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Cybernetic Adventures Zeta: Storm Armada (Spotlight Honorable Mention)

Archive: 24 posts

The quarterfinal installment of the level series takes you to the skies where you encounter various platforming gameplay and go on a Zeta Fighter in a shooter gameplay. This is the first of the series to have a level link to a sub-level. Just like the first five installments (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon), there's cinematic scenes, layer glitches, epic ending boss, and controlinator gameplays (This one actually has three different ones include the shooter one). Well, this series is getting close to be completed, as all that's left is Sigma and the epic finale Omega. Hope you enjoy this part platformer, part shooter level

.

Huge thanks to Psyntens for one of the logic tools I need for the shooter part of the level.

http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/92e0d7180d76ae1b10a11e3b8f77a219a9af9791.jpg

http://i0.lbp.me/img/ft/6c0d2b457478043bdfda0a824abde6d54197f6c5.jpg

http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/7d4db163d06685d18df01279d2435275423ce038.jpg

http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=36290

http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=36291
http://lbp.me/v/5qvd-n

2011-08-26 22:12:00

Author:
JustinArt

Posts: 1314

Woah, I like it, you build close to my style :3 Gonna go play right now~ <3

2011-08-26 22:14:00

Author:
Tadao-ZM

Posts: 114

Hey, got it queued, sounds like its going to be pretty interesting
I am trying to get some feedback on a level that I have been trying to fix. If you could make any suggestions I would appreciate it:
https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=62094-A-Quest-for-Stratta-Various

Thanks,
Alidmadia

2011-08-27 00:17:00

Author:
Alismadia

Posts: 77

+ Nice ship designs.
- Hide/decorate player gate?
- Minimise the base height of the bounce pad so the player can emit one while on a platform and jumping and emitting below.
- Camera zooms in then out again halfway through the section. (on first up/down platform.)
- Camera may be a bit zoomed out to introduce the new "spin and bouncespin back up" style platform.
- Camera goes a bit funky after the bouncepad. (after the three fans).
- On the last grabbable floating island/rock, I would like to see the safe platform below. Plus I would put the last rock on the front layer, so the player wouldn't have to layer switch through the door.
- Player can jump up to the window (with sackbot), but cannot jump back down, so player has to "pop".
+ Red colour joke. ha.
- During the second checkpoint of race, it would be better if the player saw the checkpoint first, then the extra ships. At first I thought it was a docking station, until I saw the checkpoint.

If you flip them, this will also stop the player from having to run backwards to get the ship if they die on the next section.
- A visible timer on that big blaster up/down island thing would be better I feel.
+ Love the theme/colours of this level btw.
I think this next part could be simplified.
- First stop the player from going behind the ball generator. It just gets annoying.
- You can bypass the powerup remover.
- I would also flip the up/down grab things vertically, as they could be mistaken for platforms. (Like I did!)
+ Spoiler!
- The bad sackbot guy says something like "marvellous" instead of "mischievous". I forgot to check on my second playthrough.
Found 4/6 bonus items. Tricky!
Shooter section now.
- Saw the white matter/checkpoint on level link entry. You could cover that up or decorate it.
- You can shoot more rapidly by moving up and down while firing. Not sure if this is a gameplay choice or just an emitting niggle.
-+ When the crow glows red, all of his missiles/shots should disappear. Unfair if player is on last bit of health, kills crow, loses control (due to cutscene) then dies via projectile.
You may have already thought of this, so I didn't fully test it to see.
+ Cool boss.
+ Character development!
-Name your objects! (scoreboard: completion)

Solid gameplay and cool visuals throughout.

2011-08-27 00:55:00

Author:
midnight_heist

Posts: 2513

I really liked the rest of the series--queuing this up now! Can't wait to give it a spin!

2011-08-27 02:13:00

Author:
Mysteltain

Posts: 59

Thanks for the queues, Tadao-ZM, Alismadia, and Mysteltain. And thanks for a feedback, Midnight-Heist.

