ihavefivehat

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Posts posted by ihavefivehat

  1. Posted

    What are the advantages of subforums?

     

    I think it would be nice to have a space to show work to like-minded people who we know would have interesting opinions and useful criticism. Though I suppose there's no reason we couldn't do that in Video Gaming.

     

    Maybe we can just start by making a thread for people to post their game-like things that are perhaps too small to warrant their own thread? Maybe it can just be this thread?

     

    I have a few small/semi-broken things that I would totally love to share at the moment, and I would really like to see things that you all have been working on as well.

  4. Posted

    If you like wandering around Morrowind, I highly recommend downloading the Tamriel rebuilt mod. It adds another landmass which is about the same size as the original game. The landscape is beautifully done and visually consistent with Bethesda's content. Plus it's actually populated with dungeons, NPCs and quests (although I believe the later aren't fully complete yet). It's great for wandering through.

     

    Plus, they just released a massive batch of alpha content which includes another huge chunk of landscape, though it's not fully populated yet, and there seem to be some buildings you can't enter at the moment. But still worth getting for sure.

  7. Posted

    How do you do the falling jumping puzzle in the inferno caverns? It's driving me mad!

     

    More of a vague hint than a spoiler:

     

    If you mean the narrow pit with jets of fire shooting out of the walls, you may want to come back after finding a certain item.

  9. Posted

    What am i missing here? Is there a way to reset the puzzles, or are the solutions much less evident than it seems? Am i simply missing the items i need?

     

    It depends on how far into the game you are. You probably won't encounter a puzzle that can be rendered unsolvable until you've beaten at least one boss. If you describe the puzzle in a spoiler I can let you know.

  10. Posted

    As far as I can remember there are only a couple of puzzles that can be rendered unsolvable, and they're for optional items (more powerful versions of existing weapons). You can also get an extra shot at them via an easter-egg.

     

    In the original version, there was an actual unsolvable block-pushing puzzle which was just put in to mess with players... they removed that for the re-make, but that shows you what kind of people the developers are.

     

    Also the jump mechanics are really intuitive once you get used to them. The game as a whole controls very well.

     

    If you get stuck at a specific point, I can toss you hints. That would probably be a better way of going through the game than using a walkthough.

  11. Posted

    So how bad at video games can I be and still enjoy La Mulana? If the meets-meets-meets of the game is Spelunky/Dark Souls/Fez, that seems a little scary to me (who is a baby apparently).

     

    The combat/platforming requires about the same level of skill as something like Megaman 9 in that it's fair and well designed but definitely taxing. There is a way to cheese some of the more difficult boss fights if you lose patience (which I can't deny I did a few times). By the way, there are a ton of boss fights in the game and they're pretty much all great.

     

    As for the puzzles... that's another story. At best they make you pay extra attention to the level design and reward outside-of-the-box thinking. The game is full unique set pieces and art and almost all of it is significant in some way. But at their worst the puzzles are so obtuse that it's hard to imagine anyone solving them without stumbling into the solution via blind luck. I loved the game but it annoyed the hell out of me at some points. If you play, don't be afraid to peek at a walk-through now and then.

  12. Posted

    SOOO EXCIIITEEED.

     

    I would also throw in Fez to the meets meets meets equation. In order to make sense of a lot of the puzzles you have to throw yourself into the game's mythology and logic. It will eat your mind and, if you're like me, make you paste the walls above your desk with crazy-person sticky notes. A lot of the puzzles are 90's adventure game level absurd, though.

     

    edit: The link in the top post seems to be broken FYI

  13. Posted

    I think the game is really great, but I'm going to bring up a few nitpicky points that bothered me just because I haven't seen them mentioned before.

     

    Mainly there were a few things which made the house have the feel of being a 'game level' rather than a real-world architectural space. For one thing, the first floor is partitioned off into two completely separate wings. This in itself is not entirely beyond belief considering some the weird architectural choices I've seen in real-life older houses which have been added on to, but I was a little bit bothered by the fact that one of those wings was inexplicably locked off at the beginning of the game. I can't think of a reason why Sam would have locked off the kitchen. Maybe this is explained in a note somewhere but it still feels artificial when you consider that most of the notes in that side of the house seem to concern events that take place chronologically later than the notes in the other side. Same thing goes for the basement.

