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Kikaiwa: Cybernauts

Archive: 16 posts

Kikaiwa: CybernautsVanemiera
http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=19259Drive the four wheeled "Cybernaut" trough this Puzzle level. Please read all instructions carefully since controlling this vehicle can be a bit tricky. And keep in mind: pathience and thinking wins over button mashing!

Okay, first off something really important has to be said:

DURR HURR!



http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=19258
The initial though for this level was basically to make a vehicle level - KIkaiwa-Style. Most times you drive a vehicle in LBP, it's either a motorbike which just drives forward as long as you hold down R1 or it is a tank with 5 dozen of different weapons that all do the same: being totally pointless on this short distance that is given with the LBP camera. Some people may enjoy these but i think they are plain borring.
So i started to work on my version of an LBP vehicle. It should have no unnecessary weapons, can drive literary everywhere(whithout behaving like a bubble that could pop at every moment or force you to restart when it flips over), be fast but could still push some moderatly heavy weights.

What i came up with, was this:
http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=19257

Appart from it's fairly weird looking desgin it fullfills it's job perfectly. It has the common "Put-4-grabable-materials-around-Sackboy"-controlls and can get virtually everwhere if the driver is a bit skilled and the passage is wide enough.

The controlls depend, which orientation it has because the 4 Sponges turn with it. The 2 Sponges at the sides make it move left and right. It doesn't depend which side it lies on since the four wheels rotate in a manner that they move you in the pressed direction independanty if you are and the ground, the ceiling on a wall.
The left two sponges controll the rockets. You can either simply activate them or fire them permanently if you tap the sponges just once really short. The tapping is handy if you are alone and want to keep on driving on the ceiling or a wall ofor a while. You can also jump to another wall if you tap the other direction it will change from having on side of the rockets activated to the other side being activated. Combined with the bad grib(the wheels or made of metall) you can pull of some crazy manoeuvres.

As for the level, there isn't much to say, without spoiling things. As always it's just a challenge in VR-Style(as always) and doesn't have adramatic story. Just the basic background story that keeps it somehow meaningfull in the contextof the other levels. But be prepared for a hard challenge. For some people it seems to feel like learning the controlls of an Airbus. My advice is to relax and think before pressing any button. Butto mashing like in Tekken really won't work.
And please excuse the boss *cough*. It's crashes sometimes and makes it really easy for you, but when it works it's pretty hard to beat. This reduces it sometimes to a bad "retrying until the boss crashes". I'm working on it though. Haven't gotten a better solution to controll it yet.

That's all for now. ---Have a great time		2010-07-15 11:27:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329

This is a must play! Driving vehicles and doing puzzles is something I have never seen on LBP yet until now . It was a real treat but that last water section was tough. Only thing I thing I can think of that could use improvement is the tap feature. Sometimes it wasnt responding. Also in the water if the vehicle goes vertical, your basically jacked because no matter how you grab sackboy will grab the directional pads for some reason. But it still didnt keep me from finishing the level. You desrve 5*, a <3 and a creator <3 for this. I got second place .

I know this isn't a f4f thread but If you have any spare time could you try my level Kinetic Crisis. Link is in my sig.		2010-07-15 19:57:00

Author:
L1GhTmArE
Posts: 519

I know this isn't a f4f thread but If you have any spare time could you try my level Kinetic Crisis. Link is in my sig.

I will. Thank you for the nice feedback. o3		2010-07-15 23:09:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329

just beat it with a buddy of mine. i've always loved ur levels. i like people that use material themes to perfection and obviously the metal gear stuff is ur shtick. this one was awesome, its long, its challenging but not impossible and its quite fun wen u can manage to get 2 people to do it. the water maze was brutal but innovative. keep up the good work my friend. If you ever want some opinion input, hit me up.2010-07-16 00:27:00

Author:
DarkSeraphim666
Posts: 96

This is really one of the most unique levels in LBP. You get to control a futuristic vehicle AND solve a series of platforming puzzles with it, how many levels can claim that?

The Cybernaut takes a little getting used to, but the controls are simple, and once you've gotten the hang of the basics you'll be able to start performing some neat tricks and drive all over the walls and ceilings. I did find it a little hard to control when inclined though.

