The story of a robot boy in a cave and an evil doctor killing rabbit-like humanoids

Unfortunately, I did not get to participate in the Indie Impression for Cave Story+ as I was, at that time, an insane man, trying to pack for MegaCon 2012 and make sure I had all things with my minicomics straightened out before leaving for Florida or else I’d be totally boned. Which stinks, as I have played it both on my laptop (with and without a gamepad) and on my Nintendo 3DS and definitely have a few thoughts on the little indie darling that could, but now they go here, instead of over there. Right, well, time to level up and share some words…

Cave Story+ is surprisingly simple, and it’s surprising in how many times it surprises you. As the game’s  title implies, there’s a story here, and it does a great job of presenting emotion via the varied portraits of Mimigas. Seems like a girl named Sue is missing and you, a baseball cap-wearing robot who awakens in a cave, are off to find her. Along the way, you’ll learn of an evil doctor who is terrorizing the local village and killing rabbit people with sickening glee. Stumbling across special moments seems natural, but whenever the game cuts back to the man locked in the room trying to instant message with his computer, it all slows down and feels iffy.

Gameplay is fluid and fast, with your little robotic hero leveling up and leveling down within seconds of one another thanks to the swarms of enemies that want to inflict damage and destruction upon your very body. On occasion, a jump might feel a little floaty, but otherwise, everything is crisp and can make for some crazy tense scenarios where you are just shooting at everything that moves while trying to reach a save room as quick as possible. As you kill enemies, they explode into experience points (or hearts or ammo), which will upgrade your current gun as you collect them, turning a wimpy pea shooter into something more deadly. This is an addicting hook for sure, and leveling down is like the worst thing in life.

Currently, our hero is on a mission to get some jellyfish goo for…somebody. Names are a little hard to remember in this game except for Sue. Don’t know why that is.

And now for some Achievements from Steam, many of which are basically freebies:

Pea Shooter: Obtained the Polar Star!

Don’t Get Lost: Obtained the Map System!

Wanna Fight?: Defeated Balrog!

A Gift from Santa: Obtained the Fireball!

I have to wonder if I’ll beat Cave Story+ first on my laptop or my 3DS, and whether or not I’ll beat it more than once. Seems like there’s multiple endings, and I do like multiple endings. Either way, it’s fun and easy to pick up, especially if you are somewhat familiar with Mega Man and/or Metroidvania romps; you just gotta pay attention as there are one-hit kill creatures and spikes all over the place, making every jump and maneuver essential for surviving.

MegaCon and the 3DS StreetPass tagging total

I’m back, dear Grinding Down readers. Thanks for waiting on me. For those that didn’t even realize I was gone, well…you stink. I was down in sunny Florida for some days there, selling minicomics and eating at places with nifty names like Tijuana Flats and Which Wich. It was a nice time save for all the driving. Actually, the driving down was fine. It was the return trip home that was grueling.

Now, only two people participated in my little contest where you could guess how many StreetPass tags I’d get at a three-day, very popular comics convention. One was my wife, the other a good online friend. Shame on the rest of you for not participating, as you have now missed the chance to hold total power over me for one entire blog post. Anyways, here is their guesses:

• Tara Abbamondi: 114
• Greg Noe: 256

Well, last night, with a fat cat sleeping on my back, I took the time to count up all of my StreetPass tags from the weekend, and the total is pretty surprising. Ready for it? Ready?

168 StreetPass tags

Woo. Ba-boom. So, that means Tara wins, and she’ll let me know what she wants me to moan and groan and go on about at length when she’s ready. Hopefully it’s not Sailor Moon.

But man, 168 tags in a three-day span does some magical things for one’s Mii Plaza and the minigames found within. One, I was able to complete five more puzzles, as well as collect all of the tag-only puzzle pieces. I’ll probably be able to finish up the remaining puzzles in April at MoCCA; I don’t like using my Play Coins to buy puzzle pieces, as it’s more fun to collect them from other 3DS owners. Two, I filled out my map a little more, meeting people from all along the East Coast, as well as someone from Anguilla, which is so rare that it doesn’t even get a picture for it. Third, made some sick progress in Find Mii II, getting all the way to the final boss, and by final boss I mean the boss after what many probably assume is the final boss. Still chipping away at it as that level-down gas is no fun at all. Then I get to replay it all over again, choosing a different path from before to get more hats. MOAR HATZ.

