While doing a run this evening I had something very strange happen. After solving the first block puzzle, Gomez was no longer able to drop down onto ledges. I was really surprised, because I'd never seen anything like that happen before. I opened the menu and was still able to go up and down. I play on gamepad, but when I checked with my keyboard the same thing was happening. Here's a video:
When I went back and checked, the most recent time before the puzzle room that I dropped to a ledge was during the Cyan Room climb. So theoretically, the dropping-down mechanic broke either later in the Cyan Room, at the Bell Tower, or while I was in the puzzle room. The problem persisted even when I left the puzzle room. Obviously it was a run killer.
Have any of you seen anything like this before?
I should have done more testing before mildly-frustrated quitting (how does this work on vines/ladders? What about if you walk up to a corner ledge and force Gomez to drop onto the corner?), but when I reloaded the save, everything was back to normal.
I'll try to check it in code and fix it in FEZMod.
First hypothesis¤ of the non-speedrunning modder: Tetromino puzzle broke it.
FEZ has got some types of triles (blocks) you can't drop down from. These are - in this case - crates and pickup-able blocks. As you stood on one of them when collecting the anticube, it looks like the game still thought you weren't allowed to drop down. At this point I'm wondering why it didn't reset (AFAIK there's no "flag" to be set, as it checks instantly what Gomez stands on), but well...
TL;DR: You stood on a block puzzle block. You can't drop down from them. Game screwed up, although I can't yet explain why.
(¤: When I say hypothesis, I mean hypothesis. I am not Renaud who knows everything about the game.)
Also havent seen that yet, but ^ seems very possible to me. I guess it's the same thing as if you softlock when entering a code too fast - never really happens, but kills your run if it does.
Argh! So this this just happened again, this time in the Parlor/Monocle Room in Villageville. I picked up the anticube on the main room's ledge and then went through Dot's dialogue. When I went back outside, I couldn't drop down from any ledges. This time though, I could Down+A once to get Gomez on the ledge, but not Down+A a second time to make him fall.
0x0ade, I would agree with you that it had something to do with collecting the anticube, but if you check out 3:05, the only ways that I interact with a block before the glitch happens is: picking it up, walking with it, jumping while holding it, tossing it. I don't stand on a block or drop down from one, and the glitch happens before I even pick up the anti-cube. At 3:20 you see a bamboozled me stand stupidly and try talking to Dot. She wasn't much help.
THIS TIME I tried to to some science, though. How much of this can be applied to the puzzle room situation is questionable, since the exact outcome seemed to be a little different (being able to drop to the ledge; not being able to drop down at all). Here's what I found.
- If I walk up to a corner so that Gomez is waving his arms and press Down, Gomez does NOT hop down onto the ledge.
- Gomez is able to climb up and down on vines as normal, but is unable to drop down from vines by pressing Down+A.
- I went from the Memory Zone to the Nature Zone. I still wasn't able to drop down even after the loading screen.
There are also some things related to jumping from ledges that I'd been curious about. This unexpectedly let me test this a bit. I made a quick video showing the techniques I'm talking about.
- During my glitched run, I tested doing the regular corner kick. Everything behaved as normal, as I expected, since the input is just Back+A (the direction opposite the way Gomez is facing).
- I also tested the upward corner kick, which also behaved as normal. I expected this as well, since the input is just Back+A, releasing Back immediate.
If you look at :35 and :59 in the Youtube vid, you see a thing where Gomez kind of grabs the corner, drops off, then immediately grabs the corner again. I'd seen this happen many times while practicing these jumps, but I never really knew what was going on. The input for a forward corner kick is (I think) Back+release Back+A+Forward. Sometimes doing that, I'm sure I press Down along the way, which should cause Gomez to immediately drop down. But then why is Gomez able to re-grab the ledge? You can test this yourself by putting Gomez on a ledge. Press down and he starts to fall. Try as fast as you can to press anything else to get him to stay on the ledge. So far I haven't found anything that will make him re-grab the ledge this way. Anyway, I was still able to perform the forward corner kick during the glitch, and I don't think I experienced any drops and re-grabs.
So what? Well, if we can figure out exactly how upward corner kicks and forward corner kicks work, that could help with practicing and making them more reliable. These are big time saves during a run, but often not worth it when failure means falling to your death/missing a cycle.
For a while, I thought that the forward corner kick worked by making Gomez fall from the ledge and then jump immediately after. I thought maybe he was jumping off the same invisible thing as when he walks off an edge but can still jump even after leaving the edge a little bit. However, the fact that I could still do a forward corner kick when I couldn't drop from a ledge disproves that. Somehow the forward corner kick doesn't involve dropping from the ledge at all, though the mystery of why that mechanic works is still unexplained in my mind.
On a possibly related note, you can see at 1:24 when I do a forward corner kick that there's a moment where it looks like Gomez is inside the wall based on his silhouette. Could that mean that for a second the game thinks Gomez is holding onto the corner from the other side? In other words, it thinks he's facing left? That would explain why he's able to jump right, but still doesn't explain why an upward corner kick would be possible.
[Edit: After looking at the footage at 1:24 at .25 speed, it looks like his silhouette is just him prepping for the jump, NOT him holding onto the ledge from behind. Similar thing at :17, though at :20 he does the jump in front of the ledge, meaning his silhouette doesn't appear.]
Also, sorry if these have been documented for a long time and just deemed "too risky" for runs. Especially the upward corner kick is not too hard and could probably save 10-15 seconds over the course of a run.
It is just a random glitch that happens sometimes. It's happened to me a lot, I've seen it happen in someones casual run too.
