Demo Alchementalist - A spell crafting, element mining roguelike


The Steam Demo
Well, I did it. Or should I say, we did it! Because without the help of this community I definitely wouldn't have been able to get the game into a state where I could put the demo up on Steam in time! It's been a long couple of weeks, with many sleepless nights and an insane amount of crunch, but the demo is now up on Steam. Add it to your library and give the game a wishlist if you want! I'll be adding content to it over the next week or so, primarily focused around more spellboosts and a few extra levels. Enjoy!

Trailer (I need to re-record it because this one is low bitrate, but oh well, it will do for now)

Here's some modern screenshots:




Rundown
Alchementalist is a procedurally generated roguelike dungeon crawler. At the start of each run, you have access to some fairly standard spells, relating to the four elements fire, water, wind, and earth. As you delve deeper into the dungeon you'll encounter various ores (which also coincide with the four elements). These ores can be mined by attacking them with your spells allowing you to gather materials from them. Enemies also have a chance of dropping enemy-specific materials. These materials can be used to craft upgrades for your spells (and occasionally your person) or even to craft totally new wands.

There's a large variety of enemies to fight your way through and they have powers that, if not the same as yours, are at least equal, which means you can combine your spells elemental effect with that of the enemies for emergent chaos in the heat of battle.

Alchementalogs
  1. Paying Attention to Detail
  2. A Song of Stats and Boosts (Part 1)
  3. A Song of Stats and Boosts (Part 2)
  4. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
  5. Delving the Deeps (Part 1)
  6. The Essence of Flavour (Part 2)
  7. Fixer Upper
  8. Burying Treasure and Stopping Draughts
  9. Mining for Content
  10. Do It Again, But This Time In 3D

Story
Hidden deep within the secret lore of the wise, lie tales of an ancient order of mages. Theirs was a life lived in the depths of the earth and they delved vast subterranean cities, plumbing the ancient rock for the magical elements that were formed from the bones of the world. One element they prized above all others. They called it the Ember-source and they craved and treasured it, for it was both beautiful and powerful.

It was from this desired element that the name of their order came to be: Ember-mages. No one living knows why or how they vanished from this world, but vanish they did, and today their magnificent caverns lie in ruins, with only death and danger inhabiting them. Magical experiments and powerful abominations guard their secrets from those who dwell above. However, their tales and the seeds of truth that may be contained within have always attracted the brave and the foolhardy. You consider yourself both, and you have vowed to find the truth behind the veil of legend. The journey will be long and black and many dangers await. But, perhaps, at the end of the descent, when you have passed through much toil and weariness, lies a treasure beyond reckoning.

The Ember-source beckons, Alchementalist.

WIP Screenshots



Testing the dash wind spell

Getting attacked by Ice Hoppers and testing out fire's ability to destroy ice patches

Testing out the shockwave fire spell

Very earlier proof of concept test with fire spreading

The Demo is here (Or, as I'm calling it, the "beta" of the demo)!
Ok, I'm at the tail end of a literal 26 hour coding crunch to get this demo done, so I'm a little bit loopy right now, but here's the demo. I'd like to add a few notes though.

Firstly, I'm releasing this to the GMC community as a testing ground before it goes on Steam. So it's still got jagged edges that I need to smooth out! I'm relying on you folks to be the sand-paper, hahaha. Please let me know if it crashes and what you were doing at the time (especially helpful is a copy+paste of the error message!). So let's talk about what's working and what's not.

I've had a lot of technical debt slowly creeping up on me for awhile now, and I recently spent a good portion of time smoothing that out, however that broke most of the spellboosts that were craftable (I think there were about 30 or 40 working at one point). The ones that work right now (or at least, I believe they work) are the Bigger, Horizon, and Elemental Movement and Elemental End spellboosts. Any other spellboosts you craft at your own risk as they most likely will crash the game, lol. I think all the wands added so far are craftable without crashes though! I'll be steadily adding spellboosts over the next few days and since Alchementalist is a perma-death roguelike, you don't need to wait for them, since you're not losing out on progress by playing now or anything like that.

Also, while the released game will be procedurally generated, the demo is not. I had to pick my battles to get the demo ready and the proc-gen dungeons just need more time in the cooker than I had. The enemy AI is dodgy-ish. They occasionally enter their idle state and can't be woken up, lol. I'm still trying to track down why that is. But in any case, I believe the game is kinda hard, so consider it a little blessing. If you find cheese strats that make the enemies a breeze, let me know! Especially in the second level, as I have made the first level relatively easy, but I ramped up the difficulty in the second. Speaking of levels, there are only two right now, but if I did my job right, it'll still be pretty hard to beat the game. Post a screenshot if you manage to get to the end, as I'd love to have a rough gauge of the completion rate.

There's a lot of stuff waiting in the backgrounds of the game, systems that are 90% working but aren't quite ready for release that I had to disable, and other stuff like that. Meta-progression, bestiary, etc. A lot of stuff that I really hope manages to make it's way into the full release.

All that being said (and if you've managed to keep reading so far!), I'm super happy that I get to release the demo to this community first, as I get a lot of inspiration and encouragement here. Despite the above paragraphs, I am very proud of the game and I do absolutely think it's worth giving a play, I just wanted to temper expectations a little. I've poured my heart and soul into the dev of this game, and I've tried to craft as fun an experience as I can! I really hope those of you who play it enjoy it, and if you don't, let me know why! Any and all feedback helps me craft a better game.

Known Bugs
  • ESCAPE QUITS THE GAME. Ok this isn't a bug, but I had no idea it would lead to the gnashing of teeth it has. I'll try to get a proper menu system setup ASAP so that you don't just get dumped at title from a single button press! In the meantime, I have changed it so that if you press escape while the inventory/crafting windows are open, it will simply close them, rather than end the run. IT STILL ENDS THE RUN if you press escape without the inventory open.
  • Non 16:9 resolutions seem to be a bit borked.
  • Particle system errors if the game is forced to shutdown by windows (I've encountered a lot of weird particle system problems and I think there might be an issue in GM after their implementation of the in-editor particle system stuff, but I'll definitely keep testing and working on it to see if I can find a cause that belongs to my own idiocy).
  • POSSIBLY FIXED: Upon booting the game, there's the chance of everything being black, with just the text options displaying. This is basically a soft-lock. I've been trying to crack this nut for awhile and still haven't found the cause. I think it's related to being alt-tabbed out of the game while it's booting and that messing with the GUI and application surface size, but I haven't been able to trigger it consistently enough to be able to properly lock it down.
  • FIXED: Enemies occasionally get borked and aggro at the player when they shouldn't. I think it has to do with them taking damage from other enemies, but I haven't pinpointed the exact cause yet.
  • FIXED: This should be fixed now. Spells are being incorrectly destroyed when hitting non-interacting breakable objects, which causes some weirdness (such as leaving a light behind and not playing correct spell destruction SFX + particles).
  • FIXED: I believe that I have fixed the inventory/crafting system. I spent awhile testing it, swapping back and forth between crafting and wand editor, crafting elements, applying them to the wand, swapping wands in and out, and I didn't manage to trigger a crash. Crafting is currently borked in multiple ways. I'm working on fixing that as I type.
  • FIXED: A bug in the Inventory system which prevented the player from moving when the Inventory was closed. I don't know if this was consistent for everyone, or just an unlucky circumstance for an individual player, I'm also unsure as to whether it was specifically related to pressing "i" to close the inventory, or whether it happened through both pressing escape and pressing "i". Right now, I've fixed it by basically just ignoring the fact that the inventory is open, which allows you to move and shoot when using the inventory, but that's the lesser of two evils between the game being soft-locked simply from using the inventory.
  • FIXED: I think I've nailed this one down. If I'm correct in thinking I fixed it, it had to do with a specific frame of animation being interrupted by the players spell staggering them, which desynced the animation and ai state machines. I've added in an additional check and I haven't managed to get them to bork yet, so I'm hoping it's fixed. Enemies can get frozen in idle state and won't attack the player. This happens semi-frequently and I'm trying to find the cause. I've been at this one for awhile, so not sure exactly when I'll manage to hunt down the cause and fix it.
  • FIXED: There is currently a bug where if you start a new game after playing a previous game without totally exiting the game (i.e. after death, or by pressing escape to go to the main menu and starting a new game), the player gets soft-locked in the starting room because collisions between spells and the switch no longer work. I'm aware of what's causing this and I'm fixing it as we speak.
  • FIXED: There was a crash related to the enemy taking damage that happened infrequently in the previous version. I think I have fixed it in the currently uploaded version, but I'd need more people playing to make sure.
  • FIXED: There were minor graphical and gameplay problems, such as rocks not being solid and appearing on top of you as you ran through them, and switches not "lighting up" properly which made them a bit hard to "read". I'm still wanting to make all the interactables more obvious than they currently are (i.e. chests, barrels and switches), and I'm considering solutions as to how to go about that. I also want to make enemies more easily readable, and am considering ways to go about doing that as well.
 
