Yeah, but the interface exposes them with euler angles in degrees.
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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay
- Thread starter Jacksinthe
- Start date
- Status
If it's something like Unity, it's probably intended for non-math people.
Tomorrow will be my screenshot saturday gif dump on Twitter, but I'm having too much fun with this one tonight not to share:
Reminds me of Gyromite
Thanks a lot :-D
Reminds me of Gyromite
Didn't I say? Of course I'm building a robot to play with next! :-D
(actually, I'm not familiar with Gyromite at all beyond the AVGN video, so I'm not sure referencing it is such a good thing in my book, but still, thanks :-D)
We had Gyromite when I was very little. Just about the only thing I remember was how amazing it was to squish the characters with the falling pipe things.
It looked a bit like your gifWe had Gyromite when I was very little. Just about the only thing I remember was how amazing it was to squish the characters with the falling pipe things.
Ah, I see! I think my first exposure to crushing death by angry ceiling or falling fruit was Donkey Kong '94 on gameboy, that stuck too - but yeah, squishing stuff never gets old :-D
Thx for the coordinates, guys! I think it's cool knowing how we devs got
scattered on the planet. I have the mapping done, but need to scale the
texture with the viewing distance such that they won't overlap while getting
close.
But I have to say that one of the goals of a measuring system is to get away
with whole numbers for the most common cases, for, it makes it easier to do
quick calculations, I mean;
90/2 = 45 vs. (Pi/2)/2 = 0.78539816339744830961566084581988...
The first you can calculate in your head, the second is computationally more
expensive resp. you have to remember the number up to some given digit.
Yet I don't like degrees either. xD
Got a little time looking at the checkerboard rendering technique (CBR).
I'm asking myself if CBR can't also be used for speeding up some global
computations? For, let's say we cover the sphere (over which we will
integrate) with a set of well chosen points (not random) and compute the
illumination over half of these points (in checkerboard fashion) while
backwards integrating the other half from a previous frame, like in classic
CBR, yet all done on the sphere, then we would only need half the rays saving
about half the computation. Eh?
scattered on the planet. I have the mapping done, but need to scale the
texture with the viewing distance such that they won't overlap while getting
close.
No problem, my bomblets will cover your flat nicely.
As Blizzard said.
But I have to say that one of the goals of a measuring system is to get away
with whole numbers for the most common cases, for, it makes it easier to do
quick calculations, I mean;
90/2 = 45 vs. (Pi/2)/2 = 0.78539816339744830961566084581988...
The first you can calculate in your head, the second is computationally more
expensive resp. you have to remember the number up to some given digit.
Yet I don't like degrees either. xD
Speaking of which...
Got a little time looking at the checkerboard rendering technique (CBR).
I'm asking myself if CBR can't also be used for speeding up some global
computations? For, let's say we cover the sphere (over which we will
integrate) with a set of well chosen points (not random) and compute the
illumination over half of these points (in checkerboard fashion) while
backwards integrating the other half from a previous frame, like in classic
CBR, yet all done on the sphere, then we would only need half the rays saving
about half the computation. Eh?
Sorry about the low-res (may compute a high-res one later one).
Would be cool putting such a rotating globe in the OT showing where the
devs are from, heh?
Ooooh!
"I can see my house from here!" :-D
HandsomeCharles
Member
Wow!
Bilinear filtering am cry! xD Wasn't the best texture to begin with.
Haha, that's excellent! (Yep, correct location
)
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Dang it, seeing that globe up close reminded me of my failed attempt at an auto-rotating minimap... the thing appeared to always rotate off-centre and I couldn't get a good handle on the proper pivot position in Unity, so I shelved it. Still, at least now I have a scrolling minimap... there's enough code in there to support both a complete static and a scrolling map display now.
The plan is to have the small window of a scrolling minimap for normal use, and the large map used when clicked.
So many things that I'd love to implement, but I suppose gameplay comes first than all the nice things in life. (That reminds me, I need to finish the equipment menu.)
