Dcubed

Amazing stuff! Sakurai would be proud!

Yeah... I’m out. No wireless multiplayer support, no GBA/GCN link up and that price? YEESH! I’ll stick with my IPS Modded GBA thank you very much.

So, err... that Gigaleak of Nintendo prototypes sure is something! I don’t even know where to begin! So much history just... laid bare!

FUCK YES!!! FINALLY!!! About bloody time! Will buy it the second it’s available!

Can personally recommend the ALTTP one. It’s great fun and very friendly for someone new to randomisers in general (just as long as you’re familiar with ALTTP itself of course!)

@Glen-i I was just amazed that we actually got something that wasn’t complete garbage when we finished the trading quest! (We got the Silver Gauntlets; which we REALLY needed at the time!). Beating Dodongo’s Cavern as Adult Link was a good laugh as well (ironically we couldn’t do much else after we found the Ocarina of Time!). Oh, and don’t forget how we cheesed the second Dampe race as well! (The Pause Timer Trick, look it up!); too bad we only got 5 rupees for our trouble BTW, special shout out to the wonderful little feature that the Randomiser pulls in from OoT3D... the ability to quick swap boots using the d-pad! A godsend to be sure! (As is the permanent mapping of the Ocarina to D-pad Down; very much appreciated! )

While I do feel that Sony had the better presentation overall (certainly the most hype inducing; the decision to separate first and third party content on Microsoft’s side was not a smart one), I feel that Microsoft gives a more honest presentation of what to expect within the first year of the console’s life. As per usual, Sony are selling their console on nebulous Hopes And Dreams (with CG trailers of games that won’t be coming out until 2022 at the earliest); and while it is arguably a more effective strategy than honesty, honesty always wins out for me personally. At least with Microsoft’s showcase, even with the CG game trailers, they’re not pretending that any of these games will be launching any time soon. Both consoles will have a very anemic lineup of exclusive titles for those first two years or so. There was never any way that they could avoid this, especially considering the ongoing COVID-19 situation.

It’s a very pretty short CG movie, but it isn’t a game as of now.

Not a bad show overall; but nothing really mind blowing either. DQ11s is a big surprise though; would never have expected it! Hell of a get for Game Pass! And it’s pretty crazy that ALL of the games shown here will be part of the service!

Looks like a remarkably good port! Very impressive stuff!

Shock horror, a misogynistic company makes misogynistic games... ... trust Ubisoft to design a game where you play as a playable woman character who gets raped as you feel the vibration through the controller! The personality of a game's creators absolutely shows through their work. I really hope this scandal isn't allowed to be swept under the carpet like what Ubisoft are currently trying to do. Until Yves is forced out of the company though? I don't think any real, meaningful change will happen at Ubisoft... The big problem with this industry is that it is heavily dominated by US based developers/publishers (despite Ubisoft being French, it is primarily a US based company). Unionisation in America is a near impossible task to achieve now for industries that didn't grandfather in a union system back in the 50s-60s (like Hollywood did). So as a result, everybody suffers now.

Honestly, I think Nintendo is likely done with major announcements for the rest of the year now. COVID has completely buggered their development schedule; so this is likely going to be their standard method of operation going forward for the rest of the year. All that's likely left is Super Mario 3D World DX and Pikmin 3 DX now. I don't expect any full blown Nintendo Direct for the remainder of 2020.

Really glad to see Jon Burton return to doing these Coding Secrets videos! They’re always super interesting!

The long lost, unreleased Panel de Pon 64 has been found! And as I have been suspecting for almost two decades? It was indeed eventually released as part of Nintendo Puzzle Collection on GameCube! There are some notable differences between this prototype in the video and the final GCN version, namely the Nintendo splash screen that is reminiscent of the original SNES game (which was removed in the final GCN release), the logo and the musical arrangements (while it’s hard to tell in this crappy video, the music does seem to have been arranged differently in this beta build). No doubt the ROM will be dumped shortly, so it’ll be really interesting to see all the differences between this N64 prototype and the final GCN release! The last few months have been REALLY good for Puzzle League fans!

