Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 4, 2015 9:46:55 GMT -8
I have really mixed feelings about this one. All these giant rocks completely obliterate the "standard" feel to the level. Disrupted plateau lines, 9-16 tiles disappearing in thin air, a creek glitching through the land and rocks ... it looks as if a toddler modified a level without putting much thought into it.
What's the reason for such decision? Is it just because of a title of a standard level? I guess it would look way better if you redesigned it a little bit instead of forcibly mashing Giant Rocks everywhere. It'd be fine if it was just another Custom Level. But it's a part of a new campaign, shouldn't it require a little bit more work than this then? At least aesthetics-wise.
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 30, 2015 1:35:53 GMT -8
And yes, I know that you're saying that it doesn't require THAT much reflexes... but that's like saying that if a bodybuilder can lift half a ton just fine, then a senile old grandpa can do that just fine too. People have different reaction times, is what I'm saying. That analogy assured me you do not understand at all and have not even a mere idea of what I was trying to convey here. But since you like analogies so much: that half-a-ton weight is actually just few kilograms instead. But the elderly will not even try to lift a thing, convinced it's simply too heavy for him. I'm tired of fighting because I see there's no point in doing so. I'll only add one more thing: there have been designers that use checkpoint plates to restrict movement of Gruntz with some particular tool. These are typically not supposed to be raised at all. It's designers that make the rules. Not the players. I don't like the idea of a quote-unquote council starting to form here deciding what rules levels are supposed to follow. The only rule that should apply to all the levels, the past and the future ones, is common sense. Period. @ Wedrikul, don't worry about that rant. Keep the levels coming and design them just the way you like it. Cheers
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 29, 2015 5:06:40 GMT -8
Yes, "Medium" for those who are super attentive, are excellent at multitasking, can respond lightning fast to everything, never come across situations where an unexpected projectile comes from outside the screen, and have excellent anger/annoyance management... "Hard" for everyone else. Was that elaborate and sarcastic comment really needed? I've already told you that not getting hit does not require any dexterity at all. No dexterity, no attentiveness and no multitasking whatsoever. Only thinking and a mere desire of completing the level. Just like in every other Gruntz level. You won't make me believe that placing two Gruntz in two particular spots on the map requires excellent and supernatural skills. Just admit that you're not able to complete the level because of something. Don't make a judgement on behalf of everyone else. Either way, even if one were to forgive the abundance of ranged enemies, I still think that not being safe even on checkpoints is just bad level design. Again - that's only your opinion. Checkpoints are just like any other tile in the game. And saying the level is badly designed is a heavy accusation. To me, level is badly designed when it's not possible to complete it with (or without) PERFECT score, thus making it unplayable.
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Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 28, 2015 12:27:25 GMT -8
I have no idea why this CL was marked with Hard difficulty. It's Medium, tops. The difficulty of the puzzles is not high enough for it to be marked Hard.
@Zu, there are always easy ways to avoid getting hit by the ranged enemies. The Gunhat Grunt at the beginning is only a mild inconvenience. Since he's shooting at you when you step on the Green Hold Switch, just drain his stamina first by stepping on it and quickly retreating. You'll have plenty of time to move the second Grunt past the pyramids then without being shot at. And the Rock & Welder duo is easy once they both attack only one of your Gruntz. The enemies shoot at the Gruntz being the closest. Use that to your advantage.
I feel like it's too easy for some people to blame the level for being too frustrating instead of simply trying to figure out the way to make things easier. And the Hard difficulty is just misleading and unfair.
I vote for the medium difficulty.
