InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by machf »

Let's see if I can finally have some time to give this level a try, as well as others I downloaded earlier...
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by machf »

I played this one yesterday, nice one... I had to cheat a bit (using TresEd to look at triggers) just to make sure I had the right idea, managed to almost finish it without getting killed (at the end) on the first try Pretty good!
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Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Haven't played the final version of this yet, but I super enjoyed streaming the beta in the TresCom Discord. That opening puzzle with the pachy is just the sort of thing we need, and that lab looked awesome. You seem really great at finding ways to pull together fan assets into something new. Very nice mod.
If I was still doing proper reviews, this level would be a 10/10 without question. Great work as always, TresGuy. :D
Drac privately wonders as to the date of these reviews' continuation.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Nick3069 »

I finally got around to playing this. It is a very beautiful level with impressive cutscenes and creative puzzles, but I found the gameplay repetitive and frustrating. I find it dull to have to walk back and fort between the lab and geothermal plant; it feels like unnecessary backtracking. A frustrating thing was that I wasn't able to find the knife, it is the same color as the thing it is lying on making it very hard to see and easy to miss. I must have searched that room at least 3 times before giving up and looking for it in TresEd. It is also possible to softlock yourself in the geothermal plant if you didn't activate the well and the turbine before jumping into the control room. There is an invisible wall at helipad area, but there is a broken fence right there. Personally I would have designed it so the fence is intact and when you're done collecting the DNA you hear a roar and the fence breaking down clearing the way. That last one was more of a nitpick, but I really hate invisible walls.
Not bad overall, but has too many flaws to be great. 6/10
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by TrespasserGuy »

Nick3069 wrote:I finally got around to playing this. It is a very beautiful level with impressive cutscenes and creative puzzles, but I found the gameplay repetitive and frustrating. I find it dull to have to walk back and fort between the lab and geothermal plant; it feels like unnecessary backtracking. A frustrating thing was that I wasn't able to find the knife, it is the same color as the thing it is lying on making it very hard to see and easy to miss. I must have searched that room at least 3 times before giving up and looking for it in TresEd. It is also possible to softlock yourself in the geothermal plant if you didn't activate the well and the turbine before jumping into the control room. There is an invisible wall at helipad area, but there is a broken fence right there. Personally I would have designed it so the fence is intact and when you're done collecting the DNA you hear a roar and the fence breaking down clearing the way. That last one was more of a nitpick, but I really hate invisible walls.
Not bad overall, but has too many flaws to be great. 6/10
I agree with the backtracking problem of the level. I hadn't thought ahead of how much you would need to walk back and forth to the items necessary for the puzzles and where the puzzles actually were. For that knife puzzle, I tried to have it as a "hidden in plain sight" object but forgot how well it blended in with the texture around it.
Hmm, I made sure I put a trigger where if you jump down into the control room of the geotherm plant from the sunroof you are able to unlock the double doors from the inside by touching the push-bars.
The invisible wall was placed there so players wouldn't get stuck in the final boss area prematurely, but your idea of having the fencing intact and having it appear broken after collecting the data sounds a lot better and more realistic than what I came up with.

I think I can find time to fix some of the problems of the first release with a patch that simply replaces the .grf file
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Nick3069 »

TrespasserGuy wrote:Hmm, I made sure I put a trigger where if you jump down into the control room of the geothermal plant from the sunroof you are able to unlock the double doors from the inside by touching the push-bars.
I just tested it and you're right. I might be misremembering but I thought I had tried that when I got stuck. Maybe the trigger didn't activate correctly for some reason?
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by TheIdiot »

I didn't find the backtracking especially painful, honestly, except on the occasion where you had to bring the hand to the reader. Might have been a bit more interesting if something different happened when you went back that way.

I think I mentioend the knife being too hard to see when I playtested this for TresGuy as well. The white handle isn't visible against the bed.
Spoiler: show
Honestly I don't even think it needs to be hidden at all as using it to get the hand is already enough of a puzzle in itself.
I just tested it and you're right. I might be misremembering but I thought I had tried that when I got stuck. Maybe the trigger didn't activate correctly for some reason?
This has happened to me as well in a few levels in the past, where a random "freeze/unfreeze" trigger won't work, thus rendering a door un-openable or always having it unlocked. Not sure what causes it.
I think I can find time to fix some of the problems of the first release with a patch that simply replaces the .grf file
Might be mistaken but I believe it's the .scn file you'd need to replace.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Rebel »

This has happened to me as well in a few levels in the past, where a random "freeze/unfreeze" trigger won't work, thus rendering a door un-openable or always having it unlocked. Not sure what causes it.
I've run into this myself, but it only seemed to occur when I restarted a level. In my opinion, I consider it an .scn file snafu.

