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[Kamani]

Will do.

Edit: Got the bug, but the console had several unrelated errors, and I didn't know what was linked with what, so I couldn't figure out anything about it. This time, I'm just keeping it open to see what happens as I edit. Oddly enough, every time I type in a character in any (forgetting the word, the stuff in the object menu like Hitbox Radius, opacity, combat stats, etc.) an error pops up. Doesn't actually seem to do anything, so meaningless, I guess.

Edit: Potential version of the golem boss is done. Don't know if I'll keep it, but it is definitely a possibility. Beyond that, finished up tilesets and cutscene in Droom3.

[IndigoFenix]

Sculptor is pretty nice.  Could use some graphical touch-ups but the actual fight is pretty good.  Maybe add some animations to the moves, even if it's just walking in place, jumping for the quake attack, stuff like that.  Maybe the quake attack can make a cloud of dust showing where the hitbox is.  The small golems could show him actually sculpting them, either jumping to their positions and making them in a cloud of dust, or forming them on the spot and then they run into place, or something...

I've added some new functions for gates; you can now go through a layer's gate list and read their _tpos and _tsize (tile position and tile size) and also turn them on and off using _active, or activate them automatically by setting _triggered to 1.  These are mostly pointless except when making an exportable object that interacts with gates, which is what I did.  I made a package called Void Portal, it lets you make a cool Chrono Trigger inspired portal effect over a regular gate that expands when the player walks nearby and "swallows" the player when they walk over it.  Could be nice for gates that you want to just appear in the middle of the air or whatever.  I might make some additional options for custom portal backgrounds and such.

[Kamani]

Thank you (both for the advice and for the feedback). Graphical improvements should make it nicer.
Although I think I already do have a cloud of dust effect for Earthquake. Maybe I need to make it more visible? I suppose sand colored on sand colored would be tricky.
Either way, I値l definitely add the others.

Sounds neat. I値l have to take a look when I can.

[IndigoFenix]

The dust cloud is perfectly visible, but it looks like it's being sucked in slowly, and then just disappears and there's an invisible hitbox.  I was suggesting to accompany the hitbox with another cloud moving outwards so it's more clear what is hitting you.  Maybe jumping as well, like a stomp attack? Whatever you think looks best.

[Kamani]

Ah, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood what you had meant previously. I値l change that (and probably add a jump. It値l make a nice counter to the otherwise immobile boss).
I値l probably change the pre-attack dust cloud too. Seems off that it looks like it is being sucked in.

[IndigoFenix]

New feature: You can now define an item as currency for select shops instead of using sparks.  This will give you more control over what the player can buy at any given time.  You can set specific buy and sell prices, which will be the price in the currency selected.  If you leave buy or sell prices as -1, the price will be evaluated at the default price of the item divided by the default price of the currency.

You can also select the "Picky Trader" option, which will prevent the trader from buying any items they do not sell.  (You can get them to buy items by putting an item in their inventory but setting its quantity to 0.)  This is probably recommended if you want to have control over your custom currency.

[Kamani]

Neat! I値l have to switch tokens to using that.

Makes sense.

[IndigoFenix]

I've added a new packaged object called Object Variation.  It basically allows you to create a room which randomly selects one of several possible enemy "patterns" when loaded, so that the room isn't always the same each time you enter.  You give each of the variation objects a number and then place them over the enemies; a random number will be selected and then all objects on top of variation objects that do not match that number will be destroyed.  So for example you can make two possible arrangements of enemies, place them in the room together, then place an object variation over each one; enemies of group 1 will have variation 1 and enemies of group 2 have variation 2.  It's similar to how I made the random encounter areas on Monster Island.  Of course, this only works for non-persistent rooms.

I've been seeing the bug you were talking about.  Seems to happen mainly after editing things... I'll see if I can figure out what causes it.

[Kamani]

Neat!

I mostly edit, so it makes sense it would mostly show up then. Hope that solution-finding goes well.

Edit: The Sculptor now has some attack animations. Oddly enough, I could have sworn the one for Sculpt Golem was working, but now it is. Well, never look a gift horse in the mouth I guess. They aren't super great, but I believe they should do for now.
A good portion of the dungeon is actually done, thinking about it. Not a terrible rate of progress, all things considered. This is roughly my 1.5th month of work, so this is an acceptable rate (I apparently started the desert around the end of July). The town will probably take a while, as usual, since I apparently don't really know when to stop when it comes to dialogue. It might have a bit less than Lusuria though, since Lusuria is a bit more involved in the Trials, as well as a fair number of people in Lusuria would be completely cool with a random stranger walking up to them and engaging them in conversation.

Edit: It occurs to me that this dungeon is missing something important. I completely forgot secret rooms. Maybe one for backtracking after activating the sand statues? I'll need to correct this.

Edit: Okay, this is an odd one. Whenever I change the position of the Sculptor boss, it moves back (to a place I don't want it) when I reload the room. Any clue what could be wrong (don't even know which end this one's on, so...)?

[IndigoFenix]

I don't see the Sculptor doing anything odd, except facing the wrong direction.  Using a walk command to set direction can be a bit unreliable, it's better to use _face (0 is right, 90 is down, 180 is left, 270 is up).  Or you can use { _face = _direction_to(@) } to make them always face the player.  I'm going to try and make walk commands more reliable in general, they still seem to fail occasionally seemingly at random.

The boss feels good, though could still use a bit of polish (EarthquakeWarn as a slow implosion, followed by EarthquakeHit as a fast explosion looks good).

