Home    LBP Showcase / Reviews / Recommendations    Level Showcase    Cool Levels
#1

The Printz Diaries Chapter 2: Pumpkins and Slippers

Archive: 23 posts

http://i0.lbp.me/img/bl/81078fc22f2776ec5057f82c5fc22224bd1fdd1d.png
The Printz Diaries Chapter 2: Pumpkins and Slippers (Part 1) (http://lbp.me/v/qr42-h0)

Hi everyone! Well, it's finally done. To those in the know, it's almost been three years since I finished the first Chapter of Printz' story, and I have been through hell and back since, both in real life and on my moon! But, today, I'm super proud to announce that the first part of Chapter two is finally published on my Earth for your point and clicking pleasure!

If you're not familiar with the Printz story so far, you can catch up by playing the first few levels, all prominent on my Earth.... however to be honest, my level building skills have greatly improved since making the first chapter, and I really hope that this level will be well received!

What to Expect:

Point and Click Gameplay

A point and click level, for those of you who have never played one, is one where you are given a cursor, and the gameplay will revolve around the items you can find, and the puzzles you complete using them. In Printz 2, you are given a fully functioning inventory (accompanied by my resident insulting fairy Tink) which allows you to select the items you'd like to use in the world, inspect them for snarky comments and occasional (but infrequent) hints from Tinkerbell, and combine items to create more useful objects to use.


http://i2.lbp.me/img/ft/ff2ff93972178863976e828534ac5b404897d841.jpg

Fully voiced Characters

One of my favourite parts of the Printz story so far is that all the characters are voiced - there is extensive dialogue in this installment, although you will have to hunt high and low to find all the hidden jokes and comments in the level! All characters have been voiced by myself and my husband, radio_statik.


http://i9.lbp.me/img/ft/9493be2696084d4efd5cd1468476278263c39a1b.jpg

In depth Puzzling

It's been tricky to build this level, with this being our fifth complete rebuild of chapter 2. Working within the restrictions of LBP2, and ensuring that we don't destroy anyone's PS3s along the way, we've managed to cram a puzzle which should take new players at least 15-20 minutes to complete fully. Although if you, like Printz, are a 'clever clogs', you may be able to speedrun it!


http://i9.lbp.me/img/ft/a99750bb8fa75f703283ca5717a63edeedb864ca.jpg

I really hope that you enjoy playing this as much as we've enjoyed creating it. Please, please, if you have feedback good or bad, I'd love to hear from you <3

Bug Reports & Updates:

Known Bugs:

A list of known bugs are contained in the spoiler box below. If you find any bugs, please do let me know what you did leading up to the bug occuring, so that I can try my best to replicate and fix it.

-- Printz (and sometimes Tink) will lip sync for multiple characters in the level, as well as himself. This is a known bug from day one, which I have not been able to fix thus far. It's not a game breaker though, so it's at Priority C.
-- Magic mouth on the toolbox drop isn't triggering correctly, playing the same voice as interact mode. Priority B
-- Clippy's voice is coming from the electromagnet, due to me having to move the magic mouth for a quick fix earlier in the build. Needs to go back on his chip. Priority B
--Cursor movement is super slow at edges of the screen. I worked out a fix for this for the next level, but unfrotunately it wont work in this one. will keep at it. Priority C


Update History:

15.06.14 - First published. 1.0
15.06.14 - First Update. 1.01.

1.01: Fixed the bug where the cursor would disappear when leaving the keyhole minigame. It apparently occured due to being able to enter the menu from within the puzzle. (whoops) Menu activation during minigames is now locked - the menu may only be accessed from the main game screens.
1.012: Fixed bug where players were able to pick up batteries multiple times when combined with other items - gamebreaker.
1.013: Added tooltip to the combine section of the menu, to make it more obvious that you need to click the rotating icon to combine items.
1.014: WHOOPS! I made another bug. Battery would dissappear if removed from grammaphone and replaced. Now fixed with NU IMPROVED LOGICS!

http://lbp.me/v/qr42-h0		2014-06-15 19:16:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

ooh, purdy thread. queued it is.

EDIT: oh sorry. Let me rephrase that.

Awright geeezzaa! I like da look ov dis level already. I fnk I shall add i' ter me queue so what I may play i' later. Sorted mate.		2014-06-15 19:26:00

Author:
biorogue
Posts: 8424

Aha it is finally here! Yay! It is great you finally got to finish this surely soon to be MM picked level Ria! Got it in top of the queue : D2014-06-15 19:34:00

Author:
yugnar
Posts: 1478

Awright geeezzaa! I like da look ov dis level already. I fnk I shall add i' ter me queue so what I may play i' later. Sorted mate.

erm... am I a cockney to you now? 		2014-06-15 19:34:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

Will play when i get back on LBP2 right away!

