Wish List

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 4:45 pm

My experience with the Level Editor is in it's infancy, seeing as how I have only designed and posted 3 levels, BUT my brain is much, much older and chock full of ideas I don't know what to do with!!! I keep seeing CIRCLES (no, I'm not smoking anything!!), CIRCLES, CIRCLES!!! Is it possible to have CURVED WALL CORNERS so I can make CIRCLES, CIRCLES CIRCLES? I have no idea how the other elements would work in this environment, BUT Hell's Bells, the wheel that squeeks the loudest, etc . .
Oh, by the way, why can't I make Loof appear solo? .

SharonM · Post by **SharonM** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 5:12 pm

Hi Pat,
Those are both good ideas. Also ideas presented before, such as more signs and a bookmark option in the games themselves, would be good additions.

I'd also like to see more music options. I know I typically play with the sound off, but I would like to be able to set the tone on the levels I create more easily with the background music.

Imagine some of the faster levels with a "hurry up" theme! Or the ice skating levels with a "skater's" theme! My daughter was even telling me she wished she could use the "Looney Toons" theme on one of her levels.

Anyway, that's just my wish list.

LinkyNStoof · Post by **LinkyNStoof** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:43 pm

I think I could use slightly taller fake walls (and matching, slightly taller real walls of course).

The current fake walls are able to hide a good number of things, but there are some other stuff that they can't completely hide, one of which greatly crippled one of my latest level ideas.

Another idea is to have fake walls that are objects rather than tiles (but otherwise identical to the regular fake walls in appearance), so that things like teleporters, water, and the like can be hidden under fake walls as well. Although that might be a bit overkill.

LinkyNStoof · Post by **LinkyNStoof** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:56 pm

Another nice thing might be to allow bridges that collapses into empty chasm, instead of water/lava.

Oh yeah, speaking of water and lava, I have a complain about the water and lava tiles. The problem is that currently those tiles actually have a boundary drawn around them, and this boundary shows if you have a water/lava tile adjacent to an empty tile (or the edges of the level) when the background is water/lava. If you're confused about what I mean, do this: make a new 14x14 level, "wipe" it clean with the water tile, select "water" as the background, and play it to check out how it looks. Notice that ugly boundary?

This is really annoying because I would like to make levels that looks like a bunch of islands (not just one single island) on an ocean, but currently, to do so I would need to make the entire "ocean" with the empty tile, rather than the water tile, because of aforementioned visual problems with the water/lava tiles. But then if I use empty tiles, I can't design levels where I might want the player to build bridges from one island to another.

It would be nice if the program can be a little smarter when it draws a water tile, to not draw those "edges" if it finds itself adjacent to an empty tile or edge of level.

malcdelsol · Post by **malcdelsol** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:11 pm

Hi Wonderlanders,

Yes, it is frustrating when you have a good idea for a new level and then find that the existing facilities within the Level Editor do not allow you to bring that idea to fruition.

However, having spent my entire professional life working within the computer industry, I know from experience, the work that would be involved for Midnight Synergy to change the Editor.

Even the smallest of amendments could possibly put in jepordy the operation of their current products, in this case Wonderland and RTW.

Only some 5% of the overall program testing is carried out to ensure that the program does that as specified in the design. The other 95% of testing is needed to ensure that it doesn't 'Fall Over' in the process.

Therefore, even to amend the Level Editor to overcome some small 'bug' (like floating wooden boxes dissapearing when on the edge of a level)
is best left alone unless there is some very good business (financial) reason to invest the huge amount of redevelopment time that would be required.

So unless there is a new product to be created using this Level Editor I can fully understand why Midnight Synergy will want to leave it exactly as it is.

Sorry if I have put any dampners on your hopes.

Malcdelsol

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:51 pm

Interesting input. Can the Level Editor currently allow Loof to appear solo? If so, what am I missing? Thanx . . . . . .

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:35 pm

Just to elaborate on what Malcdelsol said:

All your comments and suggestions are certainly read, and if nothing else will be kept in mind for future projects.

Changing internal program behaviour at this point would probably be a bad idea. There are so many gameplay combinations (and 99% of them work flawlessly, certainly all of them in the "official" levels do) that changing these mechanics could be a disaster - we'd have to retest the entire game from every angle just to make sure that no new unforseen side effects have popped up. Hence things like curved walls, Loof solo, boulders on edges, Gilligan Jr. field mice models

etc. are unlikely to be part of future changes. I'll never say never, of course, but just so nobody is disappointed.

Additional features on the other hand might well be added - after all we've had several features added to Wonderland since its original launch, and I'm sure there will be a few more.

