Jake

Idle Thumbs 36: Shambling, Goofy

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Uh, sorry Marek, what do you mean? Did they mention it in a previous podcast? I don't remember.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not entirely positive he talked about it on a podcast. Maybe it was a forum post or something.

Anyway my post is useless so ignore me.

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Hey guys, I'm the one who asked for the adventure game recommendations, and wanted to thank everybody for all the suggestions. I'll make sure to try out at least a few of that long list of games.

I actually played King's Quest VI randomly when I was younger, but I couldn't get past the first puzzle. I just remember washing up on a beach, and there was a ring, and that was about it. I'll have to try that again.

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Hey guys, I'm the one who asked for the adventure game recommendations, and wanted to thank everybody for all the suggestions. I'll make sure to try out at least a few of that long list of games.

I actually played King's Quest VI randomly when I was younger, but I couldn't get past the first puzzle. I just remember washing up on a beach, and there was a ring, and that was about it. I'll have to try that again.

You walk into town from the beach?

Seriously though, that game has some really bad design choices now that you bring up the ring. Be sure to show the clown in the bookshop that ring as soon as you can in the game or you are cursed to have the "bad ending" no matter what.

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You walk into town from the beach?

Seriously though, that game has some really bad design choices now that you bring up the ring. Be sure to show the clown in the bookshop that ring as soon as you can in the game or you are cursed to have the "bad ending" no matter what.

It's interesting that at the time Sierra got so much flack for that that they made a specific point of preventing it in their future King's Quest (VII) title. They specifically designed it so that it would not let you progress if you would get locked into a dead end. It also was one of the first to feature a context-sensitive pointer and eliminate the verb interface which made it one important step on the way to the death of the adventure game genre.

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On the topic of picking up old adventure classics: watch out for people offering games at exorbitant prices. Right now a dealer is selling the original "Day of The Tentacle" on Amazon.com for $162.99! :eek:

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You walk into town from the beach?

Seriously though, that game has some really bad design choices now that you bring up the ring. Be sure to show the clown in the bookshop that ring as soon as you can in the game or you are cursed to have the "bad ending" no matter what.

Yeah, I did walk into town, and alternately to the castle, where the guards wouldn't let me in, the jerks. I think I showed it to an old guy who was selling wares, but that's the last thing I remember. I was also 6 at the time, so that might have had something to do with it.

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Oh, I forgot to add LoLs about the HoN community.

Yikes. Those people are -so- bad I'm not purchasing the game when it launches. I haven't played the beta in a few days because people won't give you the chance to learn or help at all.

Almost -always- in betas I have found the community to be helpful and polite. Grand Prix Legends, WoW, Champions Online, Matrix: O, SW: G all of them have had outstanding beta communities.

This is the first time I've ever decided not to buy a game based purely upon its community.

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It's interesting that at the time Sierra got so much flack for that that they made a specific point of preventing it in their future King's Quest (VII) title. They specifically designed it so that it would not let you progress if you would get locked into a dead end. It also was one of the first to feature a context-sensitive pointer and eliminate the verb interface which made it one important step on the way to the death of the adventure game genre.

I don't necessarily hate the context sensitive pointer, but I think it works better in Broken Sword where the right click at least lets you examine if you want, even though it went a long way in making the game easier.

Although I can see it, I don't exactly know if that was an important step in the death of adventures as I prefer my verbs "dumbed down" like LucasArts adventure games following Sam and Max, since I don't necessarily need 9-12 functions like early Scumm games, considering you focus on Pick Up, Look, and Use for nearly the whole game anyways.

The dead end stuff in KQ7 was annoying though, not that I liked it at all anyway. It showed up in the first Gabriel Knight as well when you were constantly trying to make the days finish early on.

Really I feel the problem with talking to the jester in the shop in King's Quest VI is that it is required so early in the game without much exposition on saying why you should show him that ring in the first place. In a way it was an early type of adventure puzzle that should have been done away with at that point in time. It's closer to holding onto the data cartridge at the beginning of the first Space Quest up until the end of the game, without it being a requirement. Although from what I remember, just a paragraph was altered in the end sequence for SQ if you did not have the cartridge (or stupidly left it in the reader like I did once halfway through the game).

The rest of King's Quest VI game was pretty intuitive and allowed you to solve at your own leisure besides the copy protection puzzles and that one where you have to trigger a cutscene to know which genie lamp to pick.

Yeah, I did walk into town, and alternately to the castle, where the guards wouldn't let me in, the jerks. I think I showed it to an old guy who was selling wares, but that's the last thing I remember. I was also 6 at the time, so that might have had something to do with it.

Haha, that makes sense. At that age, I also used to have fun walking around the beginning of Space Quest 2 continuously floating away out of the sweeping area or falling to my death in the work place. I think it says, "You are only x minutes into the game and you are already dead?"

On the topic of picking up old adventure classics: watch out for people offering games at exorbitant prices. Right now a dealer is selling the original "Day of The Tentacle" on Amazon.com for $162.99! :eek:

Yikes, Amazon dealers are nuts when it comes to classic games. I'm guessing that comes with the original manual and box? There's a good DVD case repackaged version of DoTT they sell in Europe and on US Ebay that includes Sam and Max Hit the Road that goes for pretty cheap alternatively.

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Kind of off-topic.

