What Games are you playing 2015?

[Scar]

Holy crap the camera in zestiria is awful.

Died to a stupidly easy boss because it bugged out in a tiny corridor. It went straight up the bosses ass.

What the flying fuck. How has this not been resolved yet?

It's almost unplayable with 2 people.

The story is whatever, but this isn't looking good taleZ

[Fudozukushi]

Zestiria's written by the same hack who did Xillia 2, so it was always destined to be shit.

[The Duck]

Human Resource Machine - I saw the Gref and Fen were playing this so I had to pay attention. I see that it's the same people as Little Inferno, but I saw a preview video and don't know what the fuck is going on. As a good consumer I will buy it with basically no information.

[Fenrir]

Have you noticed that it made both of us feel terrible about ourselves?

I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but if you tend to usually buy cheap quirky indie games and aren't allergic to math? You did good.


Oh Downwell is pretty fun btw. I wish I had bought the steam version instead of the iOs one because touch controls, in a precise action game = lol (even if the game was made for phones in mind)
I got up to 2-3.

[The Duck]

I was going to wait for Downwell to come to Android but it looks awesome.

[Grefter]

I recommend Human Resource Machine, it is a good game.  The only problem with it is end users.

[Clear Tranquil]

Zestiria has some pros, like the OST is quite fine, and most people seem to agree that's very well done over all, but then you don't essentially have to play the game to listen to the music~

[Grefter]

Okay, so this post was from last night that I didn't realise hadn't posted.

Human Resource Machine - I did the rest of the blue tier of things.  Sort 3 (year 28).  Optimisation challenge Use 34 or fewer command, you used 106.  Speed Challenge, complete in 78 or fewer steps, your best completed in 107 steps on average.

i am so bad at everything.  i don't know how i can do 11 more stages.

Vermintide - Tried playing with people.  Other people got further ahead of us, so only want to do hard things.  Younger brother is still learning things and hates not being valuable so hates the game.  This is frustrating because he is doing fine.  Older brother being around would give us 3 people so we would only need to find 1 more spare.  I think it would be a good game if I could just get stuff together for it without it feeling like I am making people's day shit.




This post is now from today

Human Resource Machine - A few more levels in and the thing that the game was holding off on introducing is using a variable as a pointer to another variable.  This... this is like super easy compared to trying to focus on juggling flow of code and going "Okay I have 'if negative then' and I need to compare these two negative numbers then subtracting them means that if the negative number is *STEAM MESSAGE INCOMING FUCK YOUR TRAIN OF THOUGHT*" like the blue set was.  I expect it will kick into gear more soon enough, but in the early tier of it?  I just did year 34 which is eliminate all the vowels.  Nailed it meeting optimisation and speed challenges first run of the code.  like... gods this is so much easier than constructing if/then statements with raw numerals.

[Fenrir]

I swear, Grefter, you will regret these words
The true Human Resource Machine starts here
I am still stuck on the last normal level and second to last optional level.
On the plus side I got like 70 total steps on a level that asked for 350ish. I felt really good about this even though I basically cheated.


Downwell is fun but really rough at the start. For the first few playthroughs you're like a 5 years old in a rollercoaster. '

[Grefter]

I am up to the last normal level now (unless there is something after the last button on the list?).  I think I have the direction for the solution started, just need to do a reverse sort and then output and it should work.

Haven't looked at the final bonus branch of things since pointers were introduced.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Child of Light - I started this game up on the WiiU, and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's a simple, elegent battle system with a few quirks. I really enjoy some of the more challenging random encounters in particular. I find myself always waiting for people's levels so they can restore their MP. Obviously plotwise the game is a bit of a wash, but I like the beautiful drawn graphics and the music.

Yoshi's Woolly World - I picked this up for the sake of cuteness, and I've been pretty pleased with the game so far. I wasn't sure if the Yoshi series was going the way of Kirby (i.e. mostly aimed at small children), but the game's challenge level is actually fine (except the bosses, who are generally a bit of an embarassment so far). i just finished the second world. I've been collecting all of the Yarn Yoshis in each stage, which give you different skins to play as.

I'm probably going to try my hand at Legend of Legacy at some point soon, since i just got it in the mail.

[NotMiki]

I've played a good chunk of Downwell - made it up to world 4 - and it's great.  Simple design, perfectly calibrated.  If you like any of the follwing:

- shootin' dudes
- jumpin' on dudes
- combos
- things that blow up
- pixels

then you owe it to yourself to pony up the $3 and get playing.

I want to elaborate a bit on the combos.  You get bonus rewards (money, ammo capacity, health) for executing combos.  You get a combo counter for the number of enemies you kill in midair before landing.  You can kill enemies two ways: by jumping on them (about 2/3 of the enemies can be safely jumped on) or by shooting them with your gunboots.  Your gunboots recharge either when you land, or when you jump on an enemy.  And they can be used to slow your descent, so you can use them to position yourself to jump on another enemy.  Now, there are side rooms in the game with shops and powerups, and you might think that that would mean you have a choice to keep your combo going or use the side rooms, but there is a bubble at the entrance to each room, and if you get to the bubble, time stops for everything but you, and your combo is not broken by landing.  So there's no tradeoff; all you need to do is have the ability and agility to get to the side room entrance.  Maybe it doesn't come across from describing it, but this game is poetry in motion.  Every design choice - every single one - has been carefully crafted to work in conjunction with the game as a whole.  Anyway buy it.

[Cotigo]

Human Resource Machine -

Fenrir game, Grefter game. Yeah ok fine.

