>>3982567
If you think about it, the post Undertale Yellow fangames are the real next generation of fangames, the first generiation being all of those before UTY, which mostly consisted of unfinished soul prequels, swaps AUs and single battles.

>>3982571
To be fair, I think we still get a decent bit of those sorts of fangames even now.
The sorts of fangames we see around here *could* be the next generation of fangames, they just have to actually finish first.
Only then will we finally go where no fangame has gone before.

>>3982571
I think single battles are neat, personally. Not having to worry about an entire game structure means you get to be a lot more freeform with the one fight.

>>3982571
Isn't the UTY demo one of the earliest fangames released?

>>>/v/738577332
As always, I don't feel entitled to being listened to. I offer criticism because I want to help, and because I enjoy picking at things to see what makes them tick, and trying figure out ways to make them tick faster and cleaner.

Also, you have improved markedly over the first draft, so you should be proud of that. Keep your chin up, ValravnAnon.

>>>/v/738573626
Yeah, the info dump approach is something I always think would result in more harm than good. Getting a giant clot of memories rammed into your head doesn't sound conducive to character development; it just sounds painful and confusing, and maybe when it's over you'd be able to pick out the worst or the best things, and little else.

Upon further reflection, "watching the anime" might not be as endemic as I think. Re:Zero probably has some self-selection going on with the nature of the story and tone, and with the audience who's drawn to it. I haven't seen the time-out box approach much beyond that, but recency bias got me, I think.

>>>/v/738574030
Rentried, for space: https://rentry.co/vi4rmg9x

(Sorry if this is getting into the redemption argument. I wrote half of this before realizing that it might be inviting it, or is too adjacent to it. You don't have to respond to any of this, if you don't want to.)

>>3982567
Finally getting around to playing UTY. The music and art really remind me of Terraria. The game itself is pretty good, minute to minute its a lot better than DRY, probably because of the humor and constant flow of flavor text. That stuff really is the life blood of these games.

Also Martlet has an attack that's a swaztika.

>>3982665
Red, which was what Unitale was made for, predates it by a over a year. Unitale is the engine all those Chara and skeleton fangames were made in.

>>3982668
>(Sorry if this is getting into the redemption argument. I wrote half of this before realizing that it might be inviting it, or is too adjacent to it. You don't have to respond to any of this, if you don't want to.)
I'm not any of the anons you were responding to in this post, but I was one of the two major parties involved in that argument.
You don't need to put these sorts of disclaimers on posts like this, if the guy you were talking to was the other anon primarily involved in that argument, it looks like he was the other side that was arguing in favor of it.

>>3982676
I kinda suspected as much, but I took "not trying to get into the redemption argument" as possibly a desire to avoid the topic all together, regardless of whether we agreed or not.

>>3982674
you played DRY before UTY?

>>3982680
Probably, but like I've said in the past, I'm not just gonna start yelling about it whenever I see someone else talking about it, I leave it alone as long as it leaves me alone, no need for these sorts of disclaimers, I can watch myself.
I only get belligerent about it when someone directly brings up the idea *at* me in particular.

>>3982682
Yes. I didn't want to play UTY at all because of the bad ending. I was hoping someone would make a good ending mod, but that's not gonna happen. I was content to play DRY instead, but since I wasn't really happy with that either, that plan lost its appeal. Finally, a youtube man I like started a playthrough, so I decided to play it myself, because I don't like watching playthroughs of games I haven't already played myself.

I'm actually having a lot of fun with this. I'm basically checked out of the plot because I know its going nowhere, alarmingly fast, so instead I'm just enjoying the moment to moment stuff. Gameplay is good, in that it gets out of the way and lets me enjoy the game (unlike DRY, which is way too hard, especially compared to this) instead of forcing me to get gud at bullet hells, which is something I don't want to do. And its writing (as in the dialogue and jokes) blows DRY out of the water. It has at least one joke that lands on every screen, and a most of the time it has multiple.

I also appreciate it rewarding me with items and dialogue for being thorough. Love the side quests it has. I always disliked how the "reward" for being thorough in Deltarune were a bunch of hard fights. To me doing a bunch of questing and getting given more gameplay for it ,when I do not play these games to challenge my bullet dodging skills, feels like a punishment. So this feels a lot closer to Undertale in terms of how it handles that, and I like that.

I'm shocked how much people talk about how bad it is because the creators were a bunch of dumb kids, when it seems to be out doing some of the adults here on the writing front. I don't know if you'd consider this an unfair comparison, but with how one is the spiritual sequel to the other, and how much people talk about both, the comparison begs to be made.

>>3982690
>I was content to play DRY instead, but since I wasn't really happy with that either, that plan lost its appeal.
Oh, it's you.

>I'm actually having a lot of fun with this. I'm basically checked out of the plot because I know its going nowhere, alarmingly fast, so instead I'm just enjoying the moment to moment stuff. >Gameplay is good, in that it gets out of the way and lets me enjoy the game
Are you saying the gameplay is good because there's little of it?
>And its writing (as in the dialogue and jokes) blows DRY out of the water. It has at least one joke that lands on every screen, and a most of the time it has multiple.
Eh, I didn't find the two first areas to be particularly funny if I'm being honest, but I've never been too into Undertale's comedy either so that might be a question of taste.

>I always disliked how the "reward" for being thorough in Deltarune were a bunch of hard fights.
Man, you really don't like these games gameplay do you? To me, a super boss is the best reward a side quest can give you.

>I'm shocked how much people talk about how bad it is because the creators were a bunch of dumb kids,
When people say that they usually mean the pacifist ending, if we didn't like the game these threads wouldn't be getting made in the first place.

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>>3982690
This is why spoilers are so bad. I don't know how spoiled you are on the story, but playing through neutral first will give you the most satisfying emotional impact. It doesn't matter what kind of neutral it is as long as it's neutral. I know I'm backseating, but Toby was smart to force a neutral run first unless if you did genocide somehow. Also keep in mind that people talk about its faults from a place of love, which makes reception seem more negative than it actually is.

Anyway, there's apparently a Kris Dreemurr mod for Deadlock. When will there be one for Clover/Cole?

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https://soundcloud.com/gohdhack/once-upon-a-time-gohd-mix

> "Once upon a time, humans and monsters lived in harmony…
> Until they did not."

> "Howdy, I'm GOHD! This is my very special UNDERTALE game hack! I put lots of LOVE into it, just for you! Don't worry about all the complicated character stuff, I got rid of that. This is just for fun, after all! No need to look deeper, there's only one way this'll all pan out!
> - With LOVE, GOHD."

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>>3982668
>>3982680
>(Sorry if this is getting into the redemption argument. I wrote half of this before realizing that it might be inviting it, or is too adjacent to it. You don't have to respond to any of this, if you don't want to.)
To be honest, the topic lives rent free in my head from time to time (among various other uty ideas), but I've been trying to avoid starting up another argument of that scale, and kind of tagged my post like that as a courtesy to avoid coming across like I'm trying to bait an argument, but I am genuinely interested in what you had to say, and will be reading that rentry after I heat up some food.

I also do somewhat enjoy the debates and arguments we get into on the topic of the game, but I feel like we probably dragged that one out enough to wear out even a lot of uninvolved posters patience that week.
>>3982685
I hope it doesn't come across as patronizing when I've kind of put that "warning" out on a couple posts. Like I said, I have enjoyed a lot of the discussions we've gotten into, but with how all sides seemed to get frustrated in that one (and I don't think it helped that someone started trying to troll replying to you repeatedly on that topic as things wound down), I just don't want to poke and prod just to stir shit up, you know?

>>3982567
Stop spamming your shitty threads on /v/
Thanks in advance.

>>3982675
>Unitale is the engine all those Chara and skeleton fangames were made in.
How?
If the forefather is Undertale:Red, why is it littered with low effort skeleton phase 32 and murder_boy?

>>3982699
>Eh, I didn't find the two first areas to be particularly funny if I'm being honest, but I've never been too into Undertale's comedy either so that might be a question of taste.
nta, but I did think the first chunk of the game was kind of lacking, though I think the first time the game made me chuckle a bit was the "corn dog" because I've got a soft spot for really cheesy humor.

I enjoy it more in retrospect because I have these tinted goggles of "It's so cool to me that they actually finished this game and it wasn't terribly!"
but well, that's just my own experience on that. Kind of felt like the dunes before the game started coming into its own.

>>3982703
>I hope it doesn't come across as patronizing when I've kind of put that "warning" out on a couple posts. Like I said, I have enjoyed a lot of the discussions we've gotten into, but with how all sides seemed to get frustrated in that one (and I don't think it helped that someone started trying to troll replying to you repeatedly on that topic as things wound down), I just don't want to poke and prod just to stir shit up, you know?
Fair enough.
I suppose I won't bring it up again if you continue to feel the need for such disclaimers, but as a rule of thumb, you'll almost always be able to tell when the anon you're talking to is me, whenever things start veering in that general direction.
Usually because I will completely refuse to engage in discussion around it, as I do with other topics I dislike, such as KanaClover.
I seem to be the only anon here with the feelings towards these things that I have, so I take it upon myself to withdraw from discussions of these things whenever they come up.

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>>3982702
https://soundcloud.com/gohdhack/greetings-from-hell

In 201X, an obscure hack of UNDERTALE named "GOHD's UNDERTALE Swap Hack" was released by a user only known as "GOHD", this being their only trace on the internet. The original hack was lost, the only archives of it being a select few screenshots, the original tracks made for it and some recovered dialogue. This soundcloud account will be documenting these findings.

> The first original song in the hack, playing when you first meet CARA, who serves as a stand-in for Flowey who is oddly absent from the hack according to players.
RECOVERED DIALOGUE
> [* …Hm?]
> [* Sorry, is someone there? I couldn’t tell.]
> [* I do not have ears, and I was paying more attention to slowly rotting away, twiddling my nonexistent thumbs until that bell tolls.]
> [* You know what happens to humans down here, you’ve heard the stories.]
> [* So what was it that brought you? Riches, curiosity, perhaps an…unhappier reason?]
> [* …Heeheehee! I can see it, it’s all written on your face!]
> [* Oh, don’t pout. Trust me, you’ll get what you want.]
> [* These are desperate fools who’ll stop at nothing to kill you.]
> [* So before you die, can I have the honor of being the last one to hear your name?]
> [* …Lizzie, that’s a beautiful name, I’ll be sure to forget it as soon as you leave my sight.]
> [* My name? It won’t matter once you’re 6 six feet below this soil.]
> [* I’d say good luck, but luck won’t save you in a place like this.]
> [* Welcome to hell, sunshine.]

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>>3982711
https://soundcloud.com/gohdhack/small-comfort

Asgore’s theme! The once-king of the underground appears to have become a hermit, almost replacing Toriel in a way?
RECOVERED DIALOGUE
> [* Now, now, there’s no need for violence...]
> [* I wish no harm upon you, child.]
> [* I am ASGORE, the former king of these lands.]
> [* I’ve lost my crown, but I have no qualms with that fact.]
> [* I suppose I wasn’t cut out for it, hohoho…]

>>3982699
>Are you saying the gameplay is good because there's little of it?
I'm saying the gameplay is good because it doesn't lean too hard on the bullet hell elements when most of the appeal is the RPG side of things. There's gameplay, but its not too difficult and doesn't force me to be good at bullet hells to enjoy the rest of the game. There's other gameplay elements, like the RPG stuff. I like the exploration, item management, and the side quests quite a lot.

The only part that's really bothered me is how many random encounters there are in the dunes. I like the dunebuds because they're funny, but they are really annoying to deal with, especially when I step on one every five feet.

>Eh, I didn't find the two first areas to be particularly funny
I thought the corn in the ruins was hilarious because it made me think of Doctor Weird. And I liked the DBZ scroll. I thought most of Snowdin was hilarious, don't think a single joke there didn't land.

> you really don't like these games gameplay do you
I like the puzzle solving aspect of it, and its more fun than standard turns and sequencing, but I prefer it to be more of a side thing. Basically just a replacement for dice rolls, as opposed to the main part of the game, with everything else just being a justification for it.

> a super boss is the best reward a side quest can give you
The only super boss I enjoyed was Spamton. He's easy enough to not get frustrating, has great music, great lore, and is absolutely hilarious. Did not enjoy fighting any of the rest. I guess I liked the Mantle, but that one wasn't hard.

To me, the best reward a side quest can give is a skip for a hard fight or a really powerful item to make fights easier.

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>>3982713
https://soundcloud.com/gohdhack/battle-against-weird-foes

The battle theme that's speculated to be used throughout the hack.

That's all i'm posting, check out the rest of what's done. It's good.

>>3982699
>When people say that they usually mean the pacifist ending
I feel like people may have missed the forest for the trees. Yeah, a bad ending can absolutely ruin a game, but if you only focus on the ending, then there will be nothing good enough to ruin. Not saying the games here are written poorly, just that I'm concerned they've forgotten that they have to write the rest of the game too, and the rest is likely more important to get right than the ending.

>>3982710
>I seem to be the only anon here with the feelings towards these things that I have
I'm glad that you recognize that this doesn't apply to every and all matters.

But yeah, I'll at least, not act like I'm stepping on eggshells, but I remember that conversation where you made it exceedingly clear you wanted to disengage, and you kept getting hit with comments bringing it up for hours
which really strikes me as someone trying to stir shit up

>>3982711
so wait, is this an album styled as a long lost soundtrack for a made up fangame? If so, that's really cool. (guessing that because of the 201x framing).

>>3982701
>This is why spoilers are so bad.
I guarantee you I would have hated the game if I played it blind. Like permanent grudge, get genuinely mad when I think about it hate. I do not take disappointment well at all. And I especially capital H hate games where you're forced to die at the end. If I played a game this good not knowing it had a terrible ending, then I would have expected an excellent ending, and that would have made it a million times worse.

Its better I go in with low expectations That way its impossible to be disappointed.

>Deadlock
I don't like Deadlock. Feels like Valve just died and became a bunch of Blizzard wannabes after they made Dota 2.