@Edit: As a forethought, I think the puzzling was great in this level, and I love puzzles, especially when they're out of the normal way most players would think of solving them, but that is
why I recommend offering a somewhat comprehensive walk-thru of a level. I personally don't think that I've ever accessed one myself, though it's still a good idea to have one available to
a player if he/she gets stuck (especially if for instance, someone like ShadeFyre is recording a video of the gameplay). Obviously, walk-thrus are spoilers and should be labeled as such, but
they're a plus, especially if there are some things that you hope the player wouldn't miss but might otherwise do so without the walk-thru. That's one of the reason's I wrote that little hack
so that after I finish up a level, I can walk around casually without being hassled by any dinos.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Draconisaurus »

I think puzzles are a very important and tricky part of level development. Trespasser's release was so devoid of more complex puzzles, I think a lot of us are more used to that, and get flustered with new sorts of puzzles. I have a big puzzly level in the works myself and am hoping it can be played without TresEd-checking. One thing we've definitely not been doing is adding custom F1 hints, as real puzzle games (right?) have such things.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by TheIdiot »

One thing we've definitely not been doing is adding custom F1 hints, as real puzzle games (right?) have such things.
I'm not sure whether that's because people forget they exist entirely, or are unaware of how to make custom hints in CE (or even in ATX, which requires use of an ATX ActionType). You have to edit an external text file in the "menu" folder to make them work in CE, but as this external file has a generic name, it will override any other custom hints .txt file you've got installed in the same folder. Hence if you're creating a custom hint file, you should always make sure your level has its own modfolder. I have considered this in my own levels, which will all be sharing the same .txt file that I'll add on to for each new level since my levels will be sharing a modfolder.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Huh. Unless I'm mistaken, ATX's custom hint AT was included in CE, so I believe both approaches work in the CE engine?
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by TheIdiot »

Draconisaurus wrote:Huh. Unless I'm mistaken, ATX's custom hint AT was included in CE, so I believe both approaches work in the CE engine?
Just loaded up JPDS to test it as I'm fairly certain it has custom hints. All I get for a hint is "Hint #0". So technically yes, it seems the ATX actiontype does work in CE, but you need that external file in order to get the strings themselves.
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Huh good to know. So for future consolidated reference, what are the steps to set up CE hints?
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by tatu »

Draconisaurus wrote:Huh good to know. So for future consolidated reference, what are the steps to set up CE hints?
This is what the readme in the CE download says:

Code: Select all

; This is an optional strings file for hint string loaded with ActionType 107.
;
; For ActionType 107 the hint text has traditionally been directly supplied as a script parameter.
; In Trespasser CE it will try to look up the string in this file, if it's available in the "menu\"
; directory or any language sub-directory (see "Language" option in "trespasser.ini") in it.
;
; This allows for localization of existing user levels, but it also enable new levels to be created
; without having to write (/ hard code) the entire hint text into the level. You can just specify
; identifier strings as the action type script parameters, like for example:
;
;    group Action00 = {
;    int ActionType = 106
;    string Sample = "HINT1"
;    }
;
; and then maintain all the hint texts in this file as:

HINT1="Here's the actual hint text"
HINT35="Some other hint text"

; Note that "HINT1" is just an example, you can use any naming convention you want or just a number
; string like "1".

; To localize a user level that does not do this you have to use the whole text (exactly, inluding
; all spaces), like this:

"Look around, below and above. "="Ooklay aroundway, elowbay andway aboveway. "
NOTE: It seems Lee did a type in the example script, as it uses ActionType 106 and not 107! Name of the file need to be "hint_strings.txt"
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Re: InGen Compound ~ New Trespasser Mod (RELEASED pg. 1)

Post by spinaxoraptor »

TrespasserGuy wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:06 am I've decided to take a break from Dark Jungle and focus some of my effort into a side mod that's tentatively called "InGen Compound"
Click on Image
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Image
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InGen Compound will be a relatively short mod to play through that includes a lot of neat puzzles and exploration.

Some of you have seen previews of this either on the Discord or through PMs, but I've decided to create a public thread for it to increase the hype 8) .
Looks pretty good way more better than I can do I just do dinosaur mods but I try my hardest on level making.
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