Board 8 > The end is nigh.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8brvCmgteBw

The end of waiting for The End Is Nigh is nigh.


20% off if you pre-order before it's out in about twelve hours!
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oh thanks for the reminder
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Well this looks like it has potential, but I dunno about preordering.
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I won't be able to play it for a day or two, but I'm hyped to see how it is and isn't like Meat Boy.

In the meanwhile: SMB >= TBoI > CotN
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The end is nearer.
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20% off uh..
But I want to read the reviews before I decide to pre purchase it
Especially since I hate Edmund after Afterbirth and Afterbirth+

edit - 10%
I prefer being sure, then whatever i'll let the 10% go
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Did it switch percentages? It was 10% off for awhile, then I saw it 20% off last night so I hopped on it and tried to update B8.

I rarely preorder anything anymore (fuck you Duke Nukem Forever), but I like Edmund's three big releases and this looks like it'll play real similarly to my favorite of them.
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Last chance for the discount.
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So how is it so far?

Also you were right about the 20% but it's only for people that has Isaac classic, Rebirth, Closure or Bombernauts
Which I guess that makes me too but I wasn't logged into Steam when I checked whoops
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I can't play it until probably tomorrow...miiiiight be able to get a few minutes in later though, who knows. Excited to see how it's received too!

And cool -- yeah, I have classic Isaac. The 20% discount was originally 10% for me though like everyone else, so I think they added that extra bit on later.
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Twenty minutes in, it's not as much like SMB as I figured! The game's still early and of course there are similarities...but right away, it doesn't feel like a sequel to SMB so much as a game that shares a developer.

You can't hang on just any ole' wall. You gotta find spikes to hang off of to chill at, climb higher, or lauch yourself forward faster. Same for cliff-edges.

You move a little slower than Meat Boy and there's no run button. Cool, saves my thumb some pain there.

Lots of things are falling! The levels have some dynamic feelings going on as you can enter them from the left or right and they present different challenges. Secrets are around too and tumors are more or less the new and more plentiful bandages.

NPCs have just been tutorials so far, nothing exciting with them yet...again though, early.
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Did I say I liked it yet? I liked what I touched so far. Maybe more details tomorrow!
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I played the first area last night and I like it, but I'm already soooo lost. I only found three of the seven secret areas, and I don't have a clue where the others could all be... Can they be at the bottom of the screen too or do you always have to climb above...? Or can they be hidden in the level...? I have no idea.

Also do you always have to start an area from the first level of it? Is there a way to just go back 1 or 2 screens? Like if I've entered from the right but want to enter from the left again...

Just finished the first world, aptly title The End. I got twenty dots, four circles and a cartridge when I look at the map.

It looks to me like you can only switch between worlds right now, which is a big bummer if true. I can go from world to world, but not level to level from what I see.
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The thing that happens when you find that black creature in Arid Flats that says YOU REEK OF SADNESS and takes you to a side level is the first moment where the game really captured my attention. More like that please!
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I've heard nothing but good things about this game. Pretty excited to play it at some point.
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Okay, I'm three worlds and some cartridges into the game -- three or four hours' worth of playtime. As a guy who 100%'d SMB, here are some thoughts so far:

This scratches the itch. I'm gonna be into this game.

The thing I least expected coming into this game is how I have to focus to falling faster. Not just short-hops...but changing your personal speed of gravity's effect. TEiN replaces SMB's run-button with a freefall-button, and there are multiple reasons you want to fall back on the ground faster so you can jump again or climb a ledge or whatever. It's more clever than the run-button because you won't be holding it for 98% of the time, but this freefall-button is a little less intuitive at the moment too. If I put hundreds of hours into TEiN too, this probably changes.....

Speaking of freefalling, I definitely recommend an easy control-fix. You want a good d-pad -- I switched my Steam controller out for the 360 controller. The problem after this was that the game has you freefall when you press down by default. This might be nice in the water-parts, but it killed me many times in the air so I removed it and kept freefalling to RT. Life is good now.

The other aspect I didn't fully grasp from the trailer is the hanging ability; this replaces traditional walljumping from SMB, though you can still do walljumps if you are hanging at the time. You can only hang at ledges and hooks, so it's not like you can do it purely anywhere. There have been some spots where I'll grab ledges that are right beside spikes and cliffs. I'd call it risk/reward for sweet shortcuts and alternate paths, but it's looking like the game'll simply expect me to do that more...so this is just a prediction, but, uh, prepare the death-counter if what I'm seeing continues.

The gameplay's a little slower than SMB, but these single-screen rooms and elements focus on getting more optimal play out of you too. Buildings are tumbling so you better jump through them fast to get to the other side in time, spikes are falling so get going before you die, water is poisonous so you have to hop in and hop right out fast...you get the gist. You'll make what feels like a bunch of close calls, and it feels good when you aren't cursing your gods of choice over your failures.

The level-selection menu sucks by virtue of only being able to choose the worlds -- not individual levels within them. This needs to be fixed, though it doesn't matter so much right now until I start replaying levels more. Like SMB, each world had twenty levels and some secret spots. The game cartridges you collect are basically the retro-warps from SMB. There are also locked sections in each world...no idea where any keys are at yet or what's behind them. Maybe a Dark World-equivalent? Only a guess.

The story's not important, not yet anyway and I predict it'll stay as background noise like SMB...but I'm noticing the game leaves behind clues of perhaps something larger. The trailer for TEiN has like half of the cutscenes I've seen so far.