>>3982720
>I'm glad that you recognize that this doesn't apply to every and all matters.
Hm?
>which really strikes me as someone trying to stir shit up
Oh yes, of course.
After a while, I simply adopted a new, and much better strategy-
Calling them a retard and refusing to engage any further.

>>3982706
Using a good engine doesn't automatically make a game good

>>3982723
>I do not take disappointment well at all.
NTA, but out of genuine curiosity, what are your thoughts on Deus Ex's endings?
Most people just consider them to be mildly anticlimactic, but the game itself is still considered one of the greatest games of all time, so I'm curious what you make of it.

>>3982725
>Hm?
I'm sorry, just poking fun from a comment I think you said several times a while back about having the opposite opinion from everyone on all things, compared to just now saying it was on these things specifically.
Just autistically poking fun in intended good spirits or something like that.
anyways.

>>3982732
Oh, that.
Well, I do still think that, by and large.
Philosophical opinions, moral matters, tastes in storytelling, characters, etc, most of my thoughts on those things still run directly counter to those of the majority of these thread's userbase.

>>3982731
I love Deus Ex's endings. Well I love the Illuminati and Tong endings. Don't care for Helios. Though I went into that already having heard the endings were lacklustre. I don't know why people think that, just because they don't have cutscenes of massive epilogue chapters doesn't mean they aren't narratively great, which is all that really matters in an rpg ending.

>>3982711
>>3982702
>>3982713
Maybe its burnout from poorly written creepypasta and analog horror, but I don't like these kinds of "ooh spooky lost media" setups for projects. I'd prefer if people just played it straight and were honest.

Though I guess that is a bit hypocritical since I like Deltarune, and it does all sorts of spooky gaster survey game stuff.

Maybe this one specifically does something to rub me the wrong way. Cause I don't like it.

>>3982738
>I love Deus Ex's endings. Well I love the Illuminati and Tong endings. Don't care for Helios.
Huh, interesting.
Honestly, Helios is my favorite ending out of the lot of them, but that's not important.
>Though I went into that already having heard the endings were lacklustre. I don't know why people think that, just because they don't have cutscenes of massive epilogue chapters doesn't mean they aren't narratively great, which is all that really matters in an rpg ending.
I think the reason people dislike them is because they don't show much in the way of consequences for your actions throughout the game, and the fact that they're decided exclusively by what you do in the very last level.
Similar reasons for why people hated the endings to Mass Effect 3, though DX's endings were nowhere near as bad as ME3 was on launch.

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>>3982577
There's an Undertale Halloween Hack which had its entire soundtrack published a while back. The soundtrack is some of the best Undertale fan-music I've heard and they are working on a game supposedly but the dev team is 2 owners 8 spriters 5 writers and 3 coders so for how good it is they're probably fucked.
Doghole Dungeon looks like it's gonna be good thoughbeit and the devs are saying they're getting through development quickly.
>>3982722
>>3982740
It's pretty much just an excuse to not make the game itself

>>3982742
>I think the reason people dislike them is because they don't show much in the way of consequences for your actions throughout the game, and the fact that they're decided exclusively by what you do in the very last level.
Eh, what I want is for the ending to feel fitting wih the narrative and for it to be the reward for beating the game.

Tong is the payoff for everything I'd been wanting the whole game.

That might be why I always hate "you die" endings. They feel like a punishment and make me feel like I was tricked into wasting hours of my life and lots of effort on them.

>>3982715
>I'm saying the gameplay is good because it doesn't lean too hard on the bullet hell elements when most of the appeal is the RPG side of things.
Personally, for me the main appeal of the gameplay was the bullet hell, I've never liked JRPGs and Undertale has only the basics of an RPG game, Deltarune does a much better job on that aspect, but I still prefer the bullet hell in that game.
>I like the exploration, item management, and the side quests quite a lot.
Eh, the exploration in UTY is cool because of the golden items, but besides that I don't remember there being that many optional rooms until the steamworks, the item management is another aspect I don't find to be particularly engaging since, the only thing that matters is having strong healing items and the current best bullet/accessory.

>The only part that's really bothered me is how many random encounters there are in the dunes. I like the dunebuds because they're funny, but they are really annoying to deal with, especially when I step on one every five feet.
I don't remember there being that many random encounters in the dune, if anything the steamworks has the opposite problem of having very little encounters outside of the neutral/genocide path.

>I thought most of Snowdin was hilarious, don't think a single joke there didn't land.
I honestly can't remember most of Snowdin, I should replay UTY sometime soon.

>I like the puzzle solving aspect of it, and its more fun than standard turns and sequencing,
Ironically I usually don't like puzzles in non puzzles games, but they are fine in UT/DR since they are pretty easy and are usually accompanied by a joke or plot element, they are kind of like cutscenes with some gameplay added on top.

>>3982715
>>3982718
>The only super boss I enjoyed was Spamton. He's easy enough to not get frustrating, has great music, great lore, and is absolutely hilarious. Did not enjoy fighting any of the rest. I guess I liked the Mantle, but that one wasn't hard.
Well that's a matter of taste, I liked all super bosses and ironically I didn't like Spamton Neo as much because his fight is so easy, I love the character and the fight was good, but in gameplay it was the weakest.

>I feel like people may have missed the forest for the trees. Yeah, a bad ending can absolutely ruin a game, but if you only focus on the ending, then there will be nothing good enough to ruin.
All the people that I've seen complaining about the ending (including myself) loved the game as a whole, UTY will always have a special place in my heart for letting me know of this community we have here, the ending even made me a sad for a while, until I thought about it for a bit and realized how weird Clover's friends acted about his sacrifice.
>Not saying the games here are written poorly, just that I'm concerned they've forgotten that they have to write the rest of the game too, and the rest is likely more important to get right than the ending.
Well, so far only two of the games here have shown their writing in game, and neither me nor DRYanon are writers. Can't speak for DRYanon but the ending is something that I've thought a lot, and it's not like I want to ignore the rest of the game either, I do want every part of the story to be good, but I'm sure I'll probably fumble something, and when it happens I hope it's nothing too important like an entire character or the ending.

nobody ever talks about the genocide shufflers fight

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>>3982743
>It's pretty much just an excuse to not make the game itself
Yeah, but I wish they'd be less pretentious about it.

>There's an Undertale Halloween Hack which had its entire soundtrack published a while back. The soundtrack is some of the best Undertale fan-music I've heard
Could you post a link?

>pic
Its funny when someone has an idea very similar to yours

>>3982752
https://soundcloud.com/hallohack/sets/undertale-halloween-hack-ost

>>3982723
>And I especially capital H hate games where you're forced to die at the end
>>3982744
>That might be why I always hate "you die" endings. They feel like a punishment and make me feel like I was tricked into wasting hours of my life and lots of effort on them.
NTA, but do you hate every ending where the main character dies? Even in games like Halo Reach where the ending is usually seen as a high point?

>>3982743
>It's pretty much just an excuse to not make the game itself
>Yeah, but I wish they'd be less pretentious about it.
I don't know, things like that are kind of fun. Kind of like a rock opera album like the protomen where you get these little story snippets with the songs.

>>3982743
>2 owners 8 spriters 5 writers and 3 coders so for how good it is they're probably fucked.
>2 owners
What's the function of the owners?

>>3982748
>I've never liked JRPGs
I don't either. Undertale takes JRPGs and makes them good by replacing all the math and luck with a minigame, and adding actual roleplaying. There's no role to play in most jrpgs, you're just watching the dev's movie play out in between grinding sessions. Undertale makes you a character in the story and gives you a stake in it by giving you agency in it.

>Undertale has only the basics of an RPG game
It has the most important part and trims off the fat that people like to claim is roleplaying, when its not (the math and micromanaging)

> I don't remember there being that many optional rooms
Exploration includes following the main path. Sure there aren't many optional rooms, but going through them and seeing the sights is fun, and there's always something to do in them. As opposed to just another copy pasted enemy encounted and a stage hazard to pad the gameplay.

> the only thing that matters is having strong healing items and the current best bullet/accessory.
I feel like having multiple equip slots would help with that. Though I think even if I found a stronger item, I wouldn't give up my scarf. That heal is too valuable.

>I don't remember there being that many random encounters in the dune,
Every screen in the dunes I've been in has two or three random encounters, and they were all dunebuds. For like ten long screens. Often a pair of inescapable dunebuds.

>Ironically I usually don't like puzzles in non puzzles games
I'm talking about acts, not overworld puzzles. Acts are meant to be a comedy routine and puzzle, and they work excellently as both.

>they are kind of like cutscenes with some gameplay added on top.
I like the overworld puzzles too though, because they're like cutscenes, except actually fun because I'm an active participant.

>>3982754
Most of them I do. I think Entropy Zero 2 was the last one where the protagonist dies that I liked, and that's specifically because I wanted him to double down on his idiotic dedication to the combine until it killed him. It felt like the best way to progress the character.

I don't really care about Halo Reach's plot precisely because I know they all die at the end.

>>3982668
reading over the rentry, I think you've got a good point with the neutral route (even if it was a cool spectacle of a fight), but on the matter of both pacifist and genocide being a gamble, I think this is one of the things where flowey being in the game really weakens the experience, and the weight of potential options. Clover doesn't give up his soul because of flowey, but we know that any other choice barring genocide would be reset, but if we cut flowey from the equation altogether, I think we could have seen a completely different side of a pacifist justice soul.
Actually, calling it the pacifist route goes against what I want here, because whether the yellow soul kills anyone at all should not be the determining factor of his virtue, but rather who and why he kills.

Justice isn't just about life and death either, but it's the only kind of justice that you have the option to take part in through the game.

I think the game made a good move giving you the "see peoples memories" power because it could be used to judge people taking circumstance into account, but it only really does that in pacifist, and is used in kind of a farcical way in genocide. I'd want to see it used in a more "neutral" route where the game actually presses you to make the call on innocent or guilty in morally vague situations.

I think I'm rambling but I guess even though it flies in the face of undertales extreme endings, There should be a 'positive' neutral ending using those judgements, and even a pacifist ending that maybe involves justice some way other than just killing yourself.

>>3982755
>>3982743 (me)
I think it's nice too. Just funny that's the most obvious explanation as to how the soundtrack exists without the game itself
>>3982757
One of them (igorsantusa) did a good part of the soundtrack and is the same guy making SwapFell I Hate You. The other one (j-bug) did the art which isn't spritework for each track cover. But I'm going to assume they're defining owner as, like, directing writer in this case but I wouldn't know anything more specific

>>3982750
>but in gameplay it was the weakest.
I had the most fun with him because I actually had something to do there. In the others its just dodge dodge dogde, and as we've already established I do not care for dodging. Being able to shoot made the bullet portion fun, in additon to making it easier.

Gerson, however, I didn't like because he only took away options. I don't like being "trained to play better" I want to play my way and only my way.

>Well, so far only two of the games here have shown their writing in game, and neither me nor DRYanon are writers
I mainly just didn't want to single out DRYanon (sorry DRYanon). I actually think Naranja's moment to moment writing is really good. And naranjanon (if that isn't who I'm talking to) seemed like he wants to make his game approachable for people who aren't experts at bullet hells or platformers.

>>3982766
>>3982668
as far as what actions are reasonable for a kid, and whether monsters are innocent or guilty. I think people go all or nothing on what monsters are aware they are attacking a human thing. We cite cases where someone didn't recognize you for what you are, and sometimes say that the monsters may have been innocent, but there are some cases where even minor characters realize what you are.
Something Naranja is doing that I really liked so far, Is that a few monsters make it pretty obvious that they know what you are, while others like pastra, don't catch on until you're dead and your body doesn't turn to dust. That kind of conflict where some monsters are willful perpetrators and others are just living there lives, would have made the question a lot more meaningful in yellow.
I see the "all monsters are sweet cinnamon buns" thing sometimes and I've never really been a fan. I want monsters to go free, but for a justice game, all of the moral complexity is just kind of thrown out the window.
The very first flier enemies who are very clearly "giving fighting a try"? you're a monster for fighting back. Chujin was terrified of what humanity could do and did some terrible things? He's unforgivable (not because of the terrible things, but because he was racist).
Again, rambling, but people are painfully tone deaf so there's not much of an actual discussion to be had (outside of here really).

>>3982755
>, things like that are kind of fun
Its them being in character all the time that bothers me. If they wanted to have the album and the album description in character, fair enough. But coming here and still acting in character while promoting it just rubs me the wrong way.

>>3982774
I think I have a softspot for presentation and theatrics, so I do kind of enjoy "sales pitches" that stay in character (as long as it doesn't like, keep on going and going and going after you say "alright I get it so what is this")
but I get what you're saying.

>>3982762
>Undertale makes you a character in the story and gives you a stake in it by giving you agency in it.
>It has the most important part and trims off the fat that people like to claim is roleplaying, when its not (the math and micromanaging)
I guess you have a point, it's just that when I see a game with the RPG label I immediately assume it's about the gameplay and the choices you make when building your character, and not the decision making aspect of their stories, there are non RPG game's where you can change the story significantly and RPG games with linear stories .

>Exploration includes following the main path. Sure there aren't many optional rooms, but going through them and seeing the sights is fun, and there's always something to do in them
The complaints about padding I've seen recently really made me reconsider how the rooms should be distributed in a UT/DR fangme, I think Undertale only has stretches of "pure gameplay" rooms on the Core, the rest of the game has a balance of rooms with flavor puzzles, cutscenes, exposition in the form of NPCs/Signs, optional rooms with rewards/ gags and few, the rooms with random encounters have some of those elements too.

>I wouldn't give up my scarf. That heal is too valuable.
The scarf is so powerful the only item better than it is the one you get from a secret side quest, but yeah, the way to improve the item management would be by implementing a system like the one in Deltarune.

