Okey Dokey, I after a LOOONG day (and literally 5 hours spent between 3 bus rides between the same 2 cities, and then about 3 hours spent in classes), I am finally able to reply to all of this feedback. Thank you so much to everyone for taking the time to leave the feedback! You guys are AWESOME!
@Silver39:
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Pure fantamazing! It needs a new word to get close to describing this level.
Heck yes! New words FTW :D
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This level is amazing mainly because of Destiny2 and it's ability to "travel to different planets. I could not even imagine building something even remotely close to this!
I spent many evening yelling at my PSP while building it, and even after it was built because mechanics would slowly stop working as I worked on other things because of how undependable create mode can be. Everything worked out though.... after I rebuilt a lot of the tech... It's good to hear it paid off and earned me a heart!
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But I had trouble finding the 2nd planet. All I found was the meteor and Salieri.
Your not the first person who had this issue, which makes me very sad :-( I originally had not planned on even letting the player know how many places that there were to go, so that they would be excited to find places (perhaps that is how I will do it for the sequel), but I decided it would be better to just let them know. So I had Domik say that there are 2 planets and a meteor in the galaxy. It seems that some people decided that Phalaina didn't count as one of the planets though (First planet = Salieri, Second Planet = Phalaina) :( Sorry about the confusion Silver!
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I was a little dissapointed there wasn't a planet Silver. Just kidding, it looks like I will have to try a lot harder to get into Club Destiny though.
No fears, my friend! I would be glad to try to add you. It may be trickier, though, to find a way to implement a name like Silver without making people think that I am referring to the element Silver. If I can think of a way then I will certainly try in a sequel!
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One question, are you going to retain traveling to different planets via Destiny2 in the series?
@CyberSora:
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Trust me, you humans and your caveman technology (iPad!?) makes me glad I live on planet Truth (maybe you can use Seeking_Truth as this planet).
Looky there, your creating back story for your character :-) Maybe I can implement his name that way. It certainly doesn't make nearly as good of a name as Salieri or Phalaina though. And can you really be from the planet Truth when you are obviously going to be the evil villain in the universe ;)
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Finally (this ones actually serious), for future reference, I liked to be called Cyber. There is no way I'm going to be a spikey haired teenager who's going through puberty! Trust me on this when I say that if you were with me at the time I chose this name, you'll know why I don't like the name Sora. Period.
Hmmm... Well, I promise that I was not trying to cause unhappiness. In fact, I included the name simply to try to let you know that I respect you as a member of the site and an author, so it's too bad that you were unhappy about the way that I used the name. It would have been a bit strange to have some alien miner named Cyber, so I doubt I could have done that anyway. Sorry about that CyberSora.
I sure will! I probably wouldn't even make a sequel if I was going to ditch Destiny2 :) Since I have all of the mechanics built for it, I can focus my time on creating planets and hopefully have a lot more of them :-)
@MattAstr:
Are you still creating levels? I VM'ed you a while ago and never heard back. It's great to see that you are still around. I'd love to hear what you have been up to!
Anyway, on to the feedback:
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In other words, my favourite level by you so far!
Woo-Hoo! Great to hear that! :)
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To start off the plot felt like it was a whole universe full of information and that it seemed like you had already written 5 books, 2 movies and a wikia on it. Seriously! Along with this the characters were extremely unique and appeared to have a little bit more personality and detail then your previous ones.
I'm very happy to hear that you felt this way. On PS3 I had a series of levels with a very deep story. I had a blast making the levels and expanding the story and I was always looking for an excuse to do that on PSP, but none of my levels could really justify sequels since their stories were always pretty self contained and resolved by the end.
In the case of this level though, the adventure is just starting. In fact, I was a little afraid that people would be disappointed with just how little I touch on the actual idea behind the over-all story (trying to fill the gap that Destiny left behind), since all you ended up doing was trying to recover one piece of technology, and no one even knew what it did! I have been blown away by the response I have gotten by people saying that they loved the story and are wanting more, so unless the feedback suddenly takes a turn for the worse, I will certainly continue the story :-)
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Now the actual gameplay: It had side quests ... a lengthy story .. full of dialog .. a fully functional planet transport system .. 3+ planets, all with their own, unique designs .. many characters .. and detailed, astounding, visuals .. Woah, did you manage to hack yourself another thermometer or something?
I still can't believe how much is there :-) One thing that saved me a lot of thermo was the intro. My old style of intro (with all the letters stuck onto cardboard) actually took a lot of thermo. Sometimes the intros could take up a quarter of the thermo if there were sets involved (like on Now and Then as well as Shallow Springs). So just having 3 speech bubbles, a little tech to control what order they speak in, and a simple background, I was able to save a lot of thermo. I actually expected a few complaints about it since it was such a simple intro, but not a SINGLE person has complained, so I will stick to this simple intro format and save the themo for planets to find and explore :-)
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The side quests are a really nice touch, even though I managed to only get one (are there two?) They seemed to slot perfectly into this type of gameplay, and I look for more in future.
