Post by Yal in Hi, just wanted to ask about the game's endings

Heart Of Ruin: Final Columbus » Community

Viewing post in Hi, just wanted to ask about the game's endings

Long time no see indeed! Years are getting shorter and shorter these days, aren't they? :P

Out-of-universe, the name is supposed to mean that you're the last great explorer (since the world ended in the apocalypse). Turns out I did a mistake picking that name, since googling "final columbus" gives you a ton of info on Super Bowl finals played in Columbus, and it just completely buries my game. That's the reason I changed the main title into "Heart of Ruin" :P

I have no immediate plans to make a remake (I barely have enough time to make new stuff, lol) but on the other hand I also have no reason not to... so we'll see what happens~

Hobcramwork4 years ago

Yes, it only seemed like yesterday that I had last played the game (aside from the past week or so :p), and I was happy to receive a reply from you! :D

Ah, I see (I had forgotten that the Heart of the City had ruined the world, and thought the Ancestors had left for other planets :p); well, that's something new I've learnt today, and yes, "Heart of Ruin" does aptly describe the game's backstory :D

Well, I look forward to seeing the remake, and in the meantime, I'll try to find all the 50 lore, and play Arengius a bit too.

I have a question regarding Ashley (nicknamed 'Voice'): is it possible to rescue her at all, whether at the Water Tower after the explosion or after collecting all 50 lore? I ask as your update 'readme' file indicates that as possible.

Also, I had found Baron McFungi in the Vegetation building, whereby he said I should go look for Sunshine in the Canal. Aside from that, I was about to ask you about whether there is anything of interest in the Rattleskull Valley, only to uncover an old save file that showed me otherwise :p

I found another door in the Thermal Plant that should lead to a room with lots of those giant brown living mounds (there are some that spew fire while spinning and others that hold a large stack of barrels like a shield) and a blue jar, but I haven't found a way to the door. Is it a fake area like you had mentioned before?

Yal4 years ago(+1)

The Thermal Plant and a small handful of other areas has fake walls (aka things that look like walls but are passable) so there might be a much more obscure way to reach the thing you're looking for (I have a faint memory of a gun upgrade being hidden in a large room designated as something along the lines of "the reactor" through an easy-to-miss pipe leading offscreen). I also remember there's an area reached through one of the "indoors" areas that doesn't connect to the main maze, that's probably what you're seeing. (The area has a bunch of jars, but it's mostly an excuse to respawn everything in the room you just left :P)

Rattleskull Valley used to connect to That One Level (the brutally difficult, unfair and unfun bonus level) but I moved it to a more hard-to-find location at the last moment. The area just ends in the middle of nowhere now if I recall correctly.

@ Saving Voice: [spoilers] I distinctly remember an ending post-credits scene (which I never actually made) where Cain explains to Daphne that "mom's not going to come home" and it reveals that she's his daughter (and Cain/Voice was a couple in the past that split up) and she stuck with Voice after they divorced... so saving her is probably non-canonical. Not sure if there's an actual way to save her buried in all those lines of code I haven't touched in a decade, but I suppose my patch notes know best :P

(Saving her would involve going to the Water Tower after you regain control... potentially before going back to the truck to avoid wasting time, I'd guess?)

Hobcramwork4 years ago

I see; I might root around the Thermal Plant and other buildings in the vicinity for a bit before moving on to the Smoggy Highway, though at the rate that I'm going, it would be much easier if you could explain what all the riddles meant as well as point me in the direction for uncovering the remaining lore (as well as where to find the upgrade for the Cryosphere gun).

My analysis of my previous save files and current file indicate that I had gained about 6 lore in between the Smoggy Highway and the final fight with Smith/heart amalgamation in a building (where he briefly regains his consciousness, shows his remorse, then warns you to get away before he explodes), bringing my total lore collection to 44 in 2017. The ending I previously obtained, which may or may not be the Neutral ending, had Mario and Sarah sitting at a campfire after getting everyone else to safety (Emily Withers, Jack Deadwater, Albert Coffee, Cain Brown/Buddy and the other female scientist).

Hmm, it is sad that Mario might not be able to rescue Voice after all, though that leaves certain parts unanswered, such as what was behind that door that she had previously unlocked before the Thermal Plant and Vegetation building, as well as what she and Teal were up to.

