Recent posts by acidDICA on Kongregate

Topic: Collaborations / Design CONTEST

What kind of game? Is the game still being worked upon?

Topic: Collaborations / Amateur level designer/ game writer needed

This sounds intriguing – definitely something I’d be interested in doing. I was the level designer for Exorbis 2 and hopefully that is some proof of my abilities.

I sent a PM and hope to hear from you soon.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

Found this again. I’m sad that there didn’t seem much desire for a hint-through. :-(

I was hoping it would be a new trend.

Though this game’s very old now, I’d still do hints for remaining levels if there was any demand.

Topic: GemCraft chapter 0 / all 229 waves

Congrats on managing it! That’s impressive.

I was confused by this though:

Originally posted by fractalman:preparation: MAX OUT SKILLS!…except mana pool size, which will hurt you.

Why will mana pool size hurt you?

Topic: Kongregate / Please limit daily submissions

Originally posted by ja351cam:

As others have said – 3 a day seems fine. I would imagine that most devs that haven’t yet found Kong would be unlikely to have more than 3 games.

I completely disagree. Are you really suggesting that a developer who’s been squirreling away in their corner of the web would be unlikely to have a mere 4 games under their belt?

Of course, it seems reasonable to get them to take over a day to submit them all.

Topic: Kongregate / Chat/Game Page Redesign -Now Launched!

I can’t load any of the games.
:-/

Chat doesn’t load either, for me.

Topic: General Gaming / Hacking Incredibots, Fun, Or wrong?

Originally posted by Stoic001:

It’s the developers fault for leaving in exploits.

It’s impossible to make a Flash game impossible (or even close to impossible) to hack as long as everything’s done client-side.

The alternative – checking everything over a server and have all the game calculations performed on that server – gives way to lag and hurts non-hackers more than the possibility of hacking, imo.

Topic: General Gaming / Good Games On Kongregate?

http://aciddica.com/play/recommendations/

I think over half of those are on Kongregate.

Alternatively, work your way through the highest ranked games, checking out those you haven’t already.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

Cheers for the love. :-)

Yeah, I made 105 1/2 of the final levels you see in the game. I can accept that being ‘Official’ doesn’t automatically make something better though.

I just thought there may be some interest in a ‘hint-style’ thing and now that there’s been badges added, the comments thread moves to rapidly for me to really chat back there. Personally, I can understand being frustrated with a game and either abandoning it or looking at a guide – specially when an unfinished level stops you from playing future content. I hoped that some simple hints may be enough to get folk to take a 2nd look, work out for themselves what to do…

I’m glad I wasn’t totally wrong. :-)

If there’s interest, I will finish this, but maybe not until Sunday night/Monday.

Oh, and don’t hate on phooltk! I’m fairly sure he was directing his post at googoo, who pretty much accused me of bumping, then deleted his own post making phool look foolish. The irony…

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

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Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

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Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

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Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

Level 21:
It’s just a click to the right… and a click to the le-e-e-e-eft.

Level 22:
Remember how you stretched in level 7? Take it, flip it and reverse it.

Level 23:
The balls need to be placed correctly relative to the left vertical slider-pair since that will always cover both. Sometimes, even when a ball is on the target, it’s still in the wrong position relative to the slider-pair. Switch the other in.

Level 24:
Switch the 2. Start by going down.

Level 25:
Take note of the amount of horizontal space. The red balls need to go in a particular order.

Push the left ball in first, then leave the horizontal slider-pair on the right, since there’s not enough horizontal space to push in the right-hand red ball. Just to slide it in. Leave the blue ball in the middle.

Level 26:
Go up before you go down. Start with red but finish blue first.

Level 27:
To move balls relative to the left vertical slider-pair, move the slider-pair when nothing rests on it.

Level 28:


Level 29:
Stick a blue under a red to bring the blues down together.

Level 30:
Look at the possible positions of the slider-pairs. Blue balls must be correct relative to both horizontal and vertical slider pairs… but ‘only’ 4 of 6.

