Episodic Ground Force Pack Episode 1 Public Beta Test
or, Minmay Tries To Get Other People To Do His Work For Him, Again

title is not up for debate

FEATURES INCLUDE:
- SIX Ground Force levels. Yes, SIX!
- Take your pick of which characters to allow with an intuitive filename suffix system! (mingfpack#.j2l=Jazz, Spaz, Lori, mingfpack#aja.j2l=Spaz, Lori, mingfpack#ajb.j2l=Spaz)*
- Insights into my eclectic musical tastes!
- Visual effects with layers that you've only seen five or six times before!
- "Lobby" areas modeled closely after Survivor for reasons which are unclear even to me!
- Seriously, though, the levels themselves are original! Sort of!

*mingfpack#aja.j2l may not actually allow Lori. Too lazy to reinstall TSF again.

STUFF I WOULD LIKE PEOPLE TO DO:
- Host the SIX Ground Force levels!
- See if the "aja" system actually allows Lori!
- Give feedback on music choice which I will probably ignore anyway!
- Find out what percentage of players actually knows how to get past the "ajb" system!
- Find out what percentage of players actually knows what Ground Force is!

In response to inevitable questions about the "official" release, it'll come whenever I decide these have been tested adequately.

Also, JJ2+ is strongly recommended, for level cycling, music, and avoidance of crashes with the "aja" system.

Funny. I'm working on a Ground Force pack as well. Though I was going to wait for the next level competition. BTW I vote Spaz only.

Level 1: I hit the crates, nothing happens. Why are the bombs overhead in question marks that can be destroyed?

Level 2: I loved the bouncers!

Level 3: Amazing eye candy. Though you might not be able to get to the crate at the top if you destroy too many blocks.

Level 4: Also a really cool level. Though there's a lot of destructable scenery there and not a lot of bombs falling. But that's ok. Also getting all the gems when you fall out... that's only a slight issue though.

Level 5: really cool with the towers. Though I hit the crates and NOTHING happened...

Dermo, stop trying to test the levels in single player.

Sadly I've had no luck on getting people to join. It does seem very interesting, maybe we can have a little event using this pack?

I can't be bothered to fix my hosting anymore but I gave them a quick run in LAN mode.

In general, they're quite big and complex, with a lot of masked areas. I can see that the average game here will be (much) longer than in blur's level - this might or might not be a good thing. I'd place more Toaster ammo all around though, or make crates more effective. The crates in level 1 are an interesting concept but I don't know how often will they fall before someone destroys them manually.

Why do you never use stars in layer 8 backgrounds? They would help level 1 and 3 a lot, which look decent but have very empty backgrounds. I liked the parallax hackery in level 1 though.

The music choices are excellent.

My favorite level out of the bunch is probably 6, because it's not nearly as large as the others, and I like the concept behind it (bricks are more resistant to damage).

Originally Posted by cooba

The crates in level 1 are an interesting concept but I don't know how often will they fall before someone destroys them manually.

The crates, if left alone, serve as a barrier that helps people avoid the clouds at the top. The ability to destroy it at any time gives players an interesting choice, I think.

Originally Posted by cooba

Why do you never use stars in layer 8 backgrounds? They would help level 1 and 3 a lot, which look decent but have very empty backgrounds. I liked the parallax hackery in level 1 though.

Good idea for level 1. Level 3 is supposed to be indoors, so stars don't really work, but I might add something else in the background.

Originally Posted by cooba

In general, they're quite big and complex, with a lot of masked areas. I can see that the average game here will be (much) longer than in blur's level - this might or might not be a good thing.

Well, it's too late to change now. Levels 3, 4, and 5 are designed with pretty large numbers of players in mind. Now that we have 32-connection online play, I doubt they'll always be too big, but they might usually be too big.
I'll reduce the sizes somewhat in Episode 2, since it means less work for me anyway.

Originally Posted by minmay

The crates, if left alone, serve as a barrier that helps people avoid the clouds at the top. The ability to destroy it at any time gives players an interesting choice, I think.

Fair enough.

I've updated the levels (download again from the same URL). Mostly just adjustments to graphics.

I'll probably release this on October 1st or something, provided I remember.