Problem Machine

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Posts posted by Problem Machine


  1. I came up with a bunch of possible ideas for this jam at the end of December, but right now this is the one that really catches my fancy. I had originally imagined something really fast paced, like Super Hexagon, where you rotate objects around to make them line up... or something. However, reflecting on that idea, I came up with a variation on it which I like much better. I'm thinking of a first-person puzzle game somewhat along the lines of The Incredible Machine: Each level has a goal that must be achieved by placing a few pieces of equipment or machinery, all based around the proper usage of SOUL ORBS. Soul orbs spray a steady flow of SOUL POWER in all directions: This power is tremendously useful, but before it can be used it must be concentrated. Thus, you place level elements to guide and channel this power where it is needed, by attracting or repelling, reflecting or focusing the soul particles. These then power machines which either are the objective of the level or affect the level in some other way.

     

    I'm hoping to get a basic prototype going within a few days, because what's actually going to make this project live or die is its level design. Right now I'm planning this as a solo project but if anyone else is interested I can adapt it to bring more people in. I'm hoping to stream some of the development, but I'm not sure when I'll start doing that -- regardless, if I do stream it, it will be at twitch.tv/problemmachine .


  2. Yeah, but if something seems unfair then it takes some of the fun out of spectating it, at least for me. I mean I totally get that that's not the thrust of the event, and it was still a ton of fun, it was just a small but constant annoyance, kind of like having a bad couch commentator.


  3. Yeah the sudden death thing felt pretty arbitrary, like they had the score up for the entire thing and then when they won the final map just added enough points to make them the winner by one point, so it revealed the points as, uh, pointless. Also, if they're going to have a hard time limit, the timer should count down instead of up -- it might seem like a petty quibble, but it really changes the feeling, at least for me, from "getting arbitrarily cut off" to "trying to get in under the wire".

    I think conceptually it works but it was implemented in a pretty slapdash way. First, have the timers count down. Second, rather than a strict cutoff, make it so after the timers expire you have either 30 more seconds or until your next death to finish the level. Third, just make every level worth 1 point, or sum up the differences of the times, or really anything that doesn't completely invalidate the rest of the race based on the results of the last level.


  4. The Mario Maker race was fun as always but holy crap the format for it was straight garbage. Hopefully they go with something substantially different next AGDQ.

    I was hoping we'd see another blind game marathon race like last time, but I don't think there was one. I guess it's hard to do time estimates for them, but still.


  5. The third character has been added to the beta branch, and so far it seems like a ton of fun. It's a bit more gimmicky than the other two characters, using a mechanic where it can stack up several power orb things, each of which has a weak effect at the end of each turn and a more powerful effect when it is invoked, which can happen either explicitly by using a card with that effect or by stacking up more charges than you have capacity for, at which point the least recent one is invoked. I haven't gotten too deep into this system yet, but I'm curious to see where it leads -- there's definitely a lot of potential for them to build on this in interesting ways. This character also has a bunch of cards based around powers, so where ironclad focused on using lots of attacks effectively and silent on lots of skills, now you use a lot of powers, skills which double-cast powers, powers which let you draw whenever you use a power, and so forth. There's also a lot more deck manipulation available, having cards with effectiveness based on how many cards you have in your discard and draw piles, cards to move one to the other, cards to filter cards out of your draw before you draw them, and so forth.

     

    Overall I'm pretty excited about this character and pumped to play more. Unfortunately they just broke the game with a hotfix so I'm posting about it here instead.:lol:


  6. I've always rather liked the malapropism "honed in on", and don't hesitate to use it myself. I feel that, just as honing a blade removes spare material and aligns edges to create a sharper edge, honing in on something is removing extraneous material to gain a more incisive perspective.

     

    Also, I expect that the number Chris was thinking of as being larger than the amount of atoms in the universe is the googol: " One googol is presumed to be greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, which has been estimated to be approximately 10^78 "


  7. On 3/18/2018 at 9:27 AM, SL128 said:

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Edit: On the subject of these endorsements, I've been Jackbox games (and the similar game, Use Your Words) almost every week for people in the reader slack and some of the discord channels I'm in.
    https://discord.gg/JeRcJbC is the join link for the server where we schedule our games if anyone would like to get in. We use Discord screenshare, so there isn't any delay unlike on Twitch.

    in case ur curious what ur missing

    http://games.jackbox.tv/artifact/TeeKOGame/e7OsSdwExXRopkIYHCMF3Jhl0A0dzVyg/

    http://games.jackbox.tv/artifact/TeeKOGame/Lxul0OA3Vh6CXJvmE05wSJz10A3I2Hpn/

    http://games.jackbox.tv/artifact/TeeKOGame/bH4b3psEz4M8V8TMdXeyQ7tg0A4bndKL/

    http://games.jackbox.tv/artifact/TeeKOGame/MffN35iAAnJpQdZPy4IZO8UW0A7FKUjg/


  8. On 3/10/2018 at 9:26 AM, RubixsQube said:

    This is a very good episode of Important if True. Nick did a really good job re-recording his dialogue this week, it was even harder to tell that it was a dub.

    I dunno it felt pretty artificial, like he didn't put quite as much effort into re-recording his portion this time. I think next week they should record live, it's starting to get uncanny. You can really hear the lack of a human soul at this point.


  9. Ah yeah statuses can be real dangerous, especially if you're going for a clash build. I wish the first aid kit wasn't such a rare pickup, I've never managed to get one on one of the runs where I needed it.

    If you're NOT going for a clash build though then yeah Evolve is really good. By itself it's good and insulates you against enemies who add wounds, but you can also start using Wild Strike and Power Through to add more wounds, then Second Wind and Sever Soul to thin them back out.


  10. I think maybe people have trouble with the Ironclad because keeping a thin deck is a lot more important for him, and it can be hard to fight the temptation to pick up a card when presented with one. That certainly seems like it could be relating to some of the things you're saying about inconsistency and lack of defense cards.


  11. Though the Ironclad has fewer defensive cards he actually has a few incredible ones. One run I walked all over the final boss using Barricade + Power Through + Second Wind + Entrench + Body Slam. I hit for 1498 damage. For more standard "I just need to stay alive long enough to make my deck work" scenarios, Shrug it Off is just good in almost every deck.

    I think Ironclad is more consistent, but good Silent runs are incredible. I have little actual data on who's truly more consistent though, since I've been trying to do ascensions rather than going for win streaks. I usually prefer playing Ironclad though just because his runs take like half as long so it's not as big a time commitment.


  12. 17 hours ago, Jake said:

    I felt like saying that phrase would make the whole thing collapse so it remained unsaid. I got the feeling everyone felt that way. You don’t want to pull out the keystone. 

    It just feels cruel to tease everyone this way though. I guess it's an audience retention trick, because now we have to tune in to all future pods to see if you say the thing. Saying "Bustin' made me feel bad" would make me feel good, and then the bustin' cycle would finally be complete.