syntheticgerbil

This seems to be a more balanced overview: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/titanic/titanic.htm But then again, I just realized JustAdventure had given it a D, which is somewhat odd for them as they seem to give everything a near perfect score in fear of accidentally offending the few remaining mediocre adventure developers from ever making a game again.

Okay, I finished this game last weekend to full or near completion. I'm not sure, there is not definite guide with the highest numbers. I got to level 20 and I'm pretty sure I've finished all quests. I think I should have all runestones, but I'm missing the lightning rod enhancement one, which was apparently supposed to be in a chest in a swamp that I had already opened. Maybe I always had the power and the runestone didn't save in my inventory? I read a Hothead employee somewhere saying that this was a bug for some runestones. Also the 'K' runestone is missing from the game apparently. This game was alright, above average at least, but yeah, I didn't really see Ron flexing his chops in much of anything other than dialogue and weird characters characters, which were great. It may have been nice if every character wasn't a complete punchline waiting to happen, similar to Monkey Island, but I guess Deathspank himself is so ridiculous it would be impossible. There were some majorly funny times (especially this certain step before the end), but sometimes it got a bit exhausting. Puzzles were all shallow really. The one puzzle you can solve two clever ways is before you finish the first area, and the only adventurey curve ball type puzzle involves getting the taco, as shown in the demonstration videos. After that, the rest of the game is fetching to and fro. The part with the tree that gives you like 7 sidequests was humorous I suppose, but it was the same exact tiny quest every time. Combat was fine. It could tend to get boring, but I suppose that's how all hack and slash type games are. Really what kept it going was just the usual excitement towards your next weapon/upgrade/armor and then using that to obliterate enemies that were once hard. My girlfriend was playing Sparkles for about 30 minutes at one point, but quickly became bored when she discovered exactly how limited her powers were. Oh well. Also, I don't know if the game was this unbalanced for others, but early on, I couldn't afford much of anything. Useful things like potions could completely empty my wallet, so I just avoided buying anything unless it were puzzle related. More than halfway through the game, I had amassed enough money where I could just buy things at my leisure, but then I was quickly running out of things to buy. The enticing reward for saving the orphans became pitiful compared to how rich I had become in the meantime of completing the game. Hopefully some of that will carry over into DLC, because the game just feels unfinished overall and some stuff in ealier gameplay videos was cut. There's also the case of the map being misleading and taking up maybe half the space that was available in the end. It seemed to suffer similar to Brutal Legend in making you want more and at some point make you think there actually is more, only to find out the game is over. I guess it was more upsetting in Brutal Legend because it had characters you could actually care about. Not that the small world size is a bad thing at all, since the game was very long and open for $15. I get the feeling early on, Hothead couldn't decide how big Deathspank really should be and so now it's stuck uncomfortably between the usual length and scope of a download game versus a full on $60 game. So yeah, the game is definitely worth the money. It was fun and there are a lot of laughs to be gleaned out of it. I guess I just wish it were more fun in the end. One final note: Did anyone else have a problem with killing so many animals? I mean, chickens are a staple in this game typed, but DeathSpank eventually has you slaughtering almost everything in the animal kingdom (or some combination) by the end. I guess the Wizard mixing animals automatically makes them bad, but in no way did anything actually look threatening, nor was it handled in much of a stylized or humorous way like the Twisted Pixel games. They just looked like cute cartoon animals or at worst Farside characters. At one point, I was just killing masses of turtles on a beach. It was completely lazy. There was nothing scary or threatening about these turtles, besides that they just attack you if you get to close. However, I have no problem with fucking up Unicorns.

So, uh, are all the UK people from Idlethumbs gone forever at this point (Besides Dan and Marek)?

Well then, now it's gone, you vaginal cleansing solution, you.

I've almost unanimously heard it was nothing short of terrible (well, outside of Adventuregamers) in the way it works, which is the main reason I have owned the game for almost 7 years now yet have never been tempted to start playing it. Even if you do think it's amazing, it's definitely not anywhere on the level Steve was talking about. From what I can tell through reviews, it works significantly worse than Facade, which is not really anywhere near the pinnacle of possibilities (or much to gush over in my opinion).