But getting all these tags and grabbing new puzzle pieces was great for filling in the gaps at MegaCon when nobody was stopping by our table. Aw, sad faces. Really, that was only on Friday and late Sunday. Saturday was slammed with busy, busy, busy. Sometimes I was actually clearing out my Plaza Gate under the table, because if you got ten Miis in there you couldn’t collect anymore visitors–and I needed to collect as many as humanly possible.

The next big tagging event will be at the end of April for MoCCA Festival in New York City. I’ll hold another guessing contest around then, and hopefully more of y’all will play along. Gotta think of a bigger prize. Maybe I’ll offer up my pristine copy of Suikoden II? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Grinding Down on pause while I hide from furry cosplayers at MegaCon 2012

Tomorrow, Tara and I leave behind the cold, gray skies of Pennsylvania for hopefully something warmer in Florida. We’ll be at MegaCon 2012 from this upcoming Friday through Sunday, selling comics, being shy, and staring at cosplayers. You can find us at table RED 9, wherever that is. Just look for a fat bearded man and a small, attractive redhead–that’s us.

Let me give a quick rundown of what we’ll be shilling. Tara reprinted her girl-falls-into-a-puddle minicomic Puddles, has a new mini based on another song by Leema Mountain, has copies of Unite and Take Over, and some awesome prints based on those popular Game of Thrones peeps; you can see some previews here. On the other hand, I will be selling copies of my 31 Bad Comics challenges, the first issue of a new story called The Lost Seafarer, and some Supertown things. Also got some fancy postcards for All of Westeros to give out. You want more deets? Go here.

What does all this have to do with videogames and Grinding Down? Well, uh. I won’t have time to blog. I won’t have time to write up more delicious words about 100%ing Saints Row: The Third or playing the same exact character in Skyrim on the Xbox 360 and Steam or my early thoughts on the recently acquired Super Mario 3D Land. I won’t be able to do Achievements of the Week this time around. It’ll just have to wait for my grand return. Hope that’s okay.

But let’s play a game while I’m away. Wait. ::puts on Jigsaw voice:: I WANT TO PLAY A GAME WITH YOU. AND THAT GAME IS CALLED:

GUESS THE NUMBER OF STREETPASS TAGS I’LL GET AT MEGACON 2012!

Catchy, huh? See, MegaCon is looking to be a pretty popular convention, and where there’s a popular convention, there’s the chance to score a good number of StreetPass tags for my Nintendo 3DS. For comparison, I got 51 tags back in April 2011 at MoCCA, but that was also early into the system’s life; with the price drop and array of good games, I feel like the chance of someone else having a 3DS is much higher now.

Whoever comes close to the exact number without going over will win a prize. What’s the prize? Geez, really? You have to ask? Okay, okay. The prize is that you can pick a topic–any topic you want though try not to creep me out–and I’ll write about it. Look, I’m not made of money. Take it or leave it.

Place your bets below, and I’ll see y’all when I return!

Traversing worlds in Braid like a true tourist

I played a little bit of Braid back at the end of August 2011, during the time that Hurricane Irene came swooping on in and knocked out power at Grimmauld Place for a week and then some. Stuck at the in-laws, I only had my Nintendo 3DS and laptop to entertain me videogames-wise–Tara’s dogs and old VHS tapes provided non-gaming fun–and there was only so much of The Sims Social I could take. So I loaded up Steam for like the third or fourth time ever and gave Braid a spin, using just a keyboard to govern Tim and time. It was not easy, but thankfully, the game itself is not punishing, and actually needs you to rewind your mistakes to learn how to progress forward. I got to the end of World 4 before stopping, but let me preface that with the fact that you actually begin Braid on World 2. So, uh, yeah.