+ Nice ship designs.
- Hide/decorate player gate?
- Minimise the base height of the bounce pad so the player can emit one while on a platform and jumping and emitting below.
- Camera zooms in then out again halfway through the section. (on first up/down platform.)
- Camera may be a bit zoomed out to introduce the new "spin and bouncespin back up" style platform.
- Camera goes a bit funky after the bouncepad. (after the three fans).
- On the last grabbable floating island/rock, I would like to see the safe platform below. Plus I would put the last rock on the front layer, so the player wouldn't have to layer switch through the door.
- Player can jump up to the window (with sackbot), but cannot jump back down, so player has to "pop".
+ Red colour joke. ha.
- During the second checkpoint of race, it would be better if the player saw the checkpoint first, then the extra ships. At first I thought it was a docking station, until I saw the checkpoint.

Only two levels left in the series? Exciting! All levels so far have been well worth playing, I always look forward to them and queue/play them asap.
Don't let my list of minor niggles put you off playing this level!

I fixed most of the stuff you mentioned. I made the cameras in the second outdoor part better, I made the ball generator you mentioned a bit smaller, I happened to hid the starting point with the light matter in one of the clouds at the start of the sublevel, and there's a few more things I forgot to fix, but I did in this first update. Thanks for the heads up, MH.

2011-08-27 17:38:00

Author:
JustinArt

Posts: 1314

Great level dude, the atmosphere and setting was very neat. I liked the 3d background and overall the design. I would say that some areas seemed a bit.. sparse. The very first area you are in has alot of bland spaces of material, I'd like to see more decoration or design here. Like I do myself, "never leave a blank space unfilled". The bounce pad area was nice, I noticed that it went sideways sometimes and I had to re-creatinator another one to get it upright, I would suggest a gyroscope to remedy this. The jetpack part was fun as well, I sorta didn't like the noise it made everytime I hit something, maybe remove the physics sounds with a material tweaker? Other than that really great job dude and I'm anticipating the next installment.

2011-08-28 21:02:00

Author:
damaz10

Posts: 771

Yet another impressive addition to the series! I played through it, and I really liked the diversity throughout all of it. The bounce pad platforming was really fun, the custom jetpack took a little getting used to, but it was different enough to really work. The side-scrolling shooter was pretty fun, as well. I think all that diversity was what really made me like it. That, and those 3D backgrounds. Those really caught my eye every time they showed up, and they looked REALLY nice.

So, yeah, all in all I really liked it. My only complaint was that the normal lasers seemed really ineffective during the side-scrolling sequence. I pretty much stuck with using the charge shot because it guaranteed me an instant kill against any enemy.

2011-08-28 21:57:00

Author:
Mysteltain

Posts: 59

I played your level earlier today and I must say I was impressed.

Pros
+ Great amount of variation gameplay wise
+ Looked pretty good
+ Epic boss fight

Cons
- The cut scenes were a little bit too long which really slowed down the pace of the level
- The part where you control a vehicle with rockets attached to it underneath is quite hard to control
- The level felt a little bit too long for my liking.

Overall I enjoyed this level and was well worthy of a YAY!

(F4F on my signature)

2011-08-30 20:19:00

Author:
VenemoX

Posts: 197

It's great.
The cutscenes are very well done, the platforming is VERY GOOD and well paced.
The Final Boss was epic.
There's nothing else i can really say, i felt the whole time like i was watching a Star Trek episode.

By the way, what's the point of the Gauntlets and the grabbable circles in the area with the moving platforms and the moving lasers? I didn't even use it to go forward.

2011-08-31 17:15:00

Author:
Flame Dragon

Posts: 312

Played this there now,
-Well your level making skills are definantly made up with your name, "Artistic" every inch was very well designed and reminded me of something, dunno what

-Platforming was very innovative , you mixed your art style with your platforming for a great blend.
-Some parts where a bit awkward, *cough* the grabbing and swinging parts, fairly common for platformers but sometimes I found it was hard to gain enough momentum to propell myself foward in your level.
-Final boss was fantastic man, need more !