The plan is to have the small window of a scrolling minimap for normal use, and the large map used when clicked.
So many things that I'd love to implement, but I suppose gameplay comes first than all the nice things in life. (That reminds me, I need to finish the equipment menu.)
timetokill
Banned
Hey missile!!
Here's me
45.395078, -122.751435
Here's me
45.395078, -122.751435
Abilidebob
Member
Anyone knows if that Unreal course at Udemy from that Tristem guy is any good?
A couple of gifs from a trailer I finished last week for my game Mini Hockey Champ!
The Steam Greenlight page has the whole trailer up if you're interested:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=830682260
All this marketing stuff is a pain, but it does give you a semi-objective viewpoint of what you're working on, which is rare. I had a cut of the trailer that worked well, but after watching it a few times I realized that I never really tuned camera shake, so the action felt a bit flat. Going back and recapturing all my footage was incredibly tedious but I think the added weight everything has now was worth it.
The Steam Greenlight page has the whole trailer up if you're interested:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=830682260
All this marketing stuff is a pain, but it does give you a semi-objective viewpoint of what you're working on, which is rare. I had a cut of the trailer that worked well, but after watching it a few times I realized that I never really tuned camera shake, so the action felt a bit flat. Going back and recapturing all my footage was incredibly tedious but I think the added weight everything has now was worth it.
timetokill
Banned
I'm totally into it, lowpoly. I love arcadey sports games. Been thinking of making my own, maybe football or baseball.
One thing I'll say looks a little weird in your game is (for example in your second gif) that occasionally the guys are standing very stiffly (like the guy after shooting, toward the bottom of the rink in your second gif) that gives it a weird kind of feel. That said I absolutely love the style.
One thing I'll say looks a little weird in your game is (for example in your second gif) that occasionally the guys are standing very stiffly (like the guy after shooting, toward the bottom of the rink in your second gif) that gives it a weird kind of feel. That said I absolutely love the style.
Am often lurking around here but its rare I post.
Today I'd like to ask "Dev Gaf" a little something. Its quite hard to get some feedback on our software and games at the GM Studio forums. Maybe GAF feels like trying my game and give some? Any feedback from "this game is a fantastic masterpiece" to "my dog just died from the radiations of suck emanating from your game" is great.
Its actually been awhile am making this on my freetime and the game is getting along pretty well I think. It's part a "metroidvania platformer" and part a "skill based platformer". Kind of if a Mario game was under a Metroivania layout and that there would be a "Super Meat Boy" mode on the side.
Anyhow, just gouging interest. I'll make another post with links and pics.
Today I'd like to ask "Dev Gaf" a little something. Its quite hard to get some feedback on our software and games at the GM Studio forums. Maybe GAF feels like trying my game and give some? Any feedback from "this game is a fantastic masterpiece" to "my dog just died from the radiations of suck emanating from your game" is great.
Its actually been awhile am making this on my freetime and the game is getting along pretty well I think. It's part a "metroidvania platformer" and part a "skill based platformer". Kind of if a Mario game was under a Metroivania layout and that there would be a "Super Meat Boy" mode on the side.
Anyhow, just gouging interest. I'll make another post with links and pics.
Thanks! Ya, I would love to play an arcade football game, hate how they've gone out of style.
Agreed on the stiffness, it's a limitation of the way I animated them and something I should just hunker down and fix already.
Oh my gosh guys I finally truly finished a game! I've made a lot of games in the past but I've never really finished them so this is a huge milestone and hopefully motivation to go back and finish a bunch of other unreleased games.
It's an endless runner and I'm planning on putting it on android/app store.
It's an endless runner and I'm planning on putting it on android/app store.
Subscribed to the thread. Hoping this will motivate me to complete an actual game on my own. Despite being in the game industry and having shipped multiple AAA titles, I have low confidence on working and completing my own game as a side project. It just feels so overwhelming. Hoping to eventually read through the whole thread when I have time.
