Ketchup

44 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

As above if they enjoyed it that sounds like fun. 
 

If you had loot on board that you don’t want to lose and (from what you described) you had a bit of a gap between you both then head for the nearest outpost, do an emergency stop and hotfoot the loot to the sovereigns to sell it quick. Then hop back in the boat or entice them onto the outpost for a ruck. 
 

This is the thing. I’m hostile waters you do have to be on your game to avoid conflict but it is possible. It’s easy to ignore the wind or leave the ship unmanned without checking the horizons first but to do this can lead to pain. You just have to acknowledge it as a learning experience and move on. 
 

I think a tall take might be the best way to get into some fun stuff or a vault quest from the fold hoarders. Or just head for any sort of glowing thing on the map and just see what’s going on. Whilst keeping an eye out for scoundrels of course. 
 

 

Yeah I’m glad they enjoyed it but as a first time experience I think it was pretty poor and could have gone worse. In the end we did go to an outpost but again as first time players telling them ‘go to the spooky woman’ means nothing to them and showing them in this situation wasn’t really possible (another bugbear of mine is that outposts don’t have hud elements showing where each place is).

Ive played this game a lot so I know it’s not sea of friends and it’s why I want to give them a positive first experience so they do want to play more rather than what ultimately stopped me playing it, aimlessly wandering the oceans for loot or shiny things in the sky, spending 2 hours doing this and achieving very little or getting destroyed by a random boat that happened to see you in the distance and making those hours feel like a huge waste of time.

Ill take a look at tall tales though and hopefully that gives us a suitable quest where we can feel accomplished whilst they learn the ropes.

Last time I played this was when the Jack sparrow stuff came out and now I’ve got some friends who’ve never played it wanting to give it a try.

But I don’t know where to begin to show them the best time?

We tried the other night, just doing a simple quest that had a simple riddle and chest hunt. That bit was fine until we came across a two person boat who chased us for over an hour. For me it was fecking dull and annoying. We managed to escape them a couple of times till we screwed up and they were right on us again. Everyone else enjoyed it but I hated every moment as this other crew gained nothing from chasing and shooting at us and I knew as mostly new players we wouldn’t be able to defeat them and that would have meant we couldn’t complete a simple mission.

I remember once doing a really fun quest where you had to look to the stars and follow multiple maps to reach a final captain fight, it was inventive and clever.

So to repeat the question again, what’s the best way to show new players this game without spending hours not really achieving anything? I want to do something a bit more structured with them than just sailing at random and probably coming across other boats that are just out to harass.

Don’t worry, it’s just a card game

The problem with you trying to play these old games is you’ve played superior follow ups. I adored Zelda Lttp when I played it on the snes mini yet at the same time all those music ques, puzzles, set pieces etc I’d already experienced in Zelda OoT which was my first Zelda experience so 1) I relate them to that and 2) I’d already figured those things out before.

Then there’s how games now (mostly) respect your time. Play a Sonic game now and you’re lucky if you play a level more than once. But with the original 2D versions you’d end up playing, especially those early levels, then a lot. You’d get good at Green Hill Zone, find all the routes and secrets. That’s what made it great. But now it’s tough to get half way through a game and die and have the energy to want to do all that stuff again. Playing with save states and rewinds can help reduce the frustration, I loved playing through FF7 recently with fast speed and invincibility when I didn’t want to spend hours grinding for a boss or having to redo a boss fight. Yet at the same time you do miss out on that experience of really getting to know a game.

There definitely are plenty of old games that were fun at the time but now there’s better games to play. And others like Mario World that has a hardcore fan base but feels a little flat coming to it after playing so much other Mario. I love Mario bros 3 but I’ve always had difficulty getting into World. Find the games you enjoy and don’t worry if others say Gunstar Heroes is the best thing ever and you hate it, like me it may just not be the game for you.

Firstly, i've launched many kickstarters and have a fanbase already but the board game world is pretty alien to me so i'd love some tips or advice for launching a board/card game in this area.

Is there anywhere i should be posting to, to get further fans/engagement from people who don't know the brand but would be interested? Is there communities i should be a part of to share our journey to? Is there key aspects or key details people except to see that other kickstarters wouldn't bother with.

I hope to launch a kickstarter for a card game in the future but want to try and seed some stuff now and be visible in front of people who don't know me but may be interested in my game but as i say this area is not one im too involved in currently.

9 hours ago, bankies said:

This thread made me get my matt black 360 slim 4Gb + 500Gb HD down from the loft after 2 years in storage for some Forza 4 and NFS MW!