Last, this is an Edmund McMillen game so the music is once again great. It's like SMB with a touch of TBoI. The music for Denial's game cartridge is so good -- my favorite so far. Here's a link if you wanna listen and see somebody also make its level look easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oLi4ixuRs
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OK I am interested
If you 100%ed Super Meat Boy your opinion is very important regarding this game
SMB is one of the more fun and challenging games I have played and 100%ing it was a blast
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SMB's great! This is on the right track too, just curious to see how it plays in some of its most difficult levels later on.
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Anybody else playing this so far?
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I got through the first two worlds

the first Future level was great
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Was this the Future level?

HaRRicH posted...

The thing that happens when you find that black creature in Arid Flats that says YOU REEK OF SADNESS and takes you to a side level is the first moment where the game really captured my attention. More like that please!

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yeah once he swallows you I think "The Future" or something pops up at the top of the screen like that's the name of that world
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About to play more.
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also the music is fantastic
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This section at the Wall of Sorrow can piss off, both to get there and to reach that ghost (I don't know how besides git gud).



Kinda hate how erratic these skullbats are!
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48% complete, 1,912 deaths (swag it or bodybag it), 6:26:09, and I have SS Exodus, The Machine, and Golgotha available but untouched for the moment.

Skullbats really are unfair to predict though. I notice some patterns and ways to control them, but it requires major reflexes to set up your predictions to even see if your hypothesis works. I see its AI has rules, but I'm not yet sure why TEiN thinks humans can control four of them over a bottomless pit and a warp-scab that'll move you several rooms away. There are moving ghosts and spike blocks in this room I'll complain about awhile too...but it's the skullbats, the friggin' skullbats.
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hey harrich do you have me on ignore or what
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I reached the third area.

I went back though because I had two cartridges: Blaster Master and Denial.

I started with Denial because it had only one objective so I figured it was the simpler one.

Needless to say, when I started Blaster Master, I was quite relieved to see that that one was a total cakewalk.

I think I could do Blaster Master with 100 rings AND without using a continue (hell, probably without dying once) faster than I could beat Denial. But I didn't even have to! (There's no secret bonus for doing that... right?) I guess the top of the list will be the "casual" carts, huh?

So confused about the locks though and also sometimes there's breakable blocks in the ground but I can't break them. Is there something I can do about these? Or is it just to come back later? Still missing a bunch of ??? worlds as I go through, but I'm just moving along in case I'm gonna get a skill for the keys or blocks and will have to backtrack anyway.

digiiiiiiiii posted...

hey harrich do you have me on ignore or what

No way dude! Have I been missing something from you?
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Denial was hard, probably the second hardest cartridge I've found so far (first being Ash Climbers)...but the music makes Denial a got-dang joy.

I'm no master explorer, but I've got a BOLD PREDICTION: there won't be keys or ways to unlock those doors until every secret is found in its world. There will be a hard ???-like challenge behind it, and then we learn something more substantial about the game's story.
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hmm but what about the cracked blocks? I just feel like I'm missing a mechanic that could break them or something.

i don't wanna look it up, so I'll just keep going...

Yeah, keep going!
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yeah i got to the split which has the cracked blocks so that was a very clear "you just can't do these yet"

so now I don't feel as bad for missing a bunch of the +5 tumors in the first few areas, since I KNOW some were hidden behind those blocks

ughh I finally got that room you posted earlier

honestly just getting there was frustrating enough

my strength in this genre is muscle memory - i'm really not that good, but the levels never change so i'll play the level a hundred times to learn the patterns.

stuff that moves randomly, enemies or obstacles, is my weakness.

i haaate these bats.

do the ghosts even get you anything? i wanna try getting to the ghost, but if I don't need to...

Ghosts have mostly been tutorials and hints of ascentors or descentors or whatever this vague storyline is about. I didn't reach that ghost...got close sometimes though!
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Almost done with Golgotha...these moving squares will need better reaction speeds from me!
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Daydreaming about whipping this game's ass some more.
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Got another Future level! The first one was better, but this had another great cartridge as well (Anger). I almost beat the cartridge my first try! Then I spent the next twenty minutes trying to get that far again.....
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I'm starting to find body parts...not sure what this means yet.

291 tumors! Really close to opening up this fella near the beginning of the game.....
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Whoa, just got my first cutscene in awhile by beating Future 4. Bring on this continued theme with the five steps of coping being the cartridge names.
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Fuck +Acceptance.
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I found a key in the Machine!!! I opened the locked door and it led me to more numbered sections of the world. Since entering this area, I've since found two more keys and no other doors...hmmmmm. Am I missing doors, or do these carry over to other worlds?
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the future area in ss exodus was thrilling

that was the most intense and satisfyingly difficult thing in the game so far

SS Exodus's Future-level is great, yes. It or Arid Flats' is my favorite of them so far.


So here's what I've learned about keys: they're items you find, starting in the Machine. There are multiple keys and doors in that world, including one more key than you need for that world. You can then take that extra key to other worlds to unlock their locked doors.

So what's behind locked doors? More secret areas, nothing really out of the ordinary from other secrets I've seen so far. Each secret area I've seen has a key though, allowing you to unlock another world's door later.

81% overall complete (map says 89%), first two worlds have been perfected, 389 tumors, twelve carts, 3,487 deaths, 12:00:55, and three body parts without a clear purpose.
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Also, I don't think this guy in the top-left is meant to be reached.



Those spikes move so fast and there's no space to safely go above them. I forget if this was Exodus or Machine, but at least it's fitting that the guy is cowering in fear considering he's stuck.
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Oh god.

I figured out what happens with the body parts.

OH GOD
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i finished ss exodus and got a head. curious... Golgotha next.