Overall 9/10 It really makes me sad that levels like this don't make cool pages when GARBAGE like "Cool free s***" make the pages everyday, right now as i'm typing this a person has 4 levels of the one series on cool levels, all of which are "Free stuff" levels and none of the "free" stuff is that person's own creation.

*URGGH I NEED AN ASPIRIN*

jk jk :L great level mate

could you give F4f on the level in my sig? thanks

2011-08-31 20:26:00

Author:
onaga666

Posts: 293

Reminds me of Ratchet and Clank queued and waiting.

2011-09-01 11:05:00

Author:
Lordwarblade

Posts: 761

Whoa, this looks amazing. Added to my que but may not be able to get round to playing just yet as I have a backlog of F4F to. But I'd be gratful if you could give F4F in return from the link in my signature.

2011-09-01 11:47:00

Author:
LittleBigDes

Posts: 920

Thanks for the queues, Lordwarblade and LittleBigDes, hope you both enjoy it. And thanks for the feedbacks, damaz10, Mysteltain, VenemoX, Flame Dragon and onaga666.

Great level dude, the atmosphere and setting was very neat. I liked the 3d background and overall the design. I would say that some areas seemed a bit.. sparse. The very first area you are in has alot of bland spaces of material, I'd like to see more decoration or design here. Like I do myself, "never leave a blank space unfilled". The bounce pad area was nice, I noticed that it went sideways sometimes and I had to re-creatinator another one to get it upright, I would suggest a gyroscope to remedy this. The jetpack part was fun as well, I sorta didn't like the noise it made everytime I hit something, maybe remove the physics sounds with a material tweaker? Other than that really great job dude and I'm anticipating the next installment.

Yeah, I think the area you mentioned could use more visuals, so I updated the level with added more materials, decorations and stickers around the first and second interior. The creatinator's bounce pads already has a gyroscope.

So, yeah, all in all I really liked it. My only complaint was that the normal lasers seemed really ineffective during the side-scrolling sequence. I pretty much stuck with using the charge shot because it guaranteed me an instant kill against any enemy.

Yeah that maybe true, but it's best to use the normal lasers against small enemies.

It's great.
The cutscenes are very well done, the platforming is VERY GOOD and well paced.
The Final Boss was epic.
There's nothing else i can really say, i felt the whole time like i was watching a Star Trek episode.

By the way, what's the point of the Gauntlets and the grabbable circles in the area with the moving platforms and the moving lasers? I didn't even use it to go forward.

Weird, I thought it's impossible to pass the grabinator part without the circles on the rail. I tested it about more than ten times before I published it, and I couldn't reach it without the circles. You must have a lot of skills passing through that part.

2011-09-01 18:10:00

Author:
JustinArt

Posts: 1314

Had a lot of fun playing - spinning wheels are my 2nd least favorite platforming obstacle (slippery landing spots are my least favorite), but you did them well, and I didn't die in the double digits. Checkpoint placement helped, too.

Speaking as a lover of shoot-em-ups, I must strongly recommend all your shot emitters be set to "Ignore Parent Velocity". Generally, bullets should not drift in shoot-em-ups - it messes up dodge patterns.

Further, for your charge weapon. I recommend shortening the timer or sequencer for the charge-up, then wiring R1 to a NOT gate, then wiring the NOT to the reset for your timer or sequencer. Then, in addition to firing a fully charged blast, R1 would also turn the charge all the way off if the player lets it go prematurely.

For the spaces where you used stickers to decorate backgrounds, I recommend creating blocks of a differently textured material, slapping the stickers on that, then embedding this material into the walls. This should help take away some of the "looks like a poster" effect that stickering flat walls sometimes causes.

I really liked your scenery and cut-scenes overall. Would you consider adding voice acting at some point? Listening to Crow Malware would be funny.

2011-09-03 18:17:00

Author:
coyote_blue

Posts: 422

Hi Justin thanks for playing my level. I'm glad I played yours and left a review but I'll explain it again here:

This is a great level, the bounce & grab platforming areas had a great flow/pace to them. Challenging at times towards the edge of frustration in two areas but always fun & engaging. Good story & character & enemy design. With a boss that keeps you on your toes. Worth playing & I'm keeping you on my hearted list to come back again for more. Design wise your 3D background pieces kept catching my eye whilst playing and it was a really nice touch.

