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To clarify a couple things: - Regarding Prison - the lesson taught there is relevant in a couple puzzles later (and I personally kinda like that particular quirk), but the point that that particular behaviour isn't very intuitive is very much valid and as a result the next patch will divide Prison into two separate levels that hopefully ease you into the concept better. - Regarding the level in the bottom-right corner: You're only ever supposed to get one orb from it; next build will fix that. - Broken playground: the extra bit in the bottom-left corner is leftovers from an old version of the level, it'll be gone next patch. - The game tries not to do arbitrary orders-of-operations and for the most part the game logic is fairly consistent, but the movement system (particularly when multiple objects with Move do stuff at the same time) is the one part where a good way to make everything consistently happen "simultaneously" for all objects hasn't emerged. For the record, none of the puzzles in the game should require e.g. multiple objects with Move pushing objects from many directions because of this. It's been a lot of fun to read the thread, thanks so much for the mega-kind response! :3
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Mar 18, 2019 03:47
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Zyxyz posted:I got both the flag and the bonus on the island, yes. Maybe the nonstandard area completions are still buggy, like their achievements are? Could you post a pic of your world map for debugging purposes? It's very likely that there's still some annoying bug there, although I hope not. Regy Rusty posted:The IS in the left area of the Depths is bugging me. I can use it to make FLAG IS LEVEL, but that just turns the flag into a level marker and I was already able to access it anyway so there doesn't seem to be any reason to do so. Odd! You shouldn't be able to access the level before that, I think. Not a big deal but yeah, that's the intended use of the Is there. Novasol posted:Pictured: Solving the Guardians puzzle - This gave me a good chuckle, thank you! Also again, thanks for all the kind comments otherwise as well! 
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Mar 19, 2019 08:01
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Thanks! I realize that since the portals to Meta and Depths are there, and those can be won, the current system requires them to be beaten to consider the map complete 
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Mar 19, 2019 08:36
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The final level will get a "Win" added in the next patch. Hopefully the achievements will work then as well.
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Mar 21, 2019 22:51
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Fedule posted:Is there an ETA for the patch(es?) on Switch? I've been at GDC this week with really weak internet which has hampered things a bit, but I think we'll start the process as soon as possible afterwards. So some time more, unfortunately, but that'll almost certainly be 3 patches combined.
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Mar 21, 2019 23:58
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Yup, Bottleneck and its variant are practically identical because I didn't pay enough attention while doing the split.
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Mar 23, 2019 19:08
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I've noted that some levels cause frustration to a bunch of people. I try to avoid getting into the mindset where I'd start changing every level I see people dislike, but there are some specific level features that I might want to try to make nicer (namely trying to reduce fixed rules in certain levels that have a lot of them) and in general if a level turns out to be generally considered a slog, trying at least to restructure it to be less so is probably worth a try. I guess Prison is a good example of this, and the outcome seems to have worked.
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Mar 24, 2019 00:02
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:the most frustration is when I already have all the words I need and the level geometry requires a lot of tedium in moving the words around because there's not enough room There are some levels where the crampedness is to prevent some unintended solutions, but I'd be happy to hear levels that had this problem to see what I can do; I definitely generally tried to avoid the classic sokoban-y space management approach.
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Mar 24, 2019 01:24
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:I need confirmation on something for Garden-Extra 1, Out at Sea. Does the solution involve adding something to BABA is YOU in the top-right? It feels significant that it's the only "fixed" rule on the level that isn't surrounded by walls, but I also can't figure out how to get more than one word to it. Answer: Nope. I should probably wall it off, that sort of red herring-ing isn't maybe preferable. Argue posted:Hempuli, I just encountered a weird bug. I haven't actually tried reproducing it but I can remember the steps I took: This has been around for a bit, but I haven't been able to reproduce it on my end; thanks a lot for the directions! Once I get some proper devtime I'll take a good look at it. Endless Corridor posted:Endless Corridor Arrrthritis posted:Are any other solutions going to be like that one? Are you playing on Switch or computer? The level was recently changed to make the solution more apparent and less arbitrary (hopefully), but that particular functionality (i.e. pushing "solid" objects on top of "nonsolid" objects such as ones with You) will appear in later levels.