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Here's a very quick rundown of the elemental combination effects I've got in the game so far:
Now I've got the 4 base elements sorted, I'm kind of debating whether or not to add secondary level interactions (such as magma + water or ice + fire) as I said in the video. I'll list the combinations so far below and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be interested to hear them.

--Combinations--
Base Elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth
Fire + Water = Steam
Fire + Wind = Storm
Fire + Earth = Magma
Water + Wind = Ice
Water + Earth = Slime
Wind + Earth = Dust
 

Ampersand

Member
I've been watching your steady updates in your status posts for a while and I'm glad to finally see a WIP post. Very excited for a future update with a demo when the time comes, but as I've seen you're being pretty thoughtful about the core mechanics and design.

The aesthetic looks great as well! I've found it challenging to really juice up and mix in rotations and such in a game that relies on scaled up pixel art. You've done well so far, none of it is jarring or out of place.

Looking forward to more!
 
Hahaha, I've been in the "a few more days till I can release a demo" for like 2 weeks now. The main problem is there's a lot of connective tissue missing that makes it a "proper" experience. Hopefully I'll be able to cobble it all together enough to justify a demo in "a few more days".
 

Prrz

Member
First and foremost, this is not meant to be a formal critique - my main goal of this *edited* post is to provide some insight and provide you with bug information so you can track down and fix them!​

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man, this game is hard!

Although, lets be honest, we all inspire to make a game that looks as good as this - the visuals are absolutely stunning.

The dynamic audio is excellent, the hard driving guitar when in combat really fits the pace and tone of the game. Although, sometimes the games seems confused about what to play and when to play it. Not to mention the little (flute? recorder?) sounds the doors make, it's so charming.

I was not able to complete the two levels of the demo, and I think it was because of a particular bug that I found (see Opening and Closing Inventory).

Some things I learned:
  • Back-peddling is king, their are so many enemies and they are so fast. You are squishy marshmallow, they are evil bonfire trying to toast you.
    • That said, I found very little incentive to face anything head-on.
  • Fire is SUPER GOOD but it has its drawbacks...
    • Setting the world on fire to deal with a horde of enemies is just the best.
    • Some enemies just say no to taking fire damage.
  • That acid cloud stuff is evil, and I do not know how to deal with it.
    • I was on low HP trying to clear the 2nd level but I got stuck because moving forward into the green gas would have ended me!
  • DO NOT PRESS ESCAPE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IT DOES FIRST!
  • Did I say this game is hard? Yeah, it's hard! You know what else is hard? Balancing a game... I think you've done very well so far, keep working on it!

Some Bugs:
Pressing escape restarts the game, didn't know that - accidentally reset my progress (additional edit: this is how I first tried to exit the inventory screen, by pressing escape). Now the first switch to open the first door does not work.
Tested this several times, switch seems to not want to work after the first time. Further, I still had all of my stuff after restarting - I don't think that is supposed to happen!

Opening and then closing the inventory completely freezes the player - unable to move or attack. I tested this several times in several different ways and it continued to be an issue. This made the game way harder since I could not equip or craft anything at all without soft-locking!

Some errors I ran into:
Going from Crafting to Inventory:
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102820.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Destroy Event
for object obj_elemental_effect_poison:

part_particles_create argument 1 invalid reference to (particle system instance) - requested 4 max is 6############################################################################################
gml_Script_emit_poison_step (line 276)
gml_Object_obj_elemental_effect_poison_Destroy_0 (line 4)
gml_Script_anon@4153@ElementalEffect_scr_elemental_effects (line 150)
gml_Script_anon@7566@Cell_scr_elemental_effects (line 268)
gml_Script_anon@5749@Cell_scr_elemental_effects (line 206)
gml_Object_obj_dungeon_generator_CleanUp_0 (line 7)

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_wand_editor:

bool argument is unset############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_wand_editor_Step_0 (line 21)

Some Potential Oversights:
UnbeatableBugs.PNG
These little guys completely resisted all damage from my fire based wand, perhaps a minimum damage catch to ensure you can at least deal SOME damage to enemies that resist your element?

WeirdEdges..PNG
The edges of the tiles seem to just be... really dark? Not sure.

SmolGUI.PNG
These boxes don't seem to be sizing well, and man that text is SMALL (32" Samsung Curved Monitor).


My overall thoughts: Besides what I already said, I am super impressed and proud of you for bringing this game to this point. Keep up the great work, keep polishing, and don't give up - this has all the right stuff to make an amazing game.

Cheers,
Prrz
 
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attic-stuff

Member
downloaded, unzipped. ran the exe: the start screen is totally black except the words play, settings, and quit and the cursor is neat. no title screen art though, and when i pressed play it just went to an all black screen and nothin is happenin
 
downloaded, unzipped. ran the exe: the start screen is totally black except the words play, settings, and quit and the cursor is neat. no title screen art though, and when i pressed play it just went to an all black screen and nothin is happenin
Hmmm, so I am aware of that issue, but it shouldn't happen consistently. The best guess I have as to what it relates to is being alt-tabbed out of the game as it's booting up, and I think the surface sizes get set to 0 or something like that. I've been trying to track down the cause but haven't been able to so far. Would you mind booting it a few times and letting me know if you ever manage to avoid getting the black screen?

EDIT: Just to give a run down of the current bugs I'm aware of:

1) Aforementioned black screen bug.

2) Enemies can get frozen in idle state and won't attack the player. This happens semi-frequently and I'm trying to find the cause. I've been at this one for awhile, so not sure exactly when I'll manage to hunt down the cause and fix it.

3) I just uploaded a new build that fixes this, but the previous build had a bug in the Inventory system which prevented the player from moving when the Inventory was closed. I don't know if this was consistent for everyone, or just an unlucky circumstance for an individual player, I'm also unsure as to whether it was specifically related to pressing "i" to close the inventory, or whether it happened through both pressing escape and pressing "i". Right now, I've fixed it by basically just ignoring the fact that the inventory is open, which allows you to move and shoot when using the inventory, but that's just the lesser of two evils between being soft-locked from using the inventory and I'll being remedying the entire situation as soon as I have time.