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 27, 2015 10:32:18 GMT -8
I've watched few videos of yours in the past and I didn't really enjoy it content-wise. Other than that, the videos are just fine. I'm looking forward for the first part of the series as I'm quite interested in what the reinstallment of the series will look like compared to the videos released thus far. I will put humor into the let's play. What was lacking in my old let's plays was humor. Most of the humor in this new let's play series will be dialog added to both my grunts and the enemy grunts. I know there is already voice assigned from them, but I'm gonna disable the game voices and add dialog of my own. Hopefully that will make the let's play more fun. Humor - of course! But adding your own dialogs to Gruntz is some risky business. It can easily ruin the experience of watching the video if not done properly. I'd highly recommend holding it up until later maybe. But I have a question, what's the best way to make the let's play enjoyable for people who aren't familiar with Gruntz? Here's the thing: it doesn't really matter if the viewers are familiar with Gruntz or not. If the videos are enjoyable, both will watch and enjoy it equally. Sure, the game is important, but it's the content that really matters. And that's a really broad term including but not limited to the game itself. The most important is the commentary and the personality of the video maker. Trying to force the humor is not always that successful as you might think. It can even drive people away. Try to keep it natural. Once you think of something - just say it out loud. If you think that you shouldn't say something - tell the viewers you thought of something you shouldn't say. Whatever. Keep the bond, just like as if you were talking with a real human, face to face. This is my piece of advice. Cheers
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 25, 2015 11:04:42 GMT -8
The Springz were meant to be used to attract the enemy bare-handed Smart Chaser, but when I played the level I realized I put several red brickz there that did just the same thing... and that makes it so you don't even need to bring a mobile toy up there, either. Argh, of course! So it turns out I could easily complete the level in my second attempt, where I had problems luring the enemy bare handed Grunt without a mobile toy. I completely forgot that the bricks could be broken to reveal a loop instead of a dead end. Gauntletz Grunt would lose the Gauntletz, lure the Smart Chaser onto the switch, get the Springz and leave. Golly, that sure would have saved me some time I had wasted for my third attempt. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the level. A little bit frustrated at the end, but only my careless playthrough is to blame here. It wouldn't have happened if I had looked a little bit overhead. Thanks Gui
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 25, 2015 2:43:27 GMT -8
Oh boy had I trouble figuring out which Grunt goes where.
My first attempt was a complete failure, since when I was about to bring the Warpstone piece to the King, I realized there was a hole beneath the item ... and I used Shovel to wreak havoc in all the puzzles on the island. How considerate!
My second attempt was less of a failure, but still. I wondered how I was supposed to get past the defender Gauntletz Grunt to the south. I then noticed my Gauntletz Grunt could easily kill the Club Grunt without using a mobile toy, so I used it to remove the enemy Gauntletz Grunt - that way I had enough space to escape the Rolling Ball. But then I realized I needed a mobile toy to lure the enemy bare handed onto the Green Hold Switch. So ... I gave one of the Gruntz to the south Springz, so that he could join the two and press the Green Switch. All until the end, when I realized I was short by one Grunt to stand on a Purple Switch.
But the third attempt was a successful one. Got PERFECT.
Eventually I took the defender Gruntz with my Sword Grunt with and old hit & run technique and refilled the health with a handy keg back in the base. But could also use that Super Speed powerup at the beginning, would be a tad easier (it does work, I tested it out). It's also possible to sneak past the Rolling Ball without even attacking the enemies with the Spy Grunt, but it requires some timing to get it done. So yeah, there is plenty of solutions there.
@SwordGrunt, you mentioned that the enemy Boxing Glovez Grunt to the north was a hint to use the Gravity Bootz Grunt there. However it's not that hard to solve the mini puzzle with any other Grunt - you just have to stand on the second crumble bridge behind and wait till it's nearly destroyed. Only then when you approach the enemy you won't be knocked back to your doom, because the tile will already be gone and you can safely step aside after being attacked. So Gravity Bootz Grunt could stay on the Purple Switch and the player could still complete the level.
@SwordGrunt, what was intended use for the Spring and the powerups? Eventually I wound up not using them at all.
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 15, 2015 8:50:33 GMT -8
The second attempt was fortunately a successful one 27 minutes. Could be less, but I goofed in one part and had to go back. Other than that - my OCD feels fulfilled Anyone up for a challenge of beating the time? Thanks for the "special" level, powerfulmind Though if you want some inspiration for some frustrating levels, have a look at the "Zone" series by ILoveGruntz Or WarpstoneDust, this one's by me (and guess what, it's one of my "firsts", full of tight-timing rigamarole! It's what people love I heard. No? ). Attachment Deleted
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 15, 2015 1:04:09 GMT -8
Yup, the link's still dead. My thoughts: there are few fine puzzles that require some thinking, but other than that, there are too many tight-timing and endurance-related puzzles (that's right, it had to be stated one more time, sorry powerfulmind ). Haha, I wasn't very happy, when I had to pass the water bridge maze three times (can't remember, whether the third time was due to my mistake later on; nonetheless I couldn't call it entertaining). I also don't like levels that utilize the old dig-an-empty-hole-twice gimmick. It makes you then waste time on restlessly digging up all holes in the map effectively wasting time just to get some coins. My first try wasn't so successful, I completed the level but missed warp letters A, R and P (and 3 coins, bundled with the A letter). I had to later look it up in the editor to find out how to get these. I know, I know, WARP letters are supposed to be secret by definition; but come on! The R letter was just too hard to get, even for the secret! Knowing the way to get the letter, I would see it more as an Easter egg than a required collectible (I'm talking about that one single map tile, triggered by the Secret Switch. No hints whatsoever and long initial delay make it, like, really hard to notice). And the P letter ... Really? I guess I can't complain about the A letter that much, I could get it after all. @ Zazor5000, did you get the PERFECT score without looking for help? If so, I'm impressed I'll try to repeat the level to get the PERFECT score, but the thought of passing that water bridge maze yet again makes me feel funny PS. I've just noticed that's your first map. When I think of how tight-timing and frustrating my first maps were, I suddenly grow less frustrated by your CL Just keep 'em coming! Cheers!
