Trilby: The Art of Theft – Heist 6

Terry Nov 29, 2007 5 Comments

“Shouldn’t you be working?”, you protest. Well, I am. Sorta. But I don’t want to jinx it. Could be very big. Would fix all my problems. Will let you know.

Anyway, here’s another of these very spoilerly Trilby rank levels from Art of Theft. Only one left. Unless you count the bonus heist! And I don’t.

The first time I played this level? I had no idea you could avoid the lazers by hugging the wall. Guess how long it took me.

Here’s the description I posted over at YouTube: (man I’m in a bitchy mood today)

Well, so much for the whole “might be a while before I post another one” thing 🙂

And now, after playing my favourite level, I move on to my least favourite level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice change of pace the first time you play it, but it’s probably the hardest level in the game. And it features something way worse than that button mashing sequence from mission 4 – that inane addition problem at the start of the level which you have to repeat everytime you mess up. Calling it a puzzle wouldn’t be right – it’s just punishment for failing the mission. Punishment in the form of addition. Bad Yahtzee. Bad.

Trilby: The Art of Theft is a new game by Zero Punctuation author and prominent Indie Game designer Yahtzee. You can find out all the details here:
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft

Trilby: The Art of Theft – Heist 5

Terry Nov 28, 2007 0 Comments

Saying “spoilers” before I post another of these videos is probably redundant at this stage. Well, whatever. Spoilers!

This one came out really really well, I think 🙂 Didn’t make any glaring mistakes or do anything all that stupid.

Here’s the description I posted over at YouTube:

This one worked out quite well, I think – in fact, it’s probably the smoothest Trilby level I’ve posted so far! One little problem was reading the note about the safe – I collected all the loot before the note finished displaying, which stopped the explanation text from appearing and as a result, I didn’t know where to look for the first book! Not a serious problem, but a shame nonetheless.

I think this was probably my favourite level during my first playthrough of the game. I love the premise (the idea of Trilby raising a bit of cash to flee town), and the level has lots of neat little touches – like the bit with the caviar, and the jokes with the different books. I also loved the structure of the level – there are lots of little things to do in it, and you don’t necessarily have to do everything. In this video I’d actually finished the loot goal by the time I got the suitcase in the room with the TV, and if I’d been going for best time I could have finished the level there and then.

I keep forgetting that I have the sugar rush ability, heh.

Enjoy! It might be a few days before I have a chance to post the next one…

Trilby: The Art of Theft is a new game by Zero Punctuation author and prominent Indie Game designer Yahtzee. You can find out all the details here:
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft

I just don’t know

Terry Nov 26, 2007 4 Comments

For centuries, man has struggled to understand his true nature. What is it that makes us who we are?

SOON, ONE ANSWER WILL OVERRIDE ALL OTHERS.

This game’s gonna be terrible, isn’t it? 😥

Trilby: The Art of Theft – Heist 4

Terry Nov 26, 2007 0 Comments

Now that I’ve had a bit of a break, I thought I’d start posting the rest of these Trilby videos. I think I’m going to do all of them after all (even the bonus heist)!

By the way, Spoilers.

Is it just me or does the cheering at the end sound more enthusiastic than usual? 🙂

Just a random idea

Terry Nov 22, 2007 4 Comments

There’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for the last couple of weeks, but I’m not really sure if it’s worth the effort.

There are a lot of really hard indie games out there – usually I can get through them, but every so often I go looking for a walkthrough to get past some really tough part.

Finding them usually isn’t all that easy – sometimes the author’s site links directly to one, but sometimes it’s tricky. They’re usually hosted on free sites and the like that don’t show up on google for some reason, and the only way to get them (usually) is to find a forum about the game and start trawling through it. There’s a good La Mulana walkthrough, for example, but it’s not exactly easy to find – and recently I’ve been playing An Untitled Story to get 100% completion, but the site that was hosting that walkthrough’s gone down…

It really would be quite nice if there was some little site somewhere that specialised in walkthroughs for indie games, and hosted them. I know I’d find it a useful resource.

I’m thinking of putting one up. I suppose I could write the framework myself (it would give me an excuse to finally learn PHP and MySQL coding like I’ve been meaning to), but I’d prefer to use a premade solution, if one exists…

Any ideas? Anyone like to help? I could use a good web designer’s assistance 🙂 Or even if you know where I can find some indie game walkthroughs, please post a link in the comments!