>Every screen in the dunes I've been in has two or three random encounters, and they were all dunebuds. For like ten long screens. Often a pair of inescapable dunebuds.
>>Ironically I usually don't like puzzles in non puzzles games
>I'm talking about acts, not overworld puzzles. Acts are meant to be a comedy routine and puzzle, and they work excellently as both.
Ah, right, yeah the pacifists fights in Undertale are like puzzles, once you find the correct act they become much shorter.

>>3982772
>I had the most fun with him because I actually had something to do there. In the others its just dodge dodge dogde, and as we've already established I do not care for dodging. Being able to shoot made the bullet portion fun, in additon to making it easier.
Shooting is really cool, but I wish they did more with it in the fight since it made it easier, it was also a bit disappointing how UTY only gives you the shooting gimmick in the final fights.

>Gerson, however, I didn't like because he only took away options. I don't like being "trained to play better" I want to play my way and only my way.
I didn't mind it since it's an optional fight, if this were a final boss then it would suck, but I always expect the super bosses to have some unfair gimmick, that's what makes them super bosses.

>And naranjanon (if that isn't who I'm talking to) seemed like he wants to make his game approachable for people who aren't experts at bullet hells or platformers.
You got the right anon, and well, I did say I want to make the game harder than Deltarune. I'll probably provide more varied equipment in each area so you can have builds that are better for certain encounters, but I can't promise the builds will help that much, the genocide bosses will be designed with the idea that you have good equipment items, but I don't expect many people to complain about the geno bosses being harder than the main path, as for the platforming, I want to give the players more margin of error with the shield hp, but I can't promise I won't add some crazy platforming section near the end of the pacifist or genocide route,

>>3982784
>but I can't promise I won't add some crazy platforming section near the end of the pacifist or genocide route,
I want to see it in pacifist. Bring me back to playing mega man x or zero without health upgrades.

>>3982773
>The very first flier enemies who are very clearly "giving fighting a try"? you're a monster for fighting back. Chujin was terrified of what humanity could do and did some terrible things? He's unforgivable (not because of the terrible things, but because he was racist).
I always assumed all the monsters in the random encounters know that you are a human.
Sometimes it does feel like that single line about monsters "sending each others letters with bullet patterns" does a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to justifying the monsters actions in those fights.

>>3982779
>l I immediately assume it's about the gameplay and the choices you make when building your character,
You see, to me that's not only the wrong definition of an rpg, but the wrong reason to play one. RPGs, ultimately, are a digital version of tabletop RPGs, and the point of those was to have an interactive adventure where you could win and lose. The stats, building characters, and dice rolls were all just a means to an end. They were the necessary evil you suffered to have fun being a cool barbarian like Conan. So when I see people saying stats and numbers are what makes a game an RPG, it just feels wrong. To me JRPGs as a genre feel like the Japs played DND and took the completely wrong thing away from it, thinking the math was the best part (insert joke about asians and math here) so they made games with no role playing and all math.

I'm not gonna claim my opinions are the absolute objective truth. This is just how things feel to me. My reaction to hearing someone say "where are the stats" is the same as some people would react to seeing an open road and hearing someone ask "where's the traffic? Can't be a good drive without traffic".

>once you find the correct act they become much shorter.
Its also why Undertale enemies only show up two or three times in a normal playthrough. That's how many times you can fight them before the joke gets old. Either you did the same joke three times, or you found the other combinations of acts (there are usually multiple) that can end the fight.

I suppose the real takeaway here is that Undertale as a game offerrs a lot to players, and appeals to many different groups of people because of that. And if you only focus on one aspect, you end up alienating large portions of people who were interesting in playing.

>>3982784
>but I can't promise I won't add some crazy platforming section near the end of the pacifist or genocide route,
NTA, but there should just be a section straight out of the final levels of Super Meat Boy.
Long segments with brutal difficulty, with the only checkpoints being between rooms, just pull out all the stops all of a sudden.

>>3982790
>Sometimes it does feel like that single line about monsters "sending each others letters with bullet patterns" does a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to justifying the monsters actions in those fights.
I see people use that as a broad stroke across all monster kind and it really feels like it poisons any discussion that could be had and just furthers the "terrified of the fight button" mentality.
>I always assumed all the monsters in the random encounters know that you are a human.
I think most of them probably do. It makes it make more sense that there are npc monsters you see that don't attack you, that are contrasted by the monsters that pull you into battles, showing that some monsters are having no part in attacking, and highlighting that Clover doesn't attack those.

I'm on the fence about dunebuddies though.

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Sunsetter (Ska) as a stand-in for Don't Forget in Deltarune Yellow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trRCHf5Bs94

>>3982744
>Tong is the payoff for everything I'd been wanting the whole game.
For me, Helios is the payoff.
I mean, the game's literally called "Deus Ex", as in "Deus Ex Machina", so it's definitely the most fitting on that front, not to mention stuff like the conversation with the Morpheus AI, or all the themes of technology being dangerous or beneficial depending on whose hands it's in, just makes me feel like merging with Helios is the best way forward.
Though the Tong ending does have the better track if I'm honest.
>That might be why I always hate "you die" endings. They feel like a punishment and make me feel like I was tricked into wasting hours of my life and lots of effort on them.
Eh, to each their own, but I can get behind the idea of dying for something bigger than myself.
Going out like a hero, for the sake of the world, it's just something I've always had a certain fascination with.
Yes, I know someone's going to hit me with a post about Ceroba dragging me away from committing sudoku in the condiments aisle, but I can't help it, it's just been etched into me for so long.
I pinky promise Ceroba that I won't chuck myself off a cliff for anything stupid, I swear.

>>3982784
>but I wish they did more with it in the fight since it made it easier
I think they did quite a lot with it in that fight. Most of the attacks involve shooting. If you meant making it harder, I'm glad they didn't. It was the perfect balance of difficulty for me. Hard enough to make me work for it, but not hard enough to be frustrating.

> I always expect the super bosses to have some unfair gimmick,
I don't really care whether something is unfair, I care whether its unfun. My enjoyment of Deltarune comes from playing with items and magic to win fights, rather than relying on dodging skill. Gerson took away nearly 100% of what I actually enjoy in a Deltarune fight, so I just didn't want to beat him. That's probably also why I disliked chapter 4's gameplay as a whole. When it wasn't Gerson forcing me to have no items or party members, it was that darkness mechanic taking away my main way of gathering tp, and by extension all of my spells.

>but I can't promise I won't add some crazy platforming section near the end of the pacifist
A final challenge is fair. Its a test to prove the player was paying attention the rest of the game. Its just shoving tedious sections in all throughout the game I don't like and not including anything to make that feel worth it. Naranja actually seems pretty good in this regard.

>>3982792
>The stats, building characters, and dice rolls were all just a means to an end.
nta but that's at odds with a solid portion of the people who have played tabletop even since way back. It goes all the way back to simulating battles, and there have always been two completely valid sides to that hobby. The people who are interested in the mechanical and logistical aspect, and the people who are into the story and adventure aspect (most people fell somewhere in the middle).
Number autism worked its way into rpgs just like storytelling did because it was all core to the hobby (though there's nothing wrong with only engaging in one aspect of it).

In fact, the easiest way to have an unhappy table is to treat a "roll" player like he's playing the game wrong because odds are, you're discarding half of your group.
As a longtime DM, you work stuff in to appeal to each group, because it's a collaborative experience.

Video games have the luxury of being more tailor made so you get the fair extremes on either side.
>I suppose the real takeaway here is that Undertale as a game offerrs a lot to players, and appeals to many different groups of people because of that. And if you only focus on one aspect, you end up alienating large portions of people who were interesting in playing.
that's a very fair statement and I think connects to what I was saying.

>>3982793
>>3982789
I don't think it would be bad to include a challenge like that. I just think it would suck to mandate a challenge like that. Especially the no checkpoints thing.

Losing progress doesn't increase difficulty, it just increased tedium. There's no point to doing beyond just to frustrate people and make them waste time and effort doing something they've already done before.

>>3982801
>Losing progress doesn't increase difficulty, it just increased tedium. There's no point to doing beyond just to frustrate people and make them waste time and effort doing something they've already done before.
while generally, there's a limit to how much I'm willing to redo progress wise on a failure, there's a satisfaction towards climbing a building that wants to send you hurtling to the ground. The length of a mega man stage but with intensified difficulty is probably ideal for me if you want to remove the checkpoints.

>>3982792
>You see, to me that's not only the wrong definition of an rpg, but the wrong reason to play one. RPGs,
I'd say there's no wrong reason to play RPGs, but one time I had a talk with a guy who said he only played rpgs to make the most powerful characters he could, ignoring the story and taking the choices that gave you the best rewards, that did sound like a waste, but oh well, it's like telling someone they can't play with cheats even if they find the game to be more fun that way.
>ultimately, are a digital version of tabletop RPGs, and the point of those was to have an interactive adventure where you could win and lose. The stats, building characters, and dice rolls were all just a means to an end. They were the necessary evil you suffered to have fun being a cool barbarian like Conan.
Never played a tabletop game but I imagine there has to be people that enjoy the dice roll and stats parts of those games, even if they're in the minority, and people that enjoy both parts equally as well.
>So when I see people saying stats and numbers are what makes a game an RPG, it just feels wrong.
There are games with the "action RPG" label which rarely have choices that affect the story, I guess this is a case of people giving the wrong name to a genre.
>To me JRPGs as a genre feel like the Japs played DND and took the completely wrong thing away from it, thinking the math was the best part (insert joke about asians and math here) so they made games with no role playing and all math.
I see your point, personally I just don't enjoy JRPGs because I find the gameplay to be repetitive, even if the few ones that I've played had stories I enjoyed.

>>3982792
>>3982803
>I'm not gonna claim my opinions are the absolute objective truth. This is just how things feel to me. My reaction to hearing someone say "where are the stats" is the same as some people would react to seeing an open road and hearing someone ask "where's the traffic? Can't be a good drive without traffic".
I understand your point, we just have different expectations when it comes to RPGs.

>Its also why Undertale enemies only show up two or three times in a normal playthrough. That's how many times you can fight them before the joke gets old. Either you did the same joke three times, or you found the other combinations of acts (there are usually multiple) that can end the fight.
You do fight a lot of random enemies in the Core, but I imagine Toby's idea was that you would alternate between killing some and sparing others.

>I suppose the real takeaway here is that Undertale as a game offerrs a lot to players, and appeals to many different groups of people because of that. And if you only focus on one aspect, you end up alienating large portions of people who were interesting in playing.
I agree, Undertale has a massive fanbase and I think in part is because it's story, music and gameplay appeal to a wide range of people, not only just players, the fancontent that resulted from it is proof enough, if the people didn't enjoy the story and character there wouldn't be so many fanfics and AUs, if they didn't enjoy the music the soundtracks wouldn't have been remixed countless times, and if they didn't enjoy the gameplay there wouldn't be that many single fight fangames.

>>3982798
>For me, Helios is the payoff.
At that point its just an off topic philosophical debate. The game tries its hardest to make all three options seem appealing in their own way, and different people are going think that different endings are "the best choice" or "the most fitting".

>Eh, to each their own, but I can get behind the idea of dying for something bigger than myself.
I can too, but the game has to actually sell me on it. Make it still feel like I won, even if winning means dying. You can die and win. Most games that have a "heroic sacrifice" don't do that, and they just make me feel like I'm being forced into the role against my will, which changes it from heroic and brave, to tragic and horrific.

>>3982802
I gotta hard disagree here. For me, it just kills the enjoyment. If I finish something like that (very big if) it usually just leaves me feeling angry and tired. Most of the time though I just quit. I hate losing progress more than anything else in a game.

>>3982800
>In fact, the easiest way to have an unhappy table is to treat a "roll" player like he's playing the game wrong because odds are, you're discarding half of your group.
>As a longtime DM, you work stuff in to appeal to each group, because it's a collaborative experience.
Well I suppose my problem with JRPGs is that they feel like they only care about the "roll" playing, and don't care at all about the "role" playing. And with Undertale fangames, it feels like a lot of them exist solely for the "roll" of bullet dodging and not the "role" of the interactive narrative, meta elements, and funny cute characters.

>>3982807
>At that point its just an off topic philosophical debate. The game tries its hardest to make all three options seem appealing in their own way, and different people are going think that different endings are "the best choice" or "the most fitting".
Yeah, pretty much.
If nothing else, I do think it's an accomplishment that the game managed to actually give all three endings their own pros and cons, short lived as they are.
I would've liked to see more of what actually happened after any of the endings- individually - but I don't actually dislike them myself.
>I can too, but the game has to actually sell me on it.
Well, you seem like a very hard person to sell on that kind of thing to begin with.
I think I've seen good examples of heroic sacrifices that don't feel like the person making the sacrifice is being railroaded into doing so, even outside of games, but I don't feel like just listing things off over what's ultimately a matter of taste.

>>3982808
then we lose the satisfaction of perfecting the art. Of clearing one segment with more health than the previous attempt, and then more and more until it's a dance. Until you can make it to the boss with more health than you ever did before.

Or if it's a game where you're on the timer, then of course getting faster and faster until you've perfected the "track". What's the line to be drawn? Repeating a single room? A single jump?

>>3982799
>If you meant making it harder, I'm glad they didn't. It was the perfect balance of difficulty for me. Hard enough to make me work for it, but not hard enough to be frustrating.
Yeah, I did mean making it harder, it's not like the shooting was bad, it's just that I felt like it didn't reach it's full potential, unlike the shield mechanic from the Gerson fight, I'm not sure if they could've made more than they did with it.

>Gerson took away nearly 100% of what I actually enjoy in a Deltarune fight, so I just didn't want to beat him.
Well that seems again like a difference in taste, if anything I saw Gerson's fight like a minigame kind of like the Mantle fight.
>it was that darkness mechanic taking away my main way of gathering tp, and by extension all of my spells.
I thought the darkness was fine, it only overstayed it's welcome in the Jackstein fight but that was part of the joke, also if you use the tension bits and their stronger variants you can completely trivialize those fights, which really feels like an oversight instead of an alternative option.

