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Zep's Dreamland Complete! |
paranoima
Member #1,380
June 2001
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I've attached a (poor quality) jpeg that shows some of the stuff I'm talking about in this post. I've been working on lvl 40 now for the better part of my weekend (and a little into my monday ). I know LoomSoft said the level is beatable, but my feeble brain can not see the solution. As you may or may not make out in my crude drawings, I've tried several ways to complete the bridge needed to reach the teleport marked #1 in my picture. However the crucial piece to complete this bridge, requires you to place zep on the red 'no up' build block and build a <--> block. By doing this you become trapped in the right side of the maze/puzzle with no way to get out. Also, assuming there is some way to get to teleport 1, I don't see a way to get to teleport 2. If you start a teleport 2 and work your way backwards, you hit an impassable barrier, that I marked with light blue circle. I don't suppose LoomSoft would be willing to give us a hint as to how we could finish that bridge or if that is in fact what we are supposed to do. Other than being stuck on this level for 3 days, I've really enjoyed the game. |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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Hold on a second there paranoima. I think something may actually be messed up with my level... What makes me think of this is the little circled area in the middle where the two tunnels meet. That should definitely not be there, unless there's something weird I'm missing in my own level. I've tried looking back to older versions and backups of my levels, but since 40 was the last one I made, I don't have many backups of it. One of the older versions only works with an older version of the game that I'm going to have to dig up somewhere. I want to compare the older versioned one to the distro'ed one. Something is definitely wrong here. I know when I saved the level originally, it was beatable. This version may actually not be beatable, which is strange. I remember double playing level 40 just to make sure it worked. I'll get back to you guys on this one. Take a break from level 40. If you want to see the ending, just edit it so it's easy to beat. :-D Hehe. I'll see what I can come up with. And I'm deeply sorry for saying it WAS beatable if in fact it is not. I'm hoping it was just a glitch with my saving system that somehow corrupted the level when I was changing/adding different info to the level structure. [EDIT] I hope to have it up by sometime tonight. If not, tomorrow morning or afternoon. Sorry about there being an unbeatable level. I don't know how that happened! --- |
ImLeftFooted
Member #3,935
October 2003
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hahahha, nice ending EDIT: now iget y the credits level was so simple |
Carrus85
Member #2,633
August 2002
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Just write a recursive level-checking algorythm... (Make sure it is designed to give you how to complete the level). That way you can ensure that it doesn't happen again.
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Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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Something that would be cool and useful would be a script that goes through the level making sure it's beatable... and telling you the minimum steps, blocks, etc. Would be nice to see how close you were to a perfect score. [Level 38 now BTW] [edit] "He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe" |
Carrus85
Member #2,633
August 2002
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Woohoo! I beat you to an idea! HEHEHEHEHE!!!!! It wouldn't be that hard, it would just be a very complicated implementation of A*, right? You could integrate it into both the editor and the game to either validate the level, or tell you the best score possible on that level. You could even do some timing/tweaking to get some sort of best time possible on level value. (or what some games refer to as "Par Time") I personally think this would be a good move for the game. Using this, you could potentially implement high-score tables and such for the levels. Edit... Wow, yet another strange idea... you could generate completely random levels (literally, the script just randomly assigns whatever tiles to where-ever places, randomly) and have the script validate it... Just have it do that over and over and over again, until it finds a valid level. Save that level, and repeat. There you go! Instant level generator! Edit2: The only problem with this is that the iterations required to get a level generator would be huge. But hey, if your computer isn't doing anything better, why not? Just let it work on something/chew on something in it's free time. You could then release the output as the "computer generated random level" mapset.
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Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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That's a good idea to make level generation random, and automatic, but that could obviously lead to stupid levels where the exit teleport is one tile next to Zep. Also, making an algorithm that checks if levels are beatable is, in itself, a good idea. It would be hard to implement as there's so many options on how to build things. It would eat up too much ram. Also, to use it to check for the BEST solution would be kind of insane. I would literally have to run it about a million times, simply because there are a million different ways to beat a level. Zep could simply keep on creating/destroying one block in a single spot and then simply go to the end. It would be hard to make a level checker that does that As for the game itself, I've updated it to version 1.01. You can now redownload a whole new archive, or patch it yourself using the alternate download. It contains a new beatable version of level 40, as well as addresses all of the bugs found here in this thread. Enjoy! --- |
Carrus85
Member #2,633
August 2002
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While the argument about the creating/destroying blocks is true, you could implement some form of redunancy checking in your A* algo, to help reduce the number of iterations. Such as Zep Building a block, and then immediately destroying it afterword, would be redundant (and pointless at the same time.) As would be creating two of the same blocks and destroying them (two <-|-> blocks right next to each other, and erasing them.) It would take a while to remove all of the redundant moves from the script. However, it is definately possible to do.