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 14, 2015 5:51:34 GMT -8
The way I got rid of the green ToobGrunt was to lure him to the golf ball geysers. Well, the first time wasn't so successful, because ... the enemy wound up near the W letter Had no idea the Secret Teleporter Trigger was there. I think I stuttered 5 'what's and 'but's in quick succession there But I was having real hard time getting these two coins at the end. I spent almost 10 minutes staring at the yellow ToobGrunt to move, so that I could squash him with the rolling ball. Obviously he refused to cooperate, he must have grasped I was about to kill him Only then I realized he wasn't moving, because I was in his seeing range. Had to move towards the bridge for him to start twitching back and forth again.
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 14, 2015 5:04:03 GMT -8
Well, I don't quite understand this level. To say at least. Here are my comments on the level (the spoiler tag doesn't seem to work, for some strange reason, so watch it): - First and foremost, seems like the purple switches completely lost their purpose. I've successfully achieved PERFECT score without even having to care about them. I've pressed the first few intuitively, but then noted, that the Warpstone piece is inside the section with the Fortress and purple pyramids. What's the point for the switches then? Who was I supposed to let "in"? In the end I just picked up all the coins and brought the Warpstone piece back to the King.
- I didn't have to use Wings and Gun Hat (perhaps because of the lack of need of pressing the purple switches. I didn't have to access the two blue wormholes at the bottom of the map to the sides. Or were they designed for other purpose?).
- The part with the Secret Switch is the most surprising for me. I was startled by the black bricks slowly appearing and eventually blocking the coins and the path. I didn't really understand their purpose - perhaps I had to pick up the coins quickly enough. And I did. But that was my second idea. My initial thought was to bring the Timebomb Grunt there and simply wreak havoc, clearing the path. How bewildered was I to watch my game slowly fade into the oblivion when I had tried to break these bricks They didn't have any logic applied, so the game simply crashed. Did that mean, that the player was somehow not supposed to get access to that area with the Timebomb Grunt? Or was it just overlooked?
I'm really surprised I'm the only one, who noticed these problems.
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 22, 2013 4:14:01 GMT -8
Yes, I worked with computers from August, 1964 through May, 2000. Those years of experience taught me that 80% (minimum) of the effort of a computer program in business was spent in maintenance ... at most 20% in the initial creation of a program. ... unless a program requres no maintenance at all in which case the creation process part raises roughly to 100% To me, all of those <span> (etc.) things just obfuscate what is truly important. That is true. I'll tell you what: CSS is a funky language which makes it possible to change the behavior of all of the tags a page consists of. You can make <b> tags make letters italic, <i> tags can make text red etc. in which case the semantic meaning of those tags becomes unclear. But HTML introduced a variety of tags for a reason. <span> tags for one don't do anything by themselves and they just separate parts of text in a document in a more of a semantic way. But since everything can have some CSS styles applied, so can <span>s. My rant on Microsoft: they don't seem to be able to write truly re-entrant code, so new copies of code are frequently inserted each time a certain type of call is made. My first personal computer was an Amiga, and I wrote a program for a local business that was 22KB in size, with incredible flexibility for the owner (printing medical test-tube labels) ... one program (at $300.00) replaced well over a dozen programs (at $50.00 or more each). Each new customer previously meant a new program had to be written ... now one did everything he ever asked for ... for years. Microsoft put Amiga out of business, and he wanted the same program to run on an Intel machine. So I ported it ... at over 3MB! Pragmas did not recognize that a certain module was already in the program, so it simply would include another one. Wasteful! Draw a line was one module; draw a square was a module that called the line module ... repeatedly. Want to have a computer for the trip to Mars? Don't have Microsoft involved in the preparation ... we couldn't generate a powerful enough lift module. I see where you're going with this. In my opinion keeping the size of a program as small as possible is ... possible. What makes a program way larger than needed is the inclusion of libraries that reside on your PC, let it be the graphic, math library of other APIs (like WinAPI). Of course you can strip down and remove all of these libraries and it will work on your machine just fine. But then it will lack portability and the machines which lack these libraries will not be able to run an app at all. The other problem being all of these modules are simply too large - drawing a single line with DirectX requires the inclusion of all graphical function which take some space obviously. I believe that all of those "set-up" instructions may be created once, and stored in a central place. Then a simple one line call would invoke all 90 lines in your set-up, right? That would not give me any problem ... except to learn CSS ... and at my age, learning is NOT a high priority item. (I even regret the 15 minutes a day I have to spend with the razor ... time I would rather spend on other things. ... like Gruntz.) Now I see what you meant exactly. And I completely misunderstood the reason for your dis gruntlement. Of course the "set-up" code will be placed in a separate file eventually. Then every web page will link to that file (a "stylesheet" to be more precise) with a single line of code. It's just easier for me to do everything in one file for design purposes. Hell, I have a project with 640 lines of this CSS "setup-code" and 1670 lines of JavaScript code - all in one file alongside HTML code. That's because at the end I'd have to separate, minify and obfuscate the scripts anyways. Also it's way easier to find something in a one file with CTRL+F and bookmarks than flick through 5 different files only to find the one which I want to modify and upload that specific file to a server. It's definitely not worth it, not at this stage of development. Should you learn CSS? Well ... it's one of those languages which can't be learnt from a textbook or any official language specifications either. Different browsers interpret CSS differently and skip some of the official implementations in favor of some new, sometimes fancy additions. The language itself also has some troublesome quirks which seem contradictory at first. But some general knowledge on how things work is never a bad thing.
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Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 21, 2013 13:26:50 GMT -8
BTW, I just attempted to remove the over and under "Cheat Code" heading, and was initially successful with Toyz (width=15%) ... but the same value did absolutely nothing when I made the same change in Toolz! I gave up when I reached 24% and it still was over and under instead of side-by-side. I will try again, removing the multiple tablez, and replace headingz with colspan=3 to see if the first heading definition can be made to work for both Toolz and Toyz. Frankly I don't really know what are you talking about. Are you talking about your page or mine? What over and under? What side-by-side? What width=15%? P.S. Not counting the first 4 lines, there were 90 linez of set-up code before the first actual display text appeared ... which were 72 linez. That is a LOT of overhead to create the effect. Just another example of Microsoft dictating to the world, increasing the size of everything. Bill Gates: "You will never need more than 640K of memory" ... NOT!!! Just what is the benefit of <strong><span...>...</span></strong> over <b>...</b> anyway? I suppose that is a comment to my version of a webpage. I can easily give you a bullet point list contradicting your opinion. 1. 90 lines of "preparation". It's a lot to you, right? Let's see: It's about 1814 characters which hardly reaches 2 kilobytes of data (assuming 1-byte encoding) . For comparison: a background image to this very forum board (at the time of writing it's the Yellow Peril custom level) is 4 megabytes large, which is just 2048 times larger than this "overhead" ... Now that's an insane (euphemism) idea to me. Is it even worth it? Don't think so. That'd be a problem back in 90's. You know ... My point is it's been quite a while ago. 2. Microsoft sure is the company which I'd send a hate letter or two, but ... what the hell does it have to do with what we're talking about right now? Give me at least one reason. Did it invent CSS? HTML? Maybe WWW? 3. <strong>? <span>? <b>? Choose anything you want. Does anyone forbid you? I feel like you're trying to make a policy for selecting the only righteous tags out there. There is none. Do you like <strong> tags? Use these. If you're dreaming of them in your darkest nightmares, use <b> tags instead. What is exactly the problem? 4. So you're complaining about the "70 line overhead" ... Fine, you can do everything inline. All of the declarations out there. That'd mean all of that code would have to be written as arguments in tags. Just like you've been doing. For instance: <table style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: white;"></table> It looks less appealing than simple <table></table> declaration, doesn't it? It also separates the styling details from the semantic meaning of the content. Anywhere you'd type <table></table>, a beautiful table pops up. You don't have to worry about anything else. Just the content of the table. It's a win-win to me. Some people just never heard the phrase "keep it simple, stupid" ... and blow everything all out of proportion. OK, that might actually fit Microsoft rather nicely. But what you're missing here is the scale and nothing else. Comparing a dust speck to an elephant in terms of simplicity doesn't make things any easier. Don't get me wrong, I just want to clear things up. Sadly for me, I feel like if I was trying to convert you to my religion ... which is surprising, considering you had been working with computers professionally, right?
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Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 21, 2013 3:18:43 GMT -8
Here's something I've just put together, for comparison: My version of GLE Index page The original GLE Index pageOne thing to note though: I'm not a designer. I can be given remarks or instructions on how a page should look like and I'd modify it accordingly. Though my own attempts at designing a web page usually don't wind up anywhere close to being pretty. Ergo - I'm waiting for feedback lads.