 

Not sure I want to go down the 360 wheel route as I tried it years ago and couldn't get on with it but I could desk mount it now...

 

All working apart from 3 official rechargeable batteries which all seem to have died and wont charge in the dock. Any way to revive them or an alternative that would charge in the dock?

 

If you crack them open they’re literally just rechargeable AA batteries inside. There is a way to ‘reset’ them, something about how you touch the ends but most likely they’re just dead at this point.

11 hours ago, Jamie John said:

I've come back to this after a break and am bang into it now, unravelling the mystery one thread at a time and having a wonderful time exploring. I do sometimes think, however, that the time limit gets in the way of the exploration, which can be irritating and forces you to rush. Case in point, question re. Dark Bramble:

 

  Hide contents

I've found the escape pod, which then led me to the 'seed' portal that I've fired my scout into. I get that you have to then go to where the scout is to find the vessel, but I keep getting eaten by the stupid angler fish. I understand that you have to turn your engines off and move slowly by them so as not to attract their attention (I think, anyway), but is there a quicker way to get to where the scout lands without having to first find the escape pod, then the seed, then firing your scout, etc., navigating the angler fish all the while?

 

It's the same with the Sunless City in Ember Hollow. I understand that you have to follow the path through the cave maze to get there, but having to do it each time is a pain, especially when you're on a time limit anyway because of the sand.

 

Also, is there a watch or a timer or something that I've completely overlooked which tells you how long on the current loop you have left?

Answers to your questions.

Yes that’s exactly what I’m going for. Those classic Mario party one player must pick a player to steal something from which just ends up in rivalry.

Thanks, will defo get some prototypes made to try out.

I enjoyed Olympus has fallen a lot, the sequels less so and so I was hoping this would be a bit like Olympus.

Its alright, and yeah it’s silly action for the most part but I wish a few of the dialogue choices and maybe scene moments had been better.

The plane coming in for a crash landing, fine but the way it was handled just seemed really dumb. The fact the airline was doing the whole search and rescue mission also seemed really odd. I don’t think you’d have even had to change much just make the things they’re doing seem a little more realistic and less corny and it’s have just made for a better film.

When I talk about mainstream I guess I am talking about the meta verse or Ready player one style that a few companies seem to be betting the farm on VR becoming.

I think VR will always have a place, similar to Rock Band or a plastic gun and probably more popular than either of those too but it’ll never be THE console you own as your only or main gaming experience.

I've just completed Half Life Alyx. A fantastic VR experience but one which has made me realise VR will never be mainstream for a few reasons, and thats even thinking that the tech will get better.

1. VR requires effort. I've played a lot of VR on PSVR and the Quest 2 but they're all short 30 min (ish) experiences and they've been great. But playing Half life was fatiguing trying to stand and move for hours. Remember Kinect and people moaning they just wanted to sit and not wave their arms around? Yes, that.

2. The headsets may get smaller but you're still having to enclose your face. Want to rub your eyes, you can't as the most basic example. The worst i've experienced though is just trying to get the Quest to do stuff. Want to login to meta? Okay do stuff on the quest, now you need to do it on your phone, oh there is an update so im stuck in a black screen. Even worse i've had issues where the quest just stays stuck in pass through mode, no menus will pop up and it requires multiple reboots to get it to work. Sure, a software issues, but the quest has multiple reasons it wants you to do things off headset and its just such a pain.

3. In game issues, now PSVR solved more of these than quest but there is still times where hands don't work how they should, the camera brings you to close to things (eg. HL:A climbing ladders felt like i was running my face up against the rungs), loading screens that just dump you into pitch darkness with no feedback.

4. There will always be a disconnect between real life actions and the virtual ones. I've seen those gloves with motors in which look cool to maker your hands respond to shapes but if i put my hand on a wall in VR i can't actually push against it no matter how real it seems when the controller vibrates and the hand on screen stops moving. That's one thing i don't think can ever be solved.

As it is i think VR is great for short experiences and whilst i loved my time with HL:A i couldn't play it and relax. I had to move a lot, if it was late at night then tired eyes just made the visuals harder to read and the quest was such a faff trying to play wirelessly at times. Having a wire solves this latter one but then is something to get in the way. So if you're playing beat sabre or a fitness app then i truely believe VR is great, it gives you experiences a bit like the wiimote that you couldn't get any other way. But that's also its limitation on ever going mainstream, it'll always be a gimmick, a very good one, but thinking about the imaginery future tech there is still lots of things that'll never be solved or feel quite right and i think thats a huge block to VR ever being mainstream.