And for the most part, I just walked from the beginning of the level to the end. Occasionally, I’d tried to get some of those shiny puzzle pieces, but if they proved too complicated, I just moved on. And the game is fine with that. You can literally go from beginning to end on some levels in under a minute. Just keep going right; Mario would be proud. As Jonathan Blow says, it’s “about the journey, not the destination.” Well, my journey was often that of a tourist, going forward and taking in all the gorgeous sights while trying not to disturb history. If I could, I hopped over enemies instead of on them. I do not regret breezing past some puzzles, as they will still be there when Tim decides to return.

Some of Braid‘s story elements had already been spoiled for me at that point by the Internet, so that was the least compelling part. The puzzles though, they remained unspoiled…and good for me. They are works of art. Clearly planned and executed in a way that mattered to the game’s  mechanics and mood. Even the simplest of them still give off a good feeling aura when completed.

Flash-forward to now, 2012, the year of our unmaking, and I’ve been using Steam a lot more thanks to a capable laptop. Y’all remember that I recently bought a second copy of Skyrim, right? Well, I’ve been playing it with my Xbox 360 controller plugged into the USB slot, and it’s been fantastic. I thought to give some other games in my Steam library a chance, too, to see if they were more enjoyable with a controller versus a mouse and keyboard. And they were–Trine and Super Meat Boy. Braid, too. It just felt more natural to jump about and rewind time using a controller. I dunno. PC gamers can hate all they want, but platformers and controllers go hand in hand.

And for giggles, here’s some Steam Achievements I unlocked, which are totally different entities than Xbox 360 Achievements:

Traversed World 5: Travel all the way across World 5.

Traversed World 6: Travel all the way across World 6.

Solved World 2: Fit together all the World 2 puzzle pieces and align the puzzle in its frame.

Okay. Will hop back in soon to hopefully finish Tim’s heroic journey up, though I suspect I’ll need to look up some walkthroughs to get all the puzzle pieces in Worlds 2-6 as many look quite tricky and daunting; however, I’m quite proud of myself for getting them all on my own in World 2, as well as defeating a certain boss using the clone recording mechanic. Guess I retained some skills from playing The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom long before Braid.

Double Fine uses Kickstarter to fund a new point-and-click adventure game

When I went to bed last night, I had no idea that Double Fine’s Tim Schafer had announced a new Kickstarter project, one asking for donations totaling $400,000 to fund and film the process of making a new “old school” graphic adventure game. When I got to work this morning and started clicking around the Interwebz while my emails downloaded I saw that this lofty goal–well, $400,000 is a lot of money in my mind–had already been met. Geez. Take that, rollercoasters that go from zero to sixty mph in three seconds. Without warning, two conflicting feelings hit me at once: rejoice and disappointment. Let me explain.

First, the rejoice. Good for them! Way to go, Double Fine! Way to go, adventure game fans everywhere! It’s always exhilarating to see a Kickstarter goal met so quickly, with passion and desire fueling every contribution. In his Kickstarter commercial, Schafer points out that if he were to go to a traditional publisher with the idea of putting out a new adventure game, he’d just get laughed at. And that’s probably true. The genre is certainly not dead, but it’s not as mainstream as first-person shooters or big budget epic RPG romps. By using Kickstarter, Double Fine can create a game for fans, funded by fans. That sounds pretty fantastic.

Second, the disappointment. I kind of feel like I went to bed and, unknowingly, in the next room over, a great ol’ happening party was happening. There was cake and spiked punch and board games and laughter and Queen’s greatest hits were playing in a constant loop and everyone was excited and so happy to be there. It was the type of party that would be talked about for days after. I missed all the action though. The party was a success, and I played no part in it. I could have and would have, but I was sleeping. I guess I’m just bummed that I didn’t get to be a part of making it happen, and am rather left to simply contribute a little more to the pile. I’m sure that sounds really stupid, but it’s how I feel.

