Noxxa: The execution looks good enough, with no obvious mistakes. The game itself is a bit too long, too slow and too repetitive to be entertaining to watch, however. Accepting for the Vault.
Note to publisher: there doesn't seem to be a distinction between any% and 100%, so publish as any%.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Ok, so this is a puzzle game. Thank you for the encode.
I only watched the first six minutes. It seems to be a pretty simple game, worse than Adventures of Lolo. The ability to use those magic bubbles is sort of cool, but the bubbles take a long time to pop. The game felt repetitive very quickly for me... it's probably more fun to play than to watch.
In addition, it looks like you have some wasted steps and extra unnecessary motion in a few stages. (I saw questionable parts in stages 8, 18, and 20. I stopped watching in stage 21.)
I'm not voting yet, since I have not watched the full movie, but unfortunately I think this is a No for entertainment.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
mklip2001 wrote:
In addition, it looks like you have some wasted steps and extra unnecessary motion in a few stages. (I saw questionable parts in stages 8, 18, and 20. I stopped watching in stage 21.)
From what I can gather by watching the video, and assuming I am seeing the same thing you are, think of the movement in this title as being like a classic Final Fantasy: if you press a direction, you immediately move in that direction. This would mean that sometimes, in order to plant a bubble on a given square, you will have to move away from it in order to give yourself room.
I don't see any strange moves in 20, though.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
ALAKTORN wrote:
What does “Re-record count: (unknown)” mean?
It means that the rerecord count is listed as 0 in the movie file.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
I only watched the first six minutes. It seems to be a pretty simple game
Probably to make right conclusion about game difficulty, is worth to watch the last six minutes of gameplay instead of the first six?
Well, game is still enough simple, but not so trivial as in very beginning.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Serious post: the bubble mechanic is very interesting. It's so interesting, actually, that it seems to have obscured the designer's ability to make interesting levels.
After watching the whole TAS I can only remember four enemies: snake (paces back and forth), octorock (pushes blocks), the green charger, and the turret. But none of them except the snake are used more than a few times. They also implemented traditional push blocks and the arrow panels from Eggerland/Lolo (also green!) and barely used those, too.
Instead the game mostly consists of:
Getting the block around a corner with magic bubbles
Getting the block across water with magic bubbles
Anti-magic squares where you can't use magic
Collapsing floors
Over and over and over without much increase in difficulty. (Until the very end.) It's like they were having so much fun with the core mechanic that the unintentional thought was "Meh! Let's just vary the layouts and keep doing this."
Voted yes by the way.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks for the follow-up posts, Ferret Warlord and Archanfel. It took a while, but I got back to this and decided to give it more of a try. I see now what Ferret Warlord was saying about the turning mechanics... the steps where the player went away from a bubble spot were my concern. When I looked back over those stages, they seem fine now.
Catastrophe also brings up a good point with the main game mechanic. Personally, I still have the issue that the main game mechanic tends to create a lot of waiting time. This game did get more interesting as it went on, for the most part. The best levels, for me, were the ones in the late 30s with the sliding ice floors.
The music was ok, but it did have a very cool point in the late 50s, when it got very dark and spooky. The end was good too. I'd say this is a Meh vote from me.
One question: is it possible to win this game while playing fewer levels? If not, then 100% is a redundant category.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
You neglected to mention the lava panels which have bubbles increase in size to pop after maximum, rather than the usual decrease. This is only terribly interesting in stage 95 where they checkerboarded water/lava tiles, as you never really have to worry about mixing the fuse burn direction otherwise. (Another game with no convection.)
And the gimmick where one has to push the key in behind oneself.
So...amateurishly translated, block names are Magic Forest, Flame Cavern, Ice Palace, Trial Tower, Dark Space, and Final Exam Tower.
Watched the whole thing, but it wasn't terribly interesting for most of it because it was usually just a case of "And how do you get the bubbles across ONE MORE panel?" Meh voting.
Wow, this game looks vicious. What are the significance of the "M" scrolls that the witches leave behind? Understanding them could solve the mystery of 100% vs. any%... has anyone other than the author ever played this game? :S
And on the note of optimization, in a few spots it looked initially like it may be possible to push things into place with bubbles rather than doing so manually to save a few frames, but on further examination the awkward mechanics disallowing turning without taking a step likely prevent that from saving time in any of the spots I looked at.
The run also seems to avoid the problem where many puzzle game TASes look more like walkthroughs than speedruns due to slower mechanics... quite a few spots appear to have quite tight timing that would be difficult if not unreasonable under more casual conditions.
Overall, I was quite entertained, though I can understand why many players wouldn't be. Yes vote from me, for what it matters.
