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David and Jess were seeking treasure in a cave, but when the earth shook, they slipped into a pit and were separated by a wall of rock! Can they solve puzzles together and find their way back to each other?

This is being submitted for the RPG Maker 2003 Golden Week contest! How many RPG Maker 2003 games have simultaneous co-op play? I figured not many if any at all, so I figured I'd give it a shot! So far the mechanics work.

I did my best to make the controls smooth, but using numbers to control a second character isn't perfect. If you have a numpad on your keyboard, player 2 will be much easier to control, but unfortunately, the arrows sharing the num keys seem to affect player 1. As such, using the number row to control player 2 might be better for some people.

Player 2 controls:
1=left
2=down (since 2 has a down arrow, which affects player 1, I also will allow "." to be down)
3=right
5=up
shift=push block/pull lever

There are two modes for player 2 control. Glide Mode and Precision Mode. I recommend Glide Mode as it is faster. Precision Mode requires a button press for every space moved. Glide Mode allows you to hold down a direction and keep walking. But, you will have to be careful to release the control buttons before pressing a separate control button in either mode.

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Finished!

Yay, I finally finished!

Fixing all the cutscene bugs took longer than I expected, so I didn't end up adding the extra level I had planned. But I got everything else working from what I could tell. Didn't have time to get anyone else to test it.

I think the final boss will be fun. I hope so at least. Overall, I think the game is a bit easy, but part of that is due to how short it is. But that's sort of expected with a contest like this.

I hope everyone finds the controls manageable. I ran into a few annoyances due to the fact that the numpad doubles as arrow keys which move player 1. I tried using numlock, but that didn't make a difference. However, using the number row works pretty well as well.

If you use the numpad, use "." for down. If you use the numrow, you can use "2" for down.

Posts

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iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
It's quite an interesting concept! Deserves more subs :)
Thanks!

I think I fixed all the major bugs so far, so now once I finish the ending, I have to see how much of the middle content I can get through.
Edit: This is an updated fixed version. The previous fix still had issues.
Note: Please download this version to avoid the bug: Fixed Version


Sadly, the updated version doesn't fix the issue. If it helps though you can get up the stairs with the female character, but the male character still causes a crash.
The controls are a bit confusing and the mapping could be a bit better, but overall is a unique idea (for a RPG Maker game) that could use a bit more polishing... 2.7/5
author=thesacredlobo
Sadly, the updated version doesn't fix the issue. If it helps though you can get up the stairs with the female character, but the male character still causes a crash.
Thanks so much for making this video! I really appreciate it! I hadn't had time to have anyone play test it besides myself so it was good to see how people approached the puzzles. And yeah, parallel processes don't run quite as fast as I'd like for the enemy detection and 2nd player movement. I found that you can move pretty fast in Glide mode if you make sure you don't ever press two 2nd player control keys at once. It takes getting used to. Part of the problem I ran into was that some numbers have dual functions. Like 2 on the numpad moving the Hero down. I wish the system allowed letters.

The bug:
I had made some extra events in the next map which didn't end up being used, so I deleted them before submitting. But, I hadn't realized that so many other events actually did have references to them. So when I cleared some of the references I had thought I had got them all. But obviously not...
Now that I've had some time, I did end up deleting all of the references and had time to actually play test it to very that it works.

Also, thanks for showing me the changing formation thing. Definitely hadn't messed with that. I'll remove it in an update.

Also, I found it very interesting to see that you moved both players into their end staircases at once. I wasn't sure what people would do, but it actually isn't required to do that.

I definitely meant to put in some chests with more potions, but ran out of time. And yeah, there is no real reason encounters are needed, except that if you raise a few levels before you get to the boss, you'll have a better time. Of course, even with the boss, encounters are optional if you just don't touch him!

And yes, player 2 hits with a bow. I wanted a bo staff, but the staff graphic is more of a cane, so I thought it would be funny.

I'm uploading a fix. It fixes the event reference bug as well as removes the formation change. It also buffs player 2 to match player 1. I also updated one optional cutscene event on level 3 to make it more likely to trigger since I noticed you didn't trigger it in the video.

