Reachground

Not me! I don’t play WoW anymore. But I stumbled upon an article at GameSpy which is quite amusing and grasps the feeling of playing WoW really well.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/941576p1.html
Here I am, 30 years old, and I was obsessing over the opinions of random gamers, some of them probably children.

Every now and then I google You Have to Burn the Rope to see what’s going on in the blogo/forumsphere. A reoccuring comment is that the game makes people feel good about themselves. When I wrote Now you’re a hero I didn’t intend to do that. In a subconscious way perhaps but not intentionally.

To win or not to win at IGF? It would be great to win of course, but then again, I’m aware that we are kind of the baby brothers here.  YHTBTR became sort of a meme and I think a part of the reason is because of the effort/reward ratio. No matter if we win or lose, I made a lot of people feel good about themselves and that makes me feel good about myself.

As we approached the new year, the best of 2008 awards started to pop up. I was really happy that Gamasutra, IndieGames and RPS liked You Have to Burn the Rope (YHTBTR). The Gaming Club over at Slate’s gave the game some attention while Spike TV used my song “Now you’re a hero” at the end of their show The Next Great Game Gods. I celebrated when Jayisgames finally wrote a full post about the game and as the article by Stuart Horvath in the New York Daily News was published I was quite surprised. YHTBTR by the side of GTA IV, Fallout 3, Braid and the other great games was an honor beyond my wildest dreams.

To top it all of, YHTBTR is nominated for Innovation in the 2009 Independent Games festival. I really want to go to San Fransisco to attend the awards but I’m not sure I can. The tickets + expenses will surely amount to at least 1000 EUROS which is way over my budget. Oh well, you never know what might happen.

I read some comments about the nomination and realised that some people think YHTBTR don’t belong on the list. I can’t make you like the game and if you don’t, to be honest, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. But I want to make something clear which is obviously just a misunderstanding. People who think YHTBTR was something Kian and me threw together in a hurry need to think again. To get it in perspective, let me tell you about the text on the way to the boss. If you count the hours me and Kian talked about colors, placements, alternative ideas, testing it on people and so on, it amounts to at least ten. Do the math and you’ll understand how long it took to complete the full game.

Surprised?

An old saying fits well here:

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest.

Henrik Edlund from Swedish Game Awards was kind enough to inform me that The Next Great Game Gods can be seen in full at Gametrailers.com. Part 4 uses my song at 4:47.

Spike TV will be airing a show tonight about the rising stars of gaming. Towards the end they’re going to play Now you’re a hero.  Read more in GameDaily.

If Spike TV is not available to you, download the TVU player. To make it complicated they have a three hour delay. This is what I’ve come up to. Correct me if I’m wrong.

1. The Next Game Gods will be airing at Spike TV at 00:30 12/12 (which is technically 13/12) EST.
2. That means that if Sweden (where I’m from) would air it live with no delay we could see it at 06:30 in the morning at 13/12.
3. Since the TVU player is transmitting with a three hour delay you’ll have to add that. That means that here in Sweden I could watch the show at 9:30 saturday morning.

God damn. I’m a genius! I deserve to be on that show!

Frustrated with Mud and Blood 2 yet? Here’s a strategy for the “Bunker? I ‘ardly knew ‘er!” Badge on Kongregate. I’ve based this on a strategy at urbanprophet.com. On the way you’ll get the Field of Screams Badge as a bonus.

Remember, Mud and Blood 2 is very random. Sometimes this strategy won’t work since your soldiers will die despite your best effort.

* Start with a clear field.
* Get a medic and assign him to injured soldiers.
* Buy an engineer and build two trenches at the bottom of the screen. One on each side.
* Get a signaller and an officer. Use the Air Superiority whenever there’s an airstrike on the way.
* Get two Spec ops and put one in each trench.
* Build a bunker between the trenches with a bunkers space under it.
* Buy a gunner as soon as possible and put it in the bunker.
* Put the medic in the bunker and have injured soldiers run in to him when needed.
* Build two sandbag walls in each of the trenches on the sides.
* Get a sniper and put him in one