I thought this game always looked bad. But did it always look this bad? Is this some strange updated version?

I'm confused. It looks like the washing machine destroyed itself to me. Or is it a dryer...?

Petition? Huh? Why don't you guys just ask on the forums really nicely?

In the past few weeks, I've finished Chalk, Tripline, and Legend of Princess, which are all super short games by Joakim Sandberg, who did Noitu Love I mentioned earlier. Tripline I found pleasingly addictive in a mindsweeper type of way, while Legend of Princess was an amazing perspective on how to do a puzzle/platformer style Zelda game. I would love to see more like that, even if it was just a test fan game. I did not have that much fun with Chalk. I was not into the art style or the gameplay mechanics. It's strange because originally that was the only game I knew him for and had heard people rave about, when I've ultimately had the least fun with that game of what I've played by him so far, including a couple of unfinished games/concepts. Also Deathspank is beaten completely. I'm really annoyed I seem to be missing a runestone due to a bug and there are probably chests still sitting around the land locked, but I guess I'll have to get over it. It was a fun experience, well worth the money, but maybe not as amazing as I was hoping it would be. I should post more of that soon in the actual Deathspank thread.

"Shaun" is the girl way to spell it. It's for girlies.

It sounds a little hash to me.

What just happened in this thread?! Fuck movies, more of this.

Here's the Roberta Williams troll response: Damn average poor idiots. Anyway, my feeling is not that having a higher income meant you were above average intelligence so therefore you probably owned a computer and played adventures games growing up (adventures are for geniuses!), but that because computers and technology that went with became cheaper to produce and higher in demand, more people could afford to own a PC, not just our ruling adventure game elite. I believe long before people even high income people owned PCs, it was more common for the regular person to want to play a disposable Atari or arcade game and not have to invest 20 hours or more of your time in trial and error sequences as adventures, RTS, and RPGs would require. I want to think we all feel like that sometime. Like I'd rather just fuck around in Minesweeper for 20 minutes than get back to my quest for another 5 hours tonight. So the games with more "instant gratification" were cheaper to produce as they usually involved some sort of repetition that could be used over and over for a longer game, thus lending itself to small satisfying doses, like shooters, action games, and puzzle games of various sorts. These usually ended up maybe a few bucks cheaper on the market as well. Many people don't have the time to invest in some major learning curve or some game with ridiculous quests, but they still enjoy a game every now and then, so they buy the stuff that caters to them. It's not that these instant gratification suddenly appeared, but that as the market audience expanded to those who were not normally game hobbyists, demand increased and publishers and developers of course would rather sell more games with lower production costs than spend time on a variety of titles that still make a profit but maybe a more modest amount. That's at least my take on it.

I only wish it were literal.

I read a Jabba the Hutt TPB that Jim Woodring wrote. It was somewhat strange and always ended with the punchline, "YOU JUST GOT FUCKED BY JABBA." But then again Jim Woodring usually does comics like this.

Happy Muerte!

Hell, a Wiiware version would be acceptable as well for me, but I get the feeling this is probably higher resolution than what the Wii normally handles.

Ah, new Orbital songs, interesting.

Is this coming to PSN or PC or something? I'm sick of waiting, I can't afford to cash in on a 360 right now even though I eventually will, and I want to have the pleasure you are all having.

How the fuck did you come across that, toblix?