Hobcramwork4 years ago(+1)

Hi Yal, I completed the game 2 days ago with 46 lore (the last one being on the table with the small crystal), and will root through the earlier areas one of these days for the remaining 4.

Will keep checking the walls in the Thermal Plant and the Reactor building (assuming I remember where I last saw that signpost that said 'Reactor').

Ah, now I understand what you meant by going up the Water Tower once the explosion starts; I'll use one of my old saves to make my way up after triggering the explosion and see if I can save Voice :D

Hobcramwork4 years ago(+1)

Hi Yal, after much thought, I had decided to start a new game while recording each room I'm visiting as well as what I've found in them (lore, money piles, jars, hidden secrets/secret walls etc) in a Word document (which I will send you a copy of when I'm done, for your future reference), and have found this exercise to be quite fulfilling, although a tad slow.

I found the Bat character at the very top of the 'Grasshouse (outside)' area, so that was neat :p

Anyhow, I managed to find another part of the Thermal Plant, thanks to a secret wall, and went through the door, but at the end of that large new room (with much lava in the floors) was a door which was rusted shut, so I'm back to square one. I did access a room above me in the plant despite the lava ceiling, but didn't find anything of note. Will go through the entire plant again, room by room, until I've found a way to the other jars (& possible the gun upgrade room you had mentioned before).

As I had found out before, there is nothing of interest in the Rattleskull Valley (thanks to an old save file that I had kept aside), so that will remain off-limits to me.

To my surprise, after heeding Albert's advice to check the Water Tower for any survivors, I managed to find Voice, and she was still alive! She's being nursed back to health by Albert while I head off to find the female scientists from the Waste Canal (after we parted ways at the Main Artery).

Another surprise was that after checking the 2nd Canal Building (which I thought was the one I visited before and ended up fighting the Epic Whirr), it turned out to be quite different from the first Canal Building. I assumed the green ceiling robots had moved in after I had fought the Epic Whirr, but I was wrong, due to the fact that I had found a new lore, quite distinct from my previous playthroughs. It was quite rewarding :D

Other than the above, I came across the signboard left behind by Artillery Swifthand in the Waste Canal (or as I termed it for less confusion in my Word file, Waste Canal 3) after using the girls to get rid of 3 destructible blocks in the ground. Although I have taken screenshots of each section of his message, I am concerned that I might not be able to meet him after the girls are completely rescued (since said blocks will reappear after leaving the room), but I will visit unlock the special door in the Barkley Goods Station once I've unlocked the 3 wing flaps (& noted down all the lore I had found).

Thank you for making this game, Yal; I appreciate your helping me out despite having released the game in 2011 and my first asking you about it in 2017 :D

Yal4 years ago(+1)

I'm glad I could be of some help after so many years x3 I've forgotten so much about the game that I can't even dig around in the project file to find things because I don't know where to start looking anymore... (the game is so old that I didn't think about scalability or properly commenting my code)

Since you've been stuck on this puzzle in the fire area so long, I looked up the solution. The secret in the fire area is near the sign that says "Boiler Room, Do Not Enter":

The "rusted shut" message is the standard message when a door is an actual door object, but it has no destination. I might have kept some in for flavor, but it's also possible that area is meant to lead somewhere, and I just never finished that area. (All 50 Lore are in the game and obtainable, at least - I finished that part during the game's original 3-month jam development, so all secrets added after that are independent of the Lore system, which is why they're a bit thin on those things)

*looks it up*

Oh, the door being rusted shut at the end of that long lava area probably is intentional - there's all these signs warning you not to go through it before finally giving up and just saying "okay, fine, go through the door already" and then it's rusted shut for comedic effect. There's a lore right outside, so there's a proper reward for the trouble, and the room has a much higher ID than any of the other levels in the lava area, so it was added much later... I probably moved the Lore there because they were too easy to find originally.