4) There is currently a bug where if you start a new game after playing a previous game without totally exiting the game (i.e. after death, or by pressing escape to go to the main menu and starting a new game), the player gets soft-locked in the starting room because collisions between spells and the switch no longer work. I'm aware of what's causing this and I'm fixing it as we speak.

5) There was a crash related to the enemy taking damage that happened infrequently in the previous version. I think I have fixed it in the currently uploaded version, but I'd need more people playing to make sure.

6) There were minor graphical and gameplay problems, such as rocks not being solid and appearing on top of you as you ran through them, and switches not "lighting up" properly which made them a bit hard to "read", but I have fixed those in the current version. I'm still wanting to make all the interactables more obvious than they currently are (i.e. chests, barrels and switches), and I'm considering solutions as to how to go about that. I also want to make enemies more easily readable, and am considering ways to go about doing that as well.
 
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attic-stuff

Member
Hmmm, so I am aware of that issue, but it shouldn't happen consistently. The best guess I have as to what it relates to is being alt-tabbed out of the game as it's booting up, and I think the surface sizes get set to 0 or something like that. I've been trying to track down the cause but haven't been able to so far. Would you mind booting it a few times and letting me know if you ever manage to avoid getting the black screen?
booted a second time without having another window focused, and it worked! played it for a bit but no ability to change the window size and no gamepad support makes it kinda hard to dedicate a lot of time to.

the only gameplay feedback i can give out with the little time i spent with it, is that the shards of things not being insta-grabbed was kinda weird. at first i thought they were particles because i stood on them and they did nothin. having them shoot across the gui to inventory or something could be cool for instant feedback on pickin things up. but i will give it another go here before long!
 
booted a second time without having another window focused, and it worked! played it for a bit but no ability to change the window size and no gamepad support makes it kinda hard to dedicate a lot of time to.

the only gameplay feedback i can give out with the little time i spent with it, is that the shards of things not being insta-grabbed was kinda weird. at first i thought they were particles because i stood on them and they did nothin. having them shoot across the gui to inventory or something could be cool for instant feedback on pickin things up. but i will give it another go here before long!
Ah gamepad support is probably a no-go, at least for now. In order to play "properly", you need to be able to pretty effectively target specific tiles quickly and at any distance/angle and it's just not workable with a gamepad (at least as far as my pea-brain can determine). I'll try to do some testing and see if I can come up with some scheme that works with a GP in the future, but it's not gonna be soon.

I hadn't even considered it being weird not being able to pick up the minerals (I assume you're talking about the minerals the ore nodes drop?) immediately, but that's for sure something I'll add in. I made them auto-lock onto you once their velocity was low enough so that the player didn't have to worry about running around trying to pick them up, but no reason not to allow the player to gather them before that happens if they want to.

Thanks for giving it a shot and providing feedback!
 

Prrz

Member
Just updated my post, I see some of the bugs I was running into you are aware of and/or have fixed so I will give it another try later on!

2-1-24 Edit:

Downloaded and played the most recent version available!

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_dmg_indicator:

part_particles_create argument 1 incorrect type (unknown) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_dmg_indicator_Step_0 (line 21)

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

struct_exists argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Script_anon@81@gml_Object_obj_inventory_wand_editor_boost_slot_Create_0 (line 9)
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 89)

Here's a breakdown of some of my thoughts with this play-through:
  • On the first level there's a pack of several "shooter guys" that is absolutely brutal to deal with - it's a delicate dance of backing away and shooting constantly. Not particularly fond of that. I think these guys could be tweaked to be a little less punishing, or reduce the group sizes.
    • They can be cheesed by walking backwards / dashing backwards when they begin to shoot, although, much more challenging with a big group.
  • The first chest that I opened contained nothing but what I imagine is some kind of currency, which as far as I am aware has no particular use at the moment - I'd consider removing that from the drop table until it has a use (happened both runs).
  • I'd consider at the very least disabling shooting when the menu is open (hopefully that's easier to do), the sound and effect makes navigating the inventory feel dangerous even if no danger is present.
    • I understand this was linked to a major bug that soft-locked the game, but I think it's worth exploring if you have time.
  • The "pistol" is quite underwhelming compared to the number of enemies you have to face, if you're stuck with only that, the enemies become taxing to deal with in my opinion. Especially in groups!
  • There's some occlusion mask weirdness, likely related to the lights position on the "wand". Not really a big deal, but something I thought I would at least mention.
    • See video 1
  • Continue to enjoy the dashing effect, any thoughts of making it related to the type of elements you have equipped?
    • Ex: All fire = fire dash! (Maybe doesn't leave behind actual fire, but just an effect).
  • I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes I expect to hit something based on what I see - but I don't, I fell just short.
  • The second level is definitely a lot harder than the first, adventurers beware!
  • Healz please! Even if limited (in fact, it should be limited) - a heal here or there would be so helpful and make me feel less like I have to be a complete coward to finish a level.
  • *** The game does not like it if you tab out of the game after you started it (see video 2).
    • This seemed to cause a whole host of issues, the main one being a pretty significantly laggy experience. Do you have surfaces or something else that may be causing this? I will test with task manager to see if the memory is becoming an issue. --> Edit: Memory does not seem to be increasing to a concerning level, and this lag did not happen during this test, so I am not sure what this was about.
  • Music still seems to decide to switch somewhat unpredictably.
That's all for now, I have uploaded gameplay footage from two playthroughs (both crashed, see above) for your viewing pleasure. They are raw and unedited, but might provide insight as to how someone else may play your game!



~ Cheers
 
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attic-stuff

Member
Ah gamepad support is probably a no-go, at least for now. In order to play "properly", you need to be able to pretty effectively target specific tiles quickly and at any distance/angle and it's just not workable with a gamepad (at least as far as my pea-brain can determine). I'll try to do some testing and see if I can come up with some scheme that works with a GP in the future, but it's not gonna be soon.
well, you gotta give people the opportunity to decide whether that is workable or not. the gamepad support isn't just for mouse haters like me its also an accessibility thing as a lot controllers are special made because mice are out of the question! what i would start with, is if the gamepad is being used then one axis (and dpad) move the homie and the other moves the cursor around same as any other game and see how people feel about it. if thats not enough, have the cursor move faster in gamepad mode and then have the homie snap to the direction between him and the cell the cursor is resting on.
 
well, you gotta give people the opportunity to decide whether that is workable or not. the gamepad support isn't just for mouse haters like me its also an accessibility thing as a lot controllers are special made because mice are out of the question! what i would start with, is if the gamepad is being used then one axis (and dpad) move the homie and the other moves the cursor around same as any other game and see how people feel about it. if thats not enough, have the cursor move faster in gamepad mode and then have the homie snap to the direction between him and the cell the cursor is resting on.
The problem is that if you want to flip direction and target a specific cell in the opposite direction the player is facing, especially if that cell is far away. The mouse can do it in like 0.5 seconds, whereas a gamepad either moves too quickly for accurate targeting, or too slowly for the gameplay. I fear that it would require a fundamental rewrite of the mechanics and gameplay speed in order to accommodate. As I said, I'll put some thought into it, but I am very hesitant to guarantee anything.
 
I just downloaded a new version of the game.

Should be fixed in newest version. There is currently a bug where if you start a new game after playing a previous game without totally exiting the game (i.e. after death, or by pressing escape to go to the main menu and starting a new game), the player gets soft-locked in the starting room because collisions between spells and the switch no longer work. I'm aware of what's causing this and I'm fixing it as we speak.
This one does seem to be fixed.

