Gentrieve 2 is a "Metroid"-style 3D action game featuring completely random & customizable worlds. The year is 3080. Mass Generators are creating everything, everywhere. However, thieves often steal Mass Generators in hopes of creating robot armies & fortresses. Thieves are terrible programmers, though, and their creations become uncontrollably hostile & fortresses wildly convoluted. It is your job to clear out these fortresses & return the faulty Mass Generators. Be warned, when the Mass Generator is taken offline, the fortress will soon implode!
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| v1.8 Incoming! | Locked | |
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| Nov 13 2012 Anchor | ||
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Hey all, Thanks to your continued feedback, another very important Gentrieve 2 update is available. I finally found out the root cause of a nasty bug that made some worlds unbeatable: some rooms were being assigned too many doors in a rare circumstance, causing a required path to not be generated. I’ve also made some tweaks along with this fix to hopefully further balance the game, including making health upgrades easier to find & making limbs (particularly boss limbs) easier to destroy (which will also disable the weapons on that limb). You may also notice the maps to be more “hubby”, hehe — that is, more hubs and less linear paths. Complete changes:
- Phr00t This should be available on Desura in the next day or two (when Desura approves it!) |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Sounds like good changes I had a thought on secret doors actually. You could make some doors still require special weapons to open but have any weapon reveal the door so you can then see what colour is needed to open it. BIG problem with 1.8. It plays for about a minute then it locks up. I think there is an LWJGL error window popped up but its completely frozen, have to kill computer to exit, so no way to read it. Tried on two computers, same result. |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Can you try running the game in a window, instead of full screen -- then the error might be readable? EDIT: I played for awhile, defeated two bosses... no lockups. Is it happening on a certain map? I'll really need that error message... |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Windowed mode got me a visible popup almost instantly: Something broke! Please either take a screenshot of this, or paste this copied messageinto an e-mail before clicking OK. Edited by: DainStormcrow |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Ahhhhh, OK. I test without sound playing... I will get this fixed ASAP. |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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I don't know if its deliberate or not but 5rgyJHNsXR (all standard settings) - the first room has inescapable water if you fall into it. Is that supposed to happen? |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Yeah, inescapable falls are relatively common -- that is why I have the "rescue" key which takes some health. If you never fall off the normal "path", you should never have to use the rescue key, though. |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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Yeah, I ran into some before but it seemed a bit harsh to find one in the starting room |
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| Nov 14 2012 Anchor | ||
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There is always a health recharge station off of the starting room, so you can always heal any rescue costs... it will get the user familiar with the system, I suppose |
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| Nov 17 2012 Anchor | ||
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I like the idea about the hidden doors, having there possibly be some that are "special" doors, but are revealed with normal shots anyway (just not opened). It'd make it possible to hide sub-weapon upgrades in areas that you go through before actually getting that item. Anyway, as for the update, pretty good so far. The health problem is gone, which is a big help. Though, the game is currently giving me a bizarrely easy world this time around... hard to say if that's due to the vision range change, or just the RNG. As for the worldgen changes, hmm.... this new map actually seems LESS convoluted (and thus a bit more linear in terms of how the progression is working) than my previous ones. I'm getting quite a number of areas that, once beaten, I never have to return to; whereas the previous one had me running all over the place (which seems a bit better in a game like this). Or areas generating in long, er, strings. Like, say 3 regions in a row that you go through in that exact order, to reach the boss of the third one, at which point you just turn around and pass back through those rooms in a line, since there's nothing else connecting to any except the first one in the line. Hard to explain. Like, more "dead end" zones in general. I'd have to mess with it more to get a proper sense of it though, it's the only world I've generated so far with this patch. Have you considered adding options related to that sort of thing in the Custom Generator menu? That'd be even more customization for that; the player could choose a simpler layout type if they want, or they could make it be a really warped mess instead. Edited by: Misery55 |
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| Nov 17 2012 Anchor | ||
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Is the world easy because you have so much health or are you not taking as much damage (probably due to enemies not engaging you so much)? I made all of the hub rooms closer to the start, which I suppose this would have the side effect of making rooms farther away be more "dead ends".. I may try and find a more happy medium... My main development machine is giving me issues :-( Whenever I close my laptop lid, the system completely locks up (needs to be hard reset)... hopefully I'll get this figured out this weekend so I can get back to coding! Grrrrr! |
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| Nov 18 2012 Anchor | ||