There’s 33 days left to go for the Kickstarter, with extra funds being put towards making the game and documentary as strong as possible, as well as for porting it to other platforms, such as Mac and iOS. I might still donate for the $15 amount, likening it as a pre-order now that it’s clear that it will all come to fruition–or I might not. The game will get made, and Double Fine is tentatively shooting for an October 2012 release, wherein I could just wait and pick it up on Steam then if it looks like a grand time. Which it probably will, seeing who is behind it. I mean, I think people liked Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango, and I know for certain that I enjoyed Costume Quest, as well as the core game ideas behind Brutal Legend and Stacking.

A lot of Kickstarters that I’m aware of are more for indie projects, so it was a little odd to see a known company like Double Fine using it to help get a game made. But to each their own, I guess. We are living in the future, after all. 2012 and flying cars and meals in pills. That said, where are the Kickstarters for Suikoden VI? Or Primal II? Or Jak 4? Well?

Achievements of the Week – The Krogan Takes Up Arms and Says Tank You Very Much Edition

How is it Friday already again? Wasn’t it just Friday this last Friday? Y’know, one Friday ago? Ugh. These weeks are blurring by, and it’s probably because I have so much to do. And I’m not referencing videogames here. I have real life stuff, car stuff, and preparations for MegaCon piling up. So I’m keeping this update here real short.

Let’s begin.

From Saints Row: The Third…

Tank You Very Much (20G): Completed all instances of Tank Mayhem.

Just completed another activity in Saints Row: The Third, which involved spamming the “shoot missiles” button and driving forward, and you can see which ones were my favorite right over here.

From The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim…

Take Up Arms (10G): Join the Companions

Got bored doing the ol’ back and forth stuff for the Thieves Guild so I decided it was high time I joined a new guild and became the best of the best there. Getting into the Companions is relatively tame; you speak to their leader, who has you duel with a subordinate–the fight was over with one swipe of my Nightingale Blade–and then that guy gives you a sword to take to a smith at the Skyforge. Return back and poof, you’re in. Now what?

From Mass Effect 2…

Technician (15G): Obtain 10 technology upgrades

The Krogan (10G): Successfully recruit the krogan

I popped Mass Effect 2 back in last night and couldn’t remember what exactly I was suppose to do. I was inside the Citadel, but that was it. I walked around for a bit, chatting with locals, doing an endorsement for a weapons shop, eventually making my way to a meeting with the Council. After that, I skipped around the galaxy map, landing on the first planet I came across that had the “land” option. Turns out, this place was where I’d be able to recruit a new member for my team. Sah-weet. Good times, even if my Shephard did a not-so-nice thing to a krogan back in Mass Effect.

—

Okay, that’s it. My goal this weekend is to do a ton of comics work and not watch the Super Bowl as I just don’t care, so there might not be much gaming. Eh, I always say that, and there’s always some gaming. Especially now that I want to go on my next recruiting mission in Mass Effect 2 even though I have no idea who to go after next. Must ponder some more.

How have y’all been doing Achievements-wise? Speak up in the comments below. Go ahead. It doesn’t cost a dime.

 

Daggerdale, quest progression, and respawning barrels

I couldn’t really think of a zippy title for today’s post so instead I just listed what I was specifically going to talk about in relation to Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale: quest progression and respawning barrels. One’s more of a problem than the other, but both stick out enough that they get me all grumbly inside, and thus, I’m writing these words in the early hours of the morning.

To start, I’m still on the first main chapter of Daggerdale, where the quest “Rift in the Ruins” asks that my hero, the ever stoic halfling wizard Wiltirn Soldshort (see the 7:45 PM comic for a real zinger from Tara), goes out deeper into the cavern-like dungeon and destroy eight goblin mine shafts. Not a terribly challenging task, but the snag I kept running into was that I would play Daggerdale on my lunch-break, get two or three mine shafts destroyed, and have to stop due to being needed back at work. Naturally, I saved my progress and shut the game off. Upon reloading my save slot later, I had to start the entire quest over from the very beginning. Grrr. Yet, seemingly, everything else saved, such as my character’s level experience, new equipment, gold, skill upgrades, and so on. Just not whatever you’ve done in the current quest. This has happened twice now. So yesterday I made sure to schedule enough time to complete the quest fully so I wouldn’t have to mindlessly murder oodles of goblins yet again.