I've fixed up a few things with large numbers of effects on-screen; now sprites with "Is Effect" checked should cause much less slowdown.  Still haven't figured out the stattaco framerate bug, though I am slowly tracking it down.  Since it only shows up on rare occasions, testing is tricky.

I should mention that objects in the foreground always appear over objects in the main layer, which can cause some weirdness when spring-jumping in front of them (for example, the cactuses).  Mostly I've been handling this by making small, stationary objects into sprites, this is the reason for the above (if you make them Effects and then use a solid tile to block them off, they cause much less slowdown).  I would like to figure out if there's a solution for objects such as these in other games... 16-bit RPGs had it easier by just not allowing the player to jump too high.

I've decided to make my story a bit more broken up, instead of putting it all into one single world.  After all, BoundWorlds' demonstration story should probably include the idea of travelling between worlds in it.  I'm still going to be keeping the same main characters, but they will each have their own world, with the final world being unlocked after the others are completed.

Spoiler: Story plans so far (click to show/hide)

The basic stories I'm working with are as follows:

In the North, a force of darkness from the frozen wastelands threatens to overrun a society of lords and warriors in their mead halls.  A brave hero stands against the endless hordes of monsters, but who is this cloaked traveler and what purpose do they serve?

In the East, a peaceful society of mountain nomads finds themselves troubled by dreams of endless corridors and visions of strange worlds.  A young flutist awakens to find himself with strange mental powers, and a person who appeared in his dreams now seems to exist in reality.

In the South, a desert kingdom built upon the ruins of an ancient civilization is troubled by raiders who seek to conquer its holiest city.  A temple dancer finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew about her gods when a wanderer from ancient myth appears in person.

In the West, a secret rebellion against the ruling king is slowly growing.  Courtly intrigue abounds, and few nobles bother to notice the ramblings of a half-mad playwright or the mysterious cloaked vagrant that has appeared in their midst.

In the center of the world, a great tower has stood untouched for centuries.  It is said that whoever climbs to the top will understand the true nature of their world, but knowledge may come at a great cost.

[Kamani]

The Sculptor was at a specific location (and face) in the middleish of the room, but when I reloaded, they moved where they were before that.
I thought I had set face rather than use a walk this time?

Thanks. I’ll try it.

Makes sense.

Yeah, I know. The problem is, if I make them sprites, than if you stand behind them and walk all the way down, you end up places over them. I don’t really know what the optimal solution for this one is.

Makes sense. I like the stories’ concepts,and I look forward to trying them once they are complete.

Edit: Very odd glitch. I place The Sculptor at 256, 256, test the room, and they've moved to 272, 272. When I return to editing mode, they are still at 272, 272. I have no clue why this keeps happening, but I've tried placing new copies, exiting and leaving the world, and rebooting the entirety of BoundWorlds, so I am really at my wits end on this one. Any clue what could be wrong?

Edit: I really need to find a sandstorm animation for the tile swappers. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be one on OpenGameArt, so that makes it a bit tough. I need to find for the right pattern and than just repeat it using a top layer with the pattern as a background, but I really can't draw, and I don't know what sandstorms actually look like, so...

Edit: I guess I'll put death checkpoints at start, The Sculptor's fight DroomPostMB, and Autem's fight. Annoyingly enough, because of how two rooms are gone through twice at different times, I'll have to make them work by variables.

[IndigoFenix]

I fixed the bug with the positioning.  I've also fixed a bug that caused sprites with a direction of 0 to load facing north.  By the way, the reason why SculptorDia loads facing a random direction is because it has idle motion settings.

I plan on making a sand storm area myself, so I'll probably add a graphic for that anyway.

I also need to come up with a solution for checkpoints and saving in larger worlds.  The main intent of the "death gate" was less of a gamey respawn point and more like a place where you get rescued or captured, so it doesn't handle things like rolling back items all that well.

Edit: It looks like any fog or cloud foreground, colored yellow and moving at a high speed, makes a pretty fair sandstorm effect.  You can then make a few copies of the layer with slightly different speeds to make it look more dynamic.

[Kamani]

Thanks. Also, oops. Must have forgotten to disable them after I copied the Sculptor boss to get the sprite.

Oh. Convenient. Thanks. I guess I値l just wait on that one.

Makes sense. I知 just going to end up working around it with variables, but it would probably be more convenient in general working differently.

[IndigoFenix]

Hang on, it looks like the positioning fix caused a bigger issue with deleting some existing objects.  Edit: Okay, that's fixed.

I've added a purple fog graphic which can also double up as a nice sandstorm layer when colored yellow.  You can experiment with flashes and composite options to find what works best.  By the way, flashes with all timers set to 0 now act as static color layers which can be modified or destroyed using functions.

[Kamani]

Okay. Thanks.

Double thanks. Both the fog and the flash changes should be helpful.

Edit: I'm not going to be able to respond to messages very reliably or quickly for the next few days. Preemptive apologies about that. Technical difficulties with my typical system. Annoying, but nothing I can do about it for now.

Edit: I really have to wonder why past me created a complicated "lag prevention" no switch variable. It caused a pretty terrible problem before I realized it was both the core problem and totally useless.

Edit: Hmm... I wonder if I should reduce the difficulty a bit. It seems a bit extreme right now, since this is a relatively early dungeon. Of course, players will have the checkpoints and the full heals, but I know all of the patterns of enemies, so...

Edit: I'm getting an excess time in loops error on the red blue swapper. I just added the sandstorm added layer effect, but there aren't actually any loops on it, so I'm a bit mystified on this. Any clue what could be wrong here? I don't know if I just messed up, but I checked a bunch, and I don't have any loops as far as I see, so I could use some assistance seeing where.