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Mar 24, 2019 19:21
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It'll be fixed in the next version 
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Mar 27, 2019 01:08
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Pharohman777 posted:Did the switch version get patched yet? I'll try to get the patch process started today; there's one(?) major bug that I'd like to see fixed before doing that. Apologies for the long, long wait. Tunnel posted:Tunnel I'm starting to feel that this one might be best replaced with other stuff... I like the tunnel as a concept and the idea of the intended solution (create a formation where the two Rocks are You and can swap horizontally between Baba Is Bat and Bat Is Baba) but it doesn't seem to work as a level very well. Again, super thanks for the mega-kind comments! And that's a mega-nice t-shirt, Shai-Hulud! I brought some 20 t-shirts to GDC but forgot to give almost any away, darn. Also stickers (grainy cellphone pic incoming):
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Mar 28, 2019 19:18
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Pharohman777 posted:The mechanic of how a statement functions can change if the middle is completed last is in multiple levels. Is this referring to the solution in Skull House? I'm not completely sure what you mean with this.
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Mar 29, 2019 08:33
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For what it's worth, "Defeat" used to be "Kill" but I changed it because while the latter implied the functionality better, I wanted to make the game less violent.McFrugal posted:Oh dear. New patch, Insulation changed. The only two solutions I knew of no longer work. I can't seem to be able to make the level work as intended, so at this point I'm kinda contemplating just changing it altogether.
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Mar 30, 2019 18:37
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McFrugal posted:Was the intended solution to have the skull move onto Baba from inside a wall, so you swap into the wall and can walk out? Yup! Still relatively janky, I suppose.
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Mar 30, 2019 19:35
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The first Switch patch should be coming pretty soon, by the way! Apologies for the wait.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:36
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Related: EDIT: Nevermind, sorry! Hempuli fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 23:09
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The Switch now *actually* has the 1.0.3 patch! There was some hassle and I announced the update prematurely twice. Anyway, it's here, yay! Patch notes here, again: http://www.hempuli.com/blogblog/archives/2028
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Apr 8, 2019 22:27
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I've tried to restrain myself from having puzzles require too much understanding of the order of operations; in fact, the latest Steam update replaced a level that kinda did that with a new one (Pillarwork) which doesn't. When designing puzzles it's very easy to assume that stuff like "You moves first" is apparent where in fact the player has no reason to assume things to be that way. I was a bit scared of Mean Fence feeling too arbitrary, but the trick is cute and the level is simple enough that it didn't feel too bad. An anecdote: when implementing the word "Shift" (makes on object work like a conveyor belt), I realized that since while Shifting moves on object, kinda like how Push does, the object being Shifted isn't the object that actually has the rule "X Is Shift"; therefore it'd kinda make sense that if the object being Shifted doesn't have any rules applied to itself, it wouldn't have to respect any rules of solidity etc. that are taken into account when something is, say, Pushed. As a result of this train of thought I made a level where you must move an object onto a conveyor belt, then shut its rules off to get it to move inside a wall. It was technically plausible that things'd work this way, but testers pointed out several well-reasoned arguments as to why doing this would've been not good but indeed very bad, and I dropped the idea. tl,dr; It's easy to get too excited about hypothetical underlying logic quirks of an engine. Brosnan posted:My bad. Hi Hempuli, thanks for making a good game! Thanks a lot!  And of course thanks to everyone else here as well!!
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Apr 10, 2019 01:59
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That's a shame to hear.  Are there particular levels that felt that way? I haven't heard that kind of complaints that much about the earlier levels but they could definitely be adjusted if it turns out that they're too obtuse.
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Apr 10, 2019 20:50
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I removed the level (after 1.0.3 hit, though) due to that. The underlying logic is that since Open and Shut can interact even if one of them is Stop, the interaction must happen before they occupy the same space, kinda like how Push works. Therefore if a Key is Push And Open, and a Door is Shut And Stop, pushing the Key against the Door makes whatever results of the Key disappearing happen one tile away from the door. As I discussed earlier, it's one of those cases where the logic makes internal sense and in this case could technically be figured out to an extent, but is still obscure and cornercasey - enough so that despite initially liking the level a lot I haven't felt that good about it lately. Also as mentioned earlier, I'll try to restrain myself from editing/removing/changing all levels that could potentially make the player use less intuitive mechanics, but pruning/adjusting them a bit feels pretty safe.