>A final challenge is fair. Its a test to prove the player was paying attention the rest of the game. Its just shoving tedious sections in all throughout the game I don't like and not including anything to make that feel worth it. Naranja actually seems pretty good in this regard.
I actually thought the overworld bullet sections were a bit of filler, they currently don't do much in terms of adding to the experience and are in a way "redundant" when the platforming already exists, I don't want to delete them, but there's probably a better way to implement them.

>>3982810
that's fair, and I think most players at the table actually enjoy both aspects, and when the roleplay and story is neglected for just the numbers, they usually aren't satisfied.
I'd say the people who only care about the numbers and the people who only care about the roleplay are probably in the minority, since the exciting moments, determined by dice that they can't control, yet tilted in their favor by strategy make a more holistic experience.

Of course there's the classic fireball, 8d6 is considered very satisfying to roll.

>>3982803
>it's like telling someone they can't play with cheats even if they find the game to be more fun that way.
I do enjoy that, it can be pretty fun. Or at the very least can be a good way to prevent myself from having an actively bad time. I wish the fangames here would add ways to cheat. Then they can be as hard as they want and I can still enjoy the parts that I like.

>Never played a tabletop game but I imagine there has to be people that enjoy the dice roll and stats parts of those games
Apparently those people exist, but I just don't understand them. All that stuff is horrible to me.

> I guess this is a case of people giving the wrong name to a genre.
Yeah. I feel like a more accurate name would be story focused action game, but that doesn't roll off the tongue at all. And I don't dislike those games, I just don't think they should be called RPGs.

> because I find the gameplay to be repetitive
Oh I dislike that too. I can't stand grinding. That's why I like western RPGs. They tie their progression to quests and story progression, rather than to fights, and won't gate the player if he hasn't gone to the exp salt mine for his weekly 40 hours. Same reason I like Undertale, it frames grinding as the horrible slog it is.

>>3982804
>You do fight a lot of random enemies in the Core, but I imagine Toby's idea was that you would alternate between killing some and sparing others.
I think its that it was meant to be the final challenge of the game before the last two bosses. You don't fight any regular enemies after that.

>>3982812
The ideal is a quick save button, so there is no line. Then I dictate the amount of progress lost, and as a result have maximum fun. The perfection exists in the individual actions performed, not doing them all in a row.

>Satifsaction
none to be had in doing the same thing over and over again and getting worse with each attempt due to frustration.

>>3982813
>, it only overstayed it's welcome in the Jackstein fight
That was only place I liked it, becuase it was used for jokes. I will forgive a lot if its done for the sake of a joke.

>also if you use the tension bits and their stronger variants you can completely trivialize those fights,
I forgot about those because of how much the game trained against using them. In all the earlier fights either defending or using a healing item is better than using a tension gem. Defends reduce health lost per turn and give TP, and healing items increase health without costing TP. And because you can't buy them, that makes them scarce, making the player afraid of using them.

>I actually thought the overworld bullet sections were a bit of fille
Oh yeah, those did suck. I was talking about the platforming.

>>3982816
>I do enjoy that, it can be pretty fun.
Honestly, if a game is too hard for me, I'd rather drop the game than play with cheats, but that rarely happens, not because I'm some god gamer, but because I'm too stubborn to drop games. I know someone who almost exclusively plays games with cheats and I just can't understand that mentality, but I won't tell him he should only play the intended way since he finds the games to be more fun like this.
>I wish the fangames here would add ways to cheat. Then they can be as hard as they want and I can still enjoy the parts that I like.
Adding console commands is on my TODO list for Naranja, just a low priority, but it will come in the next release (hopefully sometime before the year ends)

>Apparently those people exist, but I just don't understand them. All that stuff is horrible to me.
I suppose you don't like tactics games like XCOM which are literally all about building characters and rolling dices? They are like JRPGs, but I actually enjoy the gameplay a lot in these.

>Yeah. I feel like a more accurate name would be story focused action game, but that doesn't roll off the tongue at all. And I don't dislike those games, I just don't think they should be called RPGs.
We are too late to change the name of the genre, so RPG joins the list of game genre with nebulous meanings like "Hack n' Slash" and "Metroidvania"

>Oh I dislike that too. I can't stand grinding. That's why I like western RPGs. They tie their progression to quests and story progression, rather than to fights, and won't gate the player if he hasn't gone to the exp salt mine for his weekly 40 hours. Same reason I like Undertale, it frames grinding as the horrible slog it is.
Ironically, I had more fun grinding for Undertale's geno encounters than I did grinding in any other game, the fights are too short and easy to trigger so it's not as bad they are in your usual JRPG where fights can have long animations that take too much time.

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33 KB JPG

>>3982820
>quick save button
The bane of satisfying difficulty. Its not a problem in games where I don't care about the difficulty like morrowind or something, but it always softens the experience
>The perfection exists in the individual actions performed, not doing them all in a row
A work of art is the sum of its strokes. Heaven shall witness my dance of death.

>>3982815
Like I said, the numbers are a means to an end. I like the end they get me to, but I don't like them for their own sake. I don't think a conventional RPG would be very engaging if you didn't have the numbers there to gamify it. Then it'd just be a choose your own adventure story.

>>3982828
>genre with nebulous meanings like "Hack n' Slash"
Hack n slash isn’t a genre, it’s a descriptor

>>3982829
I am ride or die for the quicksave button. The most fun I have is in games with quicksave. And the worst time I have in games is in games that would greatly benefit from more saves, but don't have them.

>Heaven shall witness my dance of death.
You have fun with that, I'm gonna go into a room and die on purpose to figure out whats going on, then load a save a determine the best way to beat it. Then load a save again a few more times until I do the room perfectly.

>but it always softens the experience
Good. No point hurting yourself with no gain. The difficulty is a test of skill, not an act of self torture.

>>3982827
>That was only place I liked it, becuase it was used for jokes. I will forgive a lot if its done for the sake of a joke.
I think jokes have limits when it comes to gameplay, and the Jackstein fight was nearing that limit, I still enjoyed it because it had the kind of dumb humor I like.

>I forgot about those because of how much the game trained against using them. In all the earlier fights either defending or using a healing item is better than using a tension gem. Defends reduce health lost per turn and give TP, and healing items increase health without costing TP. And because you can't buy them, that makes them scarce, making the player afraid of using them.
They are pretty weak, yeah, I carry a tension gem all the time in Deltarune because you never know when you might need one, but it never occurred to me that using it would pretty much skip the fight, those items really are an example of "too good to use"

>Oh yeah, those did suck. I was talking about the platforming.
Oh look, something we agree on in gameplay, but really I think I have only one good idea for an overoworld bullet room but I'd rather save it for much later, I should make the first bullet room shorter or adding something else besides just the bullets.

>>3982831
See, I've seen people use it as a genre my entire life, but at some point around 2020 people started calling them "character action" games, which felt really odd to me, apparently "hack n' slash" was also used for Diablo clones but I've literally never seen someone call them that outside the context of explaining why you shouldn't call third person action games Hack n' Slash, anyway, this isn't relevant to the topic.

>>3982834
>You have fun with that, I'm gonna go into a room and die on purpose to figure out whats going on, then load a save a determine the best way to beat it.
Nightmarish. Where is the valiant battle to see if you can get a first attempt clearl?
>No point hurting yourself with no gain
The struggle is it's own reward.

>>3982828
>Honestly, if a game is too hard for me, I'd rather drop the game than play with cheats,
I'm very much a sunk cost person. Once I'm in something, I'm in it, and its hell to get out. If I drop a game, then I've gotta be having an awful time. Its a lot to make me pick a game up in the first place, so I don't drop things just like that.

At a certain point I just start playing games out of spite because they pulled me in and hurt me (silly way to view it, I know, but that's how it feels in the heat of the moment). So cheating, in addition to letting me get through the unfun section to something fun, is also an act of revenge against the game itself. It gives me catharsis to tell the game to go to hell like that.

>I suppose you don't like tactics games like XCOM which are literally all about building characters and rolling dices?
I haven't really gotten into any, so I wouldn't know.

>Hack and slash
That one is the worst because its not even a clearly defined set of tropes or gameplay features. Diablo and Devil May Cry are both called hack and slash, yet they have literally nothing in common in terms of gameplay.

>Metroidvania
Those are games that play like Super Metroid or Sympony of the Night, or at least try to. That's a very good genre name.

>>3982836
>I think jokes have limits when it comes to gameplay
I think the jokes if anything kept the limit down. I would've hated that section otherwise, but the jokes were too funny for me to be angry.

>should make the first bullet room shorter or adding something else besides just the bullets
What do you mean add something else?

>>3982841
>Where is the valiant battle to see if you can get a first attempt clearl?
Valiant? My victory comes from out smarting my opponents, using the game's mechanics in the most optimal way to achieve the greatest victory.

>The struggle is it's own reward.
Struggle is a price or a punishment. A price can give something value, but effort by itself is worthless.

>>3982844
>but effort by itself is worthless
Effort is it's own virtue. The buildup that gives the final act it's meaning. Success is shaped just as much by failure, as it it is by the desire to stand back up after taking a hit.
I suppose you can like gamea how you like them, but in this context, a discussion about how games should be designed, a dance is not viewed in fragments, and the whole performance carries the weight of every fall it took to perfect the motions. By removing struggle, you take something from, at least many players.

>>3982847
Effort for nothing is a waste.

Jayden Smith tier pretentious quote battle aside, I stand by my statement that the struggle for victory, what gives it its value, isn't measure in frustration. Trying to do it that way is just bad design. It should be measured in the player's knowledge and application of mechanics.

And while this is very much personal preference, I hate games that just make me work harder. What I like are games that make me work smarter. All long walkbacks do is make react faster and play harder to do without stuff. None of that is fun, and nothing gained from it is satisfying. Its just maddening.

>>3982842
>I'm very much a sunk cost person. Once I'm in something, I'm in it,
Huh, when I had more free time I used to play pretty much anything, even games that I knew were awful just because I wanted to see if they were really as bad as people said (most of them where, a few became guilty pleasures).

>At a certain point I just start playing games out of spite because they pulled me in and hurt me (silly way to view it, I know, but that's how it feels in the heat of the moment).
There are only a few games I've finished out of spite, but it was spite because they were insanly boring, so in a way I can understand your point.

>I haven't really gotten into any, so I wouldn't know.
Eh, XCOM 2 is my favorite game of all time, but if you don't like turn based games you probably won't like it, it also has the reputation of being too brutal for people that are starting in tactical games.

>That one is the worst because its not even a clearly defined set of tropes or gameplay features. Diablo and Devil May Cry are both called hack and slash
Yeah, and that use lead us to the creation of like 6 different names for the same type of games that no one seems to agree if they fall on the same genre or not.

>Those are games that play like Super Metroid or Sympony of the Night, or at least try to. That's a very good genre name
People call Dead Cells a Metroidvania too, despite it being a rouge lite and only sharing some passing similarities to Castlevania, there's little to nothing Metroid about it, sometimes games that feature some amount of backtracking get labeled as such when they have nothing in common with the games that make the genre.

>>3982843
>What do you mean add something else?
Like making the first bullets room more compact and adding an npc or another sign with a gag and some gameplay tip, anything to make the room less dull.

>>3982849
>Effort for nothing is a waste.
it wasn't for nothing, and I don't think we're being jayden smith tier here. Humans have enjoyed the struggle towards victory since time immemorial, and then reinvented that in a whole new way with video games. You're viewing game design as a whole through a very narrow view of how easily you get frustrated with experiences. You say none of that is fun, and yeah it's fair that it's a personal preference, but that games get made with those things, attract an audience, then come out with sequels that do the same thing and continue attracting audience tells me this isn't "bad game design".

So sure, not everyone enjoys the struggle, but many people do. We've got the classic format of the stage with the boss at the end, and like mega man, a lot of those have even adopted the bossrush at the end, sure that works, lots of people like that format.
Then you've got the games that cut the prior stuff out, and just give us the boss rush. Well, yeah some people like that, but just as many turn their nose up at it because overcoming the experience on the way is just as much a part of the deal.
I mean yeah I'm being a bit autistic with song and dance expressions, but a lot of people appreciate the effort it took to arrive at the final product, both the people who performed the deed, and the people consuming the production.

Plus, a lot of people genuinely enjoy games that can make them mad before finally letting them earn that "fuck yeah I won" moment.

>>3982851
>but if you don't like turn based games you probably won't like it
I liked the original fallout games. I like the turn based aspect of Deltarune.

>Eh, XCOM 2 is my favorite game of all time
Half Life is mine, as you can no doubt tell how much I have fervently and emotionally argued the benefits of quicksaving and player accessibility.

>Like making the first bullets room more compact and adding an npc or another sign with a gag and some gameplay tip, anything to make the room less dull.
I can't remember the order the rooms appeared in, but the bullet room with the branching paths that lead to three different rooms sucked. That one could really do with being cut in half and having some gags added.

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The thread is not even a day old and nearly 100 posts are already autistic paragraphs again

>>3982857
and that's completely normal.

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>>3982857
get ready to see this brochacho

>>3982855
I was getting genuinely upset at that argument, so I had to get up and do something else for a while to calm down.

Thinking about it with a cooler head, I do like to be challenged in games. I want to be able to say "I did this, despite everything I went through" I just dislike certain types of challenges. Like things that depend purely on reaction time or perfecting a specific movement, I've never been good at them, and likely never will be because I simply don't enjoy them. I also hate losing progress, and hate games that make me do that.

I do love that "fuck yeah I won moment" but having long walk backs and padding to add "difficulty" just makes it into "fucking finally, its over." which isn't a good feeling. The player should feel triumphant for winning, not relieved they don't have to play anymore.

>>3982753
>Movement 1
It's good.
>Movement 2
K I N O

>>3982856
>I liked the original fallout games. I like the turn based aspect of Deltarune.
Yeah but, classic fallout is easy and lacks tactics in most encounters, and Deltarune's turn based mechanics while good aren't as complex as the one's you'd see in XCOM 2, they are very different kinds of turn based games.