The puzzles are varied and not too tricky, but I was stuck for a little bit in the underwater section. I don't know if there was some subtle hint I completely missed, but I resorted to moving along the paths randomly until I finally stumbled on the exit.

The boss was awesome. The first time I saw it I instantly thought of Tron. The A.I. on it is also pretty impressive, and it's almost a good thing that it sometimes gets stuck because I was barely keeping up with it in my previous attempts. It's probably the most challenging part of the level, and I learned to find the shortcuts that the A.I. didn't take in order to get a better chance.

This was well worth :star::star::star::star::star: and a <3. 		2010-07-16 00:41:00

Author:
Gilgamesh
Posts: 2536

just beat it with a buddy of mine. i've always loved ur levels. i like people that use material themes to perfection and obviously the metal gear stuff is ur shtick. this one was awesome, its long, its challenging but not impossible and its quite fun wen u can manage to get 2 people to do it. the water maze was brutal but innovative. keep up the good work my friend. If you ever want some opinion input, hit me up.

Glad you enjoy my hours of work. I'll remember that when the paintinator level is finished! o3



The puzzles are varied and not too tricky, but I was stuck for a little bit in the underwater section. I don't know if there was some subtle hint I completely missed, but I resorted to moving along the paths randomly until I finally stumbled on the exit.

The boss was awesome. The first time I saw it I instantly thought of Tron. The A.I. on it is also pretty impressive, and it's almost a good thing that it sometimes gets stuck because I was barely keeping up with it in my previous attempts. It's probably the most challenging part of the level, and I learned to find the shortcuts that the A.I. didn't take in order to get a better chance.


Hm, i'm a bit puzzled here. I see people try the "crusher" part over and over again, but in the end they'll just mention the water part being hard beause they died two times. Maybe that's because it takes a bit longer and it's a lot more stressing. Seems that no one ever got to the point to die(or *cough* spawn the cybernaut *cough*) around fife times to see the map. I know the maze can be a little hard since it a bit huge(actually took me more than an hour even with a friend helping and a LEGO-like template system). But... no one ever mentioned the map.
Even if it's hard. it's supposed to be the final challenge before the boss and the learning curve requires the challenges to get harder over time. It's pretty easy to survive once you mastered the tapping and as the final test i wanted the people to be under time pressure for once. For me that's the thrill of water. You can't stay there forever.

For the boss... at that part i'm actually tied behind my back to make it any better for now. It's a state machine that is controlled by 6 different mag-key colors. Violet, pink , red for the wheels and orange, yellow, green for the rockets. It's hard to tell where the AI is or what it's doing since the brighter green(don't know the name) and blue are already taken to make the player-controlled Cybernaut work. So i had to rely on buttons to sense it in any way.
Having just that it makes it hard to make the enemy easier to beat. Making it slower would be like telling the player:" you suck, 'cuz of that i have to behave like your granny." But on the other hand i had to give the player a kind of advantage over a machine that follows a predetermined path without *cough* fail *cough*. I stretched it a bit by making the AI wait after the vertikal drive and don't use the shortcut at the wheels.
For now it HAS to be a little unfair that, if you aren't very very skilled and beat the boss the first 3 times, the game sometimes favours players and makes the boss crash at the first run or never crash at all. One of the first thingss i'll do in LBP2 will be to fix this and make the controlls way more intuitive. Until then let's just keep fingers crossed that the boss will be mild to some players.		2010-07-16 08:40:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329

This is a must play! Driving vehicles and doing puzzles is something I have never seen on LBP yet until now . It was a real treat but that last water section was tough. Only thing I thing I can think of that could use improvement is the tap feature. Sometimes it wasnt responding. Also in the water if the vehicle goes vertical, your basically jacked because no matter how you grab sackboy will grab the directional pads for some reason. But it still didnt keep me from finishing the level. You desrve 5*, a <3 and a creator <3 for this. I got second place .

I know this isn't a f4f thread but If you have any spare time could you try my level Kinetic Crisis. Link is in my sig.

