Problem Machine

Yeah the second stream was fine

https://clips.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/InexpensiveSpiderFuzzyOtterOO

Hey, watching through the vod now and seeing a lot of dropped frames. You might want to drop your bitrate if you haven't already, assuming that there weren't like background downloads or something going that you put a stop to later.

Jam version complete! https://problemmachine.itch.io/the-octopus-in-my-mind Due to unexpected distractions of everyone involved, I've set aside my first project for the jam, albeit with hopes of either helping it scrape past the finish line or shuttering it and reviving it for WJ5. In the meanwhile, I have a whole new project coming together, and I think for once I may have managed to actually pick a reasonable scope for a solo project. In The Octopus In My Mind, you play as the titular octopus, tasked with swimming around inside the brain of a normal everyday man and blocking out extraneous thoughts with clouds of ink. Most of these thoughts are just distracting, but angry thoughts will knock you around, sad thoughts will slow you down, and HAPPY thoughts are to be preserved. Try to do it as quickly and cleanly as possible so that you don't shit up your brain! And also maybe leaderboards or something depending on how much time I have. Task List Code: Basic movement (100%) Character rendering (60%) Special Character effects (squishy octopus) (20%) Arm rendering (IK Code) (90%) Level and collision code (100%) Level Editor (100%) Thoughts and Memories (90%) Dialogue Screens (cut scenes) (0%) Ending Screen (if different) (0%) (Optional) Special gfx (0%) (Optional) Layered Music(0%) (Optional) Sound effects sync to music (0%) (Optional) Leaderboard(0%) Design: Level 1 (100%) Level 2 (0%) Level 3 (0%) Level 4 (0%) Level 5 (0%) Cutscene Dialogue(0%) Ending(0%) Art: Tileset (100%) Splash Screens (0%) Audio: Main Music (60%) Ending Music (0%) SFX (0%)

Yeah I'm hearing consistent feedback that it's a bit ambiguous whether a thought is getting blocked or not, so I'll have to try to figure that out. I'm probably going to make an extended non-thumbs version alongside the thumbs version, so I probably don't want to tie the sound design to thumbs memes, and also don't particularly feel like trolling episodes for audio clips, so I'm going to have to figure out how to make it more obvious. Actually, this ties into the thought-type feature, which is already like 60% implemented -- the main aesthetic difference between thought types I want is a glow around the edges, so maybe just having that glow wink out will be enough to provide adequate feedback. The thought-type feature is another reason I want to get away from thumb memes for the extended version btw. It's hard to really categorize those as angry/sad/happy thoughts in a meaningful way.

For the frigid outskirts you really just have to look up a map. IMO they should have put a bonfire by the tigers -- that area's really cool to go through ONCE, but putting it before one of the hardest bosses in the game is absurd. It's a hilarious place to get invaded though, because good fucking luck with that. You could probably farm awestones just by getting a lot of sin, activating a seed of the tree of giants, and just go AFK with the red string equipped and let the blue phantoms kill themselves.

Gooble gabble gooble gabble, one of us, one of us

DS2 is by far the longest of the three, to be fair, especially if you include the DLC

I took another run at doing this today after the back half of this run died in Izalith with me trying over and over to get the last two demon titanites I needed for +5 from the titanite demon on the bridge. I feel confident in saying this is probably the single nastiest non-boss enemy in the game, and probably nastier than most bosses. Anyway, my original plan was to get the Drake Sword and then switch to the Crystal Halberd in anor Londo, but I decided also to kill the black knight in undead burg just in case and lo and behold got the black knight sword. To make a long story short, I got through O+S in 1hr10m and now have a weapon much more suitable to handling the back half of the game, which I'll attempt later. Hoping I can pull the entire run off in <2 hours, but we'll see.

And, like a Breckon defeating Ornstein and Smough in three tries after getting some sleep, I have solved it. https://problemmachine.itch.io/the-octopus-in-my-mind

aaaaaagh. The game's been basically done for 2 hours and the last two hours have been spent trying to get a goddamn working build out of Flashdevelop. My brain is starting to completely turn to mush, so figuring this out will have to wait on tomorrow.

I need to try this clip-making thing, I've never clicked the button and some of these are great

Seeing Nick playing with the Gravelord sword inspired me to try to do a pseudo-speedrun using it. I say pseudo because I didn't really route it and didn't really learn any of the weird exploits that speedrunners use, just tried to go as quickly as possible with the knowledge I have of the game. I managed to get past O+S at around an hour and 40 minutes, which is slower than I would have hoped but still pretty fast I think. I died 10 times or so to O+S, which I think is punishment for getting cocky after owning them with the bandit knife, and also ran into substantial problems just getting ganged by hollows and stun-locked. Nick has dodged a bullet finding the wolf ring pretty early and never having to know the pain of having less than 40 poise, which would particularly cramp his cheatin hitman style. I think if I practiced this route I could probably finish the game in less than two hours, though to be completely honest I actually am not loving the gravelord sword as a weapon. The R1 is deceptively slow, both 1h and 2h, and the attack coming out of the roll is also slow and weak. However, its R2 is slow but NICE -- it was doing like 450 damage to Ornstein when I could land it. Also, its running and backstep attack is a small leaping attack that has a different animation from the standard leaping attack, comes out real fast, and does good damage, so that's also A++. Unfortunately this is one of relatively few weapons you can get early on reliably that's strong enough to stay viable until the end of the game without requiring getting the large/very large embers, both of which are detours.