>Half Life is mine, as you can no doubt tell how much I have fervently and emotionally argued the benefits of quicksaving.
I read that conversation but I haven't replied to it yet, if you want to know my opinion, I dislike quicksaving, I understand it's role in role playing games, but I rather not have them in linear games.
XCOM 2 as a whole has painted the way I see game design and it's the main inspiration behind some of Naranja's mechanics, like the action points or there being no base damage modifiers in the game, only critical damage buffs, the existence of shield hp, among other details.
>player accessibility.
It might be a bad time to tell you that Sekiro is my favorite action game of all time.

>I can't remember the order the rooms appeared in, but the bullet room with the branching paths that lead to three different rooms sucked. That one could really do with being cut in half and having some gags added.
That's the first overworld room with bullets, and the one I was talking about, I already removed the branching path and moved it to a different room but I still want to do some extra changes.

>>3982857
its the nature of things on this site. You either have autists making novel length posts at each other over an argument about something they're both way too emotionally invested in, or you have trolls and b&s sending single word shitposts at each other.

>>3982868
To be fair this time it's an argument about game mechanics, and not some tangentially related philosophical debate that goes nowhere

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>>3982857
That's what happens when you gather so many autists in one place, it's just how it is.

>>3982863
>I've never been good at them, and likely never will be because I simply don't enjoy them. I also hate losing progress, and hate games that make me do that.
I can completely respect that part. Different genres are going to appeal to different people, different gameplay styles will scratch one persons neurons just right, while making another person hate the game.
>I do love that "fuck yeah I won moment" but having long walk backs and padding to add "difficulty" just makes it into "fucking finally, its over."
this is why I used mega man/zero stages as an example for length, though you mentioned not liking reaction time and movement based stuff, so bare with me, even if we're not talking about an action platformer, the length of those stages is overall pretty short, so when you fail, you get right back into the action.
I can understand that you probably don't like the level of difficulty that is my personal taste, but I just lose that sense of triumph when I have a quick save at every single obstacle. I want the deaths to feel like my failures, and not the game cheaping me out, and when I overcome it, I want to shout with excitement as my hands are shaking from a close battle.

I always felt, while I enjoyed some of dark souls, that some of it's walk backs were arbitrary and boring, just adding padding like you mentioned.

honestly this discussion has me personally wanting to go and find a really tough platformer I haven't played and get into that again, but even I have points where a game makes me redo so much that I just say "wow I am no longer interested" so I do get where you're coming from.

>>3982869
yeah this is a very relevant and on topic discussion to the point of the thread. Complaining about "paragraphs" in of itself is meaningless.

>>3982866
>XCOM 2 as a whole has painted the way I see game design and it's the main inspiration behind some of Naranja's mechanics,
Fuck, second half of Naranja is gonna be stupidly easy. (I kid, I kid)

>>3982866
>, they are very different kinds of turn based games.
I'm pretty ignorant of tactics games. So I'm not gonna make any statements one way or the other on that.

> but I rather not have them in linear games.
I hear people say this a lot, but I just think they haven't come to appreciate how great a game that's designed around quicksaving can be. I'm gonna use HL1 as an example since I think its the best. A lot of people malign it as cheap for all the unavoidable damage and traps in the game, and how the enemies are bullet sponges on hard, but what they don't realize is that all of this is perfectly handleable if you know its coming. Every combat encounter is balanced around you having the ability to quick save and load. So all the fights become more like fast paced puzzles with guns. You just need to figure out a way to use the tools at your disposal to handle the situation in that room. Its even the tagline of the game, "Run, think, shoot, live".

Obviously, not every game is Half-Life, but quicksaves have a lot of merit and people don't give them nearly the credit they deserve.

>It might be a bad time to tell you that Sekiro is my favorite action game of all time.
I haven't played Sekiro. So I don't know much about it.

> I already removed the branching path and moved it to a different room but I still want to do some extra changes.
I say add a save halfway through, or make it considerably shorter, and add enough gags to keep the player in a good mood regardless of what you choose.

>>3982871
Well I think Naranja is a game that could appeal to both of us if its plays its cards right. And I would very much like it to do that, if only so I can have a good time playing it, as opposed to a very bad time forcing myself through it.

>>3982877
Thinking about it, mega man (the classic series) is a good angle on something that could do that. All of the things that are "crutches" in the game to make the game easier, don't take away from the gameplay, E-tanks don't feel like you're giving in and even have a satisfying sound as you recover the health, using boss weaknesses varies the gameplay,

I'm not saying you would or would not like megaman. I'm just saying I can see how a game could indeed appeal to two such demographics.

>>3982880
>E-tanks don't feel like you're giving in and even have a satisfying sound as you recover the health
note, even if you DID have like 9 E-Tanks and spam them, you're still gonna struggle and possibly lose a life, so its not like it can bail you out without trouble

>>3982874
Don't worry, if modded XCOM 2 has taught me anything, is that the solution for the reverse difficulty curve is to add enemies with inflated stats, the ability to summon more enemies with each action and giving them a passive skill that lets them act during your turns. All jokes aside, you do get to accumulate an arsenal of techniques and equipment trough UTN, but I'm dealing with way less variables than XCOM 2, I'd have to add something really overpowered to reach that point.

>>3982881
yeah, it still lets you face the fight and all of it's mechanics or attacks, so it doesn't feel like one of those things that robs you of the experience.

Nowadays I like to go for no boss weapons, no etanks etc etc, but growing up, those were the first NES games I could actually beat.
I did get stuck on the second game since the one boss requires that one weapon and I was too oblivious to figure that out but whatever.

>>3982875
> I hear people say this a lot, but I just think they haven't come to appreciate how great a game that's designed around quicksaving can be.
>I'm gonna use HL1 as an example since I think its the best. A lot of people malign it as cheap for all the unavoidable damage and traps in the game, and how the enemies are bullet sponges on hard,
I don't remember having troubles with HL besides some parts on the Xen levels, but I don't remember ever playing it on hard.
>but what they don't realize is that all of this is perfectly handleable if you know its coming. Every combat encounter is balanced around you having the ability to quick save and load.
Honestly, that still feels cheap, I don't remember how many times I quicksaved through the game, but I do remember having to make multiple quicksaves on the Nihilanth fight because I was running out of health and armor all the time, that was annoying and not fun to me.
>So all the fights become more like fast paced puzzles with guns. You just need to figure out a way to use the tools at your disposal to handle the situation in that room. Its even the tagline of the game, "Run, think, shoot, live".
I'd rather have the fights be puzzles with guns without the quicksaves like in DOOM ETERNAL, I really don't like this approach, trial and error works in fast paced games like Hotline Miami or Katana Zero, those were designing with the idea of you dying a lot of times, this feels like a crutch by letting the players make as many small trials and errors as they want.

>>3982875
>>3982884
>Obviously, not every game is Half-Life, but quicksaves have a lot of merit and people don't give them nearly the credit they deserve.
I think quick saves are perfectly valid in games like Fallout or TES when you want to quickly test something, but in FPS games they feel like they cheapen the experience.

>I haven't played Sekiro. So I don't know much about it.
There was some drama when the game released because it was too hard, a debate started on whether or not games like Sekiro should include an easy mode for accessibility.

>I say add a save halfway through, or make it considerably shorter, and add enough gags to keep the player in a good mood regardless of what you choose.
I added a save point in a new room that comes shortly after that bullet section, I'm still thinking on what to add to the new rooms, besides a new cutscene I have planned.

>>3982882
>and giving them a passive skill that lets them act during your turns.
honestly the scariest part. Regular enemies just pulling sans type bullshit on you every battle.

But yeah, I figure you've probably got enough perspective on how that games difficulty curve is to avoid that.

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could UTY Clover win this fight?

>>3982793
>NTA, but there should just be a section straight out of the final levels of Super Meat Boy.
>Long segments with brutal difficulty, with the only checkpoints being between rooms, just pull out all the stops all of a sudden.
I do intend to at the very least add an optional challenge designed to squeeze every last drop out the platforming mechanics, it probably won't be mandatory in any of the routes, but I do want to add a final platforming challenge somewhere in those routes.

>>3982801
>I don't think it would be bad to include a challenge like that. I just think it would suck to mandate a challenge like that. Especially the no checkpoints thing.
>>3982802
>The length of a mega man stage but with intensified difficulty is probably ideal for me if you want to remove the checkpoints.
I think a single "no checkpoints" gauntlet of multiple rooms could be cool for a last challenge, I'm not going to do something as insane as Megaman ZX Advent's final stage tho, that would suck.

>>3982812
>then we lose the satisfaction of perfecting the art. Of clearing one segment with more health than the previous attempt, and then more and more until it's a dance. Until you can make it to the boss with more health than you ever did before.
This is something I have to disagree with, I heavily dislike runbacks in games with bosses, I'd rather fight a tougher boss than redo an entire stage I already cleared, that's my limit when it comes to runbacks, everything before the boss begins to feel like filler.
>Or if it's a game where you're on the timer, then of course getting faster and faster until you've perfected the "track". What's the line to be drawn? Repeating a single room? A single jump?
Agree with this, there is something satisfying about beating your previous score, even if it's something I rarely do in games, there has to be an upper limit to how much margin of error you give to the players before the challenge evaporates.

>>3982889
>I do intend to at the very least add an optional challenge designed to squeeze every last drop out the platforming mechanics, it probably won't be mandatory in any of the routes, but I do want to add a final platforming challenge somewhere in those routes.
make sure it's hard, like kaizo romhack levels of hard

>>3982889
>I do intend to at the very least add an optional challenge designed to squeeze every last drop out the platforming mechanics
There should be something very cool that's locked behind whatever platforming challenge you end up making.

>>3982890
>make sure it's hard, like kaizo romhack levels of hard
It would be Hollow Knight's Path of Pain levels of hard, I'm not into insane pixel perfect romhacks, so I wouldn't enjoy making it and people that are into them would probably find them to be too easy.

>>3982891
>There should be something very cool that's locked behind whatever platforming challenge you end up making.
I honestly don't know what to put at the end of the challenge, it could be an overpowered item, the ultimate technique, an alternative skin for the UI/Val, an upgrade that gives you double jumping or even just an special cutscene, it really could be anything

>>3982884
>but I don't remember ever playing it on hard.
Hard makes the grunts do a lot of damage, reduces the vort charge up time, and halves the resources gained from item pickups. It forces you to end fights quick so you won't lose health you'll need later, and makes you count your high damage output ammo.

>but I do remember having to make multiple quicksaves on the Nihilanth fight because I was running out of health and armor all the time, that was annoying and not fun to me.
If you used your saves more judiciously you wouldn't be low on health and armor in the first place. Plus there are multiple infinite health pools in the nihilanth fight.

> without the quicksaves like in DOOM ETERNAL
I absolutely hate modern ID games because of the checkpoint system. Ruins the flow and makes the whole thing feel really locked down and controlled. And honestly I'd say it feels cheap precisely because it doesn't have quicksaves.

> this feels like a crutch by letting the players make as many small trials and errors as they want.
That's what makes it fun. It encourages the player think and act outside the box, rather than doing the most reliable thing every time because of the high consequence for failure. You'd never set up trip wire traps or satchel ambushes in half life, or have any rockets to insta remove an alien grunt without the quicksaves. You'd just be shooting them with normal bullets and occasionally an smg grenade.

> but in FPS games they feel like they cheapen the experience.
Maybe this is just an incrossable divide then, because to me it feels like the game is being cheap when it doesn't provide them.

>a debate started on whether or not games like Sekiro should include an easy mode for accessibility.
Different kind of accessibility. I mean that a game can be picked up and beaten by anyone, not that doing so is easy. The game should teach and train the player on all the skills they need to succeed without just dropping them into the deep end.

1/2

>>3982892
>it really could be anything
Whatever it ends up being, the game should have some way of detecting when a player is cheating their way through it, so it can give them something else instead, or something like the Joker badge in Spore.

>>3982885
>>3982884
I know the Souls games actually aren't that hard once you know how to play them and what equipment to use. I would say they should do a better job of teaching the player how to do that. (I've only played DS1)

> I'm still thinking on what to add to the new rooms
You don't have to add something to a room. It really can just be a space to catch your breath. That's what most of the mouse rooms in Undertale are, a room with one flavor text joke and a save point that exists just to add another save point to the game.

>>3982889
>I'm not going to do something as insane as Megaman ZX Advent's final stage tho, that would suck.
that one was rough for me since I played that before ever getting to even try the zero series, but I think that set my expectations. Mega man zero 2 is probably my favorite game of all time personally. though sometimes that title is swapped for whatever game I'm most nostalgic about at that moment, Zero 2 always comes back to the forefront.
going for the A and S ranks is something that gives me life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjb68812tls
>I already cleared, that's my limit when it comes to runbacks, everything before the boss begins to feel like filler.
I feel like, when the execution of actions is as satisfying as something like in the Zero games, I get hyped when running the stage perfectly is just as tricky as getting the boss down perfectly.
The parts I hate were moments like the midpoint of this stage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ290Ung9NE
where it's just a big waiting sequence. Let me get back to the "real" stage.

I feel the same way though when the stage itself doesn't feel exciting to go through as a whole.
>there has to be an upper limit to how much margin of error you give to the players before the challenge evaporates.
I know it's a bit of a hyperbole, but comparing a kirby game like robobot, fun, some challenge, far from the hardest game around, and epic yarn, a game that just discards the concept of difficulty as a whole.

>>3982889
>I think a single "no checkpoints" gauntlet of multiple rooms could be cool for a last challenge
Please don't do this. Make the rooms as hard as you want, but having no checkpoints is just miserable.

>Agree with this, there is something satisfying about beating your previous score
Beating a score can be nice, but not if its a time score. I hate time trials, they're just stressful.

>>3982893
this >>3982894 is the 2/2 by the way

>>3982899
Huh?
I don't think you replied to the guy you meant to.