A bug in the Inventory system which prevented the player from moving when the Inventory was closed. I don't know if this was consistent for everyone, or just an unlucky circumstance for an individual player, I'm also unsure as to whether it was specifically related to pressing "i" to close the inventory, or whether it happened through both pressing escape and pressing "i". Right now, I've fixed it by basically just ignoring the fact that the inventory is open, which allows you to move and shoot when using the inventory, but that's the lesser of two evils between the game being soft-locked simply from using the inventory.
I don't get the input freeze anymore - but, now if I equip an elemental to the wand, the inventory wont open again after that.

Edit: Dunno if this adds any new relevant info, but:

I played around a little more and if I get to a stairway, I can bring up the inventory again in the next room - equipping a different wand or changing the elementals locks out the inventory again.

Moving back to the inventory from the wands screen crashes the game with the following error:

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102462.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)
 
Last edited:
First and foremost, this is not meant to be a formal critique - my main goal of this *edited* post is to provide some insight and provide you with bug information so you can track down and fix them!​

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man, this game is hard!

Although, lets be honest, we all inspire to make a game that looks as good as this - the visuals are absolutely stunning.

The dynamic audio is excellent, the hard driving guitar when in combat really fits the pace and tone of the game. Although, sometimes the games seems confused about what to play and when to play it. Not to mention the little (flute? recorder?) sounds the doors make, it's so charming.

I was not able to complete the two levels of the demo, and I think it was because of a particular bug that I found (see Opening and Closing Inventory).

Some things I learned:
  • Back-peddling is king, their are so many enemies and they are so fast. You are squishy marshmallow, they are evil bonfire trying to toast you.
    • That said, I found very little incentive to face anything head-on.
  • Fire is SUPER GOOD but it has its drawbacks...
    • Setting the world on fire to deal with a horde of enemies is just the best.
    • Some enemies just say no to taking fire damage.
  • That acid cloud stuff is evil, and I do not know how to deal with it.
    • I was on low HP trying to clear the 2nd level but I got stuck because moving forward into the green gas would have ended me!
  • DO NOT PRESS ESCAPE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IT DOES FIRST!
  • Did I say this game is hard? Yeah, it's hard! You know what else is hard? Balancing a game... I think you've done very well so far, keep working on it!

Some Bugs:
Pressing escape restarts the game, didn't know that - accidentally reset my progress (additional edit: this is how I first tried to exit the inventory screen, by pressing escape). Now the first switch to open the first door does not work.
Tested this several times, switch seems to not want to work after the first time. Further, I still had all of my stuff after restarting - I don't think that is supposed to happen!

Opening and then closing the inventory completely freezes the player - unable to move or attack. I tested this several times in several different ways and it continued to be an issue. This made the game way harder since I could not equip or craft anything at all without soft-locking!

Some errors I ran into:
Going from Crafting to Inventory:
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102820.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Destroy Event
for object obj_elemental_effect_poison:

part_particles_create argument 1 invalid reference to (particle system instance) - requested 4 max is 6############################################################################################
gml_Script_emit_poison_step (line 276)
gml_Object_obj_elemental_effect_poison_Destroy_0 (line 4)
gml_Script_anon@4153@ElementalEffect_scr_elemental_effects (line 150)
gml_Script_anon@7566@Cell_scr_elemental_effects (line 268)
gml_Script_anon@5749@Cell_scr_elemental_effects (line 206)
gml_Object_obj_dungeon_generator_CleanUp_0 (line 7)

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_wand_editor:

bool argument is unset############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_wand_editor_Step_0 (line 21)

Some Potential Oversights:
View attachment 60584
These little guys completely resisted all damage from my fire based wand, perhaps a minimum damage catch to ensure you can at least deal SOME damage to enemies that resist your element?

View attachment 60585
The edges of the tiles seem to just be... really dark? Not sure.

View attachment 60586
These boxes don't seem to be sizing well, and man that text is SMALL (32" Samsung Curved Monitor).


My overall thoughts: Besides what I already said, I am super impressed and proud of you for bringing this game to this point. Keep up the great work, keep polishing, and don't give up - this has all the right stuff to make an amazing game.

Cheers,
Prrz
Wow, all of that is super helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to write that all out. You've found some bugs I was unaware of, which is excellent!

Now to tackle everything you said in semi-order:

Fire is definitely king right now! I have coming plans for increasing the utility of the other spell types. For example, water coming with inherent lifesteal, earth having a stun chance and wind increasing players movement speed and decreasing dash cooldown (these at not all guaranteed effects, just the current plans), but for now, the other spells mostly have utility to counter resistances. As you noted, Flamanders have 100% resistance to fire. I'm definitely considering adding a minimum damage amount, but the first thing I want to get up is proper feedback as to what is happening ("Resisted" or something appearing above the enemy) and the player being informed about their crafting choices. This is because when the inventory/crafting system actually works (lol), it's fairly trivial to craft a new element from the ore materials you pick up for your wand, which changes the spell's damage type. So as long as the player is both aware an enemy is resisting a certain damage type and has access to the crafting, I kinda want to see how forcing them to try out different elements via the resistances plays out, so that they don't get stuck in a rut of constantly using fire or water (when the other elements have their proper addons) or whatever.

I hadn't considered the soft-lock of being stuck behind poison (or any other damaging elemental effect) blocking the path forward, so I'll spend some time thinking about how to deal with that. Elemental effects like that can be changed or cleared via the Elemental Movement or Elemental End spellboosts, but I don't want to force the player to have to craft and attach that to their wand to be able to progress. I also don't want to make it too easy to clear up elemental effects either. It's got hints of a cursed balancing problem. I'll ruminate on it.

I do intend escape to only open an options menu instead of immediately exiting, but I haven't gotten around to implementing one yet. That will be coming soon.

Bugs, bugs, bugs galore!

The "revealed" walls being darker is a bug I had previously encountered and thought I had squashed, but I obviously didn't squash it hard enough. I'll up my efforts.

And yes, the wand stats display is sorely outdated, it was made probably more than half a year ago and has been slowly straining under the weight of mechanical and statistical changes (I'm actually pleasantly surprised that it has managed to last so long without being something that breaks the game). I'm definitely going to redo it so that I'm not trying to squeeze 500 stats into a box made for ants. (you should also notice the repeated icons, that's because I haven't even gotten around to drawing new icons for the stats that have been added over time, so it's just looping back to image_index of 0 as it goes past the image_number of the sprite, lol)

Again, thank you so much for the detailed feedback, it's been awesome to read your experience (literally no-one but me has ever played the game before this release, lol, so it's fascinating seeing how people react to it).
 
I just downloaded a new version of the game.



This one does seem to be fixed.



I don't get the input freeze anymore - but, now if I equip an elemental to the wand, the inventory wont open again after that.
Yeah, the inventory is troublesome. Up until last night I had it so that it did it's own thing on a couple of layers and just used deactivation to deal with stuff. But, I finally tracked down a long-standing bug last night regarding random crashes that turned out to come from the deactivations it was doing and had to completely remove the whole activation/deactivation system. Which then led to me pulling an all-nighter in order to redesign everything to work around no deactivation (I am on a very heavy deadline for the Steam Nextfest, lol). So while it's super disappointing and annoying to have these bugs show up, I had a feeling of inevitability that it would happen and I'm super grateful for you guys finding them and letting me know! (I have the cursed dev problem where you subconsciously avoid the pain spots without even thinking about it and so never trigger these silly bugs).
 