     

    Also, I was really bothered by the fact that the second floor is not actually positioned over any part of the first floor, but is seemingly hanging over nothing. Coupled with the fact that there are wide gaps of negative space in between rooms all over the house, it's fun to think of the Escherian monstrosity that the house would look like from the outside.

     

    For me, part of the game's appeal was in the way it tried to create a believable and inhabitable space, and in most counts it succeeded really well in doing that. But the architectural weirdness definitely took me out of the experience and made me pretty aware that I was in a 'level' rather than a house. And as for the gating, I understand the reasons for it being there, but I think I would have rather had the option of finding the narrative out of order and piecing it together on my own. Things like the attic or the locker could stay gated off to keep the larger revelations from being discovered up-front.

     

    Anyway, just a few thoughts. It seems like I'm pretty unique in being affected by this stuff as I haven't heard any other mentions of it, but there you go. Great game though!

  17. Posted

    I started learning to program a few months ago using Processing and a book called Learning Processing. It's a really good 'programming for dummies' type book that starts from the absolute basics, but it also quickly takes you into more advanced territory. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's worked for me. I now feel confident that I can program pretty much anything I can think of given enough patience and/or opportunistic Google searches. Basically it got me through that initial intimidation wall that programming can have.

  18. Posted

    Rather than Game Of The Year, I wish people would just choose Games of A Year and not worry about trying to rank things on top of each other. As far as I can tell everyone's likes and dislikes (including mine) in any category are constructs of cultural conditioning; I prefer to go with the flow and just enjoy things and hate other things and then later decide I enjoy other things and the original things I liked were stupid but then go back and be nostalgic about the original things 10 years later.

     

    Wait this is the drunk posting thread, right?

  19. Posted

    Hi, I have a few things to add to my old list, so I just refreshed the whole thing and deleted my last post. PM me in case I forget to check the thread!

     

    Steam:

     

    Aquaria

    Dear Esther

    Metal of Honor (the new, reportedly bad one)

    Crayon Physics Deluxe

    Sanctum 2

    Serious Sam 3: BFE

    Garry's Mod

    Orcs Must Die! GOTY

    Sanctum: Collection

    NightSky

    Killing Floor

    Zeno Clash

    Little Inferno

    Hero Academy

    Solar 2

    LIMBO

    Bastion

     

     

    Origin:

     

    Dead Space

    Burn Out Paradise

    Crysis 2 Maximum Edition

    Dead Space 3

    Metal of Honor (again)

    Mirror's Edge

    Red Alert 3: Uprising

  22. Posted

    Here are my top 3 albums of the year:

    -Note: (they also happen to be the only 3 albums I listened to this year that came out this year)

    -2nd note: (they're still pretty fantastic albums any way you cut it.)

     

    Foxygen: We Are the 20th Century Ambassadors of Peace, Love and Magic

    Willfully and blatantly appropriates styles and sound from the mid 60s through mid 70s but smashes them together into something that manages to be post-modern hip but also cheesy, fun and catchy in a way that will make you not like the way you like it.

     

     

    Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Unknown Mortal Orchestra II

    Nice guitar noises, catchy songs. Kind of a no-brainer for me in a good way and a bad way.

     

     

    Happy Jawbone Family Band

    More catchy classic rock with a weird streak. The band sounds like they take their music seriously without taking themselves too seriously which is something that you don't see too often nowadays.

     

  24. Posted

    Maybe there should be a separate JRPG thread. I feel like the wave of 90s nostalgia that's washing over our age group right now has brought with it a current of JRPG love. Suddenly I'm tempted to go back and replay all the Final Fantasy games and then argue about whether Sephiroth or Kefka is a better villain on message boards.

     

    Ah, to be 12 and have infinite free time.

     

    Anyway, adventure games are cool! I'm playing the third season of Sam and Max right now and I'm enjoying it a decent amount. I would describe the experience as 'pleasant'. No one part of it is ridiculously amazing... the jokes are mixed and the puzzles are pretty standard... but it gives me a generalized feeling of relaxed enjoyment that's disconnected from the demand for time and the completionist compulsion that a lot of other games rely on to 'hook' you. I think that's one of the things I like most about adventure games.