The two areas that I found frustrating was the jet pack section. I felt the gaps to get through were a big tight and could cause others to quit. The other section is here:

http://ie.lbp.me/img/fl/80e7f6ede047ed28e8dbfb6da9fd098489b4a2d2.jpg

I felt the gap to jump across from one roller to the next was a tad too far. I eventually got across but due to the momentum of the roller and size of gap, many times it felt a bit unfair. So you may want to review this.

This may mean I need an eye test, but these two areas:

http://i6.lbp.me/img/fl/dd69ed6ad0c0441420325a956e4b151b7a70316e.jpg
and
http://if.lbp.me/img/fl/25f9c75f8982037baeae24b407aac63684f97669.jpg

Zoomed out a bit too far making this a bit hard to see, and that's with me playing on a 32 inch flat screen. So for those playing on a 32 inch or less may find this a bit too small due to the camera zoom.

Overall you have a good variation of obstacles and hazards to contend with. Fun and flowed well and I'm looking forward to the next part.

2011-09-05 12:52:00

Author:
LittleBigDes

Posts: 920

I remember playing an earlier installment of this series and while it was a very solid level it was quite derivative of The factory of a Better Tomorrow in look and feel, but this latest installemnt is a massive improvement in terms of originality. Within the level there is a massive amount of varied gameplay sections which work perfectly in combination with each other to provide an enjoyable playing experience. The sense of scale and scope is well realised through use of material choice, stickering, background placement and camera zones.
The bounce pad section worked perfectly, wasn't so keen on the LBP1 rock r1 descent, would have prefered a spot of grapple action. The flight exams were great additions to add depth to the playing experience. Some nice puzzle platform sections integrated into the gameplay too. The Battle with the Crow Boss was enjoyable, not sure if it's ace-able due to the high volume of plasma ball streams though? Earlier the purple plasma balls blended in slightly with the background objects of the same hue also causing an issue. So using the patented Justin Art review synopsis method...

Visuals: Excellent choice of materials, decoration and scale to create an interesting visual interface.

Gameplay: Varied, fluid and the star of the level.

Story/dialogue: the weakest element, filled with grammatical areas and extremely generic.

sound: good but could use a few more spot effects to add to the dramatic impetus.

Overall: A good level, a yay and congratulations on the improvments.

2011-09-05 22:10:00

Author:
EnochRoot

Posts: 533

Wow, I was very impressed with this level! As many people have said before, the variety of game play was a huge boost to the entertainment value. I felt it was paced just right, with just enough time spent in the different sections. The level design was very good; clean, simple, and stylish. The character development was nice, I like to get to know a boss before fighting them.

Constructive criticism:
-Consider using a global modifier to fade the level into that first cutscene.
-During the section underneath the ball generator...(the last 2 grab platforms that move up and down before you leave that area), the camera zooms way in as the platform gets close to the clouds on the bottom. I'm not sure if this was intentional, (to scare the player?) but it was disorienting for me.

Nice level, I guess I'll have to check out the rest of the series now!

2011-09-07 17:07:00

Author:
Unknown User

Thanks for the feedbacks, Coyote_blue, LittleBigDes, EnochRoot, and Treo_Has_Come.

Had a lot of fun playing - spinning wheels are my 2nd least favorite platforming obstacle (slippery landing spots are my least favorite), but you did them well, and I didn't die in the double digits. Checkpoint placement helped, too.

Speaking as a lover of shoot-em-ups, I must strongly recommend all your shot emitters be set to "Ignore Parent Velocity". Generally, bullets should not drift in shoot-em-ups - it messes up dodge patterns.

Further, for your charge weapon. I recommend shortening the timer or sequencer for the charge-up, then wiring R1 to a NOT gate, then wiring the NOT to the reset for your timer or sequencer. Then, in addition to firing a fully charged blast, R1 would also turn the charge all the way off if the player lets it go prematurely.

