Jake

Idle Thumbs 170: Esophagus Sarcophagus

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I recommend to Chris that he watch the first and third Harry Potter movies solely for the tonal dissonance. The first two films were directed by Chris Columbus of Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire fame, while the third was directed by Children of Men's Alfonso Cuarón. It contrasts just as sharply as you'd think.

I was actually shown the third one specifically for that reason, but having not seen any other Harry Potter stuff I don't have as much awareness of what it's in contrast to.

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Hey guys, just listened to the second half of the episode today and thanks for the shout out!  :mock:  It means a lot.

 

Also I just now noticed we have a Reggie smilie. :reggie: :reggie: :reggie:

 

Nobody's spelled it Alien³ yet.

I can't be bothered to find the alt code, the only ones I know by heart are TM and Copyright, which I can't even do right now because I'm on a Mac. Fuuuu.

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Hey guys, just listened to the second half of the episode today and thanks for the shout out!  :mock:  It means a lot.

 

Also I just now noticed we have a Reggie smilie. :reggie: :reggie: :reggie:

 

I can't be bothered to find the alt code, the only ones I know by heart are TM and Copyright, which I can't even do right now because I'm on a Mac. Fuuuu.

Option-2 and option-c maybe? I cant remember anymore.

Option-L is ¬ which is the most important.

¬ ¬

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¬ ¬

 

Good. I finally know how to do this on a Mac now. Thank you Jake. ¬ ¬

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I agree with Chris that Crypt of the Necrodancer is not like Spelunky. I feel it's more like Binding of Isaac. I also fucking hate them dragons. It's so annoying to spawn and have one in my face, because I know I can't defeat it. and then inevitably die.

 

I don't hate the perma-items though. They kept me playing past a point where I would have given up. Also there aren't that many items. I have now emptied the magic store, and getting there in the weapons store. I don't know, I find it a good incentive to keep playing. Now I'm getting my ass kicked on world 4. Ho hum.

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I was actually shown the third one specifically for that reason, but having not seen any other Harry Potter stuff I don't have as much awareness of what it's in contrast to.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again; Chris needs to watch Wizard People, Dear Reader. You'll like it, maybe.

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Option-2 and option-c maybe? I cant remember anymore.

Option-L is ¬ which is the most important.

¬ ¬

I just had to Google for pictures of US keyboards to realise this wasn't some in-joke I wasn't getting.

Our keyboards ship ¬ enabled (just a shift-modifier away) thanks to the extra key between the shift and z keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards

¬ ¬

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I agree with Chris that Crypt of the Necrodancer is not like Spelunky. I feel it's more like Binding of Isaac. I also fucking hate them dragons. It's so annoying to spawn and have one in my face, because I know I can't defeat it. and then inevitably die.

 

I don't hate the perma-items though. They kept me playing past a point where I would have given up. Also there aren't that many items. I have now emptied the magic store, and getting there in the weapons store. I don't know, I find it a good incentive to keep playing. Now I'm getting my ass kicked on world 4. Ho hum.

 

I'm pretty sure Chris went through a pretty serious Isaac phase as well, I was surprised he didn't draw the comparison.  BoI doesn't have perma-upgrades, but it does have the similar unlock mechanic for items you find in a run. 

 

Besides the Daily Challenge, the game also has Hardcore Mode, which is what Chris was asking for essentially.  You start without any of your perma-upgrades and have to go through all the worlds in a row.  I just feel like they're trying to let as many people as possible succeed in the game, without making it easy.  HM mode for people who want a Spelunky/BoI type experience, perma-upgrades for people who find HM too hard or stressful, turn based for people who have no rhythm, and then DDR mode,. 

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Well, there is the D6...

 

Technically true, and there are the characters, not all of whom are straight upgrades, but several of them are easier than pre-D6 Isaac. 

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I'm pretty sure Chris went through a pretty serious Isaac phase as well, I was surprised he didn't draw the comparison.

I remember it being the first game I brought up. Is that not true?

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I remember it being the first game I brought up. Is that not true?

 

You mention it in passing, just before you go into detail about what the game is at around the 1:00:00 mark. You then go on to explain how it isn't like Spelunky XD

 

I think that the War Drum is probably the most useful item in the game, but I am just not good enough to prove it.

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I remember it being the first game I brought up. Is that not true?

You mention it in passing, just before you go into detail about what the game is at around the 1:00:00 mark. You then go on to explain how it isn't like Spelunky XD

 

I was listening while working, and missed a couple of sentences, including the one time BoI is mentioned and Chris saying basically what I wrote above about the different modes.  Multi-tasking fail!  The deep dive on talking about Spelunky was really confusing to me though, as it makes the least amount of sense to compare it to Necrodancer versus using something like BoI as a comparison. 

 

Chris mentioned how gravity is this ever present force in 2D systems driven games, and I do think there's a comparison to be made between gravity and the beat in Necrodancer.  Obviously not the same, but it does provide a force of forward momentum that other games like this don't have. 

 

I love that Necrodancer allows for co-op in the Daily Challenge though!  This was a thing that always bugged me about Spelunky, that they didn't allow that or have a 2-Player DC. 

 

 

I think that the War Drum is probably the most useful item in the game, but I am just not good enough to prove it.

