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[Org]

Please PM when there is a Playable version. I can test it.

[qwertyuiopas]

Here I have marked issues.

Red is impssable from at least one direction, in once case passable from both but requires crawling, yellow is passable but difficult because of player size, and blue is where you can see the physics glitch.

[Derakon]

Thanks for the investigations! Could you tell me the seed you used to make that map? There should be a file named something like "1246215089.map" -- the seed is the number in that name.

Accessibility is one of the Hard Problems that Jetblade has to handle, and obviously it's not perfect yet. Ideally the program should be able to know, accurately, if a passage is passable (and if one-way, that it is one-way). Unfortunately, examining the map to discover accessibility problems is incredibly hard, since you basically have to simulate the physics involved. It's a mess. I've settled for just plonking down platforms wherever I suspect there might be an issue, but finding a balance between "these platforms let you access everything" and "my god, the map is full of platforms" is an ongoing process.

I don't consider having to crawl to be a big issue; after all, crawling was added in part to make the accessibility problem more tractable. It'd be nice if the platforming started out easy and got harder as time goes on, but that's a low priority. The only major problems are when things actually aren't accessible, either outright or in the "this passage is one-way" sense, since those can break the game.

As for the physics glitch, I'll take a look. You are of course welcome to investigate it yourself; the code's in the TerrestrialObject class.

For those wanting to know when there'll be a playable version: it'll be a long while yet. Keep an eye on this thread, though, because it'll be announced here when it is ready.

[qwertyuiopas]

1246221332

Edit: as for the physics problem, it probably just needs to check an additional tile down when ramp pushing a jumping player.

The player is likely getting pushed into the block, then from that being pushed upward, and so on, until they pass the upper blockage.

Edit 2:
I think I quit a frame early, but it gave this message: "Hit a collision loop. Whoops"

[Derakon]

Great, thanks. I've reproduced the bug. Physics can be annoying sometimes...

[droid]

Looks interesting. About one way drops/passages: This can be a good thing as long as the generator controls where they are or detects them. From my time playing Zelda / Metroid I remember rooms where you would hit a one way passage going in and couldn't get out untill you found the powerup in that room and used it to get past an otherwise impassable obstacle. This teaching tool helps the player realize what kind of thing that powerup bypasses So if there was an ice wall or whatever, the rooms would be like this:

rest of world
       |
one way drop
       |
       |
flame thrower powerup room  -  wall of ice  -  rest of world

If the generator cannot find a placement of powerups that reaches everything, then it will need to regenerate problem areas until it can, but the complete elimination of these one-ways is not necessarily the best solution.

Sure, adjust the generator until it doesn't make these anymore, but keep a catalog of these "building blocks" so if the powerup placement wants them it can place them.

[Derakon]

Yep. One-way passages are not inherently a bad idea, but the generator needs to know they're there. Since I haven't done any work on blocking accessibility yet, though, everything should be accessible from the get-go.

If you ever examine the intended item path in Super Metroid, you'll see that for the first half of the game or so you're actually extremely constrained in where you can go (if you ignore the sequence-breaking abilities like walljumping and bombjumps). This does a fairly good job of cutting down on the "I have an entire planet to explore, there's one way forward, and I can't find it" problem inherent in nonlinear gameplay. I do plan on having an optional hint mode available in the final game, though.

[qwertyuiopas]

In metroid fusion, they used massive ammounts of one-way areas.
Some simply locked doors, closing off zones that you shouldn't go to, sometimes locking you in a zone until you finish the goal.

The thing  I remember most is just before releasing the level 4 door locks, first there is a one-way drop, second, after that, there is a set of boost-blocks that are suposedly one-way, but you can carry a shinespark back to them and escape into the rest of the zone, only to find a locked door in the navigation room and the elusive secret message of the game. It is also the closest you can get to sequence breaking.

I kind of prefered zero mission for it's flexibility.

Edit:
Yesterday I added a debug key that enabled player-only debug logging and did the physics glitch.
Before it complained and gave up, two blocks were pushing the player back and forth by decreasing increments.

[Derakon]

I've set up a project blog for Jetblade, where I plan to post notifications of major new developments, previews of game models, "vision stuff", and similar. I don't plan to stop using this thread, but it'll probably be de-emphasized; it doesn't really make much sense for a thread on the Bay12 Games forums to be the primary source of information for developments on Jetblade, after all.

Thanks for all your kind words and suggestions over the past few months!

[SHAD0Wdump]

I've looked at the 'map accessibility problems' page and(forgive me if this was already suggested) I think if you added a 'pull up' feature alot of these issues would be eliminated due to heightened maneuverability.

[Derakon]

The player already can grab onto ledges and climb up onto them. It's not enough for all situations, though. But thanks for taking a look.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Does the character have air control?(steering in the air)
 How high can he/she/it jump?

[Derakon]

Yes, the player has air control, and they can jump fairly high (about 2x the player's height), but neither of those will help you with sufficiently precipitous overhangs or gaps that are just too far.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I guess I was looking at some of those ledges wrong.

BTW,I've never seen the player character.(EDIT:nevermind,thanks to qwertyuiopas I see it is a Liandri robot)

[JoshuaFH]

I've set up a project blog for Jetblade, where I plan to post notifications of major new developments, previews of game models, "vision stuff", and similar. I don't plan to stop using this thread, but it'll probably be de-emphasized; it doesn't really make much sense for a thread on the Bay12 Games forums to be the primary source of information for developments on Jetblade, after all.

Thanks for all your kind words and suggestions over the past few months!

Will bookmark!