May 6, 2008

SMILES GO FOR MILES; or I am a Heart Who Likes Silly Games

So I tried sleeping in today, for the first time in a long while… it didn’t really work well, and I had half-dreams about both meeting and being the Doctor at the same time (“Hi, I’m the Doctor.” “No, I’m the Doctor!”) and then I finally got out of bed and I was all cranky and moody. Oh well, I’ll get back into the “sleeping in” swing of thing soon enough, I suppose.

I also hit another hard boss in my Pokemon Kiddy Roguelike 2: Electric-type Boogaloo which really is frustrating me because I think I have about the worst possible party for the boss. It’s this swarm of Shinx, and my party is a Water-type, who dies the moment any of them use Spark, and me,  Pikachu, who can’t use my good attacks but they “aren’t very effective” against other electric types. I got raped, and I haven’t had the heart to get back in and try again yet. Seriously, it’s a good thing I’m playing the easiest of the easy roguelikes, huh? I’m having a ton of fun in general, and after I play a little more, I’d like to try the dungeon that plays like an ACTUAL roguelike (no starting items, you start at level one, see how far you can go), just to see how I do.

So today is apparently Ryme’s birthday in Twilight Heroes, and he sent me an energy drink! Well, okay, he sent ALL players an energy drink, but he was in chat last night and we talked. Sort of. Ryme’s a cool guy. So I wanted to do something for his birthday but, I mean, hell, he doesn’t need in-game items here or probably in KoL, since he’s been playing for longer than I have… so I decided donating would be the best gift, and picked me up a VHF-1 Fighter. I wasn’t PLANNING on getting one? It has a zillion functions, but the only one I’m going to use is that it’s a slightly buffed up Lexura Infinides that can fly. I didn’t really need it. But I was feeling generous, and just like with the Dreampants, I know I can flip it later on for huge profits if I get really annoyed at it. But I bet I won’t. The Dreampants didn’t wow me, but the more I wore them the more awesome the idea of me wearing these crazy pants was, so I’m keeping them. I don’t see any reason why this won’t be the same way, unless he obsoletes it with a vehicle that, I dunno, does something Heart-y and awesome.
As much of a heart as I am, though, I find myself being stingy with my chips, due to Operation Farm Me An Empty Picture Frame Since I Have Nothing Better In-Game To Do, which is probably a bad thing. I mean, it’s just virtual money, and it’s fun to give stuff away and help people out. Plus, said Operation has been going pretty well, actually. I’m up to 9 Silver Stars. That’s 36 percent of the way there, apparently! So I’ve been trying to send more chips Kinks way, to keep Twilight Buffs working… I appreciate your hits of Snout of the Swine, Kinks! I hope my meager contributions at least cover the cost of me using your service.

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these sorts of Browser RPG mechanics, especially when seeing Soul Raver get more and more… actually made… and it just makes me wish I could make Small Souls. I think I wrote a basic concept of it back a bit ago… say… in this post, yeah. But since then I’ve refined it a whole lot more. I know the basic mechanics of attacking and conversing, all based on a deck of “memes” or “phrases” or “some term I haven’t thought of yet.” So you’d have a card called “Yes.” This would let you, basically, agree with people in conversation sequences, but, like all of these, it would have a use in combat as well, doing something… yes-like… Perhaps a celebratory shout buff. You’d have a card called “No” that would work the same way. Disagree in conversation and perhaps stop an enemy from attacking from a term. And so on and so forth… I also have the idea of a whole mechanic like the time-travel mechanic in Shadow of Destiny sort of, where you could basically repeat quests and stuff by going back in time and trying again. This would give the game longevity because you could retry things from every angle, etc, but I assume it would be hard to program, because every major quest starting would make a time point you could jump back to but not jump back from… and the game would have to be able to basically only undo everything you’ve done since that time point, but not everything you did before it… that would be tough. But it would be worth it, I think. You’d lose levels but not items, basically, so by smart application of level minimums for item equips, I could keep the game balanced…
I don’t know, it’s all such a cool idea to me. But I should really stick with projects I believe in and can actually create with skills I have now, like Role-Playing and the podcast version of that… I can do that if I dedicate myself. And I’m going to this summer, dammit! Yeah.

Also, I continue to hear the siren call of GTA4. I wasn’t interested until EVERYTHING ON 1UP talked about how the good part was the story and not the wanton boring destruction, and people talking like “I never played a GTA before, but I played this and the story really drew me in! It’s great!” I could be that person, who never played a GTA before and had tons and tons of fun! Eh, I’m basically accepted I’m going to pick it up sometime, though I wish I’d wait for a price drop or a coupon or SOMETHING. Give me strength!

Well, I guess I best go to work now. Everyone quit during the dark times of no hours, so we’re severely lacking in people. However, tonight, at least, is a very small ad, so I should be back at a decent hour. Hopefully.

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