Don’t try to be too clever. 1 by 1 is fine.

Level 31:
Read instructions. Push ‘n’ slide.

Level 32:
Just experiment and see what happens…

Level 33:
There’s a little slack to move to the sides…

Level 34:
Push the red balls down. Something in the way? Slide it away!

Level 35:
Only 3 slider-pairs serve a function. Only 2 need to be clicked.

Level 36:
Go round the back. Do it twice.

Level 37:
Balls need to be moved relative to the rightmost slider-pair. Get them in place, then move that slider-pair so they doesn’t move back when you correct the leftmost slider-pair.

Level 38:
The left-most and right-most slider-pairs are in the wrong place! Sort it out…

Level 39:
Did you ace level 13? Remember what you learned…

Level 40:
Don’t get confused by the extraneous sliders… Shift right to move on up.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official Walkthrough (Hint-through)

This is more of a 'hint-through' or a guide than something that will explain every single level step-by-step.

A work-in-progress, it'll give hints to each level that needs them.

By understanding how the game works, rather than just following a set of instructions parrot-fashion, I hope you'll have some fun and exercise your mind somewhat.

if any particular level is still posing particular problems, leave a comment and I'll add extra hints for that level.

Level 1:
This level teaches the basics. Click on arrow-sliders to see what happens. Arrow-sliders come in pairs and by clicking one, you move all the balls in between them.

Click one upward facing arrow to move one ball up into the target (shaped like an X) and move the other ball down.

You should be able to get the ace score.

Level 2:
Move left then up.

Remember: any balls between a pair of sliders will move when you click one of the pair.

Level 3:
Left, left, up, up. Like a dance. Hopefully easy.

Level 4:
A ball needs to be moved upwards, but the vertical slider pair is already as far up as it can go. But it can always go down first...


If you lower the vertical slider-pair, then move a ball in, you can then raise it to where it needs to be. The lower target is filled using the horizontal slider alone.

Level 5:
The horizontal slider can only be moved one space - it's blocked by the walls of the arena! Back and forth, back and forth... if only the ball were to the side when the slider went back, it could then come back to go forth...


By raising the ball with a vertical slider, it won't move to the right when you move the horizontal slider. Vertically slide the ball back into the middle of the horizontal slider and you can move it left. Repeat for success.

Level 6:
Read the level names.

Note that the vertical slider-pair only has 3 gaps in between the two sliders. Since that's exactly the amount of space two targets and a space inbetween takes up, you need to move the lower of the two balls one space down, relative to the vertical slider-pair.

Simply moving the ball off to one side with the horizontal slider-pair, raising the vertical slider-pair then moving the ball back with the horizontal pair will set it up correctly.


Level 7:
Remember what you did in level 5? Do that in duplicate!

Level 8:
None of the slider-pairs other than the first have room to move in the direction you need. So prepare by moving a slider-pair before the ball is in it! Then the slider-pair will have room to move the ball in the correct direction.

Level 9:
This is a small jump in difficutly, but you can do it! Keep in mind: every ball in between the two sliders in a pair will move when you click to move one of the sliders. And a lot of these sliders have little space, forcing you to move in particular ways...

Filling the top-left target is simple. Filling the top-right one would take two moves, but the top-left ball would then be misplaced!

So after filling the top-left target (1 move), use a vertical slider to move the left column of ball out the way, fill the top-right target then move the left column back.

Level 10:
Remember how you stretched in level 8?

Do the same but add one move in the middle...

Level 11:
Sliders also push balls. Try it!

Level 12:
Slider-pairs don't move sliders!

If something blocks your way, move it!

Level 13:
What blocked your path in the last level is now an aid.

Level 14:
Push the two balls upwards. Don't be confused by the monkey face.

Level 15:
How can you get the ball down? Maybe you could push it with one of those short little slider-pairs?

Level 16:
Use both 'pushing' and 'sliding' to complete this level.

