Hammerkind (game: fight, build, climb) I need testers for offline 2player mode!

[Stephen]

No, my website is still up, as far as I can see.

[Krakash]

Just wanted to say this is awesome and so are you. Can't wait for it's release, but will you use chiptune (idk the correct term) versions of music like in the trailer?

[Stephen]

It's MIDI music, and yes, every song is a MIDI remix of homestuck songs, done by me. Except the menu music.

The main game's theme, Stairs to Skaia, is a combination of Skies of Skaia and Upward Movement. There are also versions of Explore, Beatdown, Guardian (which isn't actually in Homestuck anymore), and Chorale for Jaspers. Not all of them are very good, but I'm quite proud of a few. Plus, it's just really fun to write music with MIDI.

The sound and art are both at a "the best I can do with the time I have" level. I think they turned out pretty well, but neither is my strong suit, especially with the bits I did two years ago. I've gone back and fixed up a lot of things that have been bugging me, but it would certainly look and sound much nicer if I were to collaborate with an artist and musician. I haven't, though, because I'm trying to do this as streamlined as possible as I try to cram in all the features I want before release. Sometimes, it's just more efficient to work solo.

[Blaperile]

Lol, now the site is working again for me. Never mind then. And those remixes you mentioned get me interested even more then I already was. xD

[Stephen]

Oh, by the way, it's time to announce the release date.

It's this Saturday.

Today I am leaving my current living situation, which complicates things. I was really trying to have Hammerkind done and out there before this had to happen, but it just didn't end up working out that way. But luckily, with a few extra all-nighters, I have it feature-complete. This is incredible for me, since I've been working on this so much this year, and I plan on celebrating as I travel. I'm giving the testers and myself a few extra days to polish things up. I may be orchestrating the release from a train station or a hostel somewhere instead of my nice table here, but no matter what, it'll be incredible!

I'm really proud of what I've made here, and I can't wait for people to play it.

[Frost]

Just so you know: unless you count Accelerate (which was more of a toy than a game, albeit a very impressive toy), I'm pretty certain this will be the first finished Homestuck fangame. Congratulations.

[Blaperile]

This Saturday?! @_@

Now I want it even more that it's weekend already. :c

[Avi]

(There's a music request thread in case you didn't know)

[Stephen]

(There's a music request thread in case you didn't know)

Aw, but I think MIDI is really cool! If you really can't stand the sound of it, though, you can turn off music in the options and listen to Homestuck music while you play.

I was pretty dedicated to not relying on any sort of collaboration for this. I think if I ever get a chance to do a Deluxe edition of this or something, I'll try to work with a real artist and musician to make it extra-pretty. But this has been an intensely-concentrated development process, and I'm not sure I could have got through it any other way.

Man, it feels so good to talk about this in the past-tense. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I can see the edge and it feels excellent to have come such a long way!

[Krakash]

And I can't wait to play it either.

I tried to make a platformer in Game Maker, but it was way too fiddily. Were you just coding or using a program?

[Stephen]

Just so you know: unless you count Accelerate (which was more of a toy than a game, albeit a very impressive toy), I'm pretty certain this will be the first finished Homestuck fangame. Congratulations.

Oh, I definitely count Accelerate. Accelerate is crazy cool!

And I can't wait to play it either.

I tried to make a platformer in Game Maker, but it was way too fiddily. Were you just coding or using a program?

This is what the guts of Hammerkind look like, if you want a sample:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

All programmers feel free to turn in disgust now. THIS is what happens if you don't write reusable code, attempt to match the awful coding style of yourself two years ago, code while usually hypercaffinated buzzed sleep-deprived or some combination of the three, and then toss it all into a program that tries to make you scatter your pseudo-code everywhere you can't find it again.

It makes programming an adventure! The fun kind, too.

[Varkarrus]

I use a complete mix of drag and drop and code.

That wouldn't stop me from selling my 2 front teeth just to look around inside your code, I could totally learn something

show spoiler

hide spoiler

woah I nearly spelled learn "lurn"

[Weeaboo]

and the ending will be witty, yes?

[Stephen]

The ending will be... silly. I can promise silly.

[Weeaboo]

i'll take silly any day.

[NachoGrande96]

Wow. I remember back when this project had originally started, and how I played 1.1 all the way to the end on all difficulties (except Stupid mode). I can't believe the final product is coming out in only a few more days.

Holy crap, I am so -EXCIT------ED right now!

[TheMagus]

this'll be fun~

[Krakash]

What is that obj_chap item? :P

Anyway, do you know any fixes for something like the characters getting "stuck" on platforms? I have collision masks fixed, I am not sure what else it could be.

[Stephen]

obj_chap is one of the many things in the realm of "secrets."

As far as a programming question, I'm the wrong person to ask -- I don't really know what I'm doing, so most of my "solutions" are hacky and inefficient.
But one thing you might want to add to your platforming code is to not allow the jumping character to "land" while their vertical speed is still negative. This probably won't solve whatever problem you have, but it might make it easier to find and fix.

[Varkarrus]

My solutions are the same!
Like that one time I made jump-through floors by just making them have no sprite to collide with whenever the players.y was higher than it, which also caused enemies to fall through floors to pursue you which was awesome.

[Blaperile]

I can't wait for the release tomorrow!

I'm sure it will be great.

[Stephen]

Man oh man, it's tomorrow!

I had rather ambitious plans for context-sensitive pesterchum-themed tutorial pop-ups, but I don't think I can finish that in time anymore. I think I might have to cut that, and just try to improve the intro text. OH WELL. Maybe in an update after release.

[SenorEverClever]

STOP THE PRESSES!
Well, it's not really that urgent, but just make sure you change the 'incinisphere' tyops to 'incipisphere' before you release.

[Anonymoose]

OH SNAP 2 HOURS

OH GOGDAYUM

(alsoiassumeitwillbecomeliveatmidnightcomeONyouveg ottobeSHITTONGme)

[Stephen]

Nope, probably more like noon. Sorry!