For the spaces where you used stickers to decorate backgrounds, I recommend creating blocks of a differently textured material, slapping the stickers on that, then embedding this material into the walls. This should help take away some of the "looks like a poster" effect that stickering flat walls sometimes causes.

I really liked your scenery and cut-scenes overall. Would you consider adding voice acting at some point? Listening to Crow Malware would be funny.

Thanks for the advice about the shooter part. The ship's charge shot is now completely resettable when you release the R1 and it hasn't been fully charged. I also set the no parent velocity to on in all of the ship's shots, so it won't move crookedly.

Hi Justin thanks for playing my level. I'm glad I played yours and left a review but I'll explain it again here:

This is a great level, the bounce & grab platforming areas had a great flow/pace to them. Challenging at times towards the edge of frustration in two areas but always fun & engaging. Good story & character & enemy design. With a boss that keeps you on your toes. Worth playing & I'm keeping you on my hearted list to come back again for more. Design wise your 3D background pieces kept catching my eye whilst playing and it was a really nice touch.

The two areas that I found frustrating was the jet pack section. I felt the gaps to get through were a big tight and could cause others to quit. The other section is here:

http://ie.lbp.me/img/fl/80e7f6ede047ed28e8dbfb6da9fd098489b4a2d2.jpg

I felt the gap to jump across from one roller to the next was a tad too far. I eventually got across but due to the momentum of the roller and size of gap, many times it felt a bit unfair. So you may want to review this.

This may mean I need an eye test, but these two areas:

http://i6.lbp.me/img/fl/dd69ed6ad0c0441420325a956e4b151b7a70316e.jpg
and
http://if.lbp.me/img/fl/25f9c75f8982037baeae24b407aac63684f97669.jpg

Zoomed out a bit too far making this a bit hard to see, and that's with me playing on a 32 inch flat screen. So for those playing on a 32 inch or less may find this a bit too small due to the camera zoom.

Overall you have a good variation of obstacles and hazards to contend with. Fun and flowed well and I'm looking forward to the next part.

I made the obstacle a bit easier around the first picture you took. I extended the stop timing of a moving grabbable obstacle, and I added a bridge gap near that.

That's not all, I turned off the disable controller during the boss' defeat and I set the limit players to 1 or 2 players recommend. Hope this update helps.

2011-09-08 00:18:00

Author:
JustinArt

Posts: 1314

Good level JustinArt !

I loved how there was a lot of variety in the gameplay, and as someone already told you, the length of each section was good, the level never became boring. I have a few remarks though, mostly about the jetpack and side scrolling shooter sections.

- I found there was a lack of precision in the control of the jetpack. I'm maybe wrong, but I guess you're using an advanced mover to control the left right directions ? Did your signal from the left stick go though logics gates (and, or, etc...) before reaching the advanced mover. It feel this way, as it seems that the left right controls where not as responsive as they could be (I'm maybe wrong on this, I'm just asking questions). Now, the part that feel weird was the propulsion. I'm just making a suggestion, but i thought it took too much time to reverse the down/up movement when pressing X (too much inertia). I don't ask you to remove it, i like the idea, I was just thinking about tweaking it a little to make it more fun and avoid frustration and cheap death

.

- I saw that you already fixed the ingore parent velocity and charge weapon, so I will only talk about the general feeling of this side scrolling section. Overall it was good, but i thought that you didnt feel the impacts on your ship. I saw my health points slowly going down, but didn't really know when a bullet hit me. Maybe a small visual addition and a louder sound effect would help. I also found that some of the Boss attacks were difficult to avoid. Somtimes I felt like I cannot avoid some of them, no matter where i was and how i was moving (I'm maybe wrong about this, though).

Overall, it's a nice level, with a good and fun story, a really descent lenght, variety in gameplay and it's quite fun to play. Congrats, you get a yay from me

2011-09-08 13:07:00

Author:
Slurm

Posts: 262

Superb work! Everything pleases me in this level. The plot, the gameplay, the design, the cast and lots of stuff!
The fight againts viruses on aircraft was very well done and awesome, also the boss was great.
I wasn't able to dodge couple boss' projectiles because the ship took little too much space and purple plasma projectiles also took a lot of space.
Overall, Cybernetic Adventures newest level won't disappoint anyone! Great job!