Moving on…barrels. Daggerdale has them in droves, and they are just asking for you to smash them into bits. Sometimes they contain a healing potion, and sometimes they contain nothing at all. Most of the time they drop a pinch of gold. That’s all well and good until you discover that those numerous barrels you destroyed in the entirety of the underground dwarven city-state of Mumblehall all respawn whenever there’s a cutscene or loading screen or any kind of smallish transition. And, having videogame OCD, I then have to go back around, slashing and stabbing, until all barrels everywhere have spilled their literal guts. It’s sickening and funny and I guess a means to filling up my pouch with gold, but it really doesn’t make that much sense.

It’s an okay hack-and-slash dungeon crawler. The loot is good, but not as interesting as it was in Torchlight, and the action is less chaotic. Maybe that’s a good thing. Going solo as a halfling wizard was probably not the best idea, as my dude gets pounded on constantly when he can’t keep swarms at bay, but whatever. I am a stubborn hobbit in real life, and so it is. I’ll keep going at it for a little longer, especially now that I know a quest needs to be fully completed before I save and shut down for the night. That part was a total mindmess as I kept second-guessing myself, believing that I wasn’t using the save button properly. Nope. That was just Daggerdale, missing its saving throw.

::cymbal hit::

Thank you, thank you!

Wreaking havoc with unique Mojave Wasteland weapons in Fallout: New Vegas

Last week, I received some bad news. Which I misinterpreted greatly. The bad news remained bad news, but now I was all conflicted and confused and mad and angry and depressed with myself as a person, as a Pauly. I felt disgusted and in fear of a public shaming. So, desperate for some kind of comfort, I opened the disc tray for my Xbox 360, removed whatever game was currently in there, and quickly replaced it with Fallout: New Vegas. I needed a little time in the shadow of the valley, so to speak. Tara literally gasped with excitement when she came out to the living room and discovered I was back in the Mojave Wasteland.

At first, I just meandered around, no quests tagged as current, trying to remember who my character was and what he was trying to do. It slowly came back to me: a Mr. House run. But before that could happen, I took care of Boone’s personal sidequest to get him his new armor and such, and then headed back to the strip to begin the lengthy affair that is known as  The House Always Wins quests. I did most of these before during my first playthrough, but switched sides to Yes Man at the very end. You can’t tell from reading a blog post, but I got them shifty eyes. For The House Always Wins, II, the Courier needs to enter a secret bunker within Caesar’s Legion’s main base to turn some Securitrons to the dark side. Easy peasy, really, even with all the radiation creeping in.

Well, after shooting some guard robots in their metallic faces with That Gun, I finally earned this little zinger:

Curios and Relics (15G): Cause 10,000 damage with unique Mojave Wasteland weapons.

Don’t get the above confused with the Master of the Arsenal Achievement, which I popped way back in October 2011. Oh, and I also ticked off a one-star challenge. Woo, progress. Small progress, but still–it’s there.

At this point, now that I’ve unlocked Curios and Relics, I can hop back to using whatever weapon I desire, as I was constantly making a conscious effort to use only unique Mojave Wasteland weapons for as much as possible. That’s not to say I won’t use That Gun again–I will, as it packs a pretty (bullet) punch. But there’s some really nice rifles and shotguns in my inventory collecting digital dust. For The House Always Wins, III, I need to gain the help of the Boomers, which requires a number of mini-quests to earn their loyalty. Can’t wait to use some new weaponry to blow up a bunch of mutated ants.