Prrz

Member
Wow, all of that is super helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to write that all out. You've found some bugs I was unaware of, which is excellent!

Now to tackle everything you said in semi-order:

Fire is definitely king right now! I have coming plans for increasing the utility of the other spell types. For example, water coming with inherent lifesteal, earth having a stun chance and wind increasing players movement speed and decreasing dash cooldown (these at not all guaranteed effects, just the current plans), but for now, the other spells mostly have utility to counter resistances. As you noted, Flamanders have 100% resistance to fire. I'm definitely considering adding a minimum damage amount, but the first thing I want to get up is proper feedback as to what is happening ("Resisted" or something appearing above the enemy) and the player being informed about their crafting choices. This is because when the inventory/crafting system actually works (lol), it's fairly trivial to craft a new element from the ore materials you pick up for your wand, which changes the spell's damage type. So as long as the player is both aware an enemy is resisting a certain damage type and has access to the crafting, I kinda want to see how forcing them to try out different elements via the resistances plays out, so that they don't get stuck in a rut of constantly using fire or water (when the other elements have their proper addons) or whatever.

I hadn't considered the soft-lock of being stuck behind poison (or any other damaging elemental effect) blocking the path forward, so I'll spend some time thinking about how to deal with that. Elemental effects like that can be changed or cleared via the Elemental Movement or Elemental End spellboosts, but I don't want to force the player to have to craft and attach that to their wand to be able to progress. I also don't want to make it too easy to clear up elemental effects either. It's got hints of a cursed balancing problem. I'll ruminate on it.

I do intend escape to only open an options menu instead of immediately exiting, but I haven't gotten around to implementing one yet. That will be coming soon.

Bugs, bugs, bugs galore!

The "revealed" walls being darker is a bug I had previously encountered and thought I had squashed, but I obviously didn't squash it hard enough. I'll up my efforts.

And yes, the wand stats display is sorely outdated, it was made probably more than half a year ago and has been slowly straining under the weight of mechanical and statistical changes (I'm actually pleasantly surprised that it has managed to last so long without being something that breaks the game). I'm definitely going to redo it so that I'm not trying to squeeze 500 stats into a box made for ants. (you should also notice the repeated icons, that's because I haven't even gotten around to drawing new icons for the stats that have been added over time, so it's just looping back to image_index of 0 as it goes past the image_number of the sprite, lol)

Again, thank you so much for the detailed feedback, it's been awesome to read your experience (literally no-one but me has ever played the game before this release, lol, so it's fascinating seeing how people react to it).
No problem whatsoever! I will update my other post when I play through the game again with a working inventory screen, I feel that will greatly change some things for me. I'll also properly reply and provide suggestions / feedback on the other things you mentioned in that same post!

Is it time to Shamelessly plug you to my free debugger tool? xD. Not sure if it would actually be helpful, but it was fun to make nonetheless.
 

SoapSud39

Member
A small bit of feedback: (just a few things to make sure I don't repeat what others have said already)

The start menu looks a bit wonky for me with the "Exit" hanging off the screen. Play/Settings/Exit text also seem a bit mis-sized and out of alignment (wand on the left is off-set).
For reference, my monitor is 1680x1050 (also happens to not be 16:9, if that's part of the issue).
I also think that some people may not take kindly to automatic full-screen or borderless window (at least without proper settings implemented).

When I shoot at these rocks, no sound effects play (at least with default fire wand). Shooting sfx stops abruptly (as expected), but there is neither a rocks breaking sound nor the sound of the projectile exploding.
1706647898500.png

At some point in the starting area, enemy music kept playing. I don't know if it was this guy or something else, but in any case it got aggro'ed (I think) before I unlocked the door. It had started moving around into one of those poison clouds and started taking damage. (can't see it here but its health was also mostly depleted by the time I took the screenshot). (I couldn't confirm since I accidentally restarted before unlocking the door).
1706647917668.png

Last thing (this one's a repeat) - you really gotta get rid of the thing where escape resets the game. I can guess it's just an oversight from testing, but you definitely don't want that in the game when you officially release the demo haha.

I didn't get too far (before I accidentally pressed escape to get out of the inventory) but maybe I can give some more feedback later this week (?) (no promises) if I have a bit of time to test more things.
 
A small bit of feedback: (just a few things to make sure I don't repeat what others have said already)

The start menu looks a bit wonky for me with the "Exit" hanging off the screen. Play/Settings/Exit text also seem a bit mis-sized and out of alignment (wand on the left is off-set).
For reference, my monitor is 1680x1050 (also happens to not be 16:9, if that's part of the issue).
I also think that some people may not take kindly to automatic full-screen or borderless window (at least without proper settings implemented).

When I shoot at these rocks, no sound effects play (at least with default fire wand). Shooting sfx stops abruptly (as expected), but there is neither a rocks breaking sound nor the sound of the projectile exploding.

At some point in the starting area, enemy music kept playing. I don't know if it was this guy or something else, but in any case it got aggro'ed (I think) before I unlocked the door. It had started moving around into one of those poison clouds and started taking damage. (can't see it here but its health was also mostly depleted by the time I took the screenshot). (I couldn't confirm since I accidentally restarted before unlocking the door).

Last thing (this one's a repeat) - you really gotta get rid of the thing where escape resets the game. I can guess it's just an oversight from testing, but you definitely don't want that in the game when you officially release the demo haha.

I didn't get too far (before I accidentally pressed escape to get out of the inventory) but maybe I can give some more feedback later this week (?) (no promises) if I have a bit of time to test more things.
Thanks for playing!

There's lots of SFX missing, it was lowest on my priority list (I was kinda constantly putting out fires up until release, and I'm still very much holding a hose right now, hahaha). It sucks, but I had to prioritise. I'll definitely be getting to that stuff ASAP.

That title screen is no bueno. I thought I had the resolution manager in check, but obviously I'll have to do more testing and get it working right. And thanks for pointing that out about the fullscreen, I hadn't even thought that it might be an issue. I'll set it to borderless instead. You can do it in the settings, but until Yoyo fixes the is_instanceof() function, I'm kinda screwed (I have a quite elaborate system for settings that makes heavy use of that function and right now it's completely bugged in Stable, and the Beta version where it's fixed has a game crashing bug in the layer_set_scripts() function which my lighting system relies on, so...I'm up 💩💩💩💩s creek in regards to that for now, lol).

The random aggro thing, I have encountered before and I'm trying to figure out why it happens. I've had the same intution as you that it relates to taking damage (which should aggro them if the damage comes from you) but I guess my checks to make sure it only aggros from player damage are failing (though I haven't been able to find the fail point yet).

Thanks again for giving me feedback! It's super helpful.
 

Slyddar

Member
Hey man, congrats on getting something out. A little feedback for you. So I pressed the I key when the message up the top right said to, the inventory opened, but when clicking on anything the player was not paused and kept firing, then it just crashed with this error.

GML:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102996.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)
I tried the previous version a few hours back, only a little after you released, and it crashed way too many times too, and the time it didn't crash I thought I'd press escape to see the menu, well there goes my run.

Honestly, I think I'll wait until it's a little more stable before trying again, don't want to taint my impression of the game as it looks and sounds great, and the atmosphere is top notch. Bugs are one thing, but a high number of crashes on a demo can hurt your momentum. Good luck hunting those pesky bugs!
 