All this to say that all your comments are read very carefully. Even if I dont' comment on them individually, they are certainly not ignored.

And related to the above, I'm sure most of you would agree that you'd rather see time put into new designs, new projects, new games, etc. instead.

LinkyNStoof · Post by **LinkyNStoof** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 8:10 pm

Midnight Synergy wrote:All your comments and suggestions are certainly read,

That reminds me. Recently I sent some e-mail to the infos@ address asking you (site admin, aka Patrick) about some particular details of Wonderland. But I never got a reply back of any sort (positive or otherwise), so I was wondering, when an e-mail is sent to that address, how many people does it go through? Because I have a feeling that some other people saw it and, um, decided to filter it out on your behalf? The e-mail title did contain the word "Wonderland", so if someone did filter it out, he/she must've actually read the body of the e-mail.

Do you have a work e-mail address where the e-mail goes directly to you instead?

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:36 pm

You message did land in my inbox, but I haven't been able to respond to it.

I actually dont' think I can give you as exact timing info as you asked for. For example, boulders are roughtly twice as fast as Stinky/Loof walking, but even so there are little "glitches" over the long run (see for example Discgolfer's Lightning Strikes level - eventually that boulder catches up to you - which surprised even me). So unfortunately, with all thing timing related, you'll have to do pretty much with trial and error.

LinkyNStoof · Post by **LinkyNStoof** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:18 am

Midnight Synergy wrote:I actually dont' think I can give you as exact timing info as you asked for. For example, boulders are roughtly twice as fast as Stinky/Loof walking, but

Well okay, even rough figures are useful I guess (better than nothing). btw are you sure boulders are twice as fast as Stinky/Loof walking? I always thought they are roughly the same speed as Stinky walking, unless they rolled into conveyor belts or ice.

The thing is, I should mention that I've actually tried to explictly measure various speeds by making levels with a short time limit and seeing how far something walks before time's out. But that doesn't work very well because even after the time reaches 0, there's a little bit of time before Stinky explodes, and furthermore, monsters don't stop moving even after Stinky explodes. The other thing is, I was expecting things to move an integer number of tiles per second, but that's not the case, and it's very very hard to measure how much fraction of a tile something's on.

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:58 pm

LinkyNStoof wrote: Well okay, even rough figures are useful I guess (better than nothing). btw are you sure boulders are twice as fast as Stinky/Loof walking?

Yes, my mistake. Brain Not Work Today.

To get approximate values just build a level with "Laps" and have Stinky/Loof/Monsters/Etc run back and forth. Then count how many laps Stinky completes and how many others complete. Here's what I got:

Ghost, Saucer: Half-Speed
Kaboom: 2/3 Speed
Stinky/Loof: 1 Speed
Z-Bot: 1.5 Speed
Stinky/Loof on Ice: 2 Speed

Hope this helps,
Patrick

LinkyNStoof · Post by **LinkyNStoof** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 9:57 pm

Thanks!

majic1 · Post by **majic1** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 1:30 am

Yes - definitely a help - just highlighted & printed those speeds. Thanks from me, too!

DiscGolfer · Post by **DiscGolfer** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 1:46 pm

Patrick,
Could you please convert those figures to MPH?
I'm also having trouble getting the level editor to do my dishes, and to pay my student loan.
Is this something we could work into future plans?

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 2:25 pm

DiscGolfer wrote:Patrick,
Could you please convert those figures to MPH?
I'm also having trouble getting the level editor to do my dishes, and to pay my student loan.
Is this something we could work into future plans?

Well.... okay.

i) 1 MPH, 1.5 MPH, 2 MPH.

ii) simply place the dishes in center of the level, some water next to it, and a flying saucer on top of the water. The saucer will pick up enough water on its way to clean your dishes (careful: get stinky out of sight, or else the saucer might break your dishes with its fireballs!)

iii) also not a problem: simply purchase 6000 copies of Return to Wonderland this weekend, declare bankruptcy, and voila. Alternatively, send those copies to anyone involved with your student loan. They'll get hooked to the level editor and forget all about you paying back your loans.

Glad to be of service!

majic1 · Post by **majic1** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:52 pm

AHA!!! Midnight Synergy has gone over the edge, too!!! ACTUALLY, they were probably already there - just waiting for the rest of us to join them - and, thanks to a push from DiscGolfer, we've all arrived earlier than expected!! What a wonderful world us Wonderlanders live in!! This forum ALWAYS brightens my day!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO WONDERLANDERS EVERYWHERE!!!!