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Apr 10, 2019 23:39
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Tonfa posted:Not "early" I suppose but the revised "A Way Out?" makes no sense. YOU are PUSH and attempt to move against an opposing SHIFT object. A MOVE object is also moving in the same direction as you. No matter what order these three operations are in they should not result you in advancing two spaces in one step, since they don't do so out in the open without the SHIFT object. That's definitely not the intended approach; I think I have an idea on how to adjust the level to help with that. As a general rule, if a behaviour doesn't make sense even afterwards it's plausible to suppose that it's a bug even if there ended up being an explanation what's going on (and even if that was the case, the explanation might not be very good, haha.) I think I understand what's going on there: Assuming Baba and the Move object are overlapping - You happens first, so Baba moves onto the Belt. Move happens next, so the object pushes Baba off the Belt. Shift happens last, but Baba's no longer on the Belt and thus only the Move object gets Shifted. Again, technically consistent within the underlying logic (and as a result hard to change), but not something you'd ever want to require a player to know to solve a puzzle. Hempuli fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 17:06
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Venuz Patrol posted:i hope hempuli keeps updating A Way Out every two weeks or so for as long as they're interested in maintaining the game I think I'm starting to be ok with it now that most solutions require using most of the elements present. Tau Wedel posted:That was the solution I found for A Way Out?, and I don't really see why you found it necessary to remove it. It might've been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction; people feeling that the game is asking them to understand and exploit "illogical"/buggy-feeling behaviour is something I'd super want to avoid. Argue posted:Got it; I felt it was kind of cheap. The Level-objects follow the rule of not being accessible without being turned into Levels first, except for two instances. I kinda like that behaviour but admittedly there being two exceptions really undermines the consistency. I wonder if I could somehow handle those two, though... Also, as a completely unrelated thing, here's a gif I made using the game's debug editor back when Night in the Woods won the IGF grand prize in 2018: 
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Apr 15, 2019 02:48
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Hi! I'll make a post about some stuff a bit later, but for now there's an AMA going about Baba at /r/NintendoSwitch: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ben6qj/hi_im_hempuli_the_developer_of_baba_is_you_ask_me/
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Apr 18, 2019 18:01
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A Way Out used to have more moving parts to it but also be solvable without utilizing several elements. While trying to update it so that the player can't just skip entire parts of the puzzle (namely the Belt Is Shift room on the left I decided to remove one of the parts (the Skull Is Defeat bit) to make the level less overwhelming. Around this time I also saw a pretty interesting alternative solution, and since I was kind of fond of the aforementioned removed part, I ended up adding the remixed level, especially the spot where it's located now really needed something. I've tried not to massively mind there being alternative solutions as long as they still use most of the elements present, but it may very well be that A Way Out is currently harder than it should be, or that Another Way is easier. Unrelated, but thanks to everyone here for the discussion & comments and sorry for fairly selectively replying to things! I've read it all (and recently re-read the thread) but the release has been quite exhausing and that has affected my ability to exhaustively (heh) reply to questions etc.
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Apr 19, 2019 03:40
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To be honest there probably isn't much reason to postpone setting up a new Switch patch - the main problem is that if something breaks hard, Switch users will have to deal with the problem for longer so we have to be more careful. I'll discuss if we could get one up this weekend (although it'll still take until next week before it'd be up.) Not-edit-because-I-didn't-post-this-yet: Yeah looks like we'll try to set up a Switch patch over Easter. There have been some requests for releasing the changed/unused levels or marking edited/tweaked levels - I don't mind the idea but the problem is that new players don't have a point of reference for the changes so if we implement something like that, it'd need to either be a completely separate package or somehow smartly read the player's save file to see if they've seen the levels before. I posted this on Twitter already but I really like the effect of removing the cooldown from holding buttons: 
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Apr 20, 2019 00:08
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That's indeed the total on Steam. I just updated the game on Steam, patch notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/736260/announcements/detail/1648790250600696308 The reason I'm posting about this here specifically is because of two changes: - Adventurers should now be less frustrating! - I adjusted the way (spoilers for secret content) the Rock and Water work in ??? so that they match the rest of these work. After this there's still the level in Meta, but I have yet to figure out how to approach this. Akumu posted:I am playing the game on Steam, so I am pretty sure I have the latest version. I have full or more than full puff counters in ten of the numbered worlds, but I only have nine flowers. Any idea why this might be, and how I can fix it? Could you send your save file (appdata/roaming/Baba_Is_You/0ba.ba, if you're playing in slot 1 on Windows) to baba AT hempuli DOT com? Thanks! Palpek posted:I think that unlocking those extra/alternative levels would be a sweet reward for completing the game and then you would be sure that people played it as it was intended first. I thought about this and it feels like it'd make sense to release some kind of "official" level packs along with the level editor once that becomes a thing; "lost levels" could be one of these. A problem with several simple approaches to adding new levels is that Switch gets updates slower and I'd rather avoid people feeling that they're missing out on larger amounts of content.