 

I've got this twice, and didn't know what it did.  Just looked it up, and holy crap, that's a lot better than I expected (damage multiplier for maintaining your combo after mixing the War Drum in). 

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I've tried googling all the games mentioned in the showlist as well as image searching the picture itself, but I still can't figure out where that pixel art pyramid is from on the episode banner.  SEGA Predator? SNES Alien v. Predator?

 

Oh, never mind.  There's too many games featuring Xibalba.

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I have not played Necrodancer at all so I may be way off base here but it sounds like the Bard is useful to learn how the game works without the complexity of moving to a beat.  If enemies have different movement patterns and items have different use, I can see how doing that one step at a time would be helpful in learning about the game instead of trying to figure it out on the fly.  To belabor the Spelunky comparison, it's like using the shortcuts to learn the later levels before you try from the start.

 

Besides that, I really like the idea of the turn based beat mechanic.  I don't like turn based games in general because I tend to overthink every move.  I prefer games that let me have a plan but adjust to it on the fly in real time.  Having a beat to drive me seems like a good compromise between turn based planning and real time reaction.

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I have not played Necrodancer at all so I may be way off base here but it sounds like the Bard is useful to learn how the game works without the complexity of moving to a beat.  If enemies have different movement patterns and items have different use, I can see how doing that one step at a time would be helpful in learning about the game instead of trying to figure it out on the fly.  To belabor the Spelunky comparison, it's like using the shortcuts to learn the later levels before you try from the start.

 

That's possible, but they actually do a good job of letting you practice in general.  There are new "vendors" that you unlock that let you practice independently against every enemy and boss in the game.  I think you have to beat each enemy on your own first, but you can cheese that with a bomb or get lucky, then be able to practice for regular encounters with them. 

 

Bard mode also disables the level timer, which lets you explore each level to your heart's content (like if you could disable the ghost on Spelunky).  That lets you observe things about the environment, the way level generation leads to certain patterns, that are probably harder to notice in the regular mode. 

 

Co-op in Bard mode is interesting as well, as monsters get a move for every player move, so monsters actually start getting a distinct advantage for each player acting in a game.  We got each other killed a couple of times by not paying attention to where each other were in relation to monsters.

 

Overall I like the regular mode much more than Bard mode though.  I feel like the Bard will just lead to developing bad habits if what your really want is to get good at the regular game.

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About that discussion re: ripped male leads in summer blockbuster movies (particularly comic book ones), Hollywood Reporter came out with a piece last year in which they talked with a Hollywood trainer who estimated that 20% of actors used PEDs to bulk up. It's not really surprising given the explosion of HGH/PEDs in other sports (like MLB), in the 90s and early 2000s: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-steroid-use-a-list-609091

 

Patrick Hruby of Sports on Earth (sad to see that site go...) also had a good article about this recently: http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/73873610/peds-steroids-hollywood-blockbusters-jason-momoa-chris-evans#!by7Zq4

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This is a little off-topic, when people discuss how great films like Alien or The Thing are, I'm always intrigued, but also a little bit saddened, because I don't enjoy horror films at all and can barely watch them. Especially if they are science-fiction horror, because I very much enjoy science-fiction in general. It's the same with scary media of any kind, really. Games, for example, I feel like I missed out on many of what are conisdered classic games because they scared me too much. Even ones that usually, as far as I can tell, aren't considered to be among the scariest ones as BioShock. Of course, I'm lacking a reference because being freaked out by BioShock, I never even bothered trying something like Silent Hill.

But then Jake said "greebled" and made me happy again. Until he apologized for saying it.

Also, I wish people said "tetralogy" instead of "quadrilogy".

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That's possible, but they actually do a good job of letting you practice in general.  There are new "vendors" that you unlock that let you practice independently against every enemy and boss in the game.  I think you have to beat each enemy on your own first, but you can cheese that with a bomb or get lucky, then be able to practice for regular encounters with them. 

 

Bard mode also disables the level timer, which lets you explore each level to your heart's content (like if you could disable the ghost on Spelunky).  That lets you observe things about the environment, the way level generation leads to certain patterns, that are probably harder to notice in the regular mode. 

 

Co-op in Bard mode is interesting as well, as monsters get a move for every player move, so monsters actually start getting a distinct advantage for each player acting in a game.  We got each other killed a couple of times by not paying attention to where each other were in relation to monsters.

 

Overall I like the regular mode much more than Bard mode though.  I feel like the Bard will just lead to developing bad habits if what your really want is to get good at the regular game.

 

I didn't know you could practice against enemies, but it sounds like you do it against one enemy (or enemy type) at a time?  If that's the case I would still say the Bard could be useful as practice because of the interaction between multiple enemies or other game mechanics I'm not aware of.  I think I would also prefer the normal mode though, for the reasons I outlined in my other post.  It would be very easy to develop habits that would not transfer to moving with a beat.

 

Also I have seen some video of the shopkeeper singing and it is the best thing.  Almost enough by itself to make me want the game.

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Also I have seen some video of the shopkeeper singing and it is the best thing.  Almost enough by itself to make me want the game.

 

Oh yeah, just like Chris, the first time I encountered that was a moment of pure video game joy.  I really like the joyful dissonance of this game compared to other similar types. 

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