Edit: Updated to 1.2:
Ok, here is the fixed version: 2 Player Block Puzzle 1.2

I don't expect you to review it again, but this version fixes the bugs brought up in your video. I made sure to test it multiple times this time around since I'm not worried about a deadline. Levels 5 and 6 were never finished, so the level you got to was right before the final boss.



Well, that video was never intended to be a review per se, but a Let's Play through the game. So, there isn't any reason for me not to finish what I started and get footage up for that last level now that the game has been fixed.
Yay! I'm glad you got through it! Maybe I should have put in a message that the boss changes targets after each time it is stunned? But you figured it out so maybe it was fine?

You may have also noticed that the boss moves only somewhat randomly and sometimes steps towards player 1. This is to help the boss from wandering too far before the players are free from the barriers. Otherwise, it was possible for the boss to hit a switch on its own and then change targets to player 2 and then wander completely away, which could potentially take a long time to wander back to the player's influence.

The reason why the boss seems to sometimes start a battle with you seems to be due to the variables that track player 2's location not updating fast enough. It's hard to be sure without more testing I guess.

There are 2 endings, but they aren't too different. You can get the other ending if you fail any of the puzzles at some point and use the reset.

Anyway, thanks so much for making the video! It really helped a lot to see how you reacted to everything.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
It's a fun little game, needs some work, but I enjoyed it for what it was ;)

Feedback:

- The title screen needs some work, try a gradient from grey to black inside the letters, keep the font, but center both lines in the middle of the screen.
- The intro map needs more stuff, it looks empty. Consider making the name choices in a new map, possibly all black using invisible text boxes in the middle of the screen.
- I like how you can name the heroes or let the game do it for you.
- The intro dialog is still too fast!
- In the explanation of player 2 controls you say "key---action", I found myself wondering what key was "key" since it was used for "action", until I understood it was the reference for the below keys. Maybe a rename like "Key---action performed"?
- I didn't like some of the music choices, the title music was fine, the intro seemed rather epic and I feel it diverges from the actual game, the puzzle music is too stressful for a puzzle game, the boss music makes sense, the credits music was well picked.
- I don't see the need for the menu options: Skills, Equipment and Status.
- The graphics need some more detail to make them interesting, right now they serve their purpose but look bland, you can try to mix different kinds of rocks and obstacles, instead of using rocks all the time you can use holes in the floor or short (1 tile high) walls.
- Great use of RTP weapons with player 2! Using a bow as a "bo" was ingenious!
- I cant fight the slime on the second puzzle with the player 2, I can't touch it.
- The first version of the game had really unbalanced battles, but this new version has much better balance, although I don't think battles are even needed here, maybe touching the slimes would make the character move back to the starting position? Or maybe you should remove them?
- Sometimes I press shift but the rock doesn't move.
- In puzzle 2 I moved player 2 upstairs and then the controls for player 1 weren't working right, like pressing up made him move left or down, some error in the events? This doesn't happen on the 3rd and 4th puzzles.
- I passed all puzzles at first try, but I'm used to puzzle games and like how in most puzzles you have to pay attention not to screw yourself, I appreciate that since I know how hard it is to come up with puzzles!
- when pulling the south-right lever on the 3rd puzzle with player 1 the lever moves before I choose to pull it, to fix this choose the option that makes the lever graphics not move, that way it will only move when pulled.
- After fighting a battle with player 2 in the 3rd puzzle, player 1 graphics change to player 2 for a split second before changing to normal, maybe you can fix this with some eventing, making the end of the battle change the tint of the screen to black instantly while you change the graphics and then changing the tint to normal?
- Why do you get several "Reset" and "P2 Mode" items instead of one of each?
- I like how we have to position player 1 in some puzzles to see where we go with player 2.
- The concept of a 2 player puzzle is great! However, RPG Maker 2003 may not be the best choice to do this, the key customization isn't that great in this program. Kudos for the great idea though!
- The first time I played this I used the number keys above the alphabet letters, because I'm not used to using the numbers on the right side of the keyboard, yeah, I'm weird like that :P and it took some getting used to but worked, on my second playthrough I used the keys on the right side and it's much easier to move player 2, even if it's really annoying when player 1 moves down...
One solution would be to assign a key to change character and only move one at a time, this would also solve the graphic change after battles.
- Everytime I enter a puzzle room I have enough time to move or open the menu before the characters start speaking with each other, I think I shouldn't be allowed to do that, if you change that event priority to "automatic" (or whatever it's named on the new version) you may fix that.
- The dialog in the boss room intro is too fast, you should let the player skip the dialog like normal here, in the game intro and everywhere, I think (except when they're falling).
- I really like the boss concept, it's like something from a Zelda game.
- The available space the player has to move around before entering the boss arena is too limited to draw the attention of the boss, so it can take a long time to actually enter the boss arena, you could redraw the map, making the passable areas smaller may help too.
- Being able to fight with both characters side by side is a cool detail!
- Sometimes I'm nowhere near the boss and still have to battle it.
- There's a lot of randomness to the boss, sometimes I just have to wait for it to get into position so I can draw his attention to the switch, it's specially hard to draw his attention with player 2.
- The music should change after we beat the boss.
- You should at least reward the player with a new map at the end.
- Both endings are really similar, I have no idead where to use the code, I tried with the player 2 and 1 controls in the intro and in the puzzle rooms but it does nothing, is there a specific spot?
- There could be more to the story, but that's really not the point of the game to me, so it works.
- The bugs and look of the game is all you need to improve, mainly.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you were able to enjoy it! I'll put in a few notes in your hide tag.

