[Custom Dungeon] [The Prisoner] Feedback

[PaulH]

After a long absence from my computer I have finally got back to this site, and downloaded this which is going well... a 'warm' start if I ever saw one! I shall post a review in the coming weeks.

I am currently working on my own dungeon, using Dmute as I am most familiar with it and have come across a problem that I cannot find an answer to. I have 'blanked' a level (the Infinite Loops) and introduced some new monsters but they die as soon as I enter the level. Level integrity is fine, in fact there is just ONE group of skeletons on the whole level but when I get there all there is is a bunch of shields and swords. Any help would be appreciated.

Paul

[beowuuf]

Keep playing with level integrity with the skeletons present - what you can do is add more monster types than are allowed (four of five i think), so that it complains, then reduce it again - that should sort out the problem

[Christopher]

Game froze while I was going down a stairway somewhere near the way of illusion. Game has not been tampered with in any way. I would look at dmute for the answer, but I don't want to look at the dungeon until I beat it. Any ideas on how to fix this, or should I try to avoid that area?

[Paul Stevens]

If nobody else can help......

If it is a repeatable failure then I would like
to try it with CSBwin to see if I can make it
freeze. If it does, I can probably tell you what
the problem is. And I can put one more test
in CSBwin to flag a problem in some way other
than freezing up. I would need a savegame and
instructions.

[Sphenx]

A common game-freeze comes from invalid floor or wall graphics in a map. This should be very easy to have a flag for that. Major problem in DMute is that it is not easy to view quickly where is the corrupt actuator, and you may take time to find it.
In DMBuilder, you can quickly see these things and it may help you finding where there are such problems.

For DMuting people: when you create a pad actuator, its graphics is set to 3, which is very dangerous since in some maps, there are not even more than 2 floor graphics. That is probably the way you'll get a freeze later.

[beowuuf]

Another freeze is improper item referencing either from:

a) A floor tile having/not have +10 for hex when it hasn't/has got an item on it
b) Cloning a tile then deleting it - the other tiles still reference the first, now deleted object - crash city

As pointed out, DMute not good for finding the second of these, but blur your eyes and scan the level and you will easily pick up on a) as there is a blue cross.
Or DMBuilder, of course : )

[Alpha]

I replayed the whole dungeon fully yesterday trying to find a bug in this area but didn't. The most strange thing is that all tiles on this area are simple (ie without ex-editing). You can eventually send me a savegame for me to have a look on it.

I 'll be happy to know if other people experience the same problem in the same area.

[Sphenx]

Ok, quick look with DMbuilder, I found this :
in level 4, tile (22,06), pad has graphics 5 while only 4 are allowed. You can correct this.

[Sphenx]

And level 11, it even crashes DMBuilder, but I am not able to find the problem.

[Alpha]

I checked again level 11 but found nothing wrong.
There weren't any problem while testing, not even with the pressure pad (04,22,06).
I did not clone tiles, but I cut and pasted some with C and V (sometimes with source level different from destination level). Can that be an explaination ?

[Paul Stevens]

CSBuild refuses to load this game.
There are 0x7d text entries. After about
0x50 of them the forward links are
mostly 0xeeee instead of 0xfffe. Not nice.

[beowuuf]

Odd, the cut and paste shouldn't have caused that!
The only other thing i can think of is triggers - triggers have a real problem if you set activations using them at too fast a speed, especially reciprocal triggers

Eg you set a trigger to open/close another using hex 0/8, and this trigger in turn sends an effect back to the inital trigger using 0/8.

It's just a thought for the crashes in game, but would not explain the hex editors going mad...

[Des]

I've just started playing this dunge and I'm ashamed to say I had to cheat on the first level, and was wondering if I really did have to...

After getting past the first two fireball generators, I used the torch to get into the room full of pits, nabbed the bow, pressed the green button then used the big fireball generator to blow open the second of the two wooden doors (I actually had to start again to achieve this because I'd fallen down an invisible pit after getting the bow and one of my characters got an injured foot, and without a potion flask to heal him I couldn't run fast enough to avoid getting fried!)

Anyway, I played with the pressure pad that opens the first wooden door and couldn't run through it or fire an arrow through it in time. The bow must
be there for a reason so I tried firing through the iron bars but this didn't do anything. So I thought perhaps I shouldn't have killed the screamers, restarted (again) and lured the screamers onto the pad. No joy.

So I opened the dunge in CSBuild (I'm using CSBWin) and saw there was a pad beyond the double doors that would open a section of wall so I could fireball the iron bars, and that the teleporter behind the iron bars had sent the arrow in the wrong direction.

So I concluded that I should have been able to shoot the arrow through the wooden door before it closed and increased the delay on the pad so I could do this. Is this right or have I missed something? Perhaps it's impossible if you're using CSBWin?

[beowuuf]

What you need to do is fire then step on the pad. The door opens just as the arrow approaches and passes through
I have a funny feeling you need to take out a door beyond with a fireball or two first, by setting them off then swerving to the pad, allowing the fireball to pass through first
But yes, i think solving the wooden doors opens up the iron door, not firing through the iron door

[Des]

D'oh!

Fire the arrow first! Why didn't I think of that?

Thanks.

[beowuuf]

Np, glad that was the puzzle i was thinking of, its been a few months since i tried this one last