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Apr 21, 2019 22:41
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Zyxyz posted:Got All This Stuff Here was one of my favorite levels and yet I have no idea how to solve Ruined Orchard Apologies for outright removing a level you liked; Got All This Stuff Here was just such a convoluted level with lots of opportunities to trigger some of the remaining hard-to-fix crashy bugs. McFrugal posted:Hmm, I thought Baba is You had distinct layers with various mechanics moving you up or down, but ??? and the overworld seem to be on the same, topmost layer despite how you get to ???. As you said, those two are technically on the same "layer", mainly to account for the Map being where the game starts as well as dealing with "return to map" being funky between them. NRVNQSR posted:Perhaps it could just be a normal level icon with a flower covering it? I don't think that would be any more visually obvious than the current treatment, but it would be clearer what the player has to do when they do notice it and it would make it consistent. That could work, yeah! Thanks. And for the other thing, people already found a way to do something to that effect and I'm currently hotfixing the build, haha. Something to consider for the future. Tau Wedel posted:A fun little side effect of this adjustment is that it is now possible to make Level is Push in ???. It doesn't do anything useful, but if you want to wreck the map completely, now you can. Unfortunately that fun little thing will have to go due to the hotfix mentioned above. The levels are blue due to that being the default colour for object-levels. Let's say that they're like that because the other dotted levels in the area are not "secret" in a certain sense of the word.
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Apr 22, 2019 03:44
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Just to clarify, you *can* access the levels, it's just that the method is inconsistent with how things generally otherwise work.
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Apr 25, 2019 02:16
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Hahahah, that's amazing, thanks for linking it! People have been doing some really wild stuff via modding.
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May 2, 2019 15:46
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Item Getter posted:Can anyone give me some hints for Parade? Been stuck on that one for a long time and feels like there's a lot of content behind it. I'll try to give a couple progressive hints: 1. You can't relocate/remove either Me from where they are. 2. You'll want to hinder the upper Me indefinitely so that the other one can do its job. 3. Remember how the level "Tours" in Volcanic Cavern worked. These might still be quite vague, I might not be very good at hints. Parade is a level where I like the idea a lot but am worried that it utilizes stuff that a relatively large chunk of players might find obtuse.
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May 3, 2019 10:16
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Pharohman777 posted:Whens the next switch patch? As soon as I get a confirmation that it's been accepted, the patch will go up. I had business travelling on 2 weekends in a row and that slowed things down a lot.
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May 7, 2019 03:01
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The eventual level editor will be on both Switch and Steam, but of course stuff like mods are limited to PC users. In other news, patch for version 1.0.4 is now available on Switch! (Nearly) full patch notes: http://www.hempuli.com/blogblog/archives/2042
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May 9, 2019 22:38
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Twitch is doing a "Twitch Plays" -thing with Baba right now! https://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon
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May 12, 2019 02:53
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Takoluka posted:Is there any official BABA merch I can buy? Probably eventually! Since I'm the only person responsible for arranging this stuff, I decided not to add workload by considering merchandise before or immediately after release. I've been getting more into that now that the initial more stressful release phase has ended. Ariong posted:How Hand Is Hand works To clarify this a bit - there're never situations where the order in which the rules were formed would affect the outcome, time- or alphabet-wise. Stating X Is X always overrides other rules of similar nature, and stating X Is Not Y always overrides the statement X Is Y. I guess you could say that prohibitive rules take precedence over non-prohibitive rules. Hempuli fucked around with this message at 01:15 on May 17, 2019 |
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May 17, 2019 01:11
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McFrugal posted:SINK destroys every object being pushed into it, then removes the object that is SINK. SHUT will only consume one overlapped OPEN object. Random one; Sink used to only destroy one object but it was changed precisely to avoid arbitrary priority. With Shut & Open, the idea of a stack of keys all being used when opening a single door felt too unpleasant so I kept the in-other-ways unpleasant arbitrary priority potential. Regarding relaxing spot: I'm not super happy that Text On Rock Is Keke essentially creates a double-conversion, first with On -> Keke and then with Rock -> Keke, and I actually tried to prevent this from happening during development. For reasons this ended up creating more problems than it would've solved so nevermind. I guess it kind of makes sense as it is now.