author=iddalai
It's a fun little game, needs some work, but I enjoyed it for what it was ;)

Feedback:

- The title screen needs some work, try a gradient from grey to black inside the letters, keep the font, but center both lines in the middle of the screen.
Yeah, this was a rush job in iDraw. I definitely miscounted the pixels.
- The intro map needs more stuff, it looks empty. Consider making the name choices in a new map, possibly all black using invisible text boxes in the middle of the screen.
- I like how you can name the heroes or let the game do it for you.
- The intro dialog is still too fast!Yeah, just needs more play testing to figure out the best speed I guess.
- In the explanation of player 2 controls you say "key---action", I found myself wondering what key was "key" since it was used for "action", until I understood it was the reference for the below keys. Maybe a rename like "Key---action performed"?If it fits in the window I'll probably update it.
- I didn't like some of the music choices, the title music was fine, the intro seemed rather epic and I feel it diverges from the actual game, the puzzle music is too stressful for a puzzle game, the boss music makes sense, the credits music was well picked.The selections were rushed as I was running out of time before the deadline when I chose the music.
- I don't see the need for the menu options: Skills, Equipment and Status.Yeah, I originally planned on including more, but these things were cut due to time. But yeah, they are not needed.
- The graphics need some more detail to make them interesting, right now they serve their purpose but look bland, you can try to mix different kinds of rocks and obstacles, instead of using rocks all the time you can use holes in the floor or short (1 tile high) walls.I really wanted 1 tile high walls, but what I really wanted was a non-RTP chipset. I also had wanted to make a custom gate graphic that was only 1 tile high as well. I agree that this could be a lot better.
- Great use of RTP weapons with player 2! Using a bow as a "bo" was ingenious!Thanks! I wasn't sure if people would like that or not.
- I cant fight the slime on the second puzzle with the player 2, I can't touch it.It's funny because when testing initially puzzle 2 used to be the one that worked and the others didn't. I'll have to revisit it.
- The first version of the game had really unbalanced battles, but this new version has much better balance, although I don't think battles are even needed here, maybe touching the slimes would make the character move back to the starting position? Or maybe you should remove them?Yeah, I don't know. Battle aren't necessary but I thought it might provide an extra dimension to the game. Moving back to the start could work, but might be more annoying than battles...
- Sometimes I press shift but the rock doesn't move.I'm not sure how to fix this. I think it might be because I'm using common events that call other common events. I'd have to restructure the whole control scheme to local events probably. Or maybe just use a different engine...
- In puzzle 2 I moved player 2 upstairs and then the controls for player 1 weren't working right, like pressing up made him move left or down, some error in the events? This doesn't happen on the 3rd and 4th puzzles.I have no idea what causes this. Interesting that it only happen on puzzle 2. I'll have to check it out.
- I passed all puzzles at first try, but I'm used to puzzle games and like how in most puzzles you have to pay attention not to screw yourself, I appreciate that since I know how hard it is to come up with puzzles!
- when pulling the south-right lever on the 3rd puzzle with player 1 the lever moves before I choose to pull it, to fix this choose the option that makes the lever graphics not move, that way it will only move when pulled.An oversight...
- After fighting a battle with player 2 in the 3rd puzzle, player 1 graphics change to player 2 for a split second before changing to normal, maybe you can fix this with some eventing, making the end of the battle change the tint of the screen to black instantly while you change the graphics and then changing the tint to normal?This only happens on the 3rd puzzle? I'll have to compare what I did there to the other ones. I spent a ton of time messing with this to try to prevent that from happening, but sometimes worse things happened with the other methods I tried. I can probably fix it though.
- Why do you get several "Reset" and "P2 Mode" items instead of one of each?To save time while debugging basically. They should be removed, but it's a hassle to remove them and then add them back when I need to test individual levels with a time crunch so I didn't bother removing them.