Got back into this again but i always seem to hit a roadblock at some point. City is growing fine, traffic is fine and then bam, no one else wants to move in, traffic maybe around 80% so clearly a problem or two to fix but nothing major. But because no one else wants to move in i can't create new areas, well i can, but no one wants to move there. Looking at the above city which makes me feel like i have zero imagination, perhaps im trying to play this too much like old Sim City, filling every single possible square with buildings and instead should make smaller areas?

It was always the rumour to the slot leading up to launch. Isn’t there also a 68000 in the Saturn as well? It is incredibly dumb they didn’t allow backwards compatibility with the mega drive and it probably would have helped the Saturn a lot especially with its price point at launch.

I'm working on my very first card game that i plan to launch as a kickstarter later in the year. I'm not a very big game player and im aiming this at the more casual market so im still learning and figuring out how to make it all work.

With that in mind, what do you wish you knew before making your own game that you know now?

How did you play test your game, with just friends or did you go to shows and get as many people trying as possible? Where did you fail? Where did you succeed? What pitfalls do you now know to avoid. How did you gain useful feedback, compared to people wanting to tailor the game to what only they enjoy?

Also if you have any manufacturers you can recommend im all ears.

Wii version does everything right except the controls. You had to tilt them to set your height. Do you also know what else happens when you shake Wiimotes? You tilt them. So you could never be 100% accurate. If they made it so you locked in tilts by holding a button it could have worked well, but they didn’t and it doesn’t.

Maybe worth it for a fiver.

Just did control and seriously that was tough...on Agent. I've breezed through every other level on Agent and a few on Secret and 00 but this one i died many times, Natalia died many times when one random enemy would just unload a whole clip into her in an instant. Guards constantly respawn and i don't know how i'll ever do it on secret or 00. On the N64 i managed to do it on 00 so here's hoping its as difficult as agent with just more stuff to do cos otherwise it's a huge difficulty spike that i don't remember it being before.

There is a tonne of stuff. Now when you say exclusive many Dreamcast games got ports but they’re generally also on consoles that are difficult or expensive to get or the port is just worst.

I’m so glad this is back on modern consoles and the Xbox control scheme works brilliantly.

It’s nice going back to a game where you have to figure out the objectives. The levels are small enough that it’s not frustrating and takes me back to the days of chatting with friends at school about it.

One thing I don’t remember is some multiplayer levels only being for 2-3 players. That seems so strange to lock off bunker and archives which are fun maps and I guess I must of played a lot of 3 player to remember them so vividly. I did at the time have a GameShark that I only bought because I couldn’t do the facility target time (although on Xbox I did it in my 5th try thanks to seeing some videos on how to do it with so tricks) and that did mean I got access to more multiplayer maps. Some were not great in terms of frame rate but let’s be honest most the time multiplayer especially with rockets the frame rate tanked and it was exhilarating to do that as everything exploded and slowed to a crawl.

I only wish it had online on Xbox, as well as the 360 port they were making because I miss fps multiplayer where you can be shot and still run away from a fight instead of every game being like cod and you dying before you even have an idea of what direction it’s from.

Why did it take 25 years to get this off the N64 in the first place? It was a classic then and still is great now.

Go to the moon that orbits the starting planet first. I think that’s a good introduction to flying, the mystery and how to move around fairly safely.

There’s the Dreamcast one and I want to say Sonic one that plays the song from Sonic R.

Got Saturn emulation set up on the steam deck and thought I’d give Burning Rangers a go. Now I’ve owned this game for years after buying a copy off here but ever played more than the intro with the intention to always go back and play it properly.

Not sure that’ll happen now but I got through the first level and it’s an interesting game. I knew it pushed the Saturn graphically and has quite a few unique ideas but the controls and especially the camera are difficult to deal with in this day and age.

What does everyone else think of it?

Yet barcades like NQ64 are going from strength to strength. Traditional arcades just don’t work anymore but add a bar and some snacks and all of a sudden you have a place people want to spend time and money in.

If anyone has earlier issues of RG (anything issues 1-50) I’ll take them off your hands.

There was a proper port which wasn’t working out and for some reason, Sega being Sega, they were working on a PC port anyways and decided to quickly port that over to have something ready for near launch. They didn’t learn their lesson from Daytona on the Saturn and Segas pc releases have always been a bit strange and a little counter productive for the time.

If they’d actually made a proper port with the time and team required it could have easily done a faithful adaptation, but what we did get wasn’t actually the worst and does have a rather chunky single player mode.