Chris, did you ever find your stuff from Comic-Con? [sarcasm] I'm sure one of those nerds dressed up as a Power Ranger would feel guilty about stealing it and contact you to give it all back. [/sarcasm]

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In the few I tried as a kid, I remember absolutely hating the whole "curiosity killed the cat" ethos the Kings Quest and Space Quest games embraced.

Pr6FY-WAmgs

Sort of tempted by the Steam offers. Was I just a dumb kid and the puzzles didn't require quite as much masochism and constant saving as I'm expecting? (Heard horror stories about a bridge which collapses after crossing it the exact number of times necessary to solve the game, not to mention the character's tendencies to drown in shallow water, fling themselves off cliffs, and give themselves fatal wounds when trying to pick up anything sharp.)

Oh wait. Activision-Blizzard owns Sierra-Vivendi now, right? Screw that. Don't want the meager profits going to the lawsuit with Double Fine. Kind of a funny development in the Sierra vs. Lucasarts religious war, come to think of it.

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Sort of tempted by the Steam offers. Was I just a dumb kid and the puzzles didn't require quite as much masochism and constant saving as I'm expecting? (Heard horror stories about a bridge which collapses after crossing it the exact number of times necessary to solve the game, not to mention the character's tendencies to drown in shallow water, fling themselves off cliffs, and give themselves fatal wounds when trying to pick up anything sharp.)

I really hate that stuff. I really disliked the fact that you could die 3 times in broken sword. Every time I had to repeat a bunch of conversations and animations which you could skip. Quite annoying.

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Sort of tempted by the Steam offers. Was I just a dumb kid and the puzzles didn't require quite as much masochism and constant saving as I'm expecting? (Heard horror stories about a bridge which collapses after crossing it the exact number of times necessary to solve the game, not to mention the character's tendencies to drown in shallow water, fling themselves off cliffs, and give themselves fatal wounds when trying to pick up anything sharp.)

Well the save early, save often really applies to the Sierra games before VGA became common. All of that getting stuck stuff affected Leisure Suit Larry less because those games tended to be much more open and nonlinear, not that that helps you since it's not on Steam right now.

Dying is a major part of Space Quest, because in a way, it is considered an essential part to having fun in those games. But really the first two can be incredibly unforgiving. Luckily those two games are fairly short. Space Quest 3 is much more nonlinear, not allowing you to get stuck as easily and dying mostly being from doing dumb things. SQIV I think has a few puzzles and things you need to grab in the beginning that will just piss you off later if you do not, while the last two games had very little dying, with letting you start from where you last were.

King's Quest up until the sixth game was mostly just a mess of unforgiving puzzles, time limits, and deaths for exploring.

I really hate that stuff. I really disliked the fact that you could die 3 times in broken sword. Every time I had to repeat a bunch of conversations and animations which you could skip. Quite annoying.

Haha, apparently they took out all of the death sequences in the new special edition of Broken Sword. I guess when you are at the edge of a cliff with a thug about to shoot you, he just waits now until you decide to act.

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About the Heroes of Newerth gameplay, I would REALLY have to disagree with what was said. One of the "thumbs" referred to it like no skills were needed to play because everything happened in a flash and suddenly you were dead. I would have to say to blame the player not the game in this case.

Like in a fighting game, you can try to make your way button-mashing or playing it with skill. I never played DotA before and I found HoN to be extremely unforgiving at first, but after a while I got the hang of it and now I'd say I'm an average player (I played about 70 games so far, K:D>1.2). At first it is really confusing to parse what the hell is going on, but then you'll understand that it is an extremely deep game, which is the main reason why I'm playing the beta non-stop and why I will buy once it comes out.

However I will admit that the community is NOT newbie friendly. Luckily, I had some friends to play the game with and learn together and I know that is isn't the case for most of the people. The developer would have to be crazy not to try to tap into the newcomers market, but as it is, all I see are former DotA players buying this game in the future.

Also, I understand somewhat why veterans are so intolerant. Each match is an hour-long commitment with 9 other guys and one bad player can ruin the experience for everyone. A noob can "feed" the opponent if he dies too much by giving XP and $, which will severely affect the outcome of the game.

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Michigan not only had arcades, it had the national pinball champion! The Pinball Wizard! :partyhat: <-closest thing to a wizard smiley I could find. How come there's no wizard smiley?

I can't find anything to back that up, but in my heart of hearts, I know that it's true.

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Also, I understand somewhat why veterans are so intolerant. Each match is an hour-long commitment with 9 other guys and one bad player can ruin the experience for everyone. A noob can "feed" the opponent if he dies too much by giving XP and $, which will severely affect the outcome of the game.

Chrst, that is quite ridiculous.

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I downloaded NeoTokyo after listening to the podcast. I like it, but boy do I suck at it.

I can't seem to hit anything in online shooters these days. I've been having the same problem in CS:S recently; I point the cross-hair at the other guy and pull the trigger, and then after I die it tells me that I missed completely. L4D is the only Source game at the moment where my bullets actually hit something. I never used to have this problem, it's getting so bad that I'm worried something might be cancerously eating away at my hand-eye coordination or something.

But anyway NeoTokyo is good, but it could do with some tweaks to make the action more visceral and enjoyable. Currently the movement is very slow, but the action, such as explosions and ragdolls animation, happens too fast to see.

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Yay, I'm just making my way through the archives and heard the Ben There Dan That namecheck in this ep! Aces, thanks! Hope whoever it was that's been meaning to talk about our games has done/will do it at some point...:chaste:

I'm really enjoying the casts, btw, I'm going to be very sad when I catch up and have to wait a week between each one.

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