-hyper		2014-06-15 19:45:00

Author:
hyperdude95
Posts: 1793

I knew you were up to something when you started publishing locked levels, but I didnt think this fast!

I will queue it up for when I get home, looks great!		2014-06-15 19:55:00

Author:
Rpg Maker
Posts: 877

I've queued this, looks great from the photos. I really enjoyed the first game so this should be excellent 2014-06-15 20:06:00

Author:
aratiatia
Posts: 374

Oh wow, this looks amazing. I'll queue up the first part(s) and this one.2014-06-15 21:50:00

Author:
DawnBreaker_23
Posts: 568

oh boy, please forgive the flaws of the first! I can hardly bear to play it anymore! 2014-06-15 22:04:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

I don't really judge a level by its flaws. I only care if it's fun and creative! 2014-06-15 22:07:00

Author:
DawnBreaker_23
Posts: 568

erm... am I a cockney to you now?

LOL, I thought one of the characters was in the last one?		2014-06-15 23:53:00

Author:
biorogue
Posts: 8424

there were so many characters in the last one i couldnt possibly remember! Started playing it last night for nostalgia kicks... ended up nearly smashing my controller in a cross between frustration and disbelief. It's so odd, the power of the rose tinted spectacles! I'm sure I'll probablyfeel the same way about this level in another three years time!2014-06-16 00:18:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

I liked the first one quite a bit, so I look forward to the improvements you've made and the continued story!2014-06-16 00:21:00

Author:
Tynz21
Posts: 544

It's done! By George, it's done!

EDIT:

Okay I know I'm double posting but I've finished it! And my oh my, it was wonderful! The voice acting! Best in a community level, just like in the Printz Diaries Part 1. The puzzles were good. They weren't pushovers, but they weren't too difficult or obscure either. The minigame was a barrel of fun as well. However, I have to say that the greatest joy of this level was just doing random things both in the level and the menu just to hear the characters talk, which is something completely and uniquely Rialrees. Overall I enjoyed this a lot.

However I have a few bugs/complaints:

1. When you bump your cursor against a wall it becomes slow and sluggish for a very short time. It's almost as if the walls were made of honey and the cursor had to "unstick" itself. It was an inconvenience mostly.

2. When you

SPOILER ALERT
Shoot the box of nails off the railing with your blow gun Printz says the same thing as what he says when he's just examining it. You can hear Printz talking about how its balancing so precariously as it falls off, before that mouth is covered by another saying "Nailed it."

3. The music puzzle was a bit obscure. I only figured out you had to play the Mario theme after hitting a bunch of keys randomly. You should make it so that the gramophone makes it a lot more obvious that you have to play the song later on, and maybe compensate for that by getting rid of the light feedback system so clueless players like me wouldn't be able to trial-and-error through the thing.

4. Clippy's voice is on the electromagnet. I thought that the electromagnet was talking at first when I picked up Clippy.
END SPOILER ALERT

5. And this is the most important one...
It was just so short! It's one level long, and I thought you might have pulled a Sealed Fate and stuffed a crap ton of stuff into one level but it's really not that long. The original Printz was three links long, and each link was just as long as this level. I was expecting a whole cake this time but I only got a slice. It took me about 15-20 minutes to finish this, and while that's longish for a normal level it's short for a point and click.

If the shortness is a design choice so that you can release parts faster than that's fine, though, and in fact I might like it better, but hopefully you''ll be able to get them out fast now.		2014-06-16 01:04:00

Author:
Kalawishis
Posts: 928

aww kal thanks so much! I'll make a note of the bugs and get them sorted asap.

The level is definitely shorter this time round, and you're right, it is so that I can release them faster I'm still planning another level for this chapter, and hope to release it within the next two-three months. When building printz 1, I found that because I was releasing all three at the same time, by the time I finished the third level, I had improved to the point that I needed to redo the first. I didnt want that holding me up this time

The cursor is a pain in my backside at the moment! If it hadn't been for one single minigame not wanting to play ball, I could have kept the move functionality in. But last minute the level as a whole decided to glitch out on me. Ack. The restraining border that we're using for the sixaxis atm is pretty prehistoric actually, and it annoys the heck out of me when playing too! I have to fine tune it for the next level anyway, so if it's an easy-ish adjustment to make in this level, I'll be sure to do so

In regards to the music puzzle, the clue is actually on the grammophone at the beginning of the level. Once the circuit board puzzle is solved, and the battery is replaced in the grammaphone, you can click on the erm... 'tuner'... thing, next to it, and tune in to different radio stations. (Why a grammaphone would pick up the radio is beyond me. We were a bit weird that writing night!) one of those radio stations has mario looping with a clue. But it is nevertheless VERY obscure.