YES HYMEN.CYST I really need to play Limbo, you guys sold me and I think everyone has similar taste in platformer types. Too bad I don't have a 360. I'm loving the Rayman Origins talk because I was so excited for the game, I forgot about what an idiotic title it had. And then this spawns into Willy Beamish Origins! I love you guys. Anyway, Steve is right, there was an immediate Willy Beamish planned. There is a source for the information actually, straight from Jeff Tunnell's mouth, who would have been the designer again. http://www.armchairempire.com/Interviews/jeff-tunnell-garagegames.htm Also there is another article claiming the mishandling of the Sega CD by Sega is what may have lead to the cancellation and Tunnell leaving Dynamix briefly after they had wrapped up so much time into Sega CD ports of their big selling PC games. The company pretty much changed the direction it was going after that. Willy Beamish really wasn't ported to much outside the PC platforms of the time (Mac, Amiga, DOS), so going to the Sega CD was supposed to be a big thing for this and the other Dynamix games slated for console ports. http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=151&title=Behind%20the%20Design:%20%3Cem%3EAdventures%20of%20Willy%20Beamish%3C/em%3E It actually probably wouldn't have been bad, all things considered. It would not in the same vein of the awful Larry or Space Quest sequels given to smaller developers way after the game's popularity was up. I agree with this. If you're referring to Steve making fun of the running jokes a podcast or two ago killing the running joke stuff before it goes stale, then maybe a thanks to him is in order. Anyway, why can't there be shows with both Sean and Steve regularly? I think this episode was great, didn't seem to be too hectic with four people. And that was an awesome Moonbase story.

For me, as someone raised on platformers and adventures. I've had a hard time branching out. I'm still very shy of strategy games, sports games, and FPS stuff. It's not like I would be bad at these games or have a hard time aiming or making a strategy if playing or something, I've just never had that moment where I say to myself, "Man this is fun gameplay, I want more like this!" I still feel like I just want more good adventures or more puzzle platformer in the vein types like Oddworld or Another World. Any kind of hybrid games of some of said genres are fine too. It's nice the story setup methods from adventure games have branched out to other games since, as it helps me branch out, but more often than not, I'm still having to force myself to complete games from other genres I'm not used to. There was a point where I was playing a lot of various Worms games for years with friends in middle school online, but I could still not bring myself to get into Starcraft with them at the same time. After that, we all went to different high schools and there was a year or two where I resolved that I would only own or play games I knew I could complete, shunning things with twitch gameplay or remembering hard button combinations that would somehow allow me to do some trial and error task over and over. Somehow I was rationalizing that I want to own game I'll replay when I'm 50 or 60, and if I'm that old I'll never be able to beat that shit. It's still an odd fear of mine, but I think since then I've just delved into more action and timing games that require harder and harder precision in the last 9 years or so. I don't know if PC and consoles has much to do with this though.

Maybe it was six hours. I'd have to check. I have this nasty habit of killing the same enemies over and over if I walk by them, then exhausting every bit of conversation with everyone. I must have spent an hour messing around with Eubrick, the taco lady, and the Mayor. I'm already on level 12 at Pluckmuckel, which is only the second part of the game. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself because i just saw the max was level 20.

Okay so I played about 8 hours of this last weekend finally. I'm really enjoying myself for the most part. It can get kind of dull and repetitive, but I'm actually not that far yet, just branching out around Pluckmuckel. I met a demon in the second cave who is way too hard for me. It seems like a huge game for the $15 price tag. I'm liking the conversational stuff, but sometimes some characters can get a little too long. It depends. I think it's a very interesting mix overall with the hack and slash type stuff and figuring out small adventure game type puzzles. Really the only thing I think this game is missing is showing different facial expressions for certain major characters when they are talking to you. It just helps mix things up a bit. Also does anyone playing know how these runestone type abilities to work? Maybe I don't have the right weapons yet, but I'm pretty sure I do. I just press two buttons at once right? I have to get the runestone first as well right? Also does anyone have any idea if it's possible some chests cannot be opened? I seem to always never have enough gold keys or they are not near anyone, so many chests get left unopened and by the time I get a key, it is full of stuff I've already leveled pass the optimal usage of. Why do ghosts die from poison as well? I don't get it. I just started beating them with my poison stick, since nothing else worked and it was the only thing that killed them. The game didn't talk about it at all nor ever hint what I was supposed to do about ghosts. I also don't understand these undeath weapons. The weren't effective on ghosts at all. Also running around and dodging enemies so that you can finish eating your food during battle is one of the most hilarious game functions I've ever seen.

Nah, I'm going to leave, I'm sort of going bonkers where I work and I want to move on to something in a "higher tier." It's super risky. If I fail, maybe I need to switch careers and turn drawing and animating into a hobby. I guess I'll see. I'll go with inspiring. Thanks!