Story Off The Rails V2.7 - fEATURING STUNNING OCULUS RIFT SUPPORT

Spoiler

Oh. Okay.
(The error is that it's trying to find prt.bmp and npc0 when there are neither of them. This seems to only be in the no custom music one, as the one with custom music works fine.)

 

Just to let folks know, I'm probably gonna stream this at about 6:30PM PST. Or in international terms, an hour from now. It probably won't be a 100% Run, but it may just be a half-serious Speedrun.

Link to my livestream channel is in the signature.

 

Mod updated. View the changelog in the OP.

 

And so the stream was concluded with a Death Count of 18 and fun times to be had.

I also included Jenn and gave her some dialogue for kicks, since there was no real plot to speak of.

Here it is for your playing pleasure:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yyuuaemsekplx89/Story%20Off%20The%20Rails%20V2.65%20-%20Jenn%20Edition.zip It's Version 2.65 Though

 

Just asking but (you even added Jenn to my mod) why do you add Jenn to mods? Just a question out curiosity sake.

 

Just asking but (you even added Jenn to my mod) why do you add Jenn to mods? Just a question out curiosity sake.

I only added Jenn to your mod at first as a joke and since Quote's always the victim of these kinds of things. Plus these Hell Mods usually don't have a plot, if any, so really, any character could be there in place of Quote and nothing would really change.

The second time was just another Nightmare for Jenn to deal with, and kinda why she said "Are we really doing this crap again?" in the beginning, and to continue the joke. Plus I'm kinda used to seeing Jenn's sprites now after testing JJ and such for so long. Can't help it.

So in the end, I only added her to the Hell Mods since any character could be the victim and not change a darn thing. I won't add her to any other type of mod besides the Hell ones unless the creator asks me to.

 

I swear this life capsule is near impossible:

You only ever get one chance because the winds will throw you backwards into the wind tiles so I can no longer get the life capsule. For each and every single attempt I have to go through the spike gauntlet again and again. The wind gap requires pixel-perfect precision because it is so easy to get caught in the wind flow above or below you. So I am essentially running the spike gauntlet again and again in the hope that a roll of the die won't throw me right back to the beginning again.

A half wall between the two wind flows or increasing the gap height by one tile would help improve matters significantly (though of the two I would honestly prefer the wall).

All that aside, your mod is amazing.

 

While testing his mod I discovered you were supposed to rapidly tap the booster to get through the winds. Things obviously could use a bit more polish.

 

I swear this life capsule is near impossible:

You only ever get one chance because the winds will throw you backwards into the wind tiles so I can no longer get the life capsule. For each and every single attempt I have to go through the spike gauntlet again and again. The wind gap requires pixel-perfect precision because it is so easy to get caught in the wind flow above or below you. So I am essentially running the spike gauntlet again and again in the hope that a roll of the die won't throw me right back to the beginning again.

A half wall between the two wind flows or increasing the gap height by one tile would help improve matters significantly (though of the two I would honestly prefer the wall).

All that aside, your mod is amazing.

Tap the boost button rapidly


And yeah, this mod is amazing polar.

 

Regardless I still think that a wall should be erected so that I could figure that out on my own via experimentation.

 

This feels harder then my mod, in every way possible. But how do you get any of the keys?! I can't get even get one of them.

 

Checkpoints are nonexistent after getting the Booster 2.0. Not even the life capsules save anymore, and I saved with only 3hp to my name. After traversing 9 heavily spike laden screens and seeing a spike configuration I had no idea how to overcome I decided that help wasn't coming and that I needed to restore my health to create a buffer so that I could afford to make a mistake. After reversing my tracks to the locked doors, which involved a vertical boost then nudge onto a spike block, I restored my health, saved and then returned to the place I obtained the Booster 2.0 only to realise that I couldn't reuse the checkpoint and that I just added 5 or so more screens to slug through, screens that, I might add, are ill suited to the Booster 2.0. Luckily I kept a copy of my old save file, but that leaves me right back where I started.

I give up.

 

Yah I'm starting to reconsider on even playing it anymore cause I can't get past moonlit castle(.....more like spike-hell castle).

 

Checkpoints are nonexistent after getting the Booster 2.0. Not even the life capsules save anymore, and I saved with only 3hp to my name. After traversing 9 heavily spike laden screens and seeing a spike configuration I had no idea how to overcome I decided that help wasn't coming and that I needed to restore my health to create a buffer so that I could afford to make a mistake. After reversing my tracks to the locked doors, which involved a vertical boost then nudge onto a spike block, I restored my health, saved and then returned to the place I obtained the Booster 2.0 only to realise that I couldn't reuse the checkpoint and that I just added 5 or so more screens to slug through, screens that, I might add, are ill suited to the Booster 2.0. Luckily I kept a copy of my old save file, but that leaves me right back where I started.

