The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I don’t do these very often anymore, but it’s the fourth of July and I kind of want to talk about it, so, you know. Let’s talk about the Operation Patriot Shield.

I’m rather enjoying it.

Normally I enjoy items that give me more content or jokes or entertain me or something of that nature. I’m not normally one for an item which such a pure benefit to stats and whatnot, but man, there’s just no hiding the fact that this shield is the Bee’s Knees. (I should be scared of those knees, since I’m still in Bees Hate You.) It just completely smooths gameplay. The shield throw is so useful you’re going to use it every fight, and it’ll always be useful in said fight. A one-turn stun, which might let a familiar get a free action, followed by a free crit is amazingly useful for taking on enemies you may not be able to handle otherwise. I’ve been equipping it with my Haiku Katana, so now I have two assured crits a fight, if I want them. This has been a lifesaver in Bees Hate You, as I’m now on the battlefield, where I have to lose tons of HP to Bee attacks every fight, and this assures I can still kill people.

I’m also just surprised that the simplicity of “different enchantments per class” hasn’t been used before. Most of them seem fairly useful for the class, too! Though I would probably want the Clubber’s enchantments when a Turtle Tamer, and the Disco Bandit’s when I’m an Accordion Thief. Then again, I suppose it gives me a reason to use Sing, so that might be worthwhile anyway. Either way, the class enchantments are all useful, and lend it a bit of variety, though the main use of +stats and the stun sticks around either way, so, you know, it’s only for a bit of flavor, I suppose.

Seriously, though, this reminds me of how excited I was about the stupid Pokemann Band-Aids that my pen pal keeps sending me. I started saying “fuck it” and using them, and having all that constant healing really picked my game up and made it more fun for me. It let me keep going, as these days I tend to just stop playing once I run out of VIP hot tub uses. Heh. I play the game out of habit, nostalgia, and wanting to keep up with the new stuff. I’m far, far beyond playing it for any level of challenge. This shield makes the game fun and easy, which I appreciate more and more. I’m never going to turn down more content, but I think that this is a pretty solid item. It’s certainly better than the Pilgrim Shield, which I guess this is supposed to be a replacement for. Well, I think it’s better. Shield throw. Fuck yeah.

I remember a time when I used to review Items of the Month! That was a time when I had less of a problem playing my turns every day, so that I could actually get around to trying out the items at a decent time. This isn’t happening anymore! Thus, especially with KoL, I have no idea what some of the IoTMs I bought do until months and months after, mostly because I am still insistent on doing 100% familiar runs. Thus, these reviews have fallen a bit to the side.

But I kind of wanted to talk about the Mini-Hipster. I’ve been using mine during this current KoL run that I’ve been working on, off and on, and he just really surprises me. At first glance, he’s kind of one of those “jack of all trades” familiars, which do all kinds of random shit all the time and I generally enjoy. He has the free combats tacked on to make him interesting to people who don’t just like cool shit, but he’s mostly just a familiar that does cool shit.

But when the Mini-Hipster single-handedly one-shots the Bonerdagon, well, I have to wonder what is up.

Seriously, the attack damage of the Hipster’s attacks is insane. I’m at a point in my run where I am doing maybe 50 damage with a regular attack, if I’m lucky, and the Hipster is doing 200-300 damage every time it decides to do an attack action. Of course, one of it’s attacks is Hot-Based, which is how it managed to take out the Bonerdagon with ease. I will admit that a dedicated attack familiar would probably do that much damage, if not more, over the course of a battle, but a dedicated attack familiar would not also be healing me and giving me lots of stats like the Hipster does. It just seems crazy.

I’m sure it’s not as crazy as I’m making it out to be, of course. It is a fairly rare action, so you can’t depend on it, and the first action the Hipster takes is always a stat-up action, I believe, so you have to be able to survive at least one hit, if not two, if you’re going to get lucky with it. No serious speed-runner would ever actually care about it. They’d just want the free combats against scaling monsters for free stats. Still, it feels like something is broken each time the hipster lazily shakes greasy hair sweat towards an enemy and it does 5 times the damage of my normal attack in sleaziness. I suppose that’s kind of the benefit of using Mr. Store stuff, though. It’s supposed to make you feel powerful, or like you’re getting away with something cool. I can’t say that isn’t why I pick them up. But normally there’s a sense of balance around them, or a sense of what it’s doing that’s powerful being very tied-in to the general theme or whatnot of the item. I don’t see that with these attacks. They strike me as odd.

