I fixed that glitch!!! the one where you could stand on objects even though there was another object right on top of it. I mentioned it in the chatbox and how it was driving me crazy, but I'm not sure I posted it anywhere else. So anyway, it turns out my way to fix it was actually right but had made a mistake.

This seems vaguely familiar.

I completely rebuilt the way the game handles horizontal movements. It's kinda more like in real life where it's all about forces causing acceleration which change the speed the object is moving.

Basically, the default settings have an acceleration of 5 px/fr^2, but a max running speed of 10 px/fr. There's also a constant wind resistance of 3 px/fr^2, resulting in a net running force of 2 px/fr^2 and (b/c of the way it's coded) a net max running speed of 7 px/fr. So when you let go of the left or right arrow key, you will decelerate at a rate of -2 px/fr^2 until you stop. But like in real life, the force of friction is never greater than the force in the other direction (this stops the friction from pushing you around when you're just standing there). And the movements all looks exactly the same as it did in the old horizontal movement setup.

The cool thing about this is that you can give tiles some additional friction that will further slow down the player, or you can put negative friction to speed them up And by setting the friction of an object equal to the negative of the constant wind resistance, you essentially create a frictionless surface to walk on. I've also added that "bounce" feature I mentioned before, where colliding with a tile can push you towards another direction. So mix this with the frictionless surface idea and you can make some crazy things.

The force of friction is equal to c*Fn, with c being a friction constant dependant on the two surfaces that are sliding across eachother and Fn being the force exerted by the ground, which is equal and opposite to gravity. So the equation would be c*g*m. This force acts in the opposite direction of the speed, and unless the speed is 0, it is uneffected by speed.
And as I said, the real equations would be a little more complicated than that. If you want to find the max running speed, you would need power besides force. And if you want to factor in the air resistance, you would need a exponential equation.

yeah I actually know that, but since there's no need to over-complicate things.....

btw, I finally set up the crawling function. I just need to make it so that you can't stand up if there's a solid block on top of you.

I also need to make the camera work right. Right now it just makes you at the center of the screen all the time (unless the camera has reached the end of the level). And technically the "camera" is just moving the entire level around the screen so you can get a better view.

I think I'm gonna have to make the camera move at different speeds depending on how far the target is away from the center. And to make it move better, I may decided to make its movements angle based.

Based on your current progress, what percentage of completion would you say you've achieved?

that's hard to say. only counting the game's engine (which excludes any menus for options or the main levels, and excluding the level editor) I'd say about 15%. Excluding water it would be way higher....

What percentage are you done with everything?  (Editor, water, etc.)

lol that's crazy... maybe around 3%... that's mostly a random guess, though

And I had my hopes up when I saw the 15%...

Jell started learning ActionScript so he might help out soon. And I'll definitely make more progress when I get more free time. In the meantime, I should probably work on the video archive or guides revamp...

yesterday I said that I would release an Aeon demo this weekend so that you guys could find the perfect combination of options for the character movements. But now I've decided to change a good part of how the collision detection system works, after figuring out a better way to do it. So I'm wondering if I should just work on releasing a demo (I still have to set things up so that you guys could edit things), or start working on this update...

nah, I'll just work on releasing the demo and I'll do the rest later. But realize that there will be a glitch when you stop crawling while under a block of terrain....

man, setting up the demo is taking forever. there are about 40 different options and I have to set up each and every option and make it do stuff.

At least there's still a small chance it'll be released this year.  Small chance, but still there...

my credibility is slipping. If I ever had any...

I'm a major step closer to releasing the demo now. I remember I posted in the chatbox that I had like 33 options left to add or something. lol But now I automated it, so that it'll be easier for me to make large scale edits, but that's just to the user interface. I'll add the actual interactivity tomorrow, if I have time, and if I'm not doing college stuff...

so uh, you have 3 days to rock on and have me active, cuz university semester starts next week. Sunday is going to be bad, monday better, tuesday just like sunday, wed worse, thu funny, and weekend...oh the weekend...

drastic progress on the Aeon demo today. All of the options are set up, but I still have to make most of the options work. The demo may either be released tomorrow (Wednesday) or the day after that depending on how much homework I get.

btw, one of the options is to set a patterned image as a background for either terrain or the level background, and if you want you can also add color tints of varying degrees. I tried to make it so that you could load images from any URL, but that turned into a huge mess because I'd have to make it wait until the image finished loading and everything. So yeah, you won't be able to do that for now...

Among the options is also the ability to edit the level code, which is based off of my own level language, rather than the now-obsolete HATPC codes. But I just now found a strange glitch involving the level code's textbox and its differences between new lines and the character "\n", which I'll have to fix tomorrow...

btw, the main reason why it was taking so long was because there were like 40 options and I had to create each textbox (with ActionScript-- it saves file size ) then I had to link it to each variable that was recording the default options, and then I had to make it react to changes in the options, find the option, then change that, so that the level can change it. It was a conceptual mess, but I managed to automate the whole process, even the event handling, so that the whole thing takes minimal coding. And to think that when I first started working on this, I thought automating it would be an even bigger mess...

If you made Aeon only availiable to Interguild Memebers, custom crates would be OK bercause most people here don't make ridiculous caves, so why would we make ridiculous crates?

When's the next demo coming out?

Probably not very soon. Right now I'm prioritizing on the site reform, which I hope to finish before January is over. After that, I'll be back to Aeon, but the next demo might not come out until we actually need something to test, like maybe once I get the standard set of tiles working, like arrows and dynamite and stuff.

Aeon updates are crucial. Look at all the reforms done to things around the site: They've done nothing to increase activity. I can live with decent video archives/article systems, but I don't want Aeon delayed even further.

well, I think the site reform is crucial right now b/c it makes the site look more distinguished so that when Aeon happens we'd be more likely to keep the interest of new members, while increasing the ease of use of the level database for current members.

What's wrong with the way the site is now?

I guess I'm always looking for stuff to not like about the site, but the big change with my "site reform" is a restructuring of the way this site is presented. It'll be more like you're browsing a site that was originally intended to be a Level Database, but all of a sudden, all this stuff was added to it, like the forums, the community stuff, video archive, competitions, guides, etc. That way, it gets you to focus more on the Level Database, and then everything else will seem like an "extra" and will therefore impress you more.

However, right now, the site is kinda sloppy in what it's "trying to be". We're kinda telling new members that we're a community who just really likes games with user created content and that we do all this cool stuff with it like have a level database, post videos, etc. It's too abstract of a concept it's not something that'll get people interested in the site quickly. The only real interesting and original thing we have right now is the fact that we are an active HATPC community. But the fact that the new reformed site will mainly be the level database for all games is definitely something that could spark interest among people who happen to find this site.

I summon Yaya!

Yaya, you joined the "new" Interguild after this was released. We need your point of view in this case. Does anything that Accel said sound familiar to what you thought when you joined us?