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Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 13, 2013 9:25:02 GMT -8
Alright! So can someone put together a single page (letter size would be nice ... printable) as an example, based upon the existing Index? I tried very hard to make the manual printer-friendly, so that people could print out the subject that particularly gave them trouble ... or simply interested them. At one time, I even considered breaking the Index, itself, up into individual pagez ... but there were so few people who even indicated they ever used it, I thought I would only be doing it for myself. Apathy is the natural state of humanity: "Johnny was fifteen years old before he spoke his first words 'the toast is burnt'. His parents were aghast! Johnny, we didn't know you could talk! Well, up til now, everything has been fine." We seldom remark about things that are satisfactory, but pipe up real quick when something goes wrong. So the drawbacks, shortcomings are a direct result of lack of feed-back. I asked for people to provide information about the GLE on-line project, and didn't get even a dozen responses. So what exists is entirely the result of my own poor efforts ... and lack of training in Hyper Text Mark-up Language. All I see elsewhere is acres of HTML set-up code that thoroughly obscure the information being presented, when you look at the raw code. So I use simple tables. All of those <span...> and </span> entries look like cr*p, when <b>cr*p</b> is so much more readable. It's so true. I know from my experience how irritating a lack of any feedback is. But to justify myself - I always comment on something I like in particular. Alright, maybe I haven't really explicitly expressed my joy of using the forum itself, but you can't expect everyone to comment on your project either. It'd be mad, however satisfactory for the author himself! Actual printing of the page is something I haven't really taken into account. I had no idea the lack of formatting is related to it either ( I'm pretty sure that as the time flies less and less people are printing anything from the Internet. I mean web pages directly. But maybe I'm wrong ). However - CSS allows to specify rules which will be only applied for printing. So you can define i.e. two sets of rules: one for viewing the page in a browser and the other for printing it. Hell, you can even use custom fonts Imagine: seeing a website with Gruntzy Turkey Sandwich font! I wonder if it's copyrighted. If it is, where's a copyright note of it? Anyone? I know CSS quite well so I can try to make a page demo. Don't expect it any time soon though, I have some things on my head right now too. Cheers
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 13, 2013 4:54:36 GMT -8
I see it all boils down to adding new images to you, right? Look, images are always welcome to every page, but the most important thing is the "wrapper" for all of this. Imagine this forum for instance with white background instead of Gruntz screenshots, forum posts and threads with no colorful gradients and plain not-so-fancy colors, no variety at all. That's what the "wrapper" for the content is for. You can easily see the divisions in the content, you can quickly tell one subject from another. And it's simply nice to look at. I'm ok with it, you're just supposed to ctrl+f what you need An index is just that ... an index to related topics. There may not be anything fancy in the index, but to click on a link bringz lots of imagez ... and color to the page displayed. Oh, so just because it's an index for things it's got to look like a page from a mathematical textbook for students? I think you missed one thing: it's still a website and the fact it's using images and links doesn't mean it's using its full potential. It doesn't mean it's vintage either. Adding some layout to a page is never a bad thing. Is it an index? Fine, have nothing against it. But someone could simply pay attention to it to look at least half-decent. The biggest number next to "Windows" is, the more people will be forced to use it. Me included.
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 12, 2013 11:25:24 GMT -8
I was fiddling around with Gruntz Level Editor the other day and wanted to look something up in the GLE Help Files. Unfortunately I was working on Windows 7 where the format of the provided help files was long deprecated - I wasn't able to open it without help of additional tools which had always been a hassle to install and use. So I went ahead and looked up the Forum version. I can't remember when was the last time I took a look there, it must have been few years at least. But I'll tell you what: the index looks very rough! Everything's white and black with default browser coloring. It really could use some styling with CSS. It would increase both visual appeal *and* readability. It's really worth at least a try. What do you think guys?
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 1, 2013 22:50:36 GMT -8
I know! Replace "Hard" difficulty with: "Hard ... to say!" difficulty That should resolve all the doubts.
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Post by Tomalla on Oct 1, 2013 12:53:42 GMT -8
Ooupsies? I also would change the difficulty from "Hard" to "Medium", maybe but not necessarily to "Medium-Hard" if people start complaning Oh and list all of the glitches you need to know about to complete the level That'd be really handy
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Post by Tomalla on Sept 19, 2013 7:42:29 GMT -8
I must have overlooked that conversation, weird. Either way, sign me up! I'm afraid though that I won't be much of an opponent, more like a dummy for a training course reinerrubin, where do you come from? We could always start up a voice chat during a game. That'd be exciting! Cheers
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