I’m still going to enjoy the free kills but, yeah. Odd.

This is the first month in awhile I think I’m skipping both IoTMs. I mean, in general, the Juju Mojo Mask seems like a fairly useful item, but it just doesn’t seem like an item that’s going to get involved with how I play.

Unsurprisingly, this is an accessory with great stats. Anything that says “+2 Stats” is probably going to be relevant. On top of that, you can further tune it to get more stats in Moxie, Muscle, or Mysticality by setting up the various buffs the Mask can get you. It’s pretty all-around stat-tastic. This is why it’s powerful, if anything. The various Mask buffs also do some very nice side-benefits, but setting them up is kind of why I can’t get too excited about the mask.

Basically, for each one, you have to trigger them by doing a particular thing. For Mysticality, you cast a spell. For Muscle, you do a non-spell special move. For Moxie, you use a combat item. These seem fairly simple. These are the sorts of things that people playing seriously do all the time. These are almost trivial in that regard. However, I don’t play like that. I don’t use spells and moves and items anywhere near as much as I could or should. One might say that this would get me to go ahead and use these things. Yeah, that might be. It would certainly work if I was being rewarded with coolness for doing so. However, this is just awarding me with more base power. Again, useful as fuck, but that’s not why I buy these items. Okay, not why I buy them primarily. I want the coolness factor. I’m not feeling it from this.

I mean, this seems like a solid IoTM. Equipment is always of limited use, because it can’t be used in Hardcore. As such, I dunno, I tend to assume that equipment is going to be super-fantastically fun. This is powerful, but seems less fun than I desire. I’m sure most would probably be fine with owning one of these. Me, I’ll sit this month out.

I don’t think I really get this month’s Twilight Heroes IoTM.

Seppia’s cephalopod skullcap is a bunch of nice enchantments, but at the same time, extremely situational in it’s “cool” factor.
It’s main “cool” benefits are being a SQUID disc player and letting you breath underwater. There just aren’t that many underwater zones for that to be completely useful, though, and since it doesn’t seem to give any bonuses to SQUID discs (Maybe it does, but I’m not seeing anything about it on the wiki and I haven’t heard anything about it) and you don’t run around with a SQUID player equipped anyway, I don’t see that as much of a bonus.

There’s no doubt that the additional ice damage, a bit of -time, and PP regeneration are all great, though. I mean, those are powerful. But… well… it’s boring powerful. Those might be better than other hats. In fact, I would say that, yes, those benefits are better than most other hats in most situations. It’s certainly the best PP regeneration on a helmet, and while not as good as the -time on the xentrium helm, it’s got the other benefits, so it works out.

It’s just that those things aren’t flashy. I’m not an optimal player. I don’t want bleeding edge. I want cool things. There was an attempt to put interesting flavor on this useful bundle of enchantments, certainly, but that flavor just doesn’t come into play enough. I hope there are people who enjoy the benefits of this, certainly, but I just can’t really get excited by it. Oh well. So it goes.

Normally, I review all the IoTMs every month. I do this because, I dunno, I’m thinking about them, and it takes up a day, and whatever, it’s fun. However, in KoL, I have, recently, always been in a Hardcore Oxy 100% Familiar run when they come out. Therefore, I don’t often get to try them out until after the month is over, and I’m mostly just working from the data I have about the item on whether or not I think it’s cool.

Well, let’s just say that the rogue program is very cool from a flavor standpoint, but I don’t really get the entire gist of what it does. As a familiar, though, I totally get it. It’s a Starfish that also acts as a potato when you equip it’s familiar equipment. This is something I am totally behind. Mostly because it’s hard not to be excited about anything good which has potato functionality.

The rogue program is a June Super-Content Familiar, so it gives you super-content. In this case, it gives you access to the Game Grid arcade by giving you tokens, which you can use to play various video games. These games are little mini-games which, if played well, give you tickets. You can use these tickets to buy a wide variety of items, including a coffee pixie stick, which is the now-required spleen-for-adventures item in these things. The other items seem pretty cool, too. I could see people getting into the Superduperball, since it just flat-out gives you stats. Could sell for a lot so that crazy rich people could level up without actually spending turns… but, of course, it’s untradable, which kind of kills that idea. The spider ring has a deleveler you can use for free once per combat, which is nice. The finger cuffs are a simple stunner which is always useful to have around. There are a bunch of hats that train different stats, which is always cool. The top prizes are a really good ranged weapon and access to a new chat channel, both of which are fine long-term goals.