Swifthand's message doesn't set any flags, so it's only there for the information dump (it points out two actual secret areas). iirc, my intention was that Swifthand lived before the apocalypse (it doesn't quite get across clearly as it is now since anybody could've written graffiti on a signpost at any time, but since the city is surrounded by monsters and a desert, and was thought abandoned before you meet the Shopkeeper, chances are urban exploration isn't a huge thing anymore, at least not in Columbus)

Interestingly, there's two versions of that canal room with layout differences, and the signpost and breakable path only appears in one of them. I've forgotten what the other copy of the level is for. Maybe it's the Epic Whirr flooding cutscene, or maybe there was a redesign at some point and I didn't want to risk losing the original layout if I didn't like how it turned out, so I kept a backup of the level.

Another fun fact: that level is named canal3 internally in the game sources, so you managed to guess the canonical name :P

Hobcramwork4 years ago(+1)

Oh, I see; when I started learning how to make games a few years ago, I learnt how to add comments to my game's code, and found it helped me to focus on the parts which were giving me issues. Comments are a godsend, so I understand when you're facing challenges with poking around your own code (I use Construct 2, which is similar to Godot and other 'visual blocks of code' game-making engines) D:

Ah, I remember that room; after a few days of your mentioning the Boiler room, my thoughts went to the exact room and of exploring it fully, since you mentioned that some lava floors hide a secret, though I never would have guessed that the secret would be hidden within a pipe :D . I obtained the Hellbreath upgrade at the end of that secret room (called Thermal Plumbing; so many monsters and lava floors! :o), and found it quite useful :D

Hmm, I might have missed seeing any lore in that Thermal Plumbing room (the one that ends with a 'rusted shut' door) nor near the door leading up to it, so that warrants another look. I doubt that the lore would be missing due to my playing on Casual mode, so it should be fine to backtrack a bit later on :p

Oh, if Swifthand was living there much before the accident that ended in disaster for the Ancestors, then it means that Raccoon (which I'm assuming is the bat, whom I had found much above the Handgun upgrade station), Sunshine (who is in a room surrounded by fotocells, which can only be accessed by not getting hurt by the electrical sparks located in the Subway), Baron McFungi (in a secret room in the Green house/vegetation building, and asked me to say hi to Raccon for him), Vanessa (in a secret room somewhere in Smoggy Skyway) and the other 2-3 characters (your patch notes say as much, but I don't know how many more to look for) have been in the city for a very long time :p

Oh, that's good to know; I just name the similar-sounding rooms (Waste Canal, Fungi Cave) according to the sequence of my entering them :D

Anyhow, it seemed that saving Voice from the Water Tower was important enough for George to continue selling me ammo (& a Super Jar) after everyone decides to go after Smith beyond the heart of the city, though Voice is now wandering the tunnel (or Subway; didn't think to screenshot Misty's dialogue about Voice's disappearing act), and I have a feeling that both Jack and Voice are pivotal to getting the good ending :o

Other than the above, I'm keeping track of the lore I had found, and noticed that the Rusty Gun, numbered at 43, was found inside the Green house, which somewhat throws off my theory that you had placed all the lore according to the numerical sequence and location (for example, the first 5-10 lore would be in the rooms in Outskirts street, followed by another 5-7 in Highway Street, and so on), so I'll have to comb around each place with more diligence.

I'll keep you updated on my search :D

Hobcramwork4 years ago

Hi Yal, I have mapped out most of the game by now (until Final Street and the room where you fight Smith twice in his human form (& obtain lore #50), so I have returned to the Pipe Building to locate 1 lore (#10), only to find none left (though I did manage to find some fake floors and ceilings to obtain $1000 and a blue jar, the very same one I couldn't access before).

Aside from that lore, I need to find lore #22 (either in the Water Tower, which I doubt very much, or the Waste Canal, which is more likely) and #29 (either in the Canal Reef, again which I doubt that I had overlooked it, or in the Waste Canal).

I did, however, manage to get the Mist Charger (after a painful and tediously long journey through several large rooms in the Forgotten drain area), though I wouldn't have bothered if I had known what I would get at the end of it. There's a bug with the door that leads out of the room where you get the Mist Charger; if you exit the room to the room where you can see the endless columns of fire blocks and then reenter the Mist Charger room, you'll get stuck inside the door. Thankfully you had laid out save icons throughout each long room, as otherwise I would have stopped playing the game for a while :p

Since I had bought enough water bottles to have more than 1000 ammo for the Fairy Gun, the Mist Charger seemed rather pointless, ith the endless fire blocks being a long and tedious affair to overcome D:

Anyhow, I'll return to the game after some time and use the upgraded ATG gun to sniff out fake floors and walls while rummaging about for lore in the Pipe Building and Waste Canal :D

Yal4 years ago(+1)

I did some searching through the level data... lore #22 is in the Waste Canal in a hidden side room, #29 in the Water Tower Ruins (it seems to be exclusive to the ruins and not appear in the normal version of the tower).