There are two side-quests, and each one has two parts to it. You can begin both quests after you speak to Admiral Domik for the first time on the Space Station. Just head back up the elevator and explore upstairs and you will activate both of them once you have two different conversations.
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All right, I have to admit, sometimes I did get a bit sick of reading all the dialog, and I did find it easier learning how to use the ship navigation myself, but it still was a really nice story and I appreciate what you've done.
Well, the good news is that I hope to not have as much talking about the mechanics in the sequel. I'll still have to touch base on them, but I hope to not go into great detail. Maybe I will even have Jeff reference that he already explained the controls on your previous mission, so you should check the mission log if you forget how to fly the ship (hinting that the player should check out the previous level first). There will still be story though, and that will include talking, but probably the same amount as this level. I doubt that there will be a lot more than this level.
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Going by your track record it doesn't seem that you make sequels to your levels (I haven't played your PS3 levels as of yet, so can't comment on them) But I do hope that you make a sequel to this! When I saw that black screen at the end I almost wanted to turn around and go back.
EDIT: Nevermind, guess I should have read the first post more properly, looking forward to the sequel.
It looks like you figured this one out, and I already talked about it in my response to one of your earlier questions :D
@ThisIsInsane:
WOW, that feedback was incredible! It was certainly the coolest feedback I have ever seen!
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.elbabircsedni ebyam tpecxE .level siht ebircsed ot sdrow on era erehT
LOL! Thanks :)
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.ecaps htiw od ot gnihtemos sah taht deyalp reve evah I level tseb eht raf yb si sihT !tnioppasid ton did uoY .)ecaps htiw noissesbo driew a evah I
I'm glad to hear that you liked the setting. I have been wanting to do a space level, but I wanted to have something interesting to do with it before I gave it a shot. I'm very happy that you liked it!
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.ti devol yllaer I dna ,evitaerc dna euqinu ylemertxe saw yrots ehT
It's good for you to say this, because I wasn't going to make a sequel if people didn't like the story since the main draw of the sequel with be the ability to explore with Destiny2, as well as getting to learn more about repairing the universe :D
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.sretcarahc ruoy fo seman dna srebmem CPBL emos desu uoy woh devol I
You are certainly one person that I considered using, but I just couldn't find a way to make your name work :-( And Can'tFindUserName wouldn't really work either :( Sorry
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!!!!!deyalp reve evah I level tseb eht si siht ,llarevO
I'm so glad to hear that! :) :D
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Thanks for the totally wicked awesome level!
Thank you for the totally wicked awesome feedback!
@X-FROGBOY-X:
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Got around to playing this, I'd say this is the best PSP level I've ever played, everything about it was totally top-notch, from the stunning visuals, to all the cool things happening throughout the level.
Wow, thank you very much! I'm thrilled to hear that you liked the level so much!
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I'd like to see what it looks like behind the scenes, I bet that would be awesome.
Or you would fall over dead when you realized that my tech is all built into the shape of a rabbit ;)
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the going to-and-from-and-back-again parts really reminded me of your Now and Then level.
I actually thought of this as sort of a spiritual successor to Now and Then. I told my wife that I felt that way, and she told me that I was crazy and she didn't think it resembles Now and Then at all. In Taffey's feedback on the beta, he said it felt like a combination of Shallow Springs and A Dingo Down Under. LOL, so I ended up guessing that I was just crazy. It's good to hear that someone else thought that it had a little "Now and Then" feel to it. In all honesty, it wasn't inspired by Now and Then at all. It wasn't until the level was finished that I thought that it had a Now and Then feel to it.
@Xenon:
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The ship navigation was great. I did have to fight with the controls a little because the switch kept bouncing back.
Yeah, this was probably the biggest issue with the level that I just couldn't get rid of. I hoped that it wouldn't make people too irritated though. I built some tech into the system so that when you pointed at a planet and you were lined up with it well enough that you could land on it, then you would actually lock onto the planet for about 3 to 5 seconds. This way, the bouncing back and forth wouldn't affect you too badly (to the point that you would think you could use the drop ship and then not be able to). I'm sorry that it was irritating for you :-(
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Also having the spacemen tell you that they were beaming you up right before you die was a great idea. It helped sell the whole thing.
YEAH! I think that you are the first person to mention this :-) I really wanted to explain the phenomenon of being teleported back to the savepoint since everything else is explained, and my wife and I came up with that idea. I'm glad that you liked it!