>>3982894
I feel like I would learn how to hack the game out of spite at that point. And then would cheat through the rest of the game. Just so I can make the game itself lose and deny it even an ounce of victory by refusing to meet its challenge, but still taking the reward.

I know this is silly, but at the same time it feels really good thinking of things this way. There's a certain appeal to cheating. Its a victory even above beating the challenge, because in "beating" the challenge fairly, all you really did was give it what it wanted. By cheating, you get what you want and it loses.

>>3982899
>>3982896
>>3982900
wrong post. I need to get new glasses

meant this one >>3982896

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>>3982903
Mm, I don't know about that.
I think overcoming a challenge feels good because it means you actually had what it took to win, beating it at it's own game, rather than just sidestepping it.

>>3982893
>but I do remember having to make multiple quicksaves on the Nihilanth fight because I was running out of health and armor all the time, that was annoying and not fun to me.
If you used your saves more judiciously you wouldn't be low on health and armor in the first place. Plus there are multiple infinite health pools in the nihilanth fight.
I know there were those health pools on the rooms Nihilanth teleports you to, but for some reason he always managed to kill me, I don't remember it being super frustrating or anything but I did dislike having to use quicksaves.

>I absolutely hate modern ID games because of the checkpoint system.
A shame, the nuDoom trilogy has become my favorite fps trilogy in general.
>Ruins the flow and makes the whole thing feel really locked down and controlled. And honestly I'd say it feels cheap precisely because it doesn't have quicksaves.
I don't see how it ruins the flow any more than quicksaves do, I like games being controlled in some form, putting limits to the player is a basic game design principle.

>That's what makes it fun. It encourages the player think and act outside the box, rather than doing the most reliable thing every time because of the high consequence for failure. You'd never set up trip wire traps or satchel ambushes in half life, or have any rockets to insta remove an alien grunt without the quicksaves. You'd just be shooting them with normal bullets and occasionally an smg grenade.
To me it's the opposite, it encourages the players to brute force trough anything by taking more cover or taking more precise shots, it ruins the pacing, my experience differs from yours since I didn't play the game on hard, but for the ammo, I think the game gives you more than enough options to take down the grunts with the rocket launcher, smg grenades, normal grenades and the tau cannon, I always use the excess ammo on the stronger enemies.

>>3982715
>I thought the corn in the ruins was hilarious because it made me think of Doctor Weird.
My favorite is Dalv saying, "I have eaten corn every day for a year and I'm doing moderately OK."
>>3982717
I like the memes thrown in there. Anyway Soundcloud won't even let me check without an account and I don't feel like doing that right now.
>>3982751
I was stuck for hours on them. Their "artillery shell game" is hard to track.

>>3982896
>I would say they should do a better job of teaching the player how to do that. (I've only played DS1)
All Fromsoft games are obtuse for no reason, there's several mechanics that are either poorly explained or not explained at all, even Elden Ring is like this and that's their most beginner friendly game.

>You don't have to add something to a room. It really can just be a space to catch your breath. That's what most of the mouse rooms in Undertale are, a room with one flavor text joke and a save point that exists just to add another save point to the game.
See, the new rooms don't even have a single interaction with flavor text, that's what I meant.

>>3982898
>Maybe this is just an incrossable divide then, because to me it feels like the game is being cheap when it doesn't provide them.
Must be, the quicksaves can turn any challenge into a brute force test.

>Different kind of accessibility. I mean that a game can be picked up and beaten by anyone, not that doing so is easy. The game should teach and train the player on all the skills they need to succeed without just dropping them into the deep end.
Yeah that makes sense, but some games naturally have an high difficulty curve from the start than others.

>Please don't do this. Make the rooms as hard as you want, but having no checkpoints is just miserable.
It's hypotetical, in any case you'd still have the overworld shield hp that gives you a greater margin of error, best case scenario this is exclusive to the genocide route.

>Beating a score can be nice, but not if its a time score. I hate time trials, they're just stressful.
Sounds like you'd dislike XCOM 2 then, half the missions in that game have some form of timer.

>>3982903
Naranja should include a zip bomb that triggers if you try to hack the game just to prevent this scenario

>>3982910
You could make it like the Blood Stained Sanctuary and have the timer be optional to unlock bonus title screen themes.

>>3982905
Beating it at its own game is giving it what it wants. It wanted to be beaten, and for me to play into its hand just that specific way. That isn't my victory, that's the game's victory. So this isn't personal growth and personal achievement, its being a tool. Nothing more than a finely honed edge, sharpened by someone else to be weilded by someone else, with no agency of its own.

My victory was not over the false challenge constructed by the game, but over the game itself, and the one who designed it. What I gain is power over my own destiny and the freedom to set my own rules. I set the rules of the game, and I set the terms of my victory. In that way, I have obtained a victory no petty artificial challenge could ever hope to offer me.

On a serious note, I've always dislike the trope of "asshole mentor forcing the protagonist to train honestly" and I really really like clever tricky characters. So I always want to see the mentor figure fail, to have the protagonist succeed in his own way, in spite of the mentor, rather than because of them. And I think of game challenges pretty similarly.

I feel much more accomplished having beaten a game the wrong way than by doing it the right way. I love playing games wrong, and hate being forced to play them a certain way. So to me, cheating the game is the most fulfilling victory possible. Especially when I cheat using only the tools the game provided.

I admire creativity and ingenuity infinitely more than raw skill. Skill is boring and cheap, you just do the same thing over and again and eventually you'll get it. Creativity is scarce, you either have it or you don't, and there's no training you do to develop it.

>>3982927
> So this isn't personal growth and personal achievement, its being a tool. Nothing more than a finely honed edge, sharpened by someone else to be weilded by someone else, with no agency of its own.
Okay man, we're talking about difficulty in video games here, no need to start turning off your pain inhibitors or something, calm down.

Finding an unintended way of overcoming difficulty is cool, but it's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to open the command console and enable godmode or something.
That's just refusing to engage with the game at all at that point.

>>3982906
>but for some reason he always managed to kill me
You can use the spikes for cover and you can dodge most of his attacks with a long jump. As long as you keep moving or stay out of site, its very easy to avoid being hit. Even the health pool has a conveniently placed spike next to it to hide behind.

> I like games being controlled in some form, putting limits to the player is a basic game design
I like limits, but only if those limits aren't too constrictive. To me, games should encourage the player to think creatively. If the player finds a way to exploit the game to get around those limits, he should be rewarded. And the devs should allow players to play the game "wrong". A game with only one right way to play is no fun at all.

> it encourages the players to brute force trough anything by taking more cover or taking more precise shots
Well I'd encourage you to replay the game on hard and try it my way. That is trying to go for more exotic kills like tripwires or eliminating enemies fast before they can damage you using ambushes.

If you still don't see it, then fair enough. I take major issue with a lot of widely held ideas in game design. Like the idea that limiting how much of an item players can carry will make them use it more. I only ever use items when I have lots of them, so in games that hard cap them I find myself avoiding them because I might need them. I say if you want a player to use an item, make them need it, and make them expect to get more.

>>3982910
>See, the new rooms don't even have a single interaction with flavor text, that's what I meant.
You having trouble coming up with gags? My advice there is to keep a notebook or a note file on your phone or PC, and any time you think of an idea for a gag, or even the basic premise of one, immediately write it down. Then you can consult the notes any time you need a joke to stick somewhere.

As for this one in particular. Maybe you could make a joke about filler anime episodes and it being a filler room. And then have Val be filled with the power of well placed filler.

>>3982929
>That's just refusing to engage with the game at all at that point.
Yeah, but at the same time it feels good to spit in the game's face like that.

>>3982933
I guess man.
Honestly, I'm not really sure what you play games at all for if you're so eager to just, not actually play them, but to each their own, I suppose.

>>3982934
I mean on the one hand there's players not being respectful of the game, and on the other hand there's the other way around with the developer not respecting the player at all.
Honestly this is something Toby got right that people don't really talk about since actual game design discussions aren't really too sexy. It'd also mean having to admit both genocide bosses are actually a lot easier than they seem, and this being an intentional decision

>>3982934
I play games to have fun, mostly. If a game's frustrating, its not fun. However getting petty revenge on inanimate objects and nebulous concepts as though they were people is always fun.

>>3982935
Could you elaborate on that?

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>>3982933
>to spit in the game's face like that.
I only get the sense of "spiting" a game when I finally beat it at its 'own game'. I've definitely been autistic enough to shout "FUCK YOU GAME" as I overcome it.
>>3982937
I'd assume he's talking about things games do to be easier while not feeling to the player like the game is going easy on you. I know he mentioned genocide, but a good example would be like how your health bar is deceptive in the omega flowey fight.

>>3982929
Using God Mode is like saying "please game let me through please!!!", you're just taking the game's offered easy way out, and so you fall to its whims, it's much better to crack it open with your own hands as a big "fuck you" to the game

>>3982936
>However getting petty revenge on inanimate objects and nebulous concepts as though they were people is always fun.
I mean, it's not really revenge.
The game doesn't care whether you beat it legitimately or not, you're the only one keeping track of that most of the time.
But, whatever, I guess.
As long as it doesn't result in you demanding that a game be nerfed for the sake of ease when you can just make things easier on your own end, fine.

>>3982934
by that logic then speedrunning isnt actually playing them? there's more than one way to skin a cat, you know.

>>3982939
>it's much better to crack it open with your own hands as a big "fuck you" to the game
So what does that actually mean then?
Just, exploiting some unintended consequence in the game's programming?

>>3982937
It's kind of a long boring, complicated but ultimately easy to explain topic that in game design, it's really fucking easy actually to make "difficult" games and gameplay segments, as in, things that are unlikely to be completed, but it's actually way more difficult to make actually hard gameplay in the sense that it asks for a variety of learned skills to be applied and execution finesse from the player, and something relatively new is a demograph of people that intentionally will interact with bad games for perceived social accolades with peers.

>>3982941
>by that logic then speedrunning isnt actually playing them?
A lot of the time, no.
You see some speedruns out there?
I've seen some go from the start of a game to the credits in less than a minute, that feels like a pretty substantial amount of the game is going un-played there.
>there's more than one way to skin a cat, you know.
I know, but past a certain point it gets hard to really call what you're doing "playing the game", if you're so committed to not actually engaging with it at every turn.
I know "playing a game" doesn't mean always doing what the game normally intends for you to do, but completely refusing to engage with the challenges the game puts forward for you to overcome isn't really valid either.
That's like playing baseball and just beating the pitcher with your bat, you're not "overcoming the game's challenge", you're just not even playing the game anymore.

>>3982940
>I mean, it's not really revenge.
>The game doesn't care whether you beat it legitimately or not, you're the only one keeping track of that most of the time.
>But, whatever, I guess.
this, i like getting petty revenge too, but what use is it to tear a game world apart for fun if i dont get to see them suffer too? I can be as evil as i possibly can in the game and i'll be happy if they react accordingly, a bunch of npcs crying for help? fuck you i'll watch em burn and in the mean throw some extra molotovs, maybe create some torture contraptions like in some of the new zelda games, if i'm forced to be a goodie two shoes then i can ignore sidequests if i can help it or maybe get a bad ending, and if there's no bad ending then i can just game over at the final boss and uninstall this shit so they can all go to hell (like, as an example, whenever i get bored of playing undertale halfway through a run and wanna stop for a long while, i simply go to the omega flowey fight, let frisk die to them then never open the game again and place the save files on a separate folder for separate save file timelines i've preserved so i can start a brand new save file again when i wanna get back into undertale

>>3982942
yeah, beat it in an unintended way, yknow?

>>3982938
>I've definitely been autistic enough to shout "FUCK YOU GAME" as I overcome it.
I wouldn't consider that autistic. That's the game's intention, to make you feel like that. Its trying to frustrate you so you'll be motivated to improve, until eventually you and feel that triumph.

What's autistic is me recognizing that, and viewing the game as a well intentioned mentor figure that's only acting as a heel to drive me to improve, and intentionally becoming worse because I know that's what would really upset them. In this case going from a bad player to a dirty cheater and "robbing myself" with a "hollow victory".

>I'd assume he's talking about things games do to be easier while not feeling to the player like the game is going easy on you
I love that in games. Usually I call that rubber banding, but I think maybe a more accurate term would be anti frustration features.

The easiest example is rubber banding in racing games. When you're behind, the AI starts slowing down so you can keep up. When you're in the lead, the AI speeds up to keep things tense. Another example is in HL2, while there are often fights against many combine soldiers, the game doesn't want you getting mowed down by a firing squad. So instead it only allows 2 soldiers to shoot at a time, while all the others run around, take cover, or reload. Thus giving the appearance of being hopelessly outnumbered, while keeping things manageable for the player.

I've had a few ideas for stuff like this to put in Oldentale my current favorite is that if you die to a boss too many times, a magic rubber band will be equipped to you upon loading a save. And it will allow you to deal more damage to the enemy, and take less yourself, it being explained in universe as the character getting frustrated and temporarily gaining harmful intent.

>>3982945
>You see some speedruns out there?
>I've seen some go from the start of a game to the credits in less than a minute, that feels like a pretty substantial amount of the game is going un-played there.
nta, but this shit drives me crazy. I used to casually speedrun super metroid because it's a short game, and the techniques you use to skip stuff is actually really fun to pull off in most cases, it was just a different way of engaging with the areas and using glitches like the mach ball was fun in actual practice.
But that shit where you just bug the game out into its credits? it's a farce.

>>3982940
>The game doesn't care whether you beat it legitimately or not, you're the only one keeping track of that most of the time.
The developer's intention is what I really mean here. The dev intends you to face the challenge, beat it fairly, and triumph, and they act like real assholes to make that happen.

>>3982947
Ok, this is pretty autistic too. However, I don't do this because my autism makes me not want to hurt the innocent video game characters.