You should've seen lore #10 if you went to that rusted door, it's placed right here at the end:

Infinite ammo still is better than 1000, but it depends on how much you use the Fairy Pistol, I guess :P But it was one of the last upgrades I added, so I guess I didn't think it through. (Since bodies of waters are pretty scarce in the game outside of the Water Tower, it's pretty tedious to recharge otherwise)

Hobcramwork4 years ago (2 edits)

Ah, so more room-checking for #22 is needed in the Waste Canal. After I checked a save file from 2017, I discovered that I had gotten the Pen (#29) before, both in 2017 and in my second-last playthrough; it makes sense that it's in what's left of the Water Tower, since I only rescued Voice from there and haven't explored it much yet so far (I only had 1 wing flap at the time, but I can return to it soon).

Oh, I must have lost sight of #10 due to rushing to get rid of most of the enemies in this room; I'll check again :p

Well, I don't use the Fairy Pistol much (has since been upgraded to the Fairy Heart, despite the announcer calling it the Fairy Charm) so it's not a big deal if I run out of ammo in the middle of Heart of the City; on the other hand, I buy ammo for the ATG (now called the Super ATG), Key (soon to become the Board) and the Cryo Sphere (now called the Hellbreath; very useful inn the Smoggy Skyway) guns regularly, and currently have more than 3700 bullets for the Super ATG (which I use a lot in the Subway, Smoggy Skyway and Heart of the City), over 2000 for the Hellbreath (I think), and more than 2000 (I think) for the Key gun.

Speaking of which, does the purple Velocity jar increase the strength of the bullets, or just the amount of bullets you can carry? Does the blue Endurance jar increase the amount of defense that you have i.e. lowers the amount of damage you take from enemies and bosses?

Aside from the above, I had played Gun Princess 0 and 1 before, but though I could finish 0, I got stuck at one point while playing 1, so I jumped to Gun Princess 2, but found it difficult to get past the underwater sections of the game despite the existence of the item that lets you breathe underwater. I could buy said item from a bat, but noted that it disappeared from my inventory; you did mention in your reply to someone else that they can hit the underwater blocks for some air bubbles to breathe, so I might try playing that game again later this year :p

I'm guessing Raccoon is the Bat at the very top of the outside of the Grass house (and is from Gun Princess 1 & 2, and that Sunshine might be the Gun Princess protagonist from Gun Princess 1 and 2; did I make the right deduction?

Other than the above, Voice seems quit unreasonable/suicidal in her wanting to explore certain parts of the city without bringing along a bodyguard, notwithstanding the fact that something happens to each of her 'former' bodyguards each time they investigate the city alongside her. Teal has disappeared or died since the shopkeeper sells you the Cryo Sphere gun he was last seen using before the explosion at the Water Tower, and Cain is seemingly unaware that she was back in the Truck (after I rescued her) or wasn't bothered to ask if she had survived the explosion. Hopefully more will be revealed once I have collected lores #10, 22 and 29 D:

Anyhow, how are you able to check the level data of your game if the engine (version 8 if I'm not mistaken) you previously used is not supported anymore by GameMaker themselves and Windows 10? It is remarkable that you're able to refer to the game's level data despite the deprecation of the game itself :O

Also, after going through the notes left behind by the scientists of the Final Columbus research lab, I found that Final Columbus is alluding to an unknown creature/machine or army that is able to access gun data and add them to it's stockpile of weaponry, since they had to leave an upgrade to the mystical Fairy gun behind in one of their secret rooms, and locked up too behind a sophisticated mechanism (plus the Fairy gun was lost to them, and they had no way of finding it).