To buy these things, though, you need to earn tickets. You do these by playing games, and here is where the part about me not being able to play this content yet screws me. I can’t really determine how cool these games are without playing them. Trust me, I’ve tried! I bet they’re awesome, too. Actually, I have little doubt they are. But I can’t really make vague suggestions about which ones to play or whatever that probably aren’t useful without actually playing them. I guess this is where this “review” falls short.

Still, super content! In a familiar! Which gives you MP and potatoes! And is also a Tron reference! Seems like a no brainer, right? Right? Maybe?

I hear work is being done on Retcon for Twilight Heroes. This is top of exciting! It really is. I can’t wait to play through the game a few times like that. It’ll be fantastic. However, we’re still in a pre-retcon environment at the moment, and that means that IoTMs like the n-barreled shotgun are a bit harder sell. It’s an IoTM designed to level up with you, and to be useful in all sections of the game as you go along. However, since the only section of the game that exists for me at this point is the endgame, it’s hard to get all that excited about it? IoTMs like the insanely super XL bowl have similar issues, since they’re only cool in a world where you actually switch character classes on a semi-regular basis. The bowl had the added benefit of being completely hilarious, though, which made me really like it.

The n-barreled shotgun is less hilarious, but still an interesting concept, and it seems solid. +XP just seems like something that’s always going to get those eventual speed-runners excited, and the fact that it can do two types of damage, depending on setting, is something that will hopefully come into play. The top version is no slouch either, which means it should work through the whole storyline thing, though perhaps not competing with the super-high-level stuff. It’s a functional, solid weapon.

However, I have to wonder if I would ever pick this over the GigaGuy Cannon. That gives me access to it’s moves, some of which are really good, but more importantly, it lets me pick up all the healing items. I like healing items. Right now, when I have a billion of them, it’s not important, but in a retcon environment, I wonder if I wouldn’t just use the GigaGuy Cannon until I get really high in level, so I could stockpile those. Still, that’s a personal preference for someone who values healing and defense above everything else, and also, you know, maybe you don’t have a GigaGuy Cannon. If so, I’m sure the shotgun will work great, if you’re wanting an IoTM ranged weapon.

I can’t wait until retcon so I can make more effective value judgments, though. Also, so I can play through all the retcon content, and all the old content again. Excitement!

Hello. There’s a new IoTM in town. The town of Twilight. That item is the A.R.F. VIP Card.

Basically, if I wanted to be all minimalist or whatever in my description, I would say that this is the TH version of the June Super-content familiar in KoL. This opens up a big zone with lots of little goals and little puzzles to deal with, and it’s actually rather neat. It can either be used to give you a wide variety of buffs, or you can work slowly but surely to collect various scripts, combining them into other scripts, and then using them with Silver comPutty to make some really cool equipment. None of them are going to set the world on fire, perse. None of them are as good as other IoTMs or whatnot. But they’re all quite useful in their own right, and it’s just cool to collect things, yes?
Again, it’s all about long-term goals, and this thing has them. It’d take quite awhile to assemble all of those items. Granted, you do get 20 uses of the A.R.F. a day, but that’s still awhile to collect all of those, since you need to grab degaussers between each fight to collect the scripts.

Finally, of course, is the fact that this item is, much like those content familiars, open to all. Anyone can ask to trade for some A.R.F. passes and get in there. However, unlike a lot of the super-content familiar stuff, you’d need a much bigger stack of these passes. I think this is a good thing. Anyone can experience the content, but it also will create, eventually, at least, an additional market for the passes. One could imagine, anyway.
Erm, well, I checked the auction house, and the auctions are for like… stacks of 50-100, and not that expensive, so maybe I’m wrong there. Oh well. Still, it’s nice that all this solid content isn’t locked out.

Anyway, I think the A.R.F. card is good stuff. I really need to put more time into it myself, and really see everything. The fact that I need to do that is a good thing, I think. This gets my seal of approval. Not that you ever thought it didn’t, I suppose.

Hey, look, it’s a hat you can put a familiar in.

I really like this. Mostly because it’s this huge, customizable thing you can do so much with. There’s plenty of cool messages based on the tons of familiars you can put in there, and plenty of effects to choose from that are nothing to sneeze at. If you’re sort of more optimal than me, being able to give the familiar in the hat some experience could also be a very nice thing, if it’s a familiar you only need to use every few turns or whatnot. Though, of course, the bonuses for those familiars (Say, the Llama Lama and the Green Pixie) are really low, so it’s a little harder of a sell, I suppose.