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Lol, yeah, computer problems are a pain, aint they? I had to replace my own (expensive as heck) PC recently due to the hardware going nuts and failing. Buckets of laughs, that was. Anyway, as the difficulty goes, I'd need to have more time with it before I can really give proper feedback on that one; the game is definitely giving me a bunch of enemies that are just easier in general, like alot of the sort that just tries to crash into you, stuff like that. As opposed to the previous world where absolutely everything zoomed all over the place spraying missiles everywhere. Also keeps giving me super-easy bosses (except one) currently. I dont think it's a matter of too much health; even with the health pickups all in hidden rooms in my previous world, I still got what I think was nearly all of them, I believe I had some 12,000 health by the end. Unlike most Metroid-vania sorts of games, the challenge seemed to ratchet up nicely as I went along, so even at 10000+ health it was still possible to get wrecked by stuff. Definitely depends alot on the RNG though, as that's definitely not the case in my current one. Though, the health pickups almost seem to be coming faster than usual? Or maybe that's just my perception of it. Not sure what to say about the aggro distance yet. |
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| Nov 18 2012 Anchor | ||
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OK, let me know if you think anything needs more tweaks.. |
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| Nov 18 2012 Anchor | ||
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Ok, 1.8/1.9 seems much better. Balance is improved, there seems to be an extra save room in the first few rooms and limb blowing off is still rare but it does happen. I've also been through a couple of the "nightmare" rooms with mass numbers of robots and huge firepower and the change to vision range has made a real difference. Got it, this happens on clicking load saved game: Something broke! Thread: LWJGL Renderer Thread Please either take a screenshot of this, or paste this copied message into an e-mail before clicking OK. These popups in full screen mode are a bad idea though as they completly lock up the computer. You need to somehow close down the fullscreen then open the popup. Edited by: DainStormcrow |
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| Nov 18 2012 Anchor | ||
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Is that crash appearing immediately, or does it lag for a bit first? Does the crash happen only after many loads, or does it sometimes happen very soon? |
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| Nov 18 2012 Anchor | ||
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I'm not sure on immediately as in full screen all I get is a full lock. It certainly didn't take a long time. It has never happened on first load, other than that I'm not sure how consistent the interval is. I just tried about 7 times loading game, jumping through door, loading again - no crashes. Maybe it only happens after dying? |
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| Nov 19 2012 Anchor | ||
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Spent more time with it. This version of the game is doing quite well so far! The linearity of the map isnt as bad as I'd thought; I think that mighta been just a quirk of the RNG during the first half. The further I've gone into it, the better it's gotten. I think I have a better idea of where you were going with this "hub" concept now. The difficulty definitely has not reached a point of being "easy", either. There's still plenty of spots appearing that need alot of skill and use of all sorts of items/weapons to beat. The first half of this world I'm in was strangely easy, but the second half is just evil so far. More than a couple of places where even 11000 health is not enough if I dont deal with the situation skillfully enough. The difficulty can get incredibly high at times, but so far, with proper use of secondary weapons and such, there's always some way past a given area, even if it's crazy hard. I dont think anything really needs to be tweaked here, though I do keep wondering why all of the bosses are so pathetic this time around. All but one has pretty much done nothing but fire a single bullet at a time at me. Probably just the RNG though. There's a couple of small things I noticed that I might as well mention here though, bug-wise: First, I keep meaning to mention this because I've seen this glitch pretty often, but sometimes player shots, and occaisionally missiles (though pretty rare with missiles) will actually pass through something entirely without colliding with it. This includes both enemies, and doors. The smaller the enemy, the higher the chance of this happening, and it seems to be worst when I'm pretty close to whatever I'm firing at. With the missiles, that usually happens just with doors, not enemies. This bug is really frequent. It's been there for awhile, but yeah, kept forgetting to bring it up. Second, much smaller bug, for the sort of blocky enemy that kinda is stuck to the floor, the stationary ones, they get a bit wonky at times if frozen and then grabbed with the grav gun; it's like they dont quite come out all the way, and sometimes it can take a few tries to get the thing properly held. Also, I've noticed that teleporters, and the kind that go invisible, can still do so when frozen; dunno if that's intentional or not. As for other tweaks.... the only other thing I can really think of is the tether gun. It doesnt seem to have much use most of the time; it's very, very hard to hit enemies with and there's a nasty delay before you can fire the second shot. It might be better if that delay was lowered. I think it is the only item in the game I havent found some sort of good use for. Gotta say, I'm impressed that you've taken this and tweaked/changed/improved it as much as you did so soon after release; plenty of devs either wouldnt have done it at all, or woulda done it really, really slowly. |
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| Nov 19 2012 Anchor | ||
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Thank you for the report! Glad to hear things are generally working as they should. I'll see what I can do about the projectile glitches... I'm using jBullet physics engine to handle collisions, and that library may be glitching with fast moving projectiles & small targets. Enemies are not suppose to teleport while frozen, hehe! The big use of the tether gun is kinda a secret -- try tethering an enemy to an "electrical" room part (those things that kinda wave around, like what is used to solve the tethering room "puzzle"). |