- I like how we have to position player 1 in some puzzles to see where we go with player 2.
- The concept of a 2 player puzzle is great! However, RPG Maker 2003 may not be the best choice to do this, the key customization isn't that great in this program. Kudos for the great idea though!Thanks! Yes, I agree that Rm2k3 isn't the best choice for this project, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway.
- The first time I played this I used the number keys above the alphabet letters, because I'm not used to using the numbers on the right side of the keyboard, yeah, I'm weird like that :P and it took some getting used to but worked, on my second playthrough I used the keys on the right side and it's much easier to move player 2, even if it's really annoying when player 1 moves down...I was very disappointed to learn that the numpad keys were double mapped in the engine and there is no way to change that. I also made the period key move player 2 down. It's a little awkward, but once you get used to it, at least player 1 doesn't move down too.
One solution would be to assign a key to change character and only move one at a time, this would also solve the graphic change after battles. Unfortunately, that would also remove the simultaneous 2 player feature that I was going for.
- Everytime I enter a puzzle room I have enough time to move or open the menu before the characters start speaking with each other, I think I shouldn't be allowed to do that, if you change that event priority to "automatic" (or whatever it's named on the new version) you may fix that.I thought about it, but I decided that it didn't hurt the story if they talked after taking a few steps to look around or if they just started talking right away. But, maybe I will try Auto-start? I never use that and I had forgotten what the point of it was actually.
- The dialog in the boss room intro is too fast, you should let the player skip the dialog like normal here, in the game intro and everywhere, I think (except when they're falling).I could probably slow it down. I'd just have to also delay the boss waking up and time them to match as well. It would just take some more testing.
- I really like the boss concept, it's like something from a Zelda game.
- The available space the player has to move around before entering the boss arena is too limited to draw the attention of the boss, so it can take a long time to actually enter the boss arena, you could redraw the map, making the passable areas smaller may help too.I thought about redrawing the map after I had made it, but by then time was an issue...
I'm glad you liked the idea though! Part of the movement pattern is that the boss moves randomly for the most part but every so often steps towards player 1. Without this feature, the boss might wander away from the players for a very very long time. Awareness of this fact, makes it pretty easy to corral the boss, but without knowing it, the boss might seem to just stand there for a while sometimes. Maybe I should somehow let the player know?

- Being able to fight with both characters side by side is a cool detail!
- Sometimes I'm nowhere near the boss and still have to battle it.Originally, player 2 walked slower than player 1. I decided to make them the same speed. Unfortunately, this problem arose when I did that, but only sometimes. I think the events move position faster than the variables update for some reason. I'd have to reconfigure the collision detection to fix it. Might take some work. Or I could make both characters slower? I'm not entirely sure if that would fix it.
- There's a lot of randomness to the boss, sometimes I just have to wait for it to get into position so I can draw his attention to the switch, it's specially hard to draw his attention with player 2.
- The music should change after we beat the boss.I totally meant to do that, but I guess I forgot. Oops.
- You should at least reward the player with a new map at the end.Yeah, I had planned more, but had to cut due to time.
- Both endings are really similar, I have no idead where to use the code, I tried with the player 2 and 1 controls in the intro and in the puzzle rooms but it does nothing, is there a specific spot? It's supposed to be used in the sequel, if there ever is one, ha ha ha.
- There could be more to the story, but that's really not the point of the game to me, so it works.
- The bugs and look of the game is all you need to improve, mainly.
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