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May 22, 2019 20:04
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Arrhythmia posted:Late game level spoiler: Return of Scenic Pond is a betrayal of my trust Hempuli. It's the monster that keeps on giving! I've been adding some silly stuff as an early exercise in preparation for the inevitable level editor: https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1133207128817262592
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May 28, 2019 04:14
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RoadCrewWorker posted:For the record, today i started up the game and had it solved 3 minutes later and can confirm that my theory was extremely correct. My apologies Toxic Mental posted:Hempuli I registered just to say I love this game, I love your twitter and I love BABA Arrhythmia posted:Great. Thanks for the fantastic game Hempuli, I'm off to join mensa now Thanks a lot! :3 Super glad to hear you enjoyed the game (and same goes for everyone else who expressed a similar sentiment (or cursed the game's name???)) I pretty regularly check who's streaming the game but admittedly I'm not very familiar with most big-name Twitch streamers (viewer counts do help!) The OST Youtube videos got a bunch of comments referring to Faker and I was really confused at first. https://twitter.com/doodlemoth/status/1135267521953579008
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Jun 3, 2019 01:48
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Thanks to the mods for the nearly-three-month stickification! It was very kind of you.RoadCrewWorker posted:Oh, you misunderstand - no apologies necessary. I wasn't getting mad at the game (though i have to admit that as tutorial level the solution doesn't rank in my top 10 so far, most of which are occupied by the level is <x>s), i was getting mad at me having a blindspot and over-complicating things a lot, as usual. Ohh, that was you! Thanks for the chat Toxic Mental posted:How did you design the levels? Did each one have a specific goal you knew you wanted to make the solution beforehand? Or did you just drop a ton of objects and walls and word blocks into levels and just try to find some way to make it work? Generally the former; especially once I had a bunch of words implemented I tended to go through interactions between them in my head, and I ran into something that felt "cool" or interesting I tried to reverse-engineer a level that required the player to use said interaction. This worked pretty well for the most part; the biggest issues with this approach were that it was easy to leave a lot of trivial alternative solutions due to the working-backwards thing, and that some solutions ended up being only slightly different from each other leading to some pruning work later on. The game's level folder has the level numbers go up to 326, so there were a bunch of deleted/unused level concepts.
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Jun 3, 2019 15:18
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Hempuli, this game is genius. It's giving me the same kind of buzz as The Witness did, with it's own grammar and logic but none of the pretension. It's delightful, through and through. Thanks a lot! There were a whole bunch of testers; after the original game jam I prepared a semi-working build with ~80 levels and sent it to a bunch of indie developer friends and over the next 2 years got a whole lot of really valuable feedback from them. The "official" testing period was somewhat shorter, starting about ~3-4 months before release, but the testers gave a lot of extremely good feedback and I'm super grateful at the speed at which they went through things. Most of the levels came from my brains in one form or another, but there are very few levels that didn't go through reworks based on feedback (either to remove unintended solutions, fix bugs or to just generally improve the level.) Some were basically made based on things testers found or pointed out; for example, many of the variant levels were alternative solutions testers found that were too cool to leave out. Also at least one level, Victory Spring, was fully designed and suggested by tester & fellow indie dev Alan Hazelden (e.g. A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build, Cosmic Express). GazChap posted:Has this game been translated into any other languages? We spent a bunch of time considering how to do a full localization, but ultimately it has seemed (for the reason flatluigi referred to, among others) that it won't be feasible. We're working on localizing the menus and UI, though, so there's that. As a bonus, here's the settings menu using a Finnish translation I made quickly to test the localization tools: 
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Jun 4, 2019 00:45
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Ariong posted:WIN could be a trophy, MOVE could be a little running figure like you see on exit signs sometimes, not sure about PUSH and PULL. Pictograms representing objects should be within a different shape compared to words representing qualities like PUSH. I actually started drawing pictograms for all the basic words earlier to see if I could figure out a nice image for all of them. If the basic system was clearly enough defined some of the more common words would be pretty easy to depict - if all movement-related words were shown using a stick figure, Move/Push/Pull could be done using the same basic cue. With Stop I kept running into the problem of a "STOP" traffic sign symbol seeming like the most obvious answer despite it actually containing the English word Stop. Maybe a hand showing its palm at the viewer with the fingers pointing straight up? Especially specific implications of certain words would've been extremely hard to convey (e.g. how Defeat only affects You, On/Not and other words you apply to others.) Even something like "And" turned out to surprisingly hard; the most obvious answers are & and +, but the former is a letter-like symbol in itself and the latter gives some erroneous implications if "Is" was depicted by the = symbol. "Is" could maybe also have been an arrow (Baba -> You) but that would've broken down with how the rules can be multidirectional and I'm sure some maths people would've had angry words to say about misusing mathematical notation. Overall I feel that the pictogram approach would be cool to use as the gimmick of a set of levels, but it would've added a huge layer of additional complications into the interpretation of the rules in a way that I'm not sure would've been useful for localization purposes. It might be worth another serious try, though. Fedule posted:
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Jun 4, 2019 01:56
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