Level 17:
If only that left vertical pair wasn't blocked... oh well.

Have you ever played the 'Traffic Jam' board game?

Level 18:
There's one ball stuck in the middle of the horizontal slider? Don't leave it for last!

Second comes right after first.

Level 19:
Remember how the slider blocked the ball in level 12?

Remember how you stretched in level 5?

Level 20:
You won't be able to clear the middle or bottom rows until you complete the top.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2 Walkthrough (All 110 Levels Aced)

Originally posted by explodingferret:

That’s one thing I think exorbis 2 pulled off really well!

:-)

But I think the point still stands with the starting levels – unless you make a mistake and so go back on your moves, you’re going to finish the first 20ish having attained the ace scores.

Ideally, there’d be a ‘simple but long’ route and a ‘hard but short’ route but in actuality, the longer route is just backtracking. Unless there were alternate levels or alternate paths, I think these mechanics maybe just don’t suit multiple goals/targets ideally.

Topic: General Gaming / best game ever

Or maybe this game:

Sing to a bunch of folk (in an open mic night, bar or whatever). The number of folk you get to sing along to at least one full chorus is your score.

My record is only about 17.

Topic: General Gaming / best game ever

Go.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2 Walkthrough (All 110 Levels Aced)

Rubix: You’re right. The ideal is a game that appeals to everyone. But that seems almost impossible and maybe it’s better to focus on one group or the other (at least primarily). Portal did a great job in having the ‘expert’ levels and various targets to beat after completion. Of course, comparing a 2-man project to Valve’s effort is only going to result in tears…

I personally found it very hard to make levels that are easy to complete but hard to ace, even though that was the standard I was aiming for. I think I might have managed it on a couple of levels later on, but generally the game doesn’t really seem to be one that can simultaneously appeal to the 2 groups I mentioned. Specially earlier on, when it risks either confusing some or boring others – try to please everybody and you get nowhere!

Originally posted by greg

As it stands now, I expect most people who earn the hard badge to do it by using a guide. I’m okay with that, but the effects are just going to exaggerated if there are further rewards.

This is true. Given the ‘Ace beaten’ scores that exist, a load of folk are obviously using the cheat.

It’s even too hard for Greg. ;-p

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2 Walkthrough (All 110 Levels Aced)

I just found the cheat that Ayumilove and maybe tens of other folk used. :-(

Though I’m thankful for the love you showed for this game, in a way I almost wish your walkthrough was only for completion. It irritates me that the highscore list is dominated by folk who cheated rather than those who enjoyed the game enough to pursue the scores. Ah well, I guess that’s the inherent issues with stuff that works based on a savefile rather than a particular playthrough. And it’s good to see that folk’ve gone beyond even that score. :-) (Of course, I hope it’s a genuine love of the game as opposed to some cheap hack, but it’s impossible to know for sure…)

I think the only way this game would have been able to cater to everyone would have been by essentially making two games.

Whilst I’m not saying Exorbis 2 is as good as either of these, I’ve been thinking about Magic: the Gathering’s breadth and relative shallowness (as compared to Go’s simple, tight and narrow rules but ultimate depth) recently. Really, most of Magic’s depth is imbued upon it by virtue of the number of rule-breaking cards, combinations of cards and such. There’s definitely a bit of depth to something like draft, but it’s mostly all about exploring the different options; getting to know the differing possibilities rather than evaluating the strengths of all the moves that seem so similar to an untrained eye in something like Go.

In puzzle games, there’s a fair number that seem to be content to simply throw mechanic after mechanic into the mix and never actually set up levels that explore how these mechanics could interact or be put together to form an actually tricky PUZZLE. I used to be constantly irritated by these and their lack of depth but now see that in doing something like this, it’s giving folk the constant novelty of new ideas and features. There’s a subset of folk who might like abstract games or the mechanics found in ‘puzzle games’ but don’t want an actual ‘puzzle’. Unfortunately, we lump both of these into the same genre, when they’re not really the same at all.