Hey man, congrats on getting something out. A little feedback for you. So I pressed the I key when the message up the top right said to, the inventory opened, but when clicking on anything the player was not paused and kept firing, then it just crashed with this error.

GML:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102996.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)
I tried the previous version a few hours back, only a little after you released, and it crashed way too many times too, and the time it didn't crash I thought I'd press escape to see the menu, well there goes my run.

Honestly, I think I'll wait until it's a little more stable before trying again, don't want to taint my impression of the game as it looks and sounds great, and the atmosphere is top notch. Bugs are one thing, but a high number of crashes on a demo can hurt your momentum. Good luck hunting those pesky bugs!
Thanks for giving it a go! This demo isn't really intended for momentum (that's why I'm calling it the "beta" demo, hahah). The momentum is coming in about a week at the Steam NextFest. GMC is my testing bed to find all these issues before it goes out to a wider audience, hahaha! I think I've fixed all the directly crashing bugs that have been reported so far (the latest update I just pushed seems to have fixed all the inventory issues reported, at least as far as my testing is able to ascertain). So it's definitely become a lot more stable in the last few hours (thanks to all these responders in this thread!). And I'm still working on it as we speak.
 
Last edited:
With the latest update, I'm still getting the crash when switching back to the Crafting menu from the Wands menu (only when there is at least 1 item in inventory - this doesn't happen with an empty inventory) with this error:
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102548.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)

A new bug is that after having equipped a different wand on the first floor, upon making it to the second floor the equipped wand was changed back to "The Pistol" wand and the newly equipped wand was no longer in inventory (other wands found on the first floor that were not equipped remained in inventory).

In the same session as the last one, I died in game, started a new game, and still had the full inventory from the previous life/playthrough/etc. I started encountering rooms full of higher than usual quantity of enemies that appeared to be invincible - so, I beelined to the end of the level and instead of starting the second floor there was a message that that was the end of the demo. I feel like there was supposed to be at least 3 floors/levels.
 
With the latest update, I'm still getting the crash when switching back to the Crafting menu from the Wands menu (only when there is at least 1 item in inventory - this doesn't happen with an empty inventory) with this error:
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102548.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)

A new bug is that after having equipped a different wand on the first floor, upon making it to the second floor the equipped wand was changed back to "The Pistol" wand and the newly equipped wand was no longer in inventory (other wands found on the first floor that were not equipped remained in inventory).

In the same session as the last one, I died in game, started a new game, and still had the full inventory from the previous life/playthrough/etc. I started encountering rooms full of higher than usual quantity of enemies that appeared to be invincible - so, I beelined to the end of the level and instead of starting the second floor there was a message that that was the end of the demo. I feel like there was supposed to be at least 3 floors/levels.
Right now there is only two levels. I'm hoping to have around 4 out by the end of the week (plus as many spellboosts as I can humanly type in within the time I have left). Invincible enemies? I have an idea about what that could be related to (I think it might be an annoying quirk related to making heavy use of tagging). I'll see if I can replicate the issue and apply the fix I have in mind.

😭 I thought I'd fixed the inventory images. I'll get right on the issues you've brought up!
 
Right now there is only two levels.
When I got the message, it was after the first level. This was on the second run when the inventory carried over from the previous run (I died on level 2 in the first run) - so, maybe some stuff isn't getting reinitialized to default values correctly between runs? Like the inventory, some sort of level counter (is there one that only counts up for the end of demo message?), and the extra enemies (it felt like the enemies from the first run were maybe still there - now that I think about it, the fight music was already playing in the tutorial room on the second run)? Maybe some of this stuff only happens after the player dies on the second level?
 
When I got the message, it was after the first level. This was on the second run when the inventory carried over from the previous run (I died on level 2 in the first run) - so, maybe some stuff isn't getting reinitialized to default values correctly between runs? Like the inventory, some sort of level counter (is there one that only counts up for the end of demo message?), and the extra enemies (it felt like the enemies from the first run were maybe still there - now that I think about it, the fight music was already playing in the tutorial room on the second run)? Maybe some of this stuff only happens after the player dies on the second level?
After a bit of hunting, I think I found the issue with the inventory, it was being given the wrong "owner" when switching from the wand to the crafting section (though, why it says array out of position when it was an instance does not exist is weird, line 3 of the step event in obj_inventory_item clearly does not contain any array references, but it is the first place where the item tries to access it's owner, and when I stepped through the debugger, the owner was incorrect). I'm compiling the new build now.

I also fixed a lot of other bugs, such as
  • The inventory carrying through after death.
  • The correct wand not being assigned when going to a new level.
  • Enemies becoming invincible on a second run through (GM was using the same id for the instances each time the level was loaded, which meant that when I added the "dead" tag to the asset, the tag was still attached to the instance, but obviously the instance wasn't in the death state, so it could do what it wanted while all spells treated it as though it was dead, lol).
  • I THINK that I fixed the ai getting stuck in an idle state (if I'm correct in my fix, it had to do with an enemy getting staggered by one of your spells on a specific frame during it's attack animation, which would reset the animation state machine to the idle animation state, but the ai state would stay in the attack state, which it could never exit because the exit is triggered by the end of the attack animation, so it just sits there waiting for it's attack animation to come, with the eternal tide of time passing it by).
  • Rocks and mine carts now properly destroy spells, which should at least trigger the spells destruction effect and prevents the spell from leaving its light behind forever (which could build up if too many spells got destroyed that way and cause slowdown).
  • Pressing Escape now exits the inventory if it is open instead of exiting the run BUT IT WILL STILL EXIT THE RUN IF THE INVENTORY IS CLOSED. I don't have the time right now to implement a full menu for the escape key, so this is a compromise until I can get around to it.
 
The good news is that on the latest version of the demo, I was able to get all the way to the demo completed screen without crashing or soft locking or anything. Also, nothing funny happened with the inventory or equipped wand upon loading into level 2.

The less good news is that upon starting a new game, the fight music was already playing in the tutorial room and opening the inventory crashed the game with the following error:

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_player:

Cannot compare unset variables############################################################################################
gml_Script_RecipeUpdateValidity (line 473)
gml_Script_RecipeSort (line 455)
gml_Script_anon@2354@gml_Object_obj_inventory_crafting_editor_Create_0 (line 147)
gml_Object_obj_player_Step_0 (line 29)
 
Ok, so I think I've tracked down that inventory bug. I'm just compiling a new build now. The fight music playing at incorrect times is a known bug, I'm trying to get rid of it, but it's very sporadic and hard to determine what causes it (at least it's not game breaking, hahaha, just mildly annoying).

That being said, I really appreciate everyone chiming in with bug reports! However, I'm absolutely exhausted and I desperately need to sleep, so after this, I'm going to be offline for a bit so I can sleep the sweet sleep of the damned. More bug fixes coming in hot after that though!
 
With this new latest version of the demo, I can get through an initial playthrough fine.

Starting a second game after completing the demo once, though:
  • Fight music is playing immediately in the tutorial area. (Maybe enemies are still tagged as "aggro"?)
  • All enemies are invincible. (Still tagged as "dead"?)
  • The end of demo message comes up after beating the first level. (That was quite a mad dash to get to with invincible enemies.)
  • This one may be by design - all the crafting recipes from the previous run were still in the crafting menu.
On the bright side, I did not encounter anything that crashed the game this time.

Sidenote: If I was in a super tight time crunch to get a demo ready for public consumption, at this point I might just make the demo quit to the desktop after the end of demo/thank you for playing screen...
 