>>3982945
Anon, one is still playing the game regardless, you've got multiple tools, and the choice to use or not to use them is still yours, challenge runs are still playing the game, but going by your logic then theyre not playing the game for real because they are limitting the tools they were given, or how one can pick the asshole dialogue options in a game and kill everyone they can, so by your logic they arent "actually playing the game" because you're not engaging with it the right way or whatever

>>3982952
>The dev intends you to face the challenge, beat it fairly, and triumph, and they act like real assholes to make that happen.
I'm not really sure they care either.
I mean, if you already bought the game, I think that's about as far as they care about it, really.
I don't think some Bungie dev is shaking his fist at the sky every time someone skips "Colony Ship for Sale, Cheap".

>>3982943
Its not boring to me, since I'm a game dev, so I'd like to know more. Like which one is Undertale and what makes it that? What are some examples of both things? What makes them that way? How do you avoid it?

>>3982952
lol coward, they arent real

>>3982945
>That's like playing baseball and just beating the pitcher with your bat, you're not "overcoming the game's challenge", you're just not even playing the game anymore.
You are still playing a game, just you're playing pitcher pinata instead of baseball.

Trying to break the game and avoid proper engagement at whatever cost is its own kind of game.

>>3982954
>by your logic then theyre not playing the game for real because they are limitting the tools they were given, or how one can pick the asshole dialogue options in a game and kill everyone they can, so by your logic they arent "actually playing the game" because you're not engaging with it the right way or whatever
You have completely and utterly missed my point so badly that I'm wondering whether replying to this constitutes feeding a troll.
Intentionally *limiting* yourself in a game isn't the same thing as what we've been talking about so far.
For an on-topic example, playing UT without using healing items isn't the same as playing UT but having every fight cut straight to the end without you actually having to play them.

>>3982959
>You are still playing a game, just you're playing pitcher pinata instead of baseball.
Uh.

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Im not sure what to think about this, so instead I'll take a page from Martlet, and not think at all.

>>3982955
They cared on some level or they wouldn't have put effort into the making the game the way it is. Obviously I know John Bungie isn't gonna care if I cheese his game and skip all the hard parts, but that's what makes it petty. Is doing something nobody cares about and imagining them being mad about it.

>>3982957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty0mHm8WNdM

>>3982960
Its more like save editing to give yourself a massive attack or hp and then beating the fights that way, or at least it would be if Undertale were hard.

>>3982960
>isn't the same as playing UT but having every fight cut straight to the end without you actually having to play them.
thats not the same as using complex techs to skip parts of the game, what you said here is like the equivalent of turning on a cheat that autoskips to the end and the thing you argued against (>>3982934) is about using precise skills and stuff to do the skips

>>3982963
>Martlet is declared braindead as anon weeps over her body in the hospital

>>3982965
>schizophrenia
ok, they still aren't real, baby boy, you arent doing any actual bad, plus you're severely limiting your experience by restricting yourself to a few actions only, which is painfully dumb for choice-based games

>>3982965
I guess, man.

Guess that means I don't have much of a challenge to look forward to later though, that's a shame.
Assuming you are who I think you are anyway, but I'm pretty sure I know who I'm talking to.

>>3982968
It'd be more like using that glitch in the demo version of chapter 2 to get to a million HP, and then beating the knight with that save. Which does sound kinda fun.

>>3982974
Why do you say that?

>>3982963
>>3982971
Alternatively,
>Martlet is declared clinically stupid
>Anon weeps for her, even though literally nothing has changed and she's still alive and well right next to him

>>3982973
Flowey...

>>3982971
>Martlet asks anon what's wrong because she's too stupid to understand that dead people don't talk

>>3982976
If you are who I think you are, then I imagine your philosophy applies to your own game as well, in which case I doubt you'll be willing, or able, to provide anything that might constitute a serious obstacle to the player without there being some really easy way of just completely negating it.
I'd be glad to proven wrong though.

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>>3982956
Going off most qualifiers Undertale (and Deltarune, especially) would likely sit a little bit towards the harder end of the spectrum (keep in mind there are a LOT of games to compare it against), in that typically it does ask for pretty considerable finesse and understanding of the game's mechanics when doing battle boards, but it tends to stack things in the player's favor, this can be overt things like Toriel intentionally refusing to strike the player, or covert things, like enemies using simpler attacks when you're at low hp.
Or other things, like how even with how much leveling up makes the game easier, to compensate so you don't just sweep bosses in genocide they quietly get buffs to deal additional damage to you.
Sans technically, is a poorly designed boss, in the context of actual game design, most of the attacks are designed to get fairly unavoidable chip damage on you and wear you down over and over, but at that point you've been basically rolling the entire game completely ignoring its core premise for the easier, but more tedious process of clearing out all areas of monsters.
It's a given that the time you beat sans is going to be your 2nd or 3rd fight with him where you're aware in advance of how the attacks work, and to be able to react in advance to the attacks, or deal with him refusing to be attacked or knowing that the game doesn't simply soft lock itself at its conclusion.
This does work to provide a fairly strong illusion of difficulty without necessarily being explicitly unfair.
It's kind of a lot to explain, but during a pacifist run where you, really well actually have to react to the attacks at all, there's a lot of depth and complexity to them, things like knowing to touch green attacks, stopping for blue ones, moving for orange ones, things like pyrope distorting the screen, shooting mechanics for yellow segments, operating the shield while green, navigating the lanes while purple, most of this not applying in genocide (dis long)

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>>3982979

>>3982980
>without there being some really easy way of just completely negating it.
I was gonna say I'd still offer challenges, but I guess you've got me there. I don't like forcing the player to beat a really hard section that can only be beaten one way fo progress the story. What I'd like to do is have alternate methods of progrssion based on playstyle, but from the sound of it, you'd probably consider that too easy since I'm not forcing the player to get gud at that one aspect to progress.

Plus I do still and always have sucked at bullet hells, so there's an inherent limit on how hard I can make the fights while still making them balanced. If I can't beat the fight myself, I can hardly expect the player to. I'd have no way of knowing if its a fair challenge or fun.

All in all, it'll probably end up being closer to Undertale in difficulty than the other games here, since that's what I prefer.

Though I should say most of this argument was about specifically challenges that exist to frustrate the player. Mainly stuff with long walkbacks and an intentionally lack of checkpoints.

>>3982982
>or covert things, like enemies using simpler attacks when you're at low hp.
They do that? I never noticed.

>they quietly get buffs to deal additional damage to you.
I'm assuming you don't mean Undyne or Sans, since there's nothing subtle about those. Papyrus, Muffet, and Mettaton don't even have fights, so who do you mean?

> your 2nd or 3rd fight with him
A bit of a conservative estimate there

>>3982988
>What I'd like to do is have alternate methods of progrssion based on playstyle, but from the sound of it, you'd probably consider that too easy since I'm not forcing the player to get gud at that one aspect to progress.
Actually, no.
I like having more than one way to solve a problem, the issue with that is just that actually making the different ways of progressing feel like they're all equally valid as one another instead of one of them clearly being more viable than the rest is difficult and a lot of games don't do that very well.
The only game I can think of that actually manages to pull that off well in my eyes would be Deus Ex, but I'm not exactly expecting Warren Spector level game design from a fangame like this, no offense.
>If I can't beat the fight myself, I can hardly expect the player to. I'd have no way of knowing if its a fair challenge or fun.
That's fair.
I guess that can't really be helped, other than possibly by having other people come in to test the game's difficulty, or by having difficulty options.
>All in all, it'll probably end up being closer to Undertale in difficulty than the other games here, since that's what I prefer.
Well, I found UT to be pretty easy even when I first played it, so I guess that's just something I'll have to accept.
>Though I should say most of this argument was about specifically challenges that exist to frustrate the player. Mainly stuff with long walkbacks and an intentionally lack of checkpoints.
Hm.
Well, I guess that's fair enough at least.

>>3982992
>I'm assuming you don't mean Undyne or Sans
Oh no I do, if the stats actually followed the conventions of how they typically work at level 1, Undyne the Undying would be much easier than it already is.
The modifier actually applies to all combat, it just, you know, doesn't actually matter that much when they aren't already having their base damage positively juiced.
Sans' mechanic mostly bypasses this by hitting you every frame (or fewer if you have a higher invulnerability stat)
>A bit conservative estimate here
I mean, being fair, you could also figure in the nigh inevitability that someone just watched it on youtube, which has basically the same effect. Since most people won't ever be bothered to actually go through the process of grinding out genocide.

>>3982988
I still want to have more depth than Undertale though. Expect to be spending time building and kitting out your character while playing. So a lot of the difficulty would depend on that. Like you set up your character poorly and it'll probably be a lot harder than Undertale.

>>3982993
> but I'm not exactly expecting Warren Spector level game design from a fangame like this, no offense.
And I'm not expecting to reach that level, but I figure I can at least come up with something smaller in scope thats still similar in spirit. Like the Fallout games are good about that too, even though they aren't imsim tier.

> or by having difficulty options.
I do have something planned for that.

>>3982996
I don't think people watching playthroughs are really relevant to discussions of difficulty, on account of them not playing the game.

>>3983000
It is pertinent when the fight is designed around it being like several times in after playing it for the first time

>>3982997
>I figure I can at least come up with something smaller in scope thats still similar in spirit. Like the Fallout games are good about that too, even though they aren't imsim tier.
Well, hopefully it works out well.
>I do have something planned for that.
This too, hopefully this goes well too.
I'm not expecting to boot up a UT fangame and see a "hurt me plenty" difficulty option, but I'd certainly like to make things more of a challenge if the base difficulty just isn't doing it for me.

reminder that it was also weird for clover to just give up right there, when everything before that point would convince them to at least try. They convinced, tons of monsters to stop fighting including the fox widow through pacifist. They survived through multiple ecounters and can technically survive them without dying once. They didnt know flowey was secretly a backstabber "monster". They still thought flowey would back them up. Asgore was right next to them. And dying, would not only damn the next human that falls after them but would also devastate martlet, starlo and ceroba.

Feel like they should have attempted at least to convince asgore.

>>3982668
Thank you for the kind words anon. I'll soon go back to writing more of Shattered Gold, though I think its high time i make an actual plan of what needs to haooen from here on out. I have some rough ideas but they need finetuning for sure. Though I'm not sure how much actual freetime I'll have with irl things going on got invited to a friends wedding and in conjuction, bachelor's party which will surely not be a sober occasion .

Also funnily enough, the second post you are replying to, I feel like I'm faulty with thst as well with how things happened in my story. Funny that.

Othwrwise, I've finished the oc yap sidestory thing I've mentioned here and there so might post it soon ish. It's just somethinv I've wanted to write for a while noe so I'm biting the bullet with sharing. Just hope reactions won't be too bad.

>>3983001
oh, you meant people who played it after watching

>>3982997
>Expect to be spending time building and kitting out your character while playing. So a lot of the difficulty would depend on that. Like you set up your character poorly and it'll probably be a lot harder than Undertale.
That does sound interesting actually, though I worry about the possibility of it falling into the KOTOR trap of "you didn't pay attention to how you leveled up and now you're softlocked", but I imagine you have the foresight to make sure that can't happen.

>>3983002
I have thought about doing something like nightmare mode in Doom, where I include a level of difficulty so high I can't even beat it. That's what nightmare was to ID, they included as sort of a joke because of how unfair it was.

>>3983007
I mean it could go either way, but sure.

>>3983002
>>3983009
DRY added a hard mode though all it does is just remove healing from save points, forcing you to use items to heal more often.

>>3983009
Yeah, that sounds like it'll do just fine for me.
A nice, medium difficulty.

I jest.

>>3983003
they could've at least made clover sacrifice himself as Ceroba's labrat to revive kanako then show credits scenes of clover's soul being delivered by martlet to asgore then a final "THE END" scene of a goopy but somewhat more stable kanako looking up at a memorial statue of Clover in the wild east

>>3983008
I was thinking of it being centered around spells and items than being given stat points to distribute every level. Basically imagine if you took Deltarune's equip system, then added spell slots and learnable spells that could be acquired through various means. Then you can choose which spells you have equipped in each slot out of the total stockpile you own. Sort of like the plasmids in bioshock. Oh and of course you still have the classic UT/DR style levelling system underneath all of that

>>3983012
Eh, that sounds a bit too simple for what I want.
Funnily enough, I think UT actually had a great idea for a hard mode, actively swapping out the normal enemies for harder ones with different attack patterns, instead of just changing damage values or something.
Something like that would be great, but I don't think anyone's actually gone through with implementing something like that into a fangame yet.

>>3983017
Huh, that could be interesting, centering it around abilities rather than basic stats.
I assume the leveling mechanic would really only come into play in the genocide route, or whatever equivalent of it will exist, but that's nothing new.

>>3983012
I'd want to do more than that. I was thinking harder bullet patterns or at least higher damage across the board. Maybe I could also play around with bullet cooldowns. That would make dodging more essential.

though since I'm using an MP system, maybe making that have to be replenished by items in addition to your health could be an extra challenge as well

>>3983020
The issue with that is that you basically have to develop a whole second game. All new enemies, with new patterns, new scenes, changed dialogue.

>>3983021
I was thinking about making it more present in the other routes as well. Maybe you could have quest based leveling in the pacifist equivelent

>>3983028
Eh, new enemies and patterns, yes, but you don't actually have to change too much outside of that.
In UT's hard mode, most of the Ruins is basically exactly the same when it comes to the story and the scenes, so I imagine that would've applied to the rest of the game too, to an extent.

>>3983031
Every area after the ruins would need brand new enemies since the ruins just reuse core enemies, that's why toby didn't go forward with it

>>3983030
So, a non-murdery source of LV, huh?
I'm skeptical, but that could be cool.

>>3983032
I know, but that doesn't actually sound like *that* much, in the grand scheme of things.
If the enemies that appear in the Ruins are just the enhanced versions of the Ruins' normal enemies that appear in the core, the hard mode enemies for the other areas of the game could theoretically have just been modifications of their standard enemies too.

>>3983035
not necessarily LV. Deltarune has levels without it being LV. There may be other ways to measure one's capability in a fight

>>3983039
Okay, levels in general, alright, but uh-
Do you really need to spoiler-censor everything you're saying here?
Like, even if you do end up implementing these ideas into your game, I don't feel like these single lines of text are gonna completely blow the lid off your story, really.