Sure, I'd be glad to help, though I'll likely be biased towards specific design choices because of my own platformer making concerns these days, so you might have to relativize a lot of my feedback! :-D
For what it's worth, I'm in your same situation as an Environment Artist (what do you do?). At home I'm working on my own thing with UE4 and if you don't go too crazy (ie, AAA-crazy) and are aware of what's mostly needed (which you probably do), making your own thing is feasible. For me the hardest part is getting all the game logic and features (which I got mostly decided and laid out in document), other than that I plan on making a the environment fairly simple but with enough content to create a few interesting locations, and for now it seems to be working alright.
I believe some people here already jumped into dev. what with being a new year and all that. You should give it a try as well.
Nice!Haha, that's excellent! (Yep, correct location
Welcome on gaf's indie gamedev sphere!Hey missile!!
Here's me
45.395078, -122.751435
I want to pimp the sphere over time. For one, does someone have a good world
map without jpeg artifacts? And second, does someone know where to get a
spherical texture map of the NeoGAF logo from?
Nice!
Welcome on gaf's indie gamedev sphere!
I want to pimp the sphere over time. For one, does someone have a good world
map without jpeg artifacts? And second, does someone know where to get a
spherical texture map of the NeoGAF logo from?
On a scale from 1 to hahaha you're kidding right, how feasible would it be to have an implementation of that sphere in the OP for Indie Thread 3, so we can click on it/rotate it and go "oooh" as we see where we all hail from and such?
(This is probably completely unrealistic, but the thought of it makes me go "oooh" at least)
Had a similar idea. Yeah would be cool, but for interaction one needs a 3d
realtime plugin for gaf, for, gif has no interaction. But I think it's not
worth the effort doing so. The idea I currently have is to just stay within
the bounds of a gif while working on a good presentation like building a
camera path orbiting the sphere visiting every developer (flying close-by)
with its avatar splitting up in perhaps the username, website, and games or
projects presented here on indie gamedev. I think it should be more something
pleasing to watch rather than to work with. What you think?
Edit:
But it won't be an ad-sphere! I think the indie gamedev sphere should also
somehow honor the guys and gals contributing in here to a larger degree, i.e
people showing their work, progress, spending the time and do encourage any
discussion. Will see.
That sounds fantastic too :-D
I've been working extra hard over the holidays and finally have some of the things to share in here
Since the game is procedurally generated, the stairs and lifts were buggy but I think I got them placed correctly now.
Power Orbs will be rare and give you a short buff ranging from faster running speed, quicker lock picking and better stealth.
Candles need fire and can also be used to light fire torches and lanterns. Light is your friend in the game to keep your sanity in check.
Completed another enemy type that can melee attack and blow fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9H-pI-YoU
I will post more of the things I completed over the holidays another time but it's a start.
Next on my list of things to do is explore more enemy types and improve stealth. Implementing VR will be soon but not a priority.
Since the game is procedurally generated, the stairs and lifts were buggy but I think I got them placed correctly now.
Power Orbs will be rare and give you a short buff ranging from faster running speed, quicker lock picking and better stealth.
Candles need fire and can also be used to light fire torches and lanterns. Light is your friend in the game to keep your sanity in check.
Completed another enemy type that can melee attack and blow fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9H-pI-YoU
I will post more of the things I completed over the holidays another time but it's a start.
Next on my list of things to do is explore more enemy types and improve stealth. Implementing VR will be soon but not a priority.
Speaking of which...
Who wants to make OP3 this time around?
Meanwhile...
I improved the defocus somewhat further in improving the blur. Now there
will be no discernible pattern within the blur (maybe your cat will see
something xD). The pattern you see in the ocean for example is a Bayer one to
hide banding of the shades, but isn't used for the defocusing blur.