I give up.

When testing the mod I ended up using the trainer after getting booster 2.0 to complete what was left of the mod. It needs work and to be nicer in general with checkpoints and health refills. As I've already told Polarstar the checkpoints need to be usable more than once and there needs to be a lot more health refill points. A sorta level design rule has not been implemented into the game's design and I hope he decides to update it. That rule is, when I have already completed a challenge, and die to a challenge after it, I will be much less interested in doing the first challenge again. And when the check points get further and further apart this become and things like tapping to get perfect boost length are required, it feels pointless to get past a room because you know the next one will kill you. Boost 2.0 honestly made the mod worse as you're required to master it completely but not given the space to do it. Plus you have to master all the meta skills that go along with it which even when you know how to do them there's always a chance you'll fail since it wasn't designed for that. It's almost like when the jumping on the sides of spikes thing was EVERYWHERE.

That zone just needs to be redone. With difficulty pacing. Having easy moments to balance out the hard moments.

 

Seems I suck at quitting.

I made it as far as the 11th screen (I count the screen you obtain the Booster 2.0 as screen 1) and the key, but I just couldn't leave that bloody 10th screen life capsule alone. *sigh*
But I obtained the first key, so that's gotta count for something, even if I only lost it again.

If obtaining life capsules in this area saved the game then completing it may very well be feasible. Checkpoints on screens 3 and 8 would be nice (though without making it so that a screen 8 checkpoint would be on a platform you directly land on after missing the screen 7 life capsule), with some serious toning down of screen 9 in order.

 

In other words my mod is cake walk compared to this mod.

 

In other words my mod is cake walk compared to this mod.

For one thing you're wrong on so, so many levels with this statement. Everyone and myself who played your mod or watched the LP I did of it are aware.

Two, maybe you can stop bringing up your mod up so much? This is PolarStar's mod (and critique on his level design from our experiences).

Oh right, I never posted on this thread til now. I already gave plenty of my thoughts about his mod in the livestream for it and privately in Skype. Overall a good and challenging mod on the surface/to the average player.

 

Sorry I just let "things" get the best of me.

 

Edit: On mobile. Expect spelling errors.

These are all very valid complaints, and you all make good points. This mod is already "complete", so to speak, but I'll update it eventually to hopefully fix all these issues. I'll also be adding various secrets, touching up on strange areas, etc. It should feel like a much better experience. But the saving system is seriously fucked up, and I need to fix it. So far, I have 2 solutions to fixing it:

1. Remove Autosaving: I don't...really like this one? But it'd make sense, because maybe you don't want to save?
2. Simplify Autosaving: The problem with the fire effect is that it creates a bunch of problems involving flags. To fix that, I'd have to simplify the saving mechanism, either by removing the fire or adding a <WAI to it to keep it from freaking out, but that carries consequences (you're invincible during <WAI's, even if for a short time).

Anyway, I'm on a mobile device right now, so I'll expand on that later, but the saving mechanism is broken, so I need to change it to be easier to place savepoints without creating a thousand and one issues.

I'll also be changing up a bunch of rooms (a certain diagonal one comes to mine) completely to make them more fun to actually play, and not JUST hard to do. To recap: Fix saving. Change the rooms. Add new areas, secrets, etc. And that's about it.

Again, don't expect it any time soon, but I'll be working on it on and off, and eventually I'll release it all as a single update to the mod, keeping in mind all the criticisms.

 

The simplest option is to clear a checkpoint's flag upon exiting that flag's room or when obtaining a life capsule in that same room. That way you might only need four checkpoint flags at most in the entire game and all checkpoints can then be re-used. Apart from that checkpoint/healing array in the moonlit castle you would only need one flag for every checkpoint in the entire game. Hell, just about every checkpoint event in the entire game can be condensed down to a single event in Head.tsc. All the event has to do is FLJ to an empty event if the common checkpoint flag is set, or set the flag and save if it is unset. Simple.

If you don't want to risk people to abusing the same checkpoint over and over by going to the next map and back again then instead clear the common checkpoint flag upon entering a checkpoint room rather than on exit. The checkpoint/healing array in the moonlit castle should in this case clear the common checkpoint flag on entry as well as all related checkpoint flags on exit.

I mean I'd imagine that reworking the checkpoint system to such a degree might be quite time consuming, but it would save bucketloads of time in the long term and would ensure a measure of consistency with saving.