I got to year 9 before I stopped optimizing everything, then got to year 17 before I realized this is not a game I can really play while drunk, nor one I should be fretting about at 1AM when I have work tomorrow.

Very interesting concept, takes Little Inferno's tone and attaches a game that is actually really stupidly complex to it. I'm into it but probably won't get very far before frustration sets in. Less likely to be a game I'll binge on and more something I'll pick at over the course of a year.

Honestly this probably should have been a mobile game? Nothing about the mechanics requires more than a touch screen and the puzzles seem like they'll take so much time for the Zennidiot to puzzle out that having it be portable would only help it.

It actually really confuses me that Downwell, the action roguelike that requires precision is a mobile game while this is not. Management expected 0 when you returned 1.

[Grefter]

Human Resource Machine

Sorting Floor (Year 41) Size Challenge use 34 commands for less, you used 59.  Speed Challenge complete in 714 or few steps, your solution completes in 3108 steps, on average.

I looped things # times to the # of variables to provide certainty.  I could have used a 'Confidence' variable that reset to 0 after doing a run and does +1 each time you do a swap.  Realising I could do that, I shouldn't run the check for Is Less Than the same number of outputs in the string, but just run through a test for Is Less Than previous number until the 'Confidence' is = on a pass through.  That would strip out the whole negative test entirely.

i think i couldn't be fucked making that though

edit - I loaded up the first of the last branch of optional ones.  couldn't be fucked.

[Otter]

Human Resource Machine: just started.  Seems fun!  I stopped going for optimization challenges during this last run of optional assignments (22, 24, 26, 28) but I guess I could always go back later.  So far it's a better gameplay experience than Heart of the Swarm's campaign mode and the writing is better.

[Fenrir]

For that last test I just did Is less checks, if no then check another number, if yes take that number instead.
This gives you the lowest number, but afterwards how do you remove that number from the pool, in order to find the second lowest?
I was contemplating just turning them into 0s and always checking if 0 before doing any substraction,but it was completely inelegant and then there were other complications, etc.

Fun.

Grefter plz do those last three levels there are only three. How hard can it be?

[Fenrir]

Also, good luck to all playing this.
 Brace yourselves.

[Otter]

I'm unreasonably happy about finishing 36!  Lots of errors fixed.

It looks like there's only a few assignments left.  Is there an aftergame that unlocks after 41?

[Otter]

Finished the main game:



My year 41 solution needs work (like your dick) but I'm gonna wrap up the optional stuff first.  Can strongly recommend the game along with its sequel, which is called "working through the Project Euler set with Python."

[Grefter]

For that last test I just did Is less checks, if no then check another number, if yes take that number instead.
This gives you the lowest number, but afterwards how do you remove that number from the pool, in order to find the second lowest?
I was contemplating just turning them into 0s and always checking if 0 before doing any substraction,but it was completely inelegant and then there were other complications, etc.

Fun.

Grefter plz do those last three levels there are only three. How hard can it be?

I wasn't storing the outputs in separate fields, I was doing a sort on the first and second number, then on the second and third number upwards. This shuffles everything just fine in 1:1 comparisons.  I would check my Count variable (Bumped up as I took the string out of the inbox) for 0 to see when I was at the end of a run.

The solution I DID from there was then to sort in reverse to do another run from highest to lowest.  This is fucking stupid and unnecessary even in my solution.

When that didn't work (Because an output of 6 3 5 7 4 ends up as 7 6 5 3 4) I just gave the fuck up and copies my Count variable to a secondary counting variable and then bumped it down by 1 after each sort up and down.

The more efficient way to do it I was talking about would be like this

Define a WRONG variable

Grab all the shit and define COUNT by number of outputs


compare 2 numbers
If negative -> Bump WRONG +1
Swap the numbers
Bump count -1
Loop if count is not negative
If count is negative copy from WRONG
If WRONG is zero -> Jump to your output string
Jump back to start of your compare string.

That way you will just continuously sort until you do a run where nothing swapped.

And yeah Otter the end of the game is essentially just "Yep this is Turing Complete, hooray!" (I think it is anyway...) and you know, yayyyy computers.

[Otter]

Finished everything.  My 40 code is gruesome but viable, like a newborn baby.  Remembering some relevant math right now would help but I don't, it's been like eight years.  Really fun to mess around with anyway and I wish there were more problems.

edit: got year 40 to 839 steps with 99 commands.  It was kind of absurd coming back a day later to a program that generates primes and factors nonprimes and being like "hang on, what's the best way to divide by 2 again?"  As someone who isn't very visual I think it's really cool being able to watch different parts of a program working away in their own little sections of the game screen.

edit2: got both optimization challenges done for year 20.  Still really enjoying going back through these.  Fifteen assignments still need optimization so I could be at this a while.

[AndrewRogue]

Undertale: Neutral end get. Should be nabbing the Pacifist end tonight. Will probably talk a bit more about it after that.

[NotMiki]

Pro Downwell Tips

Also: I played Undertale, and it was exceptional.  Everyone should play it.  That is all.

[Captain K]

Blade and Soul Beta started today.  1500 people in queue waiting to play.

[Fenrir]

I got up to the third area in Downwell. New rules, huh.
On mobile i find that the normal styles fall way too fast but levitate is manageable. I only use this style and boulder now. Boulder's cool.
Aqua and Downwell palettes are my fav palettes for now, the basics.

My most hated enemies are the Castlevania skeletons in the catacombs. I can almost never react in time.