Strangely though, we could buy it from the shopkeeper at the Fungi Cave (that too after making our way to a large column of fire blocks at the right side of the Cave, and then doubling back to where we had last seen the shopkeeper, instead of him spawning back in the Fungi Shop after Sarah and Mario left that room); he probably picked up a copy from Smith, since Smith still had the gun with him after waking up at the ruins of the Water Tower.

The 2nd strange thing was that the shopkeeper was able to sell the Wave gun (mistakenly called the Vawe gun, or was it spelled this way intentionally due to the 'Engrish' mode?) to us after Mario's first fight with Smith, despite the fact that Smith still had said gun with him hen you fight him in Final Street.

Thirdly, it was rather odd to see Cain running around with a Chain Core in the underground Cave when we set off to rescue Jack and Sarah from the Skulleater, both when I only had a Handgun (in my first recent playthrough) and a Chain Core (in my current second playthrough), but if Teal can have the Cryo Sphere gun while at the Water Tower, then it's not far-fetched after all :p

Yal4 years ago(+1)

There's no limit to how much ammunition you can carry.

Velocity Jars increase your attack power (it applies to all sources of damage including wing attacks), Endurance Jars increase defense (taking damage from bullets only applies half your defense stat, contact damage applies the entire stat).

Sunshine and Racoon are from Gun Princess 1, the playable girl and bat in GP2 are new characters.

In Gun Princess 2, there's a swimsuit you can buy that lets you move unhindered underwater but doubles damage taken. If you die more from drowning than combat, you might wanna consider using that. If I remember correctly, Keith sells it once you reach his shop just outside the bat city in Moon Bay.

I've converted the Final Columbus source file to GameMaker Studio 1.4 format; I can't actually compile it thanks to all the deprecated features I was relying on, but it allows me to search the codebase and view rooms.

Vawe / Wave is an actual misspelling, I made the game before spellcheckers became ubiquituous and english isn't my first language.

I'm pretty sure that the frozen zone and the military base with the Oil Nuke upgrade has the most lore about Final Columbus and the war when the city fell.

Hobcramwork4 years ago(+1)

Ah, right, I've noticed that, though was wondering why the amount of bullets I have keep increasing despite the lack of extra ammo lying about :p

Ah, yes, I noticed that the spitting cobras in the desert take less time to die after getting hit by my Chain Core's bullets, while increasing my defense lets me get through lava (& toxic waste) without losing a lot of health in one go, so there's that :D

Ahh, I see; I'll need to go back and play those games again.

Yes, you mentioned that in response to another player asking about the underwater levels in GP 2.

Oh, that's quite neat! At least you can refer to your past level design when making new games :D

Oh, I see; still, it's quite an impressive effort for a game made with the English language in mind :D

Right, I was reading said lore in the Military Lab rooms, both in the Oilgun upgrade room as well as the Sleeper Bay, which revealed to me that Final Columbus is the name chosen by the giant heart which had taken over most of the city hundreds of years ago. I even turned the emergency switch on and off in the Sleeper Bay, but nothing happened; was expecting Jessica to pop out of nowhere and fight me, but didn't see her at all. The notes nearby explained that there are 15 gun upgrade stations throughout the game, though I've only obtained 9 of them so far (Mist Charger included); you mentioned some of the other upgrades before, though finding them on my own will be a tall order :p

While I was at the Military Lab, I had accidentally discovered that charging the Fairy Heart releases water bubbles that bounce about, and releasing the button makes said bubbles explode and fire water triangles both left and right :D

I'm now back in the Fungi Cave to obtain the Wave gun upgrade before heading to the Waste Canal (for lore #22) through the Subway, and am trying to trigger the secret door to Sunshine to open, though I'm not sure if it's possible to do so without getting hurt by the Antiblood spilled by the toxic rats and green ceiling robots.

Hobcramwork4 years ago

Also, regarding that secret spot under the 3 destructible blocks in the Waste Canal 3, I thought I would find Raccoon in there instead of the signpost. Your patch notes did say he could be found under destructible blocks somewhere in the Canal :p

Yal4 years ago(+1)

Interesting... well, the signpost hint (the bit under Swifthand's signature) points out their actual location, so it's partially true :P (And the other hint points out Sunshine's location, and Sunshine & Raccoon come from the same game originally)

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Viewing post in Hi, just wanted to ask about the game's endings