Yrbiax

Member
Just completed the demo. Triple shot wand seemed by far the best wand.
I was really confused when i started new game and i wasn't doing any damage. I thought that maybe fire wand is only one that deals damage...

Looks like lot of people have already given feedback so i am not going to repeat everything :D

I dont think anyone reported this yet. Got this error on second stage:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_dmg_indicator:

part_particles_create argument 1 incorrect type (unknown) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_dmg_indicator_Step_0 (line 21)
 
With this new latest version of the demo, I can get through an initial playthrough fine.

Starting a second game after completing the demo once, though:
  • Fight music is playing immediately in the tutorial area. (Maybe enemies are still tagged as "aggro"?)
  • All enemies are invincible. (Still tagged as "dead"?)
  • The end of demo message comes up after beating the first level. (That was quite a mad dash to get to with invincible enemies.)
  • This one may be by design - all the crafting recipes from the previous run were still in the crafting menu.
On the bright side, I did not encounter anything that crashed the game this time.

Sidenote: If I was in a super tight time crunch to get a demo ready for public consumption, at this point I might just make the demo quit to the desktop after the end of demo/thank you for playing screen...
Time crunch isn't quite as bad now because demo got approved on Steam! Still a lot of work to do in a small amount of time, but I'm fairly confident I can smash it out. I'm 99% sure that I've actually fixed the invincible enemies now, hahaha. And the end of demo message was a simple oversight where I wasn't properly resetting the amount of rooms you had gone through (which triggers winning condition above a certain amount). That should be fixed as well. The crafting recipes are intended to stay throughout runs, it's one of the meta-progression things (you can start planning for what you need to craft specific spellboosts once you've discovered them once in additional runs). I'm still hunting down the music bug.

Just completed the demo. Triple shot wand seemed by far the best wand.
I was really confused when i started new game and i wasn't doing any damage. I thought that maybe fire wand is only one that deals damage...

Looks like lot of people have already given feedback so i am not going to repeat everything :D

I dont think anyone reported this yet. Got this error on second stage:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_dmg_indicator:

part_particles_create argument 1 incorrect type (unknown) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_dmg_indicator_Step_0 (line 21)
Thanks for playing! I assume you're talking about the invincible enemy bug lol? It should be fixed in the latest build. And thanks for that bug report, you managed to find the last (hopefully) remnant of my old particle system! It's incompatible with the new setup, lol, hence the crash. Personally my favourite wand is Twinfang. But they all need proper balancing, hahaha, they've got pretty arbitrary stats.
 

woods

Member
found a bug for ya..
misclicked while in the inventory and clicked outside the window.. CTD
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 103412.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)


sidenote: while clicking on items in the inventory, i noticed i was shooting fireballs in main gamescreen still

gotta say boss man... most impressive ;o) definitely enjoying it.. keep up the good work
 
found a bug for ya..
misclicked while in the inventory and clicked outside the window.. CTD
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 103412.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)


sidenote: while clicking on items in the inventory, i noticed i was shooting fireballs in main gamescreen still

gotta say boss man... most impressive ;o) definitely enjoying it.. keep up the good work
Thanks for giving it a go! Nice catch on that bug, I'll look into what's going on. Yeah, the shooting while you're in the inventory was the lesser of two evils, originally I was locking the players input, but it wasn't getting released properly and people were getting softlocked after closing the inventory, so I just removed the input lock (though, I think I've fixed the original cause of the input lock not getting released, so I can probably reimplement it in one of the upcoming builds).
 
@woods Can you remember any more details about what you were doing to crash the inventory? I've tried clicking outside the inventory box, dragging materials outside of it, right clicking, basically doing as much "outside the inventory" activity as I can and I can't get the crash to trigger. Were you doing something specific? Dragging a wand? A piece of ore? Had you crafted anything previously? Was it on the first run of the dungeon or a subsequent one? No worries if you can't remember, but it might help me nail down what the cause is if you can :).

EDIT: I also think I may have discovered the problem with the battle music playing when it seems like you're not in combat, lol! When an enemy takes damage, they check to see if the source of the damage comes from something of the same type as them (either PLAYER or ENEMY), and then they assign their current target to the source of the damage if it's not the same type. However, I had them entering the chase state outside of that check for some reason, so if they took damage from a fellow enemy, they wouldn't assign a target (which is correct), but they would enter the chase state for a single frame (during which the chase state realises they don't have a target so it kicks them back into idle state), and entering the chase state triggers the music. I've rearranged the check to both see if the source is a different type and check the flow field to see if the source is reachable and only if both of these are true will it enter the chase state and assign a target. In the testing I've done it seems to have fixed it so fingers crossed, lol. This has been the most annoying bug to track down so far.
 
Last edited:

woods

Member
i dont remmber exactly what i did ;o) so i started another playthru

picked up piece of ore
opened inventory and moved a piece of ore to crafting area
switched to wand tab
switched back to crafting tab
then got this error

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102510.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)




edit:
tried again same steps.. this time it was an ice ore

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102438.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)




############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 103151.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)
 
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i dont remmber exactly what i did ;o) so i started another playthru

picked up piece of ore
opened inventory and moved a piece of ore to crafting area
switched to wand tab
switched back to crafting tab
then got this error

############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102510.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)




edit:
tried again same steps.. this time it was an ice ore

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 102438.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)




############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - 103151.0(0,-2147483648)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 3)
Ooof, ok, I think I should be able to track down what's happening from this.
 
picked up piece of ore
opened inventory and moved a piece of ore to crafting area
switched to wand tab
switched back to crafting tab
then got this error
Are you on the most recent version of the demo? I ask because @RefresherTowel has been uploading a bunch of new builds of the demo and that sounds like a bug I was experiencing a few versions ago that has been fixed in the more recent versions.
 
Are you on the most recent version of the demo? I ask because @RefresherTowel has been uploading a bunch of new builds of the demo and that sounds like a bug I was experiencing a few versions ago that has been fixed in the more recent versions.
Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing, because I've done a bunch of testing and could not manage to crash the inventory. I was just waiting until I finished up with some stuff (adding quite a few spellboosts!) before uploading a new version and asking @woods to try it out and see if it crashed anymore.
 

woods

Member
fair point.. 1/30/2024 5pm so a day and a half ago.

i just looked and there is a newer upload.. ;o) gonna check that out now and see if i can still break it

edit:
lookin good boss o7
 
Last edited:
Just updated my post, I see some of the bugs I was running into you are aware of and/or have fixed so I will give it another try later on!

2-1-24 Edit:

Downloaded and played the most recent version available!