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>say I'll play Deltatraveler like a month ago but don't
>finally boot it
>has a trigger warning
Oh, this is going to be the good shit
I'll refrain from posting too many images and compile them if I do

Imagine if Deltarune Chapter 2 launched with a warning about the Weird Route in 2021

>>3983041
maybe someone wants to go in completely blind

>>3983049
Somehow I don't think the game being discussed will be finished soon enough for these posts to matter.

Deltarune yellow pacifist route:
>Kanako says she loved having fun with Cole this final week together, and says she's really gonna miss him they hug each other and then we see cole enter a car and we see in the credits cole staring out of the car window with a little smile.
Deltarune yellow Capture all the criminals combined with pacifist route:
>same shit as the above but more affectionate i guess, kanako stops him as he walks to the car, being like "u-um, cole, it might be too late to say this, but... i always admired your sense of justice, stopping criminals together... was really fun, and i hope we can keep doing it, if you don't mind. i also wanted to tell you something else." then kanako whispers something into cole's ear and gives him a smooch on the cheek afterwards, cole blushes and walks to the car, the car credits still happens but cole is like visibly enamoured and happier, after the credits, theres a text saying "mission accomplished."
Deltarune Yellow neutral route/low confidence kanako pacifist or neutral/aborted weird route:
>Kanako talks about how she absolutely hated this final week, wishing they couldve done something more entertaining, and hopes that cole can have more fun wherever they go, kanako places as hand on cole's shoulder then cole walks into the car, car credits scene happens but cole has a neutral expression on his face, theres text at the end saying "Mission accomplished... but something felt off."
Deltarune weird route:
>Cole walks towards the dark fountain (im assuming the last day has a weird route exclusive dark world), when suddenly, kanako lunges at cole and they start fighting, because if he seals that fountain, he will leave after tonight, and she doesn't want Cole to go, so she does everything to stop him, here, you must choose to shoot her down or ACT to tire her out or something.

Man, there needs to be more scrimblo comfort stuff.
What I wouldn't give to be held in Ceroba's arms as I cry for a few hours...

>>3983044
>--CONTENT WARNING--
>This game is really fucking bad
>Like actual garbage
>Seriously, don't play it

>>3983057
>if you FIGHT, Cole will end up dealing the killing blow after Kanako's special attack, they exchange final words with each other (maybe Cole starts speaking here as the soul slowly raises up to the fountain), then Cole gives her a last kiss, and holds her hands sort of like how Ceroba holds Starlo's hands before his death in the UTY genocide run, in the light world, Cole grabs Kanako's dust and wakes martlet up, after a few empty-feeling farewells (with different music here), Cole walks into the car and leaves, being visibly distressed during the credits, and it ends with text saying "...it had to be done."
>if you ACT, Cole will walk closer to Kanako, reaching out a hand to her, when suddenly she lunges at Cole and hits Cole's head real hard with her weapon, leaving him to bleed in the floor, Kanako approaches him and tells him that they'll be fine, that they wont need the light world anymore, and will remain together for all eternity, then kanako kisses cole in the mouth passionately and grabs cole's gun, "When a Lightner dies, they turn into a Darkner, you know, and i wont be needing this body anymore either..." and aims it to her temple, the screen goes black as a shot is heard, the credits are dustner versions of kanako and cole walking through the darkness holding hands (cole is distressed and kanako is happy), we see flashbacks of the other dark worlds, and the credits end with pink text saying "mission accomplished, my love, we don't need any more worries now~"

>>3983044
>"Le blue KKK guys... drop le blood!? AIEIEIE PUT UP TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THE BLOODERINO RYNO-SAMA!!!"
literally who needs blood content warnings (that also spoils and ruins the surprise of a deltatraveler enemy actually bleeding after you kill them) for a literal Deltarune fangame?? that's like going to see a horror movie like Alien and seeing "Content warning: there's blood and fetish content where a fucking xenomorph shitbaby comes out of a dude's chest and almost everybody in the movie is gonna die violently except the protagonist, you will know if you're about to see that shit" at the start of it like bro, cmon.
Also you arent directly told to go kill animal characters lol way to scare off the pacishit whiny players from playing the obliteration route

>>3983057
>>3983062
>The evil route is the closest thing to a happy ending, (again)
How does it keep happening?

>>3983066
it would work well imo, a well done tragedy with a double sided sword for a happier outcome, Cole either takes her dust with him to wherever he goes, making dark fountains just to see her again, or Cole and Kanako abandon their own world to live together for a long, long time, Maybe you could have statues of cole and kanako sitting next to each other with cole's head lying on kanako's shoulder in the middle of the roaring as a final "the end" scene for the weird route ACT ending?

>>3983068
Kanaclover bias aside, this would actually work really well, maybe if this concept's kanako yandere act was toned down a bit and focused on her desperation to not let go of things even if it makes cole unhappy could lead to a situation where they cant be happy at the same time, in the pacifist route cole would feel satisfied and happier the more things he accomplished in the dark worlds (all captures, all secret bosses, pacifist and good alignment, etc.) while kanako still carries a lot of regrets and what-ifs, while in the weird route, kanako becomes the one happy while cole is the one unhappy, and both are unhappy in the in-betweens, essentially becoming a bittersweet tragedy fest but they can either go out in good terms or tear everything else down and abandon it all to stay together

>>3983057
To refrain, as much as possible, from my DRY Gaiden shit because it's not what DRY1 is going for, the clear endpoint of a "bad ending" route should be Cole and/or Kanako, pushed past their breaking point, continuing to chase the Outlaw even after their identity reveal and ultimately killing them in the light world as the need for justice to be fulfilled trumps whatever relationship the characters had with that monster prior to the events in the Dark World. I picture Cole doing this solo but you could make it a Bonnie and Clyde situation where Cole and Kanako do it together and then run out of town as a couple

>>3983017
Sounds like what Naranja is doing with the techniques and equipment items

-carol is the mayor
-is close with kris
-is family friends with the dreemurs
Is a potential candidate for the knight
-starlo is the mayor
-is close with cole
-is family friends with the martlet family
hmm.

>>3983126
Starlo being a Outlaw candidate is nothing new.

>>3982931
>>You can use the spikes for cover and you can dodge most of his attacks with a long jump. As long as you keep moving or stay out of site, its very easy to avoid being hit. Even the health pool has a conveniently placed spike next to it to hide behind.
Last time I played HL was a long time ago, I knew you had to use the spikes I just couldn't pull it off at first.

>I like limits, but only if those limits aren't too constrictive. To me, games should encourage the player to think creatively. If the player finds a way to exploit the game to get around those limits, he should be rewarded. And the devs should allow players to play the game "wrong".
To me, exploits usually reduce the fun of the game and show a flaw on the game's design, it's only fun if you can use them to break the game to a point where even the game engine struggles to keep up with your bullshit, like with a breaking run in TBoI.

> it encourages the players to brute force trough anything by taking more cover or taking more precise shots
>Well I'd encourage you to replay the game on hard and try it my way. That is trying to go for more exotic kills like tripwires or eliminating enemies fast before they can damage you using ambushes.
I already did that without the quicksaves, I didn't use the tripwires as much but every other weapon saw it's use, eliminating enemies before they can damage you it's also what you do in a normal playthrough.

>If you still don't see it, then fair enough. I take major issue with a lot of widely held ideas in game design. Like the idea that limiting how much of an item players can carry will make them use it more
I don't remember seeing that game design principle anywhere, if anything "too good to use" is a widely spread idea now that games try to avoid, Dark Souls solved this a decade ago with the Estus Flask, you can carry a limited amount of them but you have an infinite supply that recharges at the chekpoints.

>>3982932
>You having trouble coming up with gags?
Sometimes, but in this case is just that I haven't put much if any thought in these new rooms yet.
>My advice there is to keep a notebook or a note file on your phone or PC, and any time you think of an idea for a gag, or even the basic premise of one, immediately write it down. Then you can consult the notes any time you need a joke to stick somewhere.
I been doing that for almost a decade now, I tend to forget a lot of things so I started making notes of every game I played, that lead me to make notes of general ideas I had for games and such, but most of my ideas weren't for gags, they were for game mechanics, worldbuilding and some story setpieces, I started writing down gags when I began coming up with ideas for Naranja.

>>3983057
Needs some additions.

Pacifist(All super bosses cleared):
>New dialogue option with Kanako at the goodbye scene. "Love you," in addition to "I'll miss you," or "Goodbye"
>After the peck on the cheek, Cole's additional confidence enables Casanova-mode and he pulls Kanako back in for a kiss on the lips.
>Chujin: Dies on the inside, even if Cole is one of the good ones.
>Starlo: "'Bout dang time!"
>Kanako tells him that she'll find him and get him back for kissing her in front of the whole town.
>"Mission: Complete. Good job, cowboy."

Pacifist(all schizo-shards attained)
>Fate warps around the final dialogue box with child services
>"Have you said your goodbyes? We're taking you to your new home soon."
>"I'm ready" (end the game), or "..." to stall for more time.
>Shards literally form into a new option: "This is my home."
>Cole refuses to go. CPS try to talk him down. Eventually try to physically grab him and pick him up.
>Final straw. Martlet goes full mother-hen and Starlo goes full North Star, tells them to get lost. They can bring a full fleet of city cops if they want to rip Cole's heart out and take him from his home. He's not leaving with you.
>The optics of pulling Cole are absolutely atrocious, and maybe the CPS head has a heart. Case is reviewed, and Cole gets to stay.
Cue "HAPPY END" card

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Found these Korean UTY fanarts

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>>3983165
I just like the name typos

>>3983165
>>3983166
why not post the pics themselves instead of a screenshot of a twitter post?

>>3983167
because of the typos

>>3983168
you gotta remember asian languages have this weird syllabic system that doesn't translate 1:1 to the usual alphabet, which leads to those spellings which is the most similar to what they can sound using their system

>>3983165
So where's Martlet?

>>3983170
Gone.

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>>3983180
zarty....

>>3983170
Looking the person up, theyve got next to nothing of her aside from a doodle in an image. Nothing of real note.
>>3983180
I do in fact need her.

>>3983169
>weird syllabic system
>weird
silence westoid.

>>3983186
>Looking the person up, theyve got next to nothing of her aside from a doodle in an image. Nothing of real note.
Another case of Martlet getting shafted for Ceroba because of furry fox bait.

>>3983194
Oh hush anon. If you actually looked at the persons account, they actually almost exclusively drew Clover himself. That image is the only Roba thing they've got.

Ceroba's syrupy pawjobs

>>3983197
Nta, artists are free to draw whatever the heck they want, but if what you say is true, then even I would think it's strange that they exclusively draw Clover on his own, and yet when they draw Clover interacting with someone, or other characters, Martlet just so happens to be excluded.

I think you guys are overthinking this

Anyone got that giant Mooch ass Pic some Anon did?

>>3983204
>you guys
I think its one person, because far as I can see, it's just an account of someone who has a fixation on clover, who appears to have picked yellow up at all because of having played red and yellow recently. Im under no delusions here. Martlets not even completely absent from the images.

>>3983211
Yeah I'm going to just step in, and stop you right there. I don't about any of the other posts, but I made this one.
>>3983202
I don't know why people are so insistent that whenever any kind of convo happens here and people are talking about something similar, they assume it's the same person.
Is the concept that people can have similar or different opinions related to a specific subject that foreign to some people?

>>3983208
Why is Unbirth even here?

>>3983218
because the complaint is nonsensical in the first place when, as stated, martlet does show up in the images. So either it's 2 people who can't read, or one person who needs to get over himself. Either way get over yourself.

Anyways based on what that artist posts and reposts. They're just some cocoapowder fan who picked up yellow because of that.

>>3983221
honestly this "iceberg" is kind of weird and all over the place. Why would "draw anons" be on the iceberg. Hell, why is "signirsol wrote return to form" on there? He posted links to his art on the chapters themselves.

Surprised to see metal undergear solid though, it's been a minute since that one came up.

>>3983224
You're the one throwing accusations acting like you know everything, so if anyone needs to get over themselves it's you.

>>3983227
sure thing buddy.

>>3983208
What is this Iceberg meant to represent? This is a genuine question, cause this image makes no sense to me, with the stuff labelled and where they've been placed.

>>3983208
i think you need to learn how iceberg memes work.

wait theres a discord server?

>>3983232
not for us no. My best assumption is that it's talking about the public uty server that got brought up a while back.

>>3983234
okay so then why is it down here. Strange to put that down there

>>3983236
most everything on that iceberg is confusing. It's like a drawing of a cat from someone who's never seen a cat before.

>>3983237
true true. That image maker is kinda special

>>3983237
it reads like someone who came here less than a month ago made it.

>>3983237
Not that it means it's correct usage of the format, but I've noticed a lot of iceberg images don't really actually follow the intended format are just a backdrop for talking about factoids about a given topic.
Also they could have used that one fucked up gaster yogurt CD sprite for the bottom layer

>>3983126
ok, but how did Gizmo know someone broke into Kanako's house? Nobody told him, he just knew. He's gotta be the Outlaw.

>>3983115
Would you believe me if I said I had that idea before playing Naranja?

>>3983247
ah but what if gizmo is working with the outlaw huh? Just like kris is working with the knight?

>>3983247
>Gizmo, GizMO, MO
Always bet on Mo baybe.
>>3983243
feels like those icebergs are falling out of style anyways. I hardly see them anymore.

outlaw and knight rankings
sadie - dess
starlo - carol/rudy
giz/mo - papyrus

>>3983139
>I already did that without the quicksaves, I didn't use the tripwires as much but every other weapon saw it's use, eliminating enemies before they can damage you it's also what you do in a normal playthrough.
I still say hard makes you use saves more. The high damage and lower resources force you to get through every encounter the optimal way, so you need to go through and try different solutions to figure it out without losing too much health.

Ceroba is the Knight. She went turbo.