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Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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What about creating a block and coming back to it later in order to destroy it? It just seems like A* would be good for getting around little bumps in the way, but when teleporting and backtracking as well as paths that lead in one direction but not the other is introduced; it becomes a lot more complicated. I don't think my programming skills are that proficient to tackle something so adanced. It would be nice, though. --- |
Paul Pridham
Member #250
April 2000
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You could script the testing of each level using replays. If a replay macro failed to complete, then there was an error in the level. You'd know where it happened too, since you can keep track of how far the replay got. ---- |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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Apparantly now the tutorials are completely broken. I'm going to fix it up quickly. [Edit] --- |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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What I find funny, is I never got past the last level in the demo -- |
Steve Terry
Member #1,989
March 2002
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Ultio you are a very very evil man... I'm on level 22? but can't get past it because it's the level where you have to break your way out of two sets of prebuilt blocks. You know the level where you have to remove all the blocks on both sides of the level to get to the portal. Still I think it's brilliant in some of the ways you have to beat a level though, pretty tricky. ___________________________________ |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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Thomas, yes level 10 is a difficult one. Sometimes I wonder how I made the levels so hard at all! Steve, Yes, that's one of the more annoying levels. I didn't want to put in too many of those, because eventually it becomes a trial and error game, and most players have told me: if the rest of the levels are like 22, you suck. And it's true. That's the only level like that. I just had to do it, though. Enjoy. It's not super difficult. So, who else wants to be evil and make some levels? ;-D Has anyone tried the editor? Comments? --- |
Inphernic
Member #1,111
March 2001
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A test play function in the editor would be nice. edit: More teleports. edit2: Nm, for some reason setting teleports just didn't work for a while. edit3: Moving a block of stuff around in the map would be nice. edit4: Setting up a teleport at some locations is impossible, even though there seems to be nothing blocking. Usually setting it to an adjacent location works, but.. edit5: Seemingly transparent "blocks" picked from the palette are actually treated as blocks in game. It would be more convenient to accept these as the "Del" tool as well. -- |
Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Ultio: Untill I get around to do "The Great HardDrive Swap" of 2003/2004 I don't have anywhere to put windows, so a linux version would rule , but even If I had windows, a linux version would still rule (I hate rebooting, I usually have things running that I want to keep running ) -- |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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Quote: edit4: Setting up a teleport at some locations is impossible, even though there seems to be nothing blocking. Usually setting it to an adjacent location works, but.. Sure you don't have any invisible blocked tiles anywhere? --- |
Inphernic
Member #1,111
March 2001
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That might just be it, and that I really don't like either (the invisible blocks). -- |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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Could make for interesting levels if the person sees fit. You can turn on the lettering for the block types to see what blocks are where. --- |
Inphernic
Member #1,111
March 2001
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Does not make for interesting levels if it's not intentional. I said: Seemingly transparent "blocks" picked from the palette are actually treated as blocks in game. It would be more convenient to accept these as the "Del" tool as well. Now I've spent the last 15 minutes deleting unintentional invisible blocks from this one level, retrying, deleting again, retrying.. -- |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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You don't need to test the level. There's a key you can press to turn on lettering for each tile in the map (in the editor) that will show BT, TT, or nothing in the upper left hand of the tile signifying Blocked Tile, Trans Tile, and nothing, repsectively. --- |
Steve Terry
Member #1,989
March 2002
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heh I did get through one tower of blocks, made it to the other side, went the wrong way, got stuck ... DOH!!! Restarted and now can't figure out what I did to get past the first set ___________________________________ |
Ultio
Member #1,336
April 2001
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What a pain in the butt, huh? I intentionally did that. --- |
Steve Terry
Member #1,989
March 2002
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jo0 SuXX0rz!!! ___________________________________ |
Inphernic
Member #1,111
March 2001
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