Here is a new animation where I kept the focus distance a constant this time
around.
sensor: 35mm, focal length: 46mm, f-stop: 2, focus distance: 50cm
In reality the blur would be a bit stronger, visually. In my version the DOF
looks a bit bigger, because there are only so many pixels to make a difference.
Increasing the resolution would help and will keep the pixel effect alive. I
could also use accumulation to bring out a finer/softer blur, but this would
kill the pixel effect. Anyhow, I'm pretty much satisfied with how it looks.
And it pays off! I can feel the atmosphere right there. Gives some UltimaI've been working extra hard over the holidays and finally have some of the things to share in here
Since the game is procedurally generated, the stairs and lifts were buggy but I think I got them placed correctly now.
...
Underworld vibes.
And it pays off! I can feel the atmosphere right there. Gives some Ultima
Underworld vibes.
Thanks for the compliment! it won't be as deep in gameplay as UO though
SouSouRocket
Member
Just post em man!! Thread moves too fast to waste time with interest gauging posts.
Sàmban;227862803 said:Oh my gosh guys I finally truly finished a game! I've made a lot of games in the past but I've never really finished them so this is a huge milestone and hopefully motivation to go back and finish a bunch of other unreleased games.
It's an endless runner and I'm planning on putting it on android/app store.
Congrats, that's a huge accomplishment!! You should be super proud :'D Take some time off then take that motivation back to your other games!
I've been working extra hard over the holidays and finally have some of the things to share in here
Since the game is procedurally generated, the stairs and lifts were buggy but I think I got them placed correctly now.
Power Orbs will be rare and give you a short buff ranging from faster running speed, quicker lock picking and better stealth.
Candles need fire and can also be used to light fire torches and lanterns. Light is your friend in the game to keep your sanity in check.
Completed another enemy type that can melee attack and blow fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9H-pI-YoU
I will post more of the things I completed over the holidays another time but it's a start.
Next on my list of things to do is explore more enemy types and improve stealth. Implementing VR will be soon but not a priority.
Woooow this is looking amazing! Honestly VR brings a lot of challenges and if it's something you really want to do I'd start on it sooner rather than later. There's all kinds of camera and gameplay issues you might get from it and if you do it later on in the process it might break all of your shit and it's a giant pain in the ass ;3;
Ok so here goes.
I am making this games since some years already. Coding is basically done and I am on a huge level design draft. I would love love to get general feedback as its a bit hard to have on GM Studio forums lately.
The game is called The Life Ruby. Its part metroidvania styled platformer (Adventure mode) and part "skill platformer" à la Super Meat Boy. (Challenge mode)
Download link (works on anything more recent than XP, its a single exe)
https://www.mediafire.com/?7xv68rcj2hzh3je
What you can test... ​
- The 2 first zones of the game in Adventure Mode
- The first 4 levels in Challenge mode
- The tutorial level
- Menus, saving, options, performance adjustment system, etc.
- There's no sound effects yet and music is placeholder
I am making this games since some years already. Coding is basically done and I am on a huge level design draft. I would love love to get general feedback as its a bit hard to have on GM Studio forums lately.
The game is called The Life Ruby. Its part metroidvania styled platformer (Adventure mode) and part "skill platformer" à la Super Meat Boy. (Challenge mode)
Download link (works on anything more recent than XP, its a single exe)
https://www.mediafire.com/?7xv68rcj2hzh3je
What you can test... ​
- The 2 first zones of the game in Adventure Mode
- The first 4 levels in Challenge mode
- The tutorial level
- Menus, saving, options, performance adjustment system, etc.
- There's no sound effects yet and music is placeholder
Hey! I attempted to play it, but every time I start a new game in adventure mode, it crashes with this error log:
Hope you can make sense of it?
Thanks for the warning
I've been trying really hard to keep the game in check for the VR experience to stay intact. The only thing I have yet to explore is the HUD and will be different to the desktop experience for sure.