I like Flingsmash... Sure, it's not the greatest game ever made, but it's a decently fun little romp with a genuinely novel play mechanic. Just gotta make sure that you don't jerk back before you swing. The main reason why people have trouble with the controls in this game is because people jerk back too hard when they're winding up for a swing (making the game detect their wind up as an actual swing and the character ends up going backwards as a result). There's nothing wrong with the game's controls, it's purely player error.

Let's play Catchup... All done!

I'm letting @Glen-i do the write up for that one

Having literally just completed an OoT Randomiser run with @Glen-i a few minutes ago? I can personally vouch for this mod. It's an absolute riot!

We’ll probably get a Direct in the next few weeks. Now isn’t the greatest time to announce games... not right before the big Series X event and the PS5 Price Announcement.

How much of that route was meticulously designed and planned out? And how much of it was a happy accident when designing it? I know when I’ve built levels with a secret speed running route before, a lot of it actually came out organically by accident

Right! I’ve played them all now. Here’re my thoughts... @Vileplume2000 Great stuff. You made great use of the theme with some clever platforming challenges. Really fun! Really enjoyed this one! I liked how you could also cheese some of the parts of the course if you go out of order and get the Superball first. Time limit is just right as well; strict, but not too strict. Just short enough to keep you on your toes! It was varied, interesting and creative; nice job! @Glen-i I hate love your fake pipes, you knew it’d annoy me trying to figure out how to get to them Your level is basic and simple, but fun. I wouldn’t say it made particularly great use of the theme though... @Sméagol Once again you have made a sadistic hate trap, whose difficulty is made outrageous by the lack of checkpoints. I really like some of the ideas on display, like the cannon ball climb, but it’s simply just too hard to be enjoyable. Maybe if you had checkpoints here, it’d be a different story... (speaking of which, you could’ve deleted the clear condition entirely and it wouldn’t have a made a single difference to your level). @RedShell Great kinda clearly think alike! You’re welcome for the Yoshi Egg spawning idea You did it in such a bloody clever way though that I cracked a huge smile when I figured it out! Brilliant level design as always; loved the pipe at the end, took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out! And Baby Face made me very happy (Got the 999 coins too!) For me it’s a vote between @Vileplume2000 and @RedShell... and I’m sorry Vileplume, but Redshell wins this month; no I’m not voting out of being flattered! No! Absolutely not!!

Oh! You’re talking about the bit before the icicle? (I thought you were talking about the icicle POW block itself). Ok, yeah, fair enough. That jump isn’t easy. You do have to crouch jump; it can be done though! If you can get to the Lava Lift bit with a mushroom unscathed, then that part is basically trivial; so I didn’t want to make it too easy to get to with a mushroom intact. Figured that it should be a reward for doing the first part well (though I did originally design that whole underground section with a checkpoint before and after before I dun-goofed of course!). There’s a mushroom right after the Lava Lift bit though, so I don’t think it’s THAT hard overall; it’s basically the only hard part of the level.

That’s not a forced hit, you can crouch jump through it very easily. There was no other way to make it so that you have to watch the POW block make all those delicious coins go bye bye while you watch helplessly, so a crouch jump it is!

@Glen-i Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, I actually totally forgot that clear conditions erase checkpoints! I actually did have checkpoints throughout my level and totally forgot that they would get nuked when I added the clear condition!! By the point where I realised and remembered this though? I just thought Sod It! I don’t have time to redo the whole thing! So yeah... not my finest hour!

Day 15: Best Story My vote goes to Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors YES, YES, YES While I could really have picked any of the Zero Escape games (screw you! I LOVE Zero Time Dillemma!), I am going for the first game because it is the only one in the trilogy that happens to work perfectly as a standalone story. This is a rare example of a game that tells a story that could ONLY be told through the medium of video games. It's an absolute corker and I love it to pieces! ... just make sure that you play the original DS version. The PC/PS4/Vita port loses a LOT of the magic of the big twist at the end of the game (to say why would be a tremendous spoiler...) Oh, and the gameplay kicks arse too! Brilliant puzzle design! An absolute must play!