I really like this map :) I had a good long play on it on my local machine under the guise of "testing it to make sure it works".

I did a bit, but the lack of saves makes it challenging.

I suppose I should pull down the map file and play it on the MRO engine.

I liked this map a lot - not to mention that it was challenging enough! :)

Making large maps good is difficult, but this one was definitely a good one.

heh I'm glad Ulin?(the white mage) was in the beginning -- if I knew the map would be w.o a save feature I wouldve done a few things differently xD.
If anyones interested, there's a more complete version of the map you can play through MerlinOpen (Its a bit larger(100kbs worth), and more fun imo).

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fzhph542ru9yfny/Merlins_Quest.txt

There should be a save feature, it's just not implemented into Merlin Created yet. :) ..I'll be waiting for this to be included in the next Open version.

Anyway, the lack of a save feature and the abnormal reel makes this one difficult right from the beginning xD

Hopefully you'll keep on making great maps, and feel free to post comments here if you have anything to say :)

Well if it's the next version, can I put it up here, instead of this verion?

whuh ohs, I guess I'm on the hook for making a new MROpen!

Yes please!

I was thinking about the relationship between MR Open and the online engine I've been working on. Given the difficulty of merging code, I would like to take a rather relaxed approach.

So, I'm not going to try to keep MR online exactly aligned with MR Open, instead I'll keep an eye on it and copy things I particularly like.

This means we both get creative freedom. It might mean the two versions diverge, but if they're both good who cares?

It might also mean we end up both fixing the same bugs, but if we communicate the fixes to each other we can still benefit.

What do you think?

It might be best to start at a common point.

I've likely fixed a number of bugs I can't even remember about!

yeah I know, what do you suggest?

Git on a part of the project? That way at least additions/modifications, such as enemies etc, as well as bug fixes to common files could be shared easily, perhaps..?

...Who knows, at this rate MR6 might be coming before the fourth installment! :D

Whoa, I played this map again, and it was a blast! Literally! Challenging still, just not annoyingly so.

I wonder what happened to those goblin towers.. Other enemies which were planned to be near-unmovable such as the plants and laser heads are really flying around compared to what they were in Open - even though everything else feels like it should.

Yeah I have fun every time I play it. I go a different way each time. And when I die it's usually my fault!

Towers and other near-immovables should behave normally now.

Yeaaaaaah.............................
......I'm not sure how to put this.

Anyway, I finally took time to play this map properly, and there are a LOT of problems. Gameplay-wise, it's pretty good. Design-wise, it's great. But.. I have a feeling that this engine is somehow iffy with compatibility, as has been shown with the Descent into Darkness map as well.



I circled all the bad stuff I found from just a single screen (the above image is from the problem screen before beating it, the below is from one screen under it). Since a still image can not possibly cover everything, I'll do my best to describe what happened - this is 100% reproducable. I don't have a clue how this stuff happened, though - I suppose that map data might reveal the reasons.

First off, upper left corner: Ulin is summoned, but the icon is odd. This happens across all of Created, with various wizards.

Second, the ninja and the ninja graves - for whatever reason, the tile and collision data for everything is shifted downwards! Or, perhaps the tile images have moved upwards and the collisions are proper..? The result - you can partially walk on tiles, and there are invisible walls below everything.

Third, the balloons. They look out-of-place. I'll assume that the balloons and the forest are in different layers and were put in the same tile, or that the gfx has "moved upwards" on top of it.

Fourth - and this is the big one - Merlin. I have no idea why it happened, but.. The room has no collisions on the bottom side. After clearing it, you can walk down from the top screen to the bottom one from nearly anywhere, even though there are arrows on only the two tiles. This enables Merlin to move on the active background until he is close to the edge. This is not all - during battle, a ninja actually hit me outside the screen's bounds through the bottom! I was able to walk freely over there and blast away (that is also why Ulin is not visible on the top screen's battle, he is out of view as well), but... ...Yeaah.

After playing more, I had similar problems in other screens as well, and the tiling and screen edge arrows are really messed up! A possible cause might be if the roomSize is not adjusted to the proper size...? I dunno.

Oh wow. I beat that screen again in order to check if there was something else I missed. It's almost as is all the gfx data had moved a full tile up and the collision data a half tile up.. ..Or something.

Well, After going inside the active layer trees and moving right and up from the bottom screen (so essentially moving one screen to the right from the bottom screen through the active layer), I ended up in a room like in the following image. I'm very sure that this is not the way it was designed to look.



Very soon after beating it, the game crashed. Like, after the sound had started playing, but before the mini-map loaded. Judging from the screens left and below it, the room should have an entrance upwards - but the wall was solid while playing the room. Maybe it tried to load data from the room rightwards of it upon clearing, and failed (due to it being on the rightmost edge of the map).

Oh, right, these comments probably should have been posted elsewhere.. ..Oh well.

I came across that screen as well - I assumed it looked weird because it's a secret screen - do the white tiles spell something?

But yeah it crashed for me too around then.

I've also noticed the weird wizard icon as well. So yeah, confirmed bugs.

Reasons to merge codebases.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug I already fixed.

Yeah, it looks like there are a lot of things to be merged in the roadmap.

Lol don't go in the storeroom (of death) it lives up to it's name :)

Is there any way whatsoever to save my progress?

Unfortunately right now, there isn't. Merlin Created is still not as polished as the mainline games and is lacking a lot of features and active users.

Huh didn't know this was here...

You could save your progress by running Windows inside Virtualbox and then saving the state of the machine. Admittedly, that does seem a bit extravagant.

I've already wondered about how "save states" work. I mean, it could be an enormous amount of data being processed, so there has to be some clever ways to go about it.

It's definitely a great way to save the game and chances are that average users will come to think of it. Or not.

Congratulations to the lone person who has managed to actually beat this tough map!