Researching the Repetition of Time

[Wong]

Okay, 4,500 words later I'm back with another thing I can't quite work out! It's this guard on level 8 and his sudden disappearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7gg_DTLqlM&t=23m

By now I've got some idea of how this game fits together, so I can go part of the way The potion at the top right opens the exit door - it's a copy-protection potion that activates the tile at the top left of room 8, which in turn opens the exit door. The guard disappears about 12 seconds after the exit has opened, which matches up with the time in Norbert's document about level 8, so this is surely something to do with the mouse event - but what makes him disappear? Does the game attempt to create the mouse, therefore taking up the slot for the other character on screen and deleting the guard, then give up on displaying the mouse as well because it's immediately inside a wall?

And Norbert - for acknowledgement in the video, how do you pronounce your name? Is it NOR-bert, or nor-BERR, or something else entirely?

[Norbert]

Does the game attempt to create the mouse, therefore taking up the slot for the other character on screen and deleting the guard, then give up on displaying the mouse as well because it's immediately inside a wall?

Yes, except most likely it does display the mouse, but the author modified the x (and maybe y) starting coordinate of the mouse, to make its path end inside a wall somewhere. I'm currently too busy to check.

And Norbert - for acknowledgement in the video, how do you pronounce your name?

Thanks, but acknowledgement is unnecessary.
If you feel it's a must, you can stick to just my first name (pronunciation).
A lot of what I know I've learned from David; I'm guessing you already have him on your list.
Good luck wrapping up your RoT project.

I see that Newton released his own game, Crystal Towers 2 XL, on Steam.
[...]
I'll pick it up during its next sale.

Not on sale?
It's the "Lunar New Year Sale 2020"...

[David]

having a fairly generic name in real life (I haven't yet worked in a job that doesn't have at least one person with the same name as me).

When you wrote "same name", did you mean only your first name?

Maybe there was a scrapped idea that after the prince has drunk a potion, he would put back the empty pot back to the floor?

Yes, that could be; makes sense.

Now I wonder where does he put them instead.

Does the game attempt to create the mouse, therefore taking up the slot for the other character on screen and deleting the guard, then give up on displaying the mouse as well because it's immediately inside a wall?

You're right, the mouse and the guard use the same "slot".
(And the shadow uses the same slot as well.)

Yes, except most likely it does display the mouse, but the author modified the x (and maybe y) starting coordinate of the mouse, to make its path end inside a wall somewhere. I'm currently too busy to check.

According to diffpop, the coordinates of the mouse were not changed.
If you remove the wall from the top left corner of room 16 (change it into a floor), the mouse will appear as in the original game.

[Wong]

The video is out now! Thank you so much for your assistance in working these tricks out - the mechanics behind some of them are just amazing, and it was a great opportunity to look closer at the inner workings of one of my favourite games. Hope you enjoy the result

[Norbert]

The video is out now!

Very informative and comprehensive!
Congratulations on successfully finishing the video.

I never knew why the player dies near the spilled big potion.
Thanks to your video, now I do.

"...the player then has a route to the exit... as well as a headache."
Hah.

[Norbert]

True. I'll update the collage after Newton's next on-topic video is live.

I've decided to simply mention (embed) Newton's video on the page.
I see that Jordan Mechner also retweeted Newton's tweet. Nice.

[Wong]

Thanks! And yes, I was very proud of that

[Norbert]

- How do I move to rooms that aren't directly connected to other rooms (is there a keyboard shortcut to go to the next/previous rooms numerically, for example?)

I've put your suggestion on the TODO list for the program. This should be easy enough to implement. RoomShaker has Level->Edit Room.

This is now possible, since version 3.8, via the "j" key.
Thanks again for the suggestion.

[Norbert]

- This is odd, but right-clicking anywhere will instantly delete the entire current level and fill it with garbage [...].

This randomization is the intended behavior. Keys "\" and "|" also do this (see docs/keys.txt). The idea behind this is that it can be used by modders to find unexpected layouts/tricks/etc., that they might not have thought of themselves, through playtesting.

Since version 3.10, this randomization now requires (asks for) confirmation.

[dmitrys]

Back to the original topic, there is a reason why that "underwhelming" trick with a loose tile was implemented on level 12B. The way falling tiles in the first 2 rooms are implemented stops regular loose tiles from shaking when the kid jumps which made the trick much less obvious. The same behavior applies to the brittle tiles that can only get loose by a falling tile.

In my mod I separated those behaviors and made loose tiles always shake while brittle tiles never shake. It allowed a couple of interesting twists in the game and made level 12B behave like the rest of them.

Also, on level 5 the video does not make it clear that you need to drink the blue potion when going to the left tower. Otherwise, you will be stuck with the shadow when you return.

[atrueprincefanfrom18]

Hmm, that's interesting!

No wonder KingOfPersia has seriously played very very very very great attention to these things.

And yes, you need to drink that blue potion otherwise shadow returns because that raise button which you keep help also opens the gate through which shadow enters.

[dmitrys]

No wonder KingOfPersia has seriously played very very very very great attention to these things.

Absolutely. Creating those special effects with the mouse and the huge spilled potion without reading the source code probably required a lot of experimentation and attention to details. The same is true about level 12B considering it does not have any regular loose tiles.

[atrueprincefanfrom18]

I just noticed a funny bug in SDLPoP. If the Jaffar music is playing AND Jaffar dies AND we shift the room, the game assumes he is alive (or maybe only if there are more than one Jaffar type guards in the level). I have attached a replay. (v1.2.1)

rot_sdlpop_bug.p1r

(3.48 KiB) Downloaded 50 times

[dmitrys]

I just noticed a funny bug in SDLPoP. If the Jaffar music is playing AND Jaffar dies AND we shift the room, the game assumes he is alive (or maybe only if there are more than one Jaffar type guards in the level). I have attached a replay. (v1.2.1)


rot_sdlpop_bug.p1r

The "meet Jaffar" music plays if the level door opened flag has not been set. That flag is set when a guard dies on level 12B, which takes longer if Jaffar falls down. Once the flag is set the level door gets opened when you exit the room to the left.

You probably would not be able to exit the level door.

[atrueprincefanfrom18]

Right, main question is how can it be fixed? It's a rare case, but technically should be fixed.