12 responses to “Mystic Balloon maintenance”

1. 

   mil December 8th, 2006 at 00:13

   Those stage submissions are rather helpful. I often get stuck in the main game and return here for different stages. Once I beat them, I acquire more tenacity in solving the main game puzzles and somehow get out of a rut.

   I’ll try designing a stage when I get thoroughly stuck again. It won’t be difficult but it might be just good enough to encourage others to get out of a rut too.

2. 

   demauk December 8th, 2006 at 02:32

   The links to the two new stages are a bit off. Thought you should know.

3. 

   Derrick Sobodash December 10th, 2006 at 11:16

   demauk:

   Apologies, fixed now. That’s what I get for using that fucking web-based file manage to fix the file after uploading the new upload script. They are working now and future entires should be OK too.

4. 

   mil December 10th, 2006 at 17:13

   One stage submitted. Three errors occurred.

   First, some bogus blank stage was made with no data at all. Second, my stage was uploaded as an “r.krm”. The real link is “ambertower.krm”. The last error is just a simple way of showing how the system can be abused. The problem with the clear flag is obviously that it will always think you cleared the file as long as you didn’t rename it.

   The main annoyance on my end is that ever since you uploaded conveyor1 on the 7th, I haven’t been able to access any of the files. I always get a Forbidden to access server message.

   Anyways, making those stages is a hell of a lot harder than I assumed. I must’ve had to revise my stage at least forty times just because it was either impassable or far too easy.

5. 

   Derrick Sobodash December 11th, 2006 at 15:02

   OK, found one of the problems. What happened was when I was fixing the script before, my web-based file manager SHIT OUT and ate half the file. I rewrote mose of it, but I missed one very important line: setting the file’s mode to be downloadable.

   OOPS!

   This has been fixed and all files are downloadable again. However I have now found a fun new glitch causing maps of total rubbish to be rendered for some stages and I don’t know why. For example, I made a stage where Mystia just falls straight down onto the exit and the preview appeared as trash (file uploaded fine though). However, when I re-uploaded your stage right after it, the preview came out fine. I have yet to isolate what’s causing this.

   The deleted filenames were a problem with carryover code where I used to store the file path in the filename and it did some substr() magic that ate everything after the 9th char. This is gone, so that glitch should be fixed.

6. 

   mil December 11th, 2006 at 16:31

   Fantastic. Everything works great.

   As for that rubbish rendering bug; that happened to me when I tried bypassing the Forbidden by Saving Link As. When I did this, I got the eaten up file sizes you mentioned. So, I think you got rid of this bug when you stopped the files from being eaten. Everything is 314 bytes now (before it was 250 or less).

   Hopefully, my stage doesn’t have some easy shortcut I forgot to block. Much of how I designed it dealt with giving the player the illusion that they were on the right path. But at least they’re on a path. Most every stage I begin now, I have no idea where to start.

7. 

   Derrick Sobodash December 11th, 2006 at 16:54

   Well, clouds always make things balls hard, because you never know which to jump on. Sliding blocks can also be used to create trickiness: you can force them to quickly hit keys to change directions while sliding, and use gravity blocks to ruin them if they don’t.

   One option is make multiple paths, and leave it to the player to tryt o guess which one. Try to set it up so you have to finish each path in a certain order. The game’s default Stage 4 is a good example of this.

8. 

   sheex December 17th, 2006 at 07:12

   If anyone wants to make a review, send it in here:

   http://indygamer.blogspot.com/

   Haven’t had time to do it myself. D:

9. 

   mil January 8th, 2007 at 11:24

   Uploaded another one. The preview has problems but everything else works fine.

   I beat this game today and by god does it kick ass. I’m currently playing the Stages 1-100 archive from Domino’s website. What’s good about these is that some of them are relatively easy while others look insanely delicious.

   Anyways, I had a few questions. First of all, what are the names of the stages you posted screenshots for but aren’t in the main game (i.e. [url=http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/allac/normal_mysbal09.jpg]this[/url])?

   Secondly, how did you play as the bonus character in Stage 43? Does beating the whole game give you a power that I’m unaware of when combined with some special key presses?

10. 

    Derrick Sobodash January 9th, 2007 at 14:51

    There’s something you haven’t finished yet if you don’t have it. The credits give you a code to push for a special surprised. Use it in the omake stages to play as Mystia, and use it in the normal stages to play as the Ninja cat.

11. 

    mil January 9th, 2007 at 16:49

    I now remember you mentioned the game having three endings… I only got two. One after beating stage 50 and all stages before it. The other one after beating stage 55 and all stages before it.

    It says “All CLEAR!” next to each of my stages. Maybe the secret code got overrun by the credits glitch. Or maybe there is some elusive third ending that I could never get.

    So that’s a Ninja cat… I thought it was some sort of aquatic compressed thing that got lost in the mansion so long it began to imitate blocks.

12. 

    mil January 16th, 2007 at 05:50

    Explored Domino’s website and found the code. It’s Shift+M over the Play label. I guess that’s the only secret code then. I saw a Shift+X+M but using it at the ending just exits me to the title screen.

    Some advise for those who dare try. Within the stages 1-100 archive there is a stage called domino3.krm. Don’t even bother with this stage. It is absolutely fucking impossible.