Finally got the dang level editor working, put in a bit of time on the music. Dunno how done this will be by the deadline but can at least get one level in and working for sure.

Personally I never bother upgrading, but it might help yeah. Alternately he could grab Havel's/Stone and wear one or two pieces of that, which can't be upgraded.

Wow! The character assassination! I could go back through the chat logs, dig up every time I said something nice, told him "Nick I believe you can do this fight, but I also believe it will take you a while because it's a legit hard fight and takes everyone a while", when I said "I knew Nick could do the archers because this moment was the moment cheatin' hitman was made for", but I won't do that because I don't want to dig back through the logs. Also I totally get it, because I too have a way of ignoring every single positive thing everyone ever says about me and only hearing the negatives, like when people tell me I do nothing but hang out in chat and talk shit So I've somehow, in my attempts to guide and curate Nick Breckon's Dark Souls experience, become an unappeasable father figure who he lashes out against. Who could have seen it coming?

Early work went very quickly, but I've bogged down a bit now in getting the level editor working. Main issue is making sure tiles get lined up with the cursor properly, which is harder than it sounds since the camera's moving around and the level is growing and shrinking to accommodate new tiles. Wanted it to have all the basic code in place today, but I'm feeling burnt out on coding so that will probably have to wait for tomorrow.

I think eot's onto something with the gravelord sword, and you're actually basically exactly where you need to be to get it. It's a weapon that doesn't rely on stat scaling for its damage, so you can put points into vit and end as much as you like, but also won't waste the stats you've already spent since its requirements are pretty close to them. You're also SUPER close to it right now, so that's good too. In order to get the gravelord sword, all you have to do is find the open coffin in the long room with the titanite demon, get in it, and join the covenant you find there. You'll need a couple of points of dex to use it, but you'll get those easily enough with the souls you get in tomb of the giants.

Like everything it's kind of build-dependent. If you have best 2/3 of a powerful physical weapon, a good shield, and knowledge of the pendant it's not too hard. However, Nick doesn't like shields and isn't likely to find/use the pendant without help, so... things might get dicey. Still, not likely to be the wall that O+S were.

You really want to get him to Manus with a +10 weapon? edit: Actually I guess that you could go down into new londo and get the ember without getting the ring first, but that's an even more complex set of directions

The idea of a lightning man-serpent greatsword hurts my soul, since the main reason to use the weapon in the first place is its exquisite strength scaling

Very disagree on that last point. Super Ornstein still has the most dangerous attack, the butt stomp, and then also has that rather trickily timed spear impale that is difficult to dodge and can nearly kill you outright. Also, he has no respect for the sanctity of pillar cover, easily spearing you in the face through the pillar if you're anywhere near it. Also he takes less damage than Super Smough, generally. I'm still watching through the Coaster part of the stream, but looking forward to seeing Nick finally triumph. Now that he's past O+S, it's an interesting question what weapon he should use in the long run. Honestly I should have been telling him to pump dex instead of strength, dex weapons are a better fit for his playstyle -- oh well. Here are the options as I see them: A - Lightning. If he goes lightning longsword he has a fairly reliable weapon for the long run. Alternately he could make a lightning claymore or something. Pros: Simple. He can make a lightning longsword right now, and easily upgrade it with chunks/slabs as he finds them. He doesn't have to change movesets Cons: There are enemies who don't take much damage from lightning, especially in the DLC. Also all the points put into strength would be wasted. B - Stick with the longsword. It won't get more powerful quickly, but it will respond well to leveling. Pros: Also pretty simple. Will get more and more powerful for a long time, but very slowly. He still doesn't have to change movesets Cons: It takes a really long time to get to 40str/40dex, where this reaches full potential. He'll also need to find the +15 ember before it gets as powerful as a +5 lightning weapon C - Go for Strength. He'd have to get a new weapon upgraded, but will immediately find his strength points become more useful. Pros: Immediately more powerful, responds well to strength stat points in the short term, he won't have to level super high to have a weapon that's powerful in the late game Cons: He doesn't have most of the weapons that he'd both like and would work well for this. The only one that might fit the bill is the Butcher's Knife, which is why people wanted him to try it out. Otherwise he's stuck doing a bit of farming or exploring to find one of the good ones, like the Mace or Man-Serpent Greatsword. I suppose he could use the Demon Great Machete, which is very good, but I'm not sure that's his style since it's rather slow. And, as above, he'll need to get the ember to make it +15. What do you think, Nick? I can advise you how how to do any of these, or you can just wing it. I feel like a lot of people are starting to resent my intrusions, so I won't provide any more guidance without being asked first. (I just got to the part where he somehow managed to luck into four bonewheels glitching through the floor HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK?????????????????)

Okay I tried recording audio separately and doing some simple editing in the newest one. I run into issues with peaks clipping but I think overall it sounds better. Feedback appreciated.

today i am ze proud meme papa

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