I think the non-puzzle puzzle audience might be larger than the puzzle-seeking audience and given the number of comments from folk who got stuck within the first 8 levels, I think a simpler game with more rules exceptions would find a big audience. Of course, folk who enjoyed the difficulty of this would hate that…

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2 Walkthrough (All 110 Levels Aced)

Oh wait, I just got the badge. I didn’t get it the first time I loaded the page for some reason.

You’re right. I’m sorry.

I thought maybe Scott had added some new API code.

I was still right about this: ‘hell yess to badges!’.

:-)

Btw, I think the final badges are probably better than those I suggested. A 2nd ‘hard’ for acing everything would probably just annoy folk. This way, folk can still complete the game or go for a high score if they like it. :-D

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2: Official user-level collection

Bump for badges. Copying/pasting badges to the forums or as a comment still seems to mess up some characters. If you’re interested in making a collection of user-levels, send your .txt files to my e-mail address.

Topic: General Gaming / Exorbis 2 Walkthrough (All 110 Levels Aced)

Hell, yes. :-) (edit: to the badges)

For the record, the hard badge seems to be mis-titled. You don’t get it by completing 100 levels, but by completing level 100.

Topic: Kongregate / Do you have a Impossible Achievement?

I don’t think so.

Does this forum need polls?

Topic: General Gaming / No Card Games on Kongregate?

Originally posted by Yishan:
You do realize when someone says “PC” they refer to a Windows computer.

Some people do, sure. it’s not correct though. Sorry if I seemed confrontational. I genuinely thought maybe you only browse on an alternate device – it wasn’t meant to be a nitpick on your semantics.

Anyway, though you seem to be aghast that I (to your mind) hadn’t considered the possibility of you using a Mac, you likewise assumed that the OP used Windows. And to boot, you don’t even like computerised card games, it seems.

Having as broad a range of gamestyles as possible on Kongregate though can only add to people’s enjoyment, specially given the unique features here that such games can take advantage of.

Originally posted by SiriGames:

Alpha Wolf13.

I have posted a couple of solitaire card games:

• Spider
• Arizona
• Fours

Were you hoping for multiplayer Hearts, Spades, and Euchre or something you could play against the computer?

bob

Checked out Spider/Arizona and though I eventually complete both, they’re really hard – more so than normal solitaire. Am I right in thinking that there’s a lot of starting positions that are simply impossible to win with? Being able to plan out all the moves in advance has a certain appeal, I suppose (and it’s better than if they were all hidden) but having such a high fail rate due to luck really annoyed me.

Maybe I’m missing something, but it was as if the game was pretending to be an in-depth puzzle game requiring lots of planning ahead when in reality after a couple of basic strategies, it all seemed to be about luck. I can enjoy luck-based games, but prefer them to be a bit more up-front about it and have more regular rewards.

Arizona with fewer spare slots and the ability to put cards back into the spare slots might be a nice easy game…

Or here’s another idea: Spider with just one suit but multiple decks. By the end of the game, it becomes really easy so to counteract, maybe after the 5th added row, you could start adding 2 at a time, then after the 2nd deck is finished start adding 3 lines at a time and so on… could be interesting.

I assume you’ve got an easily-customisable engine?

Topic: General Gaming / No Card Games on Kongregate?

Originally posted by Yishan:

Originally posted by acidDICA:

Originally posted by Yishan:
(I haven’t touched a PC in 2 years, no idea where it is.)

Do you only visit Kongregate on your Wii or phone?

Its called a Mac/Apple/Macbook Pro, whatever you want to call it. I hope you realize there are much more operating systems than just Windows.

A Macintosh-based computer is still a PC – just a subset.

It may not be an IBM compatible, nor running Windows but neither of these qualities are necessary for a PC.

If you use a Mac yourself, why do you assume everyone using a PC is using Windows? Not everyone has pre-installed versions of hearts/Spades and surely as one of these people you’re in an ideal position to appreciate the use of browser versions of these games.