Castlevania II (Simon's Quest) - Multilingual enhancement

[Bisqwit]

And I prefer the middle one! :-)
The blank line reduces the cramped feeling of the clump of numbers that is in the leftside one. Then the rightside one is too compartmentalized in my opinion.

[TheZunar123]

I agree with Bisqwit on the right one, too many sections. The middle one is nice, but it might not be immediately apparently that the symbol is a clock, so the player might not understand. I do see the point of the blank line, and I do agree that it reduces the cramping, but I still like the left one best.

[MathUser2929]

Modern Castlevania games don't have limited continues. Why don't you remove the continue limit? Kinda sucks to have progress lost when you run out of them.

Edit: Maybe you should change L to Lv. To make space for it you could remove one of the digits on the counter since the Level don't go past 6 anyway. L isn't really clear as to what it stands for. And since there's no indicator of the level going up L could be confusing. I don't remember knowing what L stood for when I was younger. I also wondered what happened when the player would stop and his health would suddenly go up.

[Bisqwit]

Modern Castlevania games don't have limited continues. Why don't you remove the continue limit? Kinda sucks to have progress lost when you run out of them.

There is no limit.


(If this board had mood-avatars, I would use the tired one for this post. MathUser2929 has been making quite a few posts that contain complaints that are based on his own unfounded haphazard assumptions.)


Re: L or Lv, my retranslation is multilingual and I don't want to make decisions that only work in one language and not in another. I can see how Lv would be clearer in the case of English though. But then again, if Pokémon gets away with L, so does Simon's Quest.

[MathUser2929]

This is what threw me off. Number of continues used. I thought there was a limit.

[MegaManJuno]

I think I'd vote for the right pic. Something about the line looks better to me than just the blank space, but middle would be my 2nd choice.

[Turambar]

I like the middle one.

[Da_GPer]

Id say middle or right. Mostly middle due to the same reasons as Bisqwit has mentioned.

[Vanya]

I like the middle or right one. I think the clock icon is pretty obvious even if it could be improved slightly.

I have another idea. This would alter game play a bit so I'm not sure it really falls into focus. About the Level attribute. It's pretty basic and could be improved. All it does is increase HP 6 times. How about tying it to more attributes? For example, each level adds an extra life to your stock before you get currency raped? Speaking of hearts, you could have the heart limit increase each time you level up. I think this would alleviate some of the most annoying aspects of this game.

EDIT: Hmmm... sidebar: Wouldn't it be cool if the enemy layout were different based on which direction you're coming from? This would facilitate enemy layouts that are more thought out as they were in CV1. And to add more of an RPG feel how about having multiple sets of layouts for each room? Or even keeping rooms clear for a set time so it seems like monsters have to repopulate instead of appearing out of nowhere? I need to post these ideas at CV dungeon.

[Gedankenschild]

I prefer the one in the middle, too. The clock symbol does make the whole thing less cramped.
A great project, by the way! I'm really impressed with all these deep changes. 

[Bisqwit]

Thanks everyone!

I have another idea. This would alter game play a bit so I'm not sure it really falls into focus. About the Level attribute. It's pretty basic and could be improved. All it does is increase HP 6 times. How about tying it to more attributes? For example, each level adds an extra life to your stock before you get currency raped? Speaking of hearts, you could have the heart limit increase each time you level up. I think this would alleviate some of the most annoying aspects of this game.

Adding an extra life with a level-up would be rather fair in my opinion, but it still falls into the realm of disputable changes.
Extending the heart limit per each level-up would be a cool alternative to outright changing it like I have already done, but I cannot think of a way it would make sense gameplaywise. And unless the limit on level 0 was 200, such change would also affect speedrun strategies, which I do not see as a positive thing.
Also, the level does not just change the HP. It also decreases the damage you take.  At level 6, you can actually cross the whole Joma swamp without laurels, if you jump all the time, or exit the Laruba mansion that is in the middle to either edge of the swamp without jumping (and without dying).
At level 0, all damage you take is multiplied by 4. At level 6, all damage is divided by 4. The difference is 16-fold. (The factors for the other levels are the obvious steps in between.)

Wouldn't it be cool if the enemy layout were different based on which direction you're coming from? This would facilitate enemy layouts that are more thought out as they were in CV1. And to add more of an RPG feel how about having multiple sets of layouts for each room? Or even keeping rooms clear for a set time so it seems like monsters have to repopulate instead of appearing out of nowhere? I need to post these ideas at CV dungeon.