^_^ will shout at you until you are a smiling fool

I can understand that this blog post’s title might be a little confusing to read, but that’s how it is. Like Prince’s unpronounceable Love Symbol #2, ^_^ is a name that’s easier to type than say outloud. In my mind, I refer to it as Smiley Face or The Wererabbit, but your mileage may vary. However you want to say it can be argued this way and that, but one thing is clear: y’all need to play this.

I discovered ^_^–and subsequently further work by Ben Chandler–from the Gnome’s Lair blog, which focuses its coverage heavily on point-and-click adventure games, a genre that I’ve been enjoying more and more thanks to my recent times with Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Initially, I was attracted to ^_^ by a single screenshot, which, almost immediately, made me want to click on everything, from the cart to the crow to the coatrack. Turns out that single screenshot makes up the entire space of the game, so it’s a relief that it is simply gorgeous. The lighting on the grass from the lamp is worth noting.

So, Julian is a wererabbit–the first of his kind, too–but wasn’t always that way. He’s trying to get a witch to help change him back, but first, he must retrieve her hair, which keeps running away from her. Also, there’s a verbally-challenged vampire and enough jazzy records to keep one from selling their ol’ gramophone for one of them newfangled cee-dee players. Yeah, it’s kind of weird and random, but cohesively sound, with a clear goal to achieve. Puzzles involve a lot of clicking and dialogue options and using the right item from your inventory at the right time and place. Standard adventure game stuff, but it’s all very charming here. My favorite running gag within ^_^ is all the shouting, which also nicely plays a pivotal part in getting that magical hair back to its master. The small addition of a screen shake each time is quite effective.

I played for about an hour last night, getting stuck a couple of times. ^_^ is no walk in the park, or a walk outside a witch’s house at that. Trial and error will get you there, as well as paying attention to how the game operates early on. Generally, if Julian uses a certain trick to advance the plot, he’ll do it at least once more before credits roll. Oh, and speaking of credits, Chandler handles them as nothing more than in-game dialogue, which I found pretty amusing and appropriate. After that, the game ends. It literally shuts itself down, leaving you left to stare at whatever image is gracing your desktop, heartstrings tugging for just one more thing to click on.

^_^ is a charming short story, with many moments worth remembering. The graphics and animations are surreal and surpass many quote-unquote professional games of the same ilk, and the funny moments are genuinely funny. Play it for the vampire tongue-twisters and all the shouting and the revelation from where the game gets name. Play it because it’s freeware, but made with skill and style. Play it.

Playing the Ludum Dare 22 Winners, #8 – Locked Away

Next on our list of top dog Ludum Dare 22 creations is a mostly vertical platformer called Locked Away. Made by MoltenMustafa, it starts out strong, asking the player to choose a color before a difficulty setting. I really liked that, and I went with green and Easy for my first run. We then get some side-scrolling text: They locked me away in here. On Christmas day. All alone. Poor kid. And with that, we’re plopped into the game, ready to make our little lonely avatar climb to the top of the map while avoiding enemies. The graphics are retro and crisp, and the controls and movement speed of the avatar is surprisingly fast and responsive. Touching an enemy kills you, bringing you back to an unannounced checkpoint–all of which happens in the blink of an eye. That helps to keep one playing as you can just keep trying to make that jump up until you get it.

Easy is definitely easy. You learn some of the game’s tricks here, like how to time jumps and hit semi-hidden platforms to open up a new path. It doesn’t take terribly long to get to the end of the map. Normal difficulty, however, proved to be problematic for me; I ended up getting stuck between two platforms of moving enemies and just couldn’t squeeze by them without getting hit. I decided to try Hard out, sticking with the good ol’ green, and this time, you’re falling, trying to avoid hitting obstacles. Kind of like in ‘Splosion Man. You basically have to learn where everything is and memorize it; beating Hard got me an end game screen, which had a house and present box on it, but these were upside-down. Not sure if that was intended or some faulty coding

So yeah, I beat Easy and Hard, but can’t get past one part in Normal. Go figure. Y’all should play it though as it is quick and enjoyable, with tight controls. Just remember to choose green as your color. Green is the only way to play.