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_dmg_indicator:

part_particles_create argument 1 incorrect type (unknown) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_dmg_indicator_Step_0 (line 21)

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_inventory_item:

struct_exists argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32)############################################################################################
gml_Script_anon@81@gml_Object_obj_inventory_wand_editor_boost_slot_Create_0 (line 9)
gml_Object_obj_inventory_item_Step_0 (line 89)

Here's a breakdown of some of my thoughts with this play-through:
  • On the first level there's a pack of several "shooter guys" that is absolutely brutal to deal with - it's a delicate dance of backing away and shooting constantly. Not particularly fond of that. I think these guys could be tweaked to be a little less punishing, or reduce the group sizes.
    • They can be cheesed by walking backwards / dashing backwards when they begin to shoot, although, much more challenging with a big group.
  • The first chest that I opened contained nothing but what I imagine is some kind of currency, which as far as I am aware has no particular use at the moment - I'd consider removing that from the drop table until it has a use (happened both runs).
  • I'd consider at the very least disabling shooting when the menu is open (hopefully that's easier to do), the sound and effect makes navigating the inventory feel dangerous even if no danger is present.
    • I understand this was linked to a major bug that soft-locked the game, but I think it's worth exploring if you have time.
  • The "pistol" is quite underwhelming compared to the number of enemies you have to face, if you're stuck with only that, the enemies become taxing to deal with in my opinion. Especially in groups!
  • There's some occlusion mask weirdness, likely related to the lights position on the "wand". Not really a big deal, but something I thought I would at least mention.
    • See video 1
  • Continue to enjoy the dashing effect, any thoughts of making it related to the type of elements you have equipped?
    • Ex: All fire = fire dash! (Maybe doesn't leave behind actual fire, but just an effect).
  • I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes I expect to hit something based on what I see - but I don't, I fell just short.
  • The second level is definitely a lot harder than the first, adventurers beware!
  • Healz please! Even if limited (in fact, it should be limited) - a heal here or there would be so helpful and make me feel less like I have to be a complete coward to finish a level.
  • *** The game does not like it if you tab out of the game after you started it (see video 2).
    • This seemed to cause a whole host of issues, the main one being a pretty significantly laggy experience. Do you have surfaces or something else that may be causing this? I will test with task manager to see if the memory is becoming an issue. --> Edit: Memory does not seem to be increasing to a concerning level, and this lag did not happen during this test, so I am not sure what this was about.
  • Music still seems to decide to switch somewhat unpredictably.
That's all for now, I have uploaded gameplay footage from two playthroughs (the first crashed, see above) for your viewing pleasure. They are raw and unedited, but might provide insight as to how someone else may play your game!



~ Cheers
If I could love a post again, I absolutely would. It was great to watch you play it. You discovered quite a cheese strat with the running back, but I know how I can counter it 😈

In regards to the drops, I don't think it was possible to craft anything at all beyond the wand elements. I erroneously believed that you could, but I'm 90% sure that the loot tables for the enemies didn't have all the ingredients for the few spellboosts that were active in the game. So in reality, it didn't really matter what the chests dropped (tbh, they shouldn't have been dropping wands because I only had that in as a test and forgot to remove it, but that was a happy accident as it meant that at least people got to try out the wands instead of being unable to use anything but the basic wand). I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a build that will have at least 13 spellboosts (with possibly more, if I can squeeze them in before I go to bed) with the enemy loot tables updated to give out materials that will end up being usable for spellboosts, so there'll be a lot more incentive to look for chests, fight enemies and gather emberdust (the currency you mentioned, which is required for all crafting, but hadn't actually been implemented into the crafting system until tonight, lol).

I will disable interaction when the player is in the inventory again with this coming build, as I think I have the problems all sorted.

I think you were nerfing yourself pretty hard by not trying to open all the chests in the starting area, because without a different wand, the second level is quite hard (as you rightly pointed out). With the right wand, the second level is actually fairly easy, and the difficulty will actually increase again in the third level (when I implement it). Obviously, it's totally your choice as a player, but if I balance stuff around the most basic wand in the game, anyone who gets an upgraded wand will absolutely curb-stomp the game, so I'm definitely hesitant to do much more lowering of difficulty.

Yeah, the occlusion stuff is a little annoying, but it's super fiddly to deal with and often ends up making the game feel worse when I try to correct it (for instance, increasing the collision mask of the player when running into walls, to force the wand not to enter the scenery, often ends up making the player feel like they should be able to squeeze through certain areas when they can't, which interrupts the flow of the game and potentially leads to deaths if you get caught in a sticky situation when it happens.

Dashing effects will be included in the spellboosts (such as increasing range, number of dashes available, cooldown, dealing damage if dashing through enemies, etc, lots of little upgrade paths). I've got quite a flexible spellboost system that allows me to interact with basically any element in the game, so I've got lots of plans to have little specialty boosts which interact with the mechanics in fun and unexpected ways.

The spell missing thing...That's interesting. The problem is that the spell lands exactly where your cursor is when you click. There's even a little targeting reticle showing the precise position it'll land on. My original intention was to give the player very accurate control over where their spell would land, in order to allow them to target specific areas with attacks (for instance, if you add an elemental explosion effect, like the barrels, to your spells with a spellboost, then you could target specific areas to try to cordon off enemies coming at you). However, watching you play it's pretty clear that the mechanic is probably just confusing for the player. Sure, you might be able to figure out what is going on if you played long enough, but if it doesn't feel good at the beginning why would you play long enough to figure out why it doesn't feel good. Your video combined with @attic-stuff's comments about a controller are really making me rethink whether the hyper accurate control is needed, and perhaps I should just switch it to a spell will either destroy itself once it hits max range, or once it hits something. This would remove a little bit of skill expression, but I think that cost would be offset by a better game feel and the ability to implement controllers without as much difficulty.

Healing will be implemented through spells boosts and the starting element you choose (water will add a small amount of lifesteal, at least, that's the plan right now). I'm a little reticent to add "healing" pickups throughout the level, as I really do want the player to die a lot. There's a meta progression system that isn't active in the demo (it's only half implemented), so, as long as you're saving enough emberdust throughout a run, you'll be able to gradually decrease the difficulty of the game. I'm also planning on adding a healing fountain next to the exit stairs for each level, which will heal you a little bit at the cost of emberdust (currently, you heal fully when going down a level, which I am definitely going to remove).

I think there is some surface buggery going on when alt-tabbing. I think the problem you described and the problem that attic-stuff mentioned originally, with the fully black title screen are both linked. The problem is that it only happens sporadically and I've tried and failed many times catch why it's happening with the debugger without any success. I'll definitely keep looking into it as I know it will be a frustrating issue for players (I'm alt-tabbing constantly when I'm playing games, and I know how annoying it is to have a game bug out because of it).

The music is fixed in the build I am currently working on (or, at least I haven't been able to get it to trigger incorrectly). There was an issue with enemies getting staggered by other enemies attacks, and while the attacks themselves didn't send them into combat mode, the staggering animation would exit into the chase state, triggering combat. By only entering the chase state after a stagger if the enemy was already in combat, I think I've cleared up the last of the issues that was causing music skullduggery (there were other issues prior to that one, lol, but I think that was the last one).

Thanks so much for taking the time to write all that and record those videos! It was super fun and enlightening to watch!
 

attic-stuff

Member
implement controllers...
controller support is a must! everyone hates keyboards, i know this because i asked every single person! but also with regard to yer black screen problem: are you handling the app surface separately in a way where you do something when the window does not have focus? or perhaps, are you losing a surface to volatility? for your normal map stuff, are you using a normals surface and the app surface or are you juggling something else?
 
There are quite a few surfaces in the game, normals, materials, lights, shadows, post processing, etc. My hunch is that the window size gets returned as 0 when the game is alt-tabbed and some surfaces aren't refreshing their size properly afterwards (I specifically think that is the problem with the title screen, the surface size is 1 or something like that), but I'm having a lot of trouble tracking down exactly where and why (and I'm also confused as to why it doesn't fix itself when it goes to the next room after the title screen, because everything should be refreshed there).
 

attic-stuff

Member
...hunch is that the window size gets returned as 0 when the game is alt-tabbed...
yep. when a full screen window is tabbed out it reports a window size of 0. surface size should be fine, but alt tabbing in and out will blow surfaces to smitherens. i pretty much never ever make window-sized surfaces (including app surface) but in the event that it cannot be avoided, cache the expected size for windows/surfaces/etc and use the cache to resize as things move in and out of focus
 
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