not be on your back for reasons so I abandonned trying that.
Dixel has showcased his chapter 5 part that is almost complete so the thing that needs to be finished will be chapter 6, temple of reckoning and the endings.
I've wrote enough for one article so I'll leave it be, until next time folks.