Still, compare this to, say, the movable feast. This is just a much more fun way of leveling up familiars. Is it as effective? I dunno. I had 0 interest in said Feast, and never got one. I bet that would be faster, and you wouldn’t be using your hat slot, which might be better in a lot of situations. But the Crown of Thrones is more entertaining, a cooler idea, and has more stuff for me to see, which makes it a completely better in every way kind of item. I really like it, and I can’t wait to really get to give it a go.

Basically, I feel this is completely worth it. It’s totally neat. It has the flavor and effects that I want from an IoTM. Huzzah!

Finally, I get to stop using my stocking mimic and use something new in the familiar department. What new would that be? Why, it’s this month’s IoTM, of course! The Baby Bugged Bugbear!

If you even look at the page, you’ll see why I quite like the Baby Bugged Bugbear. I enjoy kitchen sink familiars that do a wide variety of things and are constantly messing with combat and making things different. The Baby Bugged Bugbear fits this perfectly. It switches at random between Leprechaun, Ghuol Whelp, Fairy, and Volleyball, as well as gives you “bugged” items and sometimes fiddles with combat in weird ways. I’m especially glad it gets the Ghuol Whelp in there, as that’s an easy way to make me like something.

It’s also just really flavorful and cool. The general concept of a familiar being completely broken and constantly throwing up php errors, and that being it’s power, is just kind of completely awesome. It’s entertaining, and that is mucho important to me. That’s what I like out of stuff like this. I get IoTMs to increase my entertainment as I keep working through the game.

On top of it all, the familiar equipment lets people who care about tuning their familiars tune it to do more specific sorts of actions. You can make it act like a Fairy or Volley full time, if you’d like, although you have to zap the equipment to turn it into the full fairy version. This is cool for people who care about such things, but I don’t. I do, however, want to run for awhile in full fairy, because it has different bugged equipment drops when you have it set up that way, and I want them! I mean, there’s a container in there! That’s just neat!

Yeah, I think that the Bugged Bugbear is kind of a home run. This is pretty well exactly what I want from a familiar, and it doesn’t seem to be completely useless speed-wise, either. (By that I mean, you aren’t completely handicapping yourself by using it. I kind of doubt it’s going to end up being part of any serious speed run strategy, but eh, I know nothing of such things, so maybe I’m wrong.) I’m going to enjoy using it for this run, I think. It’s good stuff.

In Twilight Heroes, the IoTM this month is Gwneuthurwr Deganau’s hunllef puzzle. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Luckily, I don’t have to, because this is text. Probably luckily for the game, too.

In any case, this is another in a now-series of items which do a lot of random, color changing effects, such as the Amazing Technicolor Dreampants and the Prismatic Sports Bra. I have, in the past, very much liked these items. I enjoy a bit of randomness in my combat, and I enjoy feeling minorly rewarded every combat with the various effects. I also like the idea of wearing clothing that changes all kinds of crazy colors constantly. So I’ve liked the previous items.

However, this puzzles doesn’t have the benefit of being an article of clothing, which, conceptually, excites me less? This is a stupid reason, I guess, but really, I love those other two items, and have basically kept them equipped since I got them, because I enjoy the idea of wearing crazy clothing while being a superhero. The benefits are nice too, but I can get more static benefits which would probably help me more overall. It’s the flavor that makes me like them. I can imagine me jumping between rooftops, having the most horrible colors of clothing on, and general baffling enemies with it.

The puzzle also has some nice effects, (though some of them still aren’t spaded as of this writing and I honestly have no idea) but it also fills an accessory slot. This is a bigger issue than a shirt or pants for me, too, as those accessory slots are the biggest sources of +item that I have in Wolley’s Index and the Mask of Odysseus. Having to unequip one of those for the cube really makes this a much harder sell for me. I like my item find, especially since, until some sort of ascension-ish mechanic is brought into the game, getting items is the key benefit of playing. Normally, wanting randomness would be a no-brainer, but when you’re hitting that key buff, it’s a tough choice for me.

There’s nothing wrong with the puzzle (no, I’m not typing the name out again) but I find myself unable to be too excited about it. If you didn’t get the previous prismatic items, you might find a lot more fun in this one, and I admit I do get some pleasure out of having THREE prismatic messages filling up the screen during every combat. It doesn’t have me hopping up and down, though. It’s solid, but it just is.