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| Nov 19 2012 Anchor | ||
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Ahhh, that's what the wavey things are for! TBH I don't think I've seen many places where the robots are close enough to one of those to try tethering them but I'll keep an eye out for a chance. How do you freeze things? I tried the cold gun on a few robots but it seemed to do less damage and not do anything else... Bullet supports sweep tests which are supposed to prevent tunnelling, might be worth investigating them although I can't say I've had the same problem. I still haven't ever found a secret door (I've had advanced vision for a while as well). What exactly am I looking for when I have advanced vision? Do they just look like a normal door (in which case how would I know it was secret as opposed to normal?!)? Edited by: DainStormcrow |
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| Nov 19 2012 Anchor | ||
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You freeze things by charging cold shots, so you need the charge beam to do this. Otherwise, the cold shots should slow down enemies a bit while you shoot them. I'm using ray tests with jBullet, and I extend the ray out a bit behind the projectile to try and catch all collisions, so I wouldn't expect this to be a problem... It will look like a normal door with advanced vision, but it won't show up on the map. Without advanced vision, you should be looking for platforms that go to "nothing". However, finding secrets is best done with advanced vision, which should always be somewhere on the map and not behind a secret door. |
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| Nov 20 2012 Anchor | ||
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I've found advanced vision 2 or 3 times. Never once found a secret door. Not completed a game yet though... so maybe they are still out there. |
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| Nov 21 2012 Anchor | ||
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I think pretty much every game world is going to have some secret doors, unless maybe you custom generated a super small world with like, 2 items in it or something. Even without the Advanced Vision item, it's still totally possible to find these. The game does tend to have visual clues as to where they are, but they can be pretty subtle. If you have, say a big room, right, and there's this line of platforms that appears to lead to a totally blank wall and nothing else, this is a prime spot to check for a door by firing at it. That's generally the most obvious type of hidden door, is the "line of platforms to nowhere" sort. Usually, if ANY platform is right up against a wall, I tend to fire a couple of shots at the spot just in case; more than a couple of times I've found a door this way. Some of them though, can be muuuuuuch harder to find without that item. You might have, say, one of those rooms that's mostly flat (or totally flat) with a very low cieling; the sort of room that often generates as a maze of sorts. I've seen hidden doors in these fairly often, and it's really, really hard to actually "spot" where they might be in that sort. I tend to just fire at everything. I guess the best way to put it is to just fire at any spot that looks, for whatever reason, like there could be something there. On another note, I have been running into the same bug mentioned earlier, the one about reloading after dying, and having the game just abruptly crash upon trying to do so. Here's the error screenshot: I.imgur.com In my case though, I dont get "stuck" in the game, I am able to alt-tab out of it and then close the process. It does happen pretty frequently, but it only happens with reloading after dying, never from loading via the main menu. |
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| Nov 21 2012 Anchor | ||
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That crash... is there any steps to reliably reproduce it, or does it always "sometimes" happen when reloading after dieing? How frequently does it happen... 75% of the time, 50%... 10% etc? |
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| Nov 21 2012 Anchor | ||
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Seems fairly random. Maybe 10% of the time when reloading. Sometimes it happens after 1 or 2, other times it doesn't for ages, but it has happened both on my laptop and main computer. Never on first load though, always on reload. On main computer it has only happened when I also have the jme sdk open, I don't know if that is relevant or not but that does consume some resources. Overall balance seems much improved but bosses seem very variable. I just ran into one boss that had only a single basic gun shooting at me - easy....then the next boss had white beam things (railguns?) a few different coloured bolts, etc. There were two of them and a room with very little cover. Best I've done on it so far is getting it down to 75% health. I think the progression on boss difficulty needs the randomness turning down a little to bring them all more into the centre of the range. Edit: Killed that one but only because I got lucky, they sort of jammed on each other and stood still somewhere they couldnt shoot me, and then I shot them dead from cover. Next boss was much easier...and turned out to be the final one. 4k life, and I just got the mass generator...3 minutes to run back to home :o Screwed up the bit where you use the gravity gun to traverse spikes due to rushing - try again later |
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| Nov 22 2012 Anchor | ||
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Aye, the boss difficulty is a little screwy. Which is kinda odd, since basic enemy difficulty seems to mostly always scale up. Though, even when they're fulla weapons, too much cover can make them super easy again, I've found. The bosses tend to get stuck on things, or can be in the sort of spot where you can just keep hitting them, but they cant even fire at you. As for the escape sequence.... is the time limit dependant on how the world happens to generate, then? The worlds I've beaten so far have each been 5 minutes, not 3. Though I had to run through quite a number of different areas to reach the exit gate. Oh, and that bug, yeah, very very random. It might do it once, or it might do it like 10 times in a row or something. I dont think it can be reliably reproduced. |
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