Yeah I couldnt put it any better then he did also gotta :star::star::star::star::star: from me 		2010-07-16 08:56:00

Author:
Sabre_
Posts: 653

Hey, you finished it! Cool. I remember a month or two back when I played this, it was pretty unique... I gotta play again to see the part after the water maze 2010-07-19 17:48:00

Author:
Arradi
Posts: 183

ok - it's genius but I'd like my sanity back please. lol

warning: do not play this level with children..... I'm gonna go get a drink.		2010-07-20 03:19:00

Author:
Morgana25
Posts: 5983

This level is great! I mean... How can you Impress me every time with an unique experience like this one?

The car controls far better than I remembered. There were, however, some problems with activating the rockets while driving vertically.
It starts out well, giving you the basics, and then forces you to use your brain. Waaahhhh! I really like some of the puzzles, but the blocks gave me some headache at first (or second, should I say) but after the correct technique they were easy to beat. The water puzzle... Oh boy. It's one of the most adrenali-ny things you can get. Several times, I got stuck in the "Wall" of the short vertical up- down shafts and Manouvered myself out and reached the nearest bubble machine when I had 0 oxygen left. Whew!

And the boss... It's brilliant. Words can't describe how much I was impressed by it. Although it did jam at the end...

You probably know I did the 5star & heart thingy, but let's mention it here for the sake of it 		2010-07-20 18:13:00

Author:
Arradi
Posts: 183

Hey man I just played your level and the first thing that come out of my mouth is OMG! this level is Looooooooong this is the first level that I have ever played that took me around 30-40 mins to pass. The gameplay/puzzle were really creative and the visualization simple but artistic.

Overall Score.

Visualization: :star::star::star::star:
Gameplay/Puzzle: :star::star::star::star::star:
Originality: :star::star::star::star::star:
Difficulty: :star::star::star::star::star::star: yes 6 starts it was really hard

I gave this level a :star::star::star::star::star: and a <3 it was really good but it was the longest LBP level I have ever played.

Also can you F4F my level please here is the link to my level thread:https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=29356-Sackboy-And-The-Demantoid-Crystal-%28part1-2%29

Thanks 		2010-07-20 21:58:00

Author:
Arnald23
Posts: 1843

Also can you F4F my level please here is the link to my level thread:https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=29356-Sackboy-And-The-Demantoid-Crystal-%28part1-2%29
[/B]

Yes, just to calm u down. oP		2010-07-21 14:03:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329

Wow, you've done it again. I've always been a fan of your innovative gameplay and levels, but this one really is something special! I had a real blast playing through this thing, and the ending was absolutely fantastic! Hehe I love the whole timer counting down throughout the entire level too, it really puts the pressure on. I finished 2nd on the high score table, right behind yourself I'm gonna have to replay this thing later, and shoot for the top, now that i'm all practiced up Great work! thanks so much for building this!2010-07-24 03:29:00

Author:
Duffluc
Posts: 402

thanks so much for building this!

My Pleasure 		2010-07-24 18:49:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329

The idea and mechanics of the vehicle great, i love the kikaiwa theme, but there are parts which are real frustrating. they made me want to cut people.
The first underwater part with the wheels got me confused, since the wheels didn't work, but then i realised it was the rockets only in that part.
The underwater maze is fun for 2 seconds. i had to repeat the drained maze after countless drownings and because my sack switch layer out of the vehicle (its where the cardboard is after the maze drains). i repeated the maze only to accidentily gas myself right above the next checkpoint, without setting off the checkpoint. i quit here because that really p'd me off. why would you put gas right above a checkpoint? i just thought this was a bit unfair.
Even thought the controls are tricky i did like the puzzles. the first puzzle where the the block bounces along - you can interupt the block and it blocks the sensor for emitting a fresh block, so you have to wait til it vanishes.

great level overall. i gave a 3 star because i was mad, but it deserves a solid 4 star (in my opinion) now that i think about it.		2010-07-25 22:07:00

Author:
MegaBlob
Posts: 291

The gears after the maze are now electric so you don't switch layers. Also added something to prevent you from driving into the gas that easily.

Thanks for the feedback o3		2010-07-28 16:27:00

Author:
Vanemiera
Posts: 329


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