2011-09-15 11:22:00

Author:
Coconuts

Posts: 384

How in blue blazes did I miss this!? Putting in the queue NOW!

2011-09-15 23:45:00

Author:
biorogue

Posts: 8424

Hey JustinArt, thanks for playing my level. My apologies for the late return of F4F here. I played your level but was unable to finish it. I had thought I might try it again later and see if I had any better luck, but real life has gotten too busy and I haven't been playing much, so I'll just give you my impressions up to where I rage-quit.

It's a great looking level. And up until the point where I failed miserably, it plays just great. I love the custom background pieces, and the overall style. The opening sequence is epic, and the camera work throughout really stands out (although I agree with an earlier post that some of it seems to be panned awfully far out).

The only place I really had a problem was the spot I never got past (and believe me I tried... and tried). The "jet-pack" section. I don't know if it was a lag issue or just my own lack of skillz (trust me on this, my lack of skillz is legendary), but I just could not get the timing and control right in this section. I am not necessarily suggesting that you change it...just know that some people will quit and or rate it down for the difficulty.

Wish I could have seen the rest of it (was there a lot more after the jet-pack sequence??), but what I saw was well made, and easy on the eyes. Very nice level.

2011-09-20 13:49:00

Author:
v0rtex

Posts: 1878

Thanks for the feedbacks, Slurm, Coconuts, Biorogue (Saw your review last night), and vOrtex.

- I found there was a lack of precision in the control of the jetpack. I'm maybe wrong, but I guess you're using an advanced mover to control the left right directions ? Did your signal from the left stick go though logics gates (and, or, etc...) before reaching the advanced mover. It feel this way, as it seems that the left right controls where not as responsive as they could be (I'm maybe wrong on this, I'm just asking questions). Now, the part that feel weird was the propulsion. I'm just making a suggestion, but i thought it took too much time to reverse the down/up movement when pressing X (too much inertia). I don't ask you to remove it, i like the idea, I was just thinking about tweaking it a little to make it more fun and avoid frustration and cheap death

.

Yes, I actually did use the advance mover on the jetpack. In this level's new update, I made the jetpack part better with a bit lowered acceleration (about 47% instead of 50%) and an hint that should have all players know what to do in a custom jetpack part. Also, I turned off the sound position of some enemy ships being destroyed even though players may hear it when they went out of screen (I tried to make it only happened when players destroy them, but the logic didn't make the sound occur. I've been trying since I started making the shooter section, but for now the best way is the sound position off and make the sound occur when the ship is destroyed).

Superb work! Everything pleases me in this level. The plot, the gameplay, the design, the cast and lots of stuff!
The fight againts viruses on aircraft was very well done and awesome, also the boss was great.
I wasn't able to dodge couple boss' projectiles because the ship took little too much space and purple plasma projectiles also took a lot of space.
Overall, Cybernetic Adventures newest level won't disappoint anyone! Great job!

Glad you enjoyed the shooter section of this level. I just made the boss shoot a little less plasmas, so there's plenty of space to dodge them.

The only place I really had a problem was the spot I never got past (and believe me I tried... and tried). The "jet-pack" section. I don't know if it was a lag issue or just my own lack of skillz (trust me on this, my lack of skillz is legendary), but I just could not get the timing and control right in this section. I am not necessarily suggesting that you change it...just know that some people will quit and or rate it down for the difficulty.

Wish I could have seen the rest of it (was there a lot more after the jet-pack sequence??), but what I saw was well made, and easy on the eyes. Very nice level.

As what I mentioned to Slurm, I made the jetpack part a bit easier, so that players won't get easily frustrated by it.

Also, since I set the limit players to 1-2 in the previous update, I removed the jetpacks for third and fourth player on the hangars. Hope all of these updates help.

2011-09-22 18:58:00

Author:
JustinArt

Posts: 1314

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