Thanks so much for your awesome feedback xxx		2014-06-16 07:51:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

Great rialrees, a Chapter 2!!!!
I will play this ASAP 		2014-06-16 09:39:00

Author:
Schnupsi
Posts: 506

This was a pretty neat experience, I liked it a lot! Puzzling is such an underused element in LBP (probably because it requires a buttload of logic to even work properly) so this was refreshing. Genuinely not crappy dialoge and voiceacting was very nice and the puzzles were cool, enhanced with the dialoge.
http://dorktoescomic.com/?p=493Some feedback/suggestions/potential bugs. Watch out for SPOILERS! :

' I kept wondering what the battery is doing in the radio? It only powers the puzzle I guess, but wouldn't it also power the radio? How can a radio work independantly without battery? Why is there a battery there in the first place if it dosen't power the radio, only the puzzling?
PLOTHOLE!

* Switching to the menu could be much faster, or more satisfying. Atm it takes like 0.7 seconds to get there, and 0.7 to get out. Please make this much faster, because selecting items and combining with everything that moves is hard when the menu is so slow!

* The cursor was also sorta wonky in how it slows down at the edge of the screen for whatever reason. It also only moves when you push the left stick all the way, have you considered having it move slowly at slight pushing? Might make it feel a bit smoother to control.

I also ended up winging it on the radio puzzle, I had listened to the radio but ended up forgetting the tune

-----

Fun stuff, make more! And don't have it take three years! 		2014-06-18 01:26:00

Author:
Mnniska
Posts: 531

Some feedback/suggestions/potential bugs. Watch out for SPOILERS! :

' I kept wondering what the battery is doing in the radio? It only powers the puzzle I guess, but wouldn't it also power the radio? How can a radio work independantly without battery? Why is there a battery there in the first place if it dosen't power the radio, only the puzzling?
PLOTHOLE!

Erm.... the radio doesnt work without the battery... at least it shouldnt! I'll have to check if a bug fix I've done has messed that up...


* Switching to the menu could be much faster, or more satisfying. Atm it takes like 0.7 seconds to get there, and 0.7 to get out. Please make this much faster, because selecting items and combining with everything that moves is hard when the menu is so slow!

Mmmm... I see your point but the most I could shave off would be a few points of a second - the move to themenu is actually pretty fast, maybe a tweak to the camera transition would make it feel more responsive.


* The cursor was also sorta wonky in how it slows down at the edge of the screen for whatever reason. It also only moves when you push the left stick all the way, have you considered having it move slowly at slight pushing? Might make it feel a bit smoother to control.

tbh I spent so long (wasted effort, as I've recently realised) figuring out a good way to get the cursor to remain within the boundaries without issue that I hadn''t put thought to that, but it's a great idea, and would make selecting smaller items much easier. Will definitely look into it for the next level - I've also got a fix in place for the next level which has no slow down of the cursor at the edges at all. I wish I could implement it in this level but they're from two different worlds. Will try to get this one working better on its own.


I also ended up winging it on the radio puzzle, I had listened to the radio but ended up forgetting the tune

lol yeah Me and Statik had a huge debate on this one. I argued that the 'clue' was too obscure, he argued that that was a good thing. Our middle ground was putting the light indicators into the puzzle so that people could at least use process of elimination if they so desired. I think I'm going to stick to basic item & combining puzzles next time round!


Thanks so much for your feedback Mnniska, it's as appreciated as always xxx		2014-06-18 10:07:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

Erm.... the radio doesnt work without the battery... at least it shouldnt! I'll have to check if a bug fix I've done has messed that up...


So wait, if the radio dosen't work without the battery, how are people supposed to backtrack and get the music clue after opening the door with the gem? You have to use the battery in combination with stuff to access the area, so is it even possible to listen to the radio when the relevant puzzle emerges, I wonder? Maybe I just didn't notice that I got the battery back..		2014-06-18 12:24:00

Author:
Mnniska
Posts: 531

yeah you get the battery back after using it in its combined form, and you can pop it back into the radio. that item has caused me no end of troubles over the past few days!2014-06-18 12:52:00

Author:
rialrees
Posts: 1015

Congrats for the Team Pick! Can't wait to play the next episode 2014-06-21 04:00:00

Author:
yugnar
Posts: 1478

Great level, Railrees. I forgot how this level works because it has been almost three years since chapter one , but I somehow learned to play it quickly. The point and click gameplay is nicely done, especially the music box and xylophone puzzle. And the visuals are top notch. The music is excellent, and the dialogues are hilarious. Awesome work.

A yay and heart.		2014-07-29 23:35:00

Author:
JustinArt
Posts: 1314

I'm still awaiting the release of the next part to the journey! Unless, you've already updated the level with that... Let me check! http://i.imgur.com/bjKCAej.png2014-08-01 15:26:00

Author:
Bryan_Zuckerberg
Posts: 874


LBPCentral Archive Statistics
Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Datenschutz
Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.