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The only negative thing I can say about this is I never got to see my final check mark! j/k
That final checkmark never shows up, so don't go looking for it :-) Here, pretend this is the last one "V"... man that is one louse checkmark ;)
@Taffey:
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It was a true pleasure beta testing this for you, as it always is. It's always a good day when I find that PM from you in my inbox, asking me if I "wouldn't mind" testing one of your masterpieces. That's a lot like me asking one of my dogs if they "wouldn't mind" finishing off the other half of that breakfast burrito I accidentally left out on the coffee table. It's just a given constant of the universe that your levels are awesome, and that my dogs tend to have scrambled egg breath.
Thanks for the kind words Taffey! That was very nice! I still can't believe that you and Jeff can be so kind when I toss you these practically broken versions of my levels (I mean, Jeff couldn't even finish it, and you had a pretty darn hard time!). You both certainly deserve a lot of praise for all of your help in the community, and anyone who has played Destiny owes you both thanks for fighting through the Ultra-Hardcore version of the level (Now with Less Guidance and Much Less Time on Phalaina! Try it Out and Die Today!!!)
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I would like to point out, however, that your storytelling combined with outer space is simply meant to be, like peanut butter and jelly. I was SO excited to see you come up with something like this
I've been cooking up an idea like this for a long time, but it took some extra thoughts from my wife to really push me to try it. I sort of thought that it wouldn't be possible, but she convinced me to at least try to build Destiny2, and once I did that and it worked, I was sure that I could make the level :) I'm very excited that it all worked, and now I have something that I can work with for a future level ;)
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My favorite overall thing about this level is probably the mission tracker. It's so simple and yet so complex, and it perfectly represents all the tech and thought that goes into your creations. As a player it's easy to not pay much attention to it at all, because it simply works and seems so natural... until you try and figure out how it was made.
It's actually awesome to hear you say this. Everyone who has mentioned a favorite part has talked about the Flying Around/ Drop Ship to Planet combination. It's nice to see that you got a kick out of the Mission board that Leonard is nice enough to help you keep track of. I was looking forward to implementing it, but it wasn't until I had actually completely wired the tech up and tried it out that I got really excited. Thanks for commenting on it!
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The forum member name references are a very nice and very classy touch, and I really am honored to have been included.
Nothings more comforting than landing on Phalaina and being told by Taffey that you will only survive for about 1 second if you step out of that drop ship :)
I had a lot of fun including forum member's names. It sort of helps me give the characters personality if I need to. Sure, the dialog that was there this time was more instructive, but in future levels I hope to give the characters more personality.
@Domik:
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First of all I must say, that I downloaded this level in Saturday and during Sunday played it about 5 times to having more fun and to carefully study all corners of you level and to learn all thing, that you used during its creation.
Awesome stuff! It is great to hear that you wanted to play it multiple times :)
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I loved level introduction and beginning, it looked as some old good space movie.
It's great to hear that you liked the intro. It saved me a lot of thermo to do it that way, so it's nice to know that people still liked it!
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(I really think to change avatar here to Admiral Domik)
LOL! You were the first character that I named. It wasn't until I was making you that I even decided to use forum members as the characters. I was making the big buff Admiral, and I was trying to think of a good name, and for some reason your name came to mind and I really liked it :-) So I guess that it all started with you :-) I'm glad that you liked being the Admiral!
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I investigated all open station space before walking to admiral for getting mission and was very surprise, that you created many small dialogs with many characters, that changed after receiving mission from admiral. WOW, I felt, that I am at real big RPG level with real characters and very well-established story.
It's great to hear that you did this. I think that you are the first person who has mentioned to me that you tried this. If you don't walk to the left before you speak to the Admiral, then you will miss two pieces of dialog that both go away permanently after you talk to the Admiral for the first time. It's nothing important, but I just wanted to have it there to add an extra layer to experience for those like you who explore the level.
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Then I saw Destiny memorial… and spent about 5 minutes just looked at it from different position. It is something incredible, very beautiful and looked almost unreal for LBP on psp. My great respect for this place!
My wife and I had a great time designing that. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but she helped a lot with with making the jet-steam look as good as it did, and she designed the ship that is flying around the planet. I'm glad to hear that you liked it, because it is a small part of the level that I spent a lot of time on :)
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All this mechanics worked good, if player just followed instructions.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that people pay attention to the directions instead of skipping them and then getting mad at the fact that they are confused by the level. It's good to hear that you think that the directions make it pretty easy to understand how to use everything.
I really like this term! I mean, I REALLY like this term! Did you come up with this? And if so, can I use it? :-)
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I was really sored when level was finished. It was very interesting adventure and I want to continue it as soon as possible.
I'm taking a small break to figure out what I want to do with the sequel, but I'm sure I will be dying to get back into create mode again. Plus, the part that scares me most about a new level is starting with a blank slate, and this time I will have an entire ship to start with :-)