Here are a few walkthroughs that I already know about:
“An Untitled Story” knowledge base – Currently down for some reason 🙁
The “La Mulana” blog – Contains resources and maps from the game.
Let’s Play La Mulana – A complete video walkthrough of the game in over 70 parts.
“Jet Set Willy Online” Map – A map of JSWO, including all the new areas.
“Trilby: The Art of Theft” walkthrough – A relatively new walkthrough for the game.
“Cave Story” guides – A couple of very good guides to the game available here.

Also worth looking at:
JayIsGames – JayIsGames puts together walkthroughs of a lot of difficult flash games.
Baf’s Guide to the IF archive – The IF archive lists walkthroughs for various IF games if they’re available. A lot of newer puzzle IF now actually include walkthroughs in-game, accessible by typing “help”.

…Or maybe this whole thing is unnecessary. After all, you don’t really need a walkthrough for most indie games, and if you do, there’s usually one available if you don’t mind looking for it.

…On the other hand, because I’ve mentioned walkthroughs on this site before as well as various indie games, I occasionally get search results looking for walkthroughs to games that I would have never imagined needing a walkthrough for. “Knytt Stories”, for example. Or “Poizoned Mind”, which was particularly baffling, considering that all you have to do to finish that is talk to everyone over and over again.

Anyway, just throwing the idea out there.

In other news, can you believe I’ve updated the site practically every day this month? 😯 Because I can’t.

November Contest: Wednesday, some indeterminate time

Terry Nov 21, 2007 2 Comments

Hey – just thought I should announce that I’m dropping out of the RPGDX contest. This doesn’t mean that I’ve quit working on the new game – just that I won’t have anything for tonight. 🙂

November Contest, Tuesday 12:45am

Terry Nov 21, 2007 3 Comments

Today was a big let down (programming wise, that is). Slept in, managed to squander the afternoon till I went to college to meet a friend, and didn’t actually get started till nearly half seven in the evening. And then met someone at half nine, so I got less than two hours work done today in total 🙁

(Hey, on the bright side it beats working 😀 Also, it has me wondering if maybe I’m not taking enough advantage of the fact that I don’t have to trudge into work everyday…)

It’s a shame that I got three extra days to make this into something cool and I’ve squandered it, but on the other hand, I’m not that bothered about the contest anymore. I’m on to something here, and I’m not going to stop just because I’ve hit what’s essentially a self imposed deadline 🙂 This project deserves another week (at the very least)!

Well, there’s not much change in today’s screenshot from yesterdays, so I’ve put together three little ones highlighting the new features. There’s some visual feedback when you collect stuff, and you can now kill enemies (which was something that badly needed to be added, heh).

Tomorrow’s the last day! I’m not making the same mistake again, so I’ve set the alarm early I’m going straight to the library. I should have something playable to release tomorrow – and with any luck, it’ll be more than just a walkabout demo 🙂

November Contest, Monday 12am

Terry Nov 20, 2007 2 Comments

Here’s another screenshot!

It’s exactly like the old screenshot, except that there are coins to pickup and status bars and stuff.

Sorry, but I didn’t get a lot done today, just a few small things 🙁

November Contest, Sunday, 2am

Terry Nov 19, 2007 1 Comments

The contest has been extended. Good thing, too – 48 hours is an insane amount of time to make anything in, heh.

All I have so far is a screenshot. Brace yourself:

Some explainations:
* The main character is the guy in the robe, and he’s casting a level one fire spell.
* Since I was strapped for time, I decided to try something a little experimental with the graphics. Everything in the game is made from continuous blobs of colour layered on top of each other. In my mind, this had more of “crepe paper” look. I’ll try to develop it a bit before wednesday so that it doesn’t look so amateurish.
* Very little is playable just yet. I’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Only one of us can survive!

Terry Nov 18, 2007 3 Comments

Saw this on reddit this morning and thought it was pretty funny 🙂 Well, it appeals to my particular sense of humour anyway, heh.

It’s big picture though, so I’ve broken it up – hit the link to see the full thing. Only reference I could find to the author was in the email address in the first frame.

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