NY - many thanks for your comments. I'll look into all the bugs and level glitches in due time.
Thanks, as well, for your patience and understanding. Originally I had aimed to just release the material in some organised fashion (e.g., Wiki). This fast turned into an interactive experience, which then turned into a full on game.
Ignoring level glitches and gameplay bugs, the level DESIGN issues are obviously what contributes most to someone enjoying the game. Unfortunately, they weren't tweaked nearly as well as they could be. Partially, because it was considered that making levels was "easy" (at least technically) compared with programming an engine. With a good editor, it's easy to make any level, but VERY hard to make a good level!
So, as before - the offer is there, for anyone who would like to improve Isis, to try creating some custom maps (info on how to do this is included in the release). Anyone who is really serious would get the original maps to modify.
Mystery of Isis IIa - v1.0a
It's great to see this released finally... I remember when this game originally started development and seemed like the best thing ever. The controls are pretty close to the original games, although there are a few things I dislike:
1. I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but ledges are pretty hard to grab. I sometimes have to jump many times before Keen finally grabs a ledge. Especially if I slide into the ledge from the bottom (that is, I hit the ledge before I reach the highest point of Keen's jump). This makes some parts of the game much more frustrating than need be.
2. The impossible pogo trick seems to be possible here, but much harder than in the original games. Probably it's just a matter of practice. (or maybe it's just my shifty Shift key...)
Anyway, I'm only on level 2 at present. Loving the atmosphere, colour palette and the music. The levels are interesting and varied, but feel like they're almost too big sometimes for the screen resolution. Not in the sense of actual level size, but in the sense that a lot of jumps are to platforms that are on the edge of the screen or only visible if you look up/down. No blind leaps so far, but it's pushing it close.
I think that some of the tiles look like they don't have proper edges. The wall/earth tiles in the jungle, for example, there is no specific tile for the right/left/bottom edge of a wall (of course, if the levels are going to be changed, that's the last thing you'd want to put in, because it would be quite a hassle to add special tiles in for wall edges and then change them later...).
1. I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but ledges are pretty hard to grab. I sometimes have to jump many times before Keen finally grabs a ledge. Especially if I slide into the ledge from the bottom (that is, I hit the ledge before I reach the highest point of Keen's jump). This makes some parts of the game much more frustrating than need be.
2. The impossible pogo trick seems to be possible here, but much harder than in the original games. Probably it's just a matter of practice. (or maybe it's just my shifty Shift key...)
Anyway, I'm only on level 2 at present. Loving the atmosphere, colour palette and the music. The levels are interesting and varied, but feel like they're almost too big sometimes for the screen resolution. Not in the sense of actual level size, but in the sense that a lot of jumps are to platforms that are on the edge of the screen or only visible if you look up/down. No blind leaps so far, but it's pushing it close.
I think that some of the tiles look like they don't have proper edges. The wall/earth tiles in the jungle, for example, there is no specific tile for the right/left/bottom edge of a wall (of course, if the levels are going to be changed, that's the last thing you'd want to put in, because it would be quite a hassle to add special tiles in for wall edges and then change them later...).
Member since at least 1998 with... ah... some long absences. I was even a moderator at one time. I've moved on mostly, but I can't leave Keenland behind completely.
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- Vortininja
- Posts: 40
- Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 17:40
Re: Mystery of Isis IIa
I have done all 9 levels