Changing enemy layouts is definitely beyond the scope of this hack. Not going to do, at least for the regular enemies. Enemy and platform placements are in my opinion one of the fundamental tenets that define the game, and changing them makes it a different game in my opinion.
The bosses, however, are different in this regard, one because they are in isolated rooms and two because they are laughably bad in this game. I would like to make the boss battles into serious challenges, but for now it is not on table yet. I don't currently feel comfortable changing the AI.


Again about the continue counter: I only added the continue counter on the game-over screen, because I noticed that the game already counts them. Why count something and then never display the number? Notice that the number counts upwards -- it increases every time you take the "continue" option. It does not decrease. It is an "used" count, not a "remaining" counter. This is obvious even in the screenshot.

[KingMike]

Modern Castlevania games don't have limited continues. Why don't you remove the continue limit? Kinda sucks to have progress lost when you run out of them.

Isn't the only Castlevania that ever limited continues Haunted Castle (and that being because it was an arcade game)?

[Vanya]

Changing enemy layouts is definitely beyond the scope of this hack. Not going to do, at least for the regular enemies. Enemy and platform placements are in my opinion one of the fundamental tenets that define the game, and changing them makes it a different game in my opinion.
The bosses, however, are different in this regard, one because they are in isolated rooms and two because they are laughably bad in this game. I would like to make the boss battles into serious challenges, but for now it is not on table yet. I don't currently feel comfortable changing the AI.

I know. It was just a speculation about the game in general outside the scope of your project. You have to admit the enemy layouts are one of the game's weakest points in comparison to CV1 & CV3. Also, I agree that the bosses are pathetic. I wouldn't bother with changing them, though. Not unless you're ready to change the scope of the project. However, I recommend not doing that. See the project through until you're satisfied with it's completion within it's scope. Anything else that impacts game play should be left for another project.

[Bisqwit]

Version 2.5.0 released.
Changes include:
- Multiple whips can now be carried. Buying a new one no longer throws your existing one away. You can switch whips on the status screen. This only applies to whips you collect after this patch is applied.
- Simon now remembers the clues he collects. You can review clues on the status screen. This only applies to clues you collect after this patch is applied.
- It is no longer possible to accidentally buy the same non-consumable item (such as holy water) twice. This feature is dependent on the multi-whip patch option, so disabling the multi-whip patch option also enables accidental repurchases.
- Bugfix: Saving the game is now possible in the castle ruins (but it is still intentionally prevented in the altar room).
- Some very minor dialog changes may have been done. These are not yet listed on the translation differences page.

Because of the pervasiveness of the code changes that were required in order for these features to be added, there may be new bugs in unexpected situations in the game even if you disable this patch option either partially or fully. I would appreciate reports of any bugs you find!

[Turambar]

I'm wondering why some dialogue boxes have black lines inbetween the lines and others don't. I think it would look better if it were more consistant. I say get rid of the black lines on all dialogue boxes.

[Bisqwit]

Boxes that have five or fewer lines of dialog have sparse lines, like in the original game.
I thought it looks nicer if the dialog box is not half empty.

[Da_GPer]

I'm wondering why some dialogue boxes have black lines inbetween the lines and others don't. I think it would look better if it were more consistant. I say get rid of the black lines on all dialogue boxes.

Boxes that have five or fewer lines of dialog have sparse lines, like in the original game.
I thought it looks nicer if the dialog box is not half empty.

Maybe, on the second image, you can remove the black lines and put all the text in the middle of the box.

[Turambar]

Some characters say very little and the dialogue box is mostly empty anyway.
The box being half empty wouldn't bother me a bit, in fact, the consistency would please me indeed, like a good back rub.

[Bisqwit]

For added curiosity, here is a partial snapshot of the insertor code behind this project.
Here is how I do all the vending machine configurability.

This particular piece deals with changing how the status screen works, how merchant dialog boxes are resized and with how all dialog is rendered.

http://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/dev/cv2fin_statscreen_2_5_0.png (as image, in the color scheme of my editor)
http://pastebin.com/XWnaAias (as text)

[Da_GPer]

For added curiosity, here is a partial snapshot of the insertor code behind this project.
Here is how I do all the vending machine configurability.

This particular piece deals with changing how the status screen works, how merchant dialog boxes are resized and with how all dialog is rendered.

http://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/dev/cv2fin_statscreen_2_5_0.png (as image, in the color scheme of my editor)
http://pastebin.com/XWnaAias (as text)

Wow! All that code looks confusing..... I bet to someone who actually can read and write code, it make a lot of sense. On the bright side though, it does give up a peek at how much hard work someone goes through just to improve a game. I bow to you, Bisqwit.