On a similar note, some things will be taken out completely such as the way you interact in the desktop version...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOmRBC_qV2A
all those timers/dials will all get dumped for a more physical approach in VR (hands) but I have yet to decide how far to take it
Town square, local church, gamedev studio etc. suffices.
Hey! I attempted to play it, but every time I start a new game in adventure mode, it crashes with this error log:
Hope you can make sense of it?
Are you trying to play with a controller by any chance?
I wasn't, but there was a controller plugged in!
Downloading right now!Ok so here goes.
I am making this games since some years already. Coding is basically done and I am on a huge level design draft. I would love love to get general feedback as its a bit hard to have on GM Studio forums lately.
The game is called The Life Ruby. Its part metroidvania styled platformer (Adventure mode) and part "skill platformer" à la Super Meat Boy. (Challenge mode)
Download link (works on anything more recent than XP, its a single exe)
https://www.mediafire.com/?7xv68rcj2hzh3je
What you can test... ​
- The 2 first zones of the game in Adventure Mode
- The first 4 levels in Challenge mode
- The tutorial level
- Menus, saving, options, performance adjustment system, etc.
- There's no sound effects yet and music is placeholder
Hey Pehesse I saw your screenshot spree in Twitter yesterday, game´s looking really good and it´s amazing how fast you´re making everything!
Yesterday I finally finished the 100% celebration animation, 99 frames of pure joy!
That's funny. The kids will love it!... Yesterday I finally finished the 100% celebration animation, 99 frames of pure joy!
OK, I played the Tutorial, the temple up to the main chambers (it threw me back to the main screen, so I suppose that´s the end of the available areas) and played a bit with the options to remap the controls. You should seriously consider using a default setting where the arrow keys are used, I think the majority of people would preffer it to the layout you have right now. I was impressed that the tutorial changed the text to adapt to my customized keys, nice detail.
There were some errors in the intro text (one was something like "my father been" and there was something more I can´t pinpoint exactly). The tutorial area was cool, but I think that you should get rid of it and implement it into the game, in a sort of first small temple. Also, some text boxes were placed in strange places, like one that would activate when you´re in the middle of a jump, better move it a bit to the right so it activates when the player lands. Oh and I think you should ad some fade in-out effect for the textboxes, it felt a bit off having them appear instantly.
I think you should make some QoL adjustments, like:
- Allowing to turn off the legend on the map. You have to quit the map and reenter to get rid of it.
- Allowing any key to advance text instead of tying it to down. BTW, is UP used for anything? I think it´s pretty standard by now to use UP to interact with doors, objects and such in sidescroller games, so maybe you should consider changing DOWN for UP.
- Replenishing life when you save or when you respawn, or respawning nearby hearts. It was a bit frustrating respawning with only one heart.
About the game itself:
- I think there are too many pixel perfect jumps. With the far from ideal controls (keyboard) I messed up many jumps.
- There´s a guy that tells you that you have to beat the red mage by repelling his attacks. I didn´t like that he gave me the solution before I had a chance of finding it on my own. NTW, I loved the humour of the blue mages.
- Also, right after this guy you meet the first fireball spitting statue, so I lost a few lives trying to repel it´s fireballs.
- Sometimes I could go under the fireballs without taking damage (or maybe the damage animation didn´t trigger, not sure). It felt a bit inconsistent. It may have happened when I was swinging the sword, but I think one time I could just walk under a fireball without doing anything.
- The Red Mage´s earthquake attack comes out too fast, specially for a first boss. I think the blocks should fall slower from the ceiling.
- I got lost because I died after getting the red statue before saving and I wasn´t aware that I had to get it again. Some cue would be nice, like showing the inventory when you respawn.
- You need to add sound effects ASAP, the game´s lacking feedback in the actions and sound would help a lot. The game would have felt much better with them.
- The statues activate mechanism but they don´t give you a hint on what they did. It would be nice to have the camera show the activated mechanism or something.
- The blue mages in the middle of danger areas felt off, I didn´t know if any of them would attack me. Maybe add something to clearly show they´re not enemies, like a bubble with a question sign to show you can talk to them.
- The sword wouldn´t come out when you´re close to and facing a wall. It felt clunky, you should allow the player to use it even if it doesn´t do anything.
- I loved discovering that you could repel the bees´ attack right back at them.
- I found a secret and the game acknowledged it, but later I found another secret room and it didn´t say anything. There was no big treasure in this second room, just some boxes and a heart.
Overall I liked it, I love Metroidvanias and this was a challenging one. I like a lot the setting, but I think you´re going all out from the start and maybe you should make the difficulty of jumps and traps start lower and ramp up steadily.
Downloading right now!
Hey Pehesse I saw your screenshot spree in Twitter yesterday, game´s looking really good and it´s amazing how fast you´re making everything!
Yesterday I finally finished the 100% celebration animation, 99 frames of pure joy!
Thanks and same to you! :-D
I'm still early, so this is the part when everything goes fast... it'll slow to a crawl soon enough!
Ah, okay! I'll give it another try tomorrow after unplugging the controller then.
First of all thank you for this amazing feedback!!
I bolded stuff I definitely want to do something about and here's some thoughts:
-- Legend button is a bug (already fixed on my side
)-- Up is the "swap weapon" button. Down is the interact button. Might mess with that at some point, I dunno.
-- Default button setting is a retro choice. "ASDJKL" like old PC games but since it might not be ideal for everybody, its the main reason why there's a key config.
-- Text in the game has not been corrected yet (there's alot of errors right now lol)
-- I hate integrated tutorials with a passion and think its an easy way out for many modern game designers to fail less at "show don't tell", to make the player understand what he's having to do by playing/experimenting. So basically in my right mind I would make a game with no tutorial at all but I added an external tutorial for people who might really need it. Else the help/hint screen should be pretty easy to find (or so I hope).
-- Save points replenishing life. That's also a tuff design choice. I don't want the player to cheat health by saving (which happens all the time in Castlevania). I found no other good way to prevent this. I intend to place a heart beside all save points in the game so players can use it in case they saved in low health. An alternative am thinking (but still debating if its worth it) could be to never save in "low health". This means you would respawn with at least 2 hearts. What do you think?
-- Repelling the boss attack... This is a corner I painted me on. At first there was no hint about his. Darts couldn't even get deflected, heck it wasn't even mentionned in the help screen. When it was like that, some people would actually NEVER find how to defeat the boss and leave the game there. On my side of things, I also have nothing in the gameplay that teaches that to the player before arriving at the boss so I took it much as "my fault". For version 48.0 (the one you played) now, I made the "deflect" move much more integrated. All the "attack" text in the game became "attack/deflect" (or should I use Repell?), hints in the help screen talk about it, darts can be repelled (and so will many other projectiles in the future). But maybe I reversed the problem into something else now? Maybe am killing the first boss appeal by telling too much about the deflect attack?
achromicia
Member
First of all thank you for this amazing feedback!!
I bolded stuff I definitely want to do something about and here's some thoughts:
-- Legend button is a bug (already fixed on my side
-- Up is the "swap weapon" button. Down is the interact button. Might mess with that at some point, I dunno.
-- Default button setting is a retro choice. "ASDJKL" like old PC games but since it might not be ideal for everybody, its the main reason why there's a key config.
-- Text in the game has not been corrected yet (there's alot of errors right now lol)
-- I hate integrated tutorials with a passion and think its an easy way out for many modern game designers to fail less at "show don't tell", to make the player understand what he's having to do by playing/experimenting. So basically in my right mind I would make a game with no tutorial at all but I added an external tutorial for people who might really need it. Else the help/hint screen should be pretty easy to find (or so I hope).
-- Save points replenishing life. That's also a tuff design choice. I don't want the player to cheat health by saving (which happens all the time in Castlevania). I found no other good way to prevent this. I intend to place a heart beside all save points in the game so players can use it in case they saved in low health. An alternative am thinking (but still debating if its worth it) could be to never save in "low health". This means you would respawn with at least 2 hearts. What do you think?
-- Repelling the boss attack... This is a corner I painted me on. At first there was no hint about his. Darts couldn't even get deflected, heck it wasn't even mentionned in the help screen. When it was like that, some people would actually NEVER find how to defeat the boss and leave the game there. On my side of things, I also have nothing in the gameplay that teaches that to the player before arriving at the boss so I took it much as "my fault". For version 48.0 (the one you played) now, I made the "deflect" move much more integrated. All the "attack" text in the game became "attack/deflect" (or should I use Repell?), hints in the help screen talk about it, darts can be repelled (and so will many other projectiles in the future). But maybe I reversed the problem into something else now? Maybe am killing the first boss appeal by telling too much about the deflect attack?
I haven't played it yet, but visual education is always better. Perhaps you could have a little cut scene where his attacks are deflected or even put something in the room the player can hide behind that deflect his attacks.
A better way would be to design a mob around this idea, teach the player before they get to the boss.
Agreed totally. I should make the repelling more important but at the same time, those players who can't tell the only thing they actually CAN do is to deflect the magic, how would those player understand the first mob where you're supposed to repell its projectiles? Can't most people really NOT find something without a cut-scene blatantly showing what to do? I feel a cut-scene like that is even worse than an integrated tutorial since you don't even interact...
I thought maybe about some "mob door". A kind of plant blocking the way and if you don't repell its spore projectiles on it, it doesn't die (and therefore the player can't proceed). But then again, if don't put that plant right at the freaking start of the game, the people could say "oh its a Metroidvania, I must have missed something".
How did we instinctively knew we had to deflect Aganhim's projectiles in Zelda Link To The Past without ever deflecting a damn thing before we got to that point? I am not making a point against yours, am just feeding the thoughts.
Glad I could help
Maybe make a setting so the player can choose setting 1 (the one who have now) and setting 2 (precustamized with the arrow keys), so people don´t have to set all the keys manually.
I would respawn players with full health, checkpoint placement should make it so cheating is useless. For example, health is useless if the obstacles the player has to go through are all instant kill traps. If you don´t want to do this you can make 2 types of checkpoints: a small one which respawns the player with 2 hearts and a bigger more scarce one than respawns and replenishes health to the max (this would be nice to have right before bosses). I wouldn´t just respawn a heart next to the save point, I think that should be taken care of automatically when respawning. BTW, the save effect is too subtle, many times I wasn´t sure if I had saved (probably due to lacking of a sound effect too). I think that sometimes the animation played too fast or started from an image_index other than 0 and I wasn´t 100% sure if the checkpoint had triggered...maybe add a simple particle effect or something and make it so checkpoints are activated when the player presses DOWN, it felt a bit inconsistent that you interact with everything by pressing DOWN except the checkpoints.
You´ve already done this (almost). The blue mage that tells you about repelling attacks is next to a fire spitting wall. I died a few times trying to repel those fireballs as I thought the mage was refferring to this..so why not make it so you can repel these fireballs? Or maybe change it for a smaller stationary red mage who only shoots horizontal fireballs and force the player to kill him that way. Instead of having the blue mage tell you about it, use the location: you´re in a temple, so you can add a sort of drawing on the wall that shows a guy repelling a fireball back to the Red Mage. It would be a cool hint and would integrate nicely with the game. You said you hate integrated tutorials as it´s a method used to circumvent the "show don´t tell" approach, but by denying them you ended using a "tell don´t show" approach which is miles worse.
Another aspect is that I think that your difficulty balance is all over the place. You expect the player to make several pixel perfect jumps right from the beginning, get rid of a bat placed above a vertical moving platform coming at the player from a weird angle, yet can´t trust him to figure out some basic things. It´s like at times it feels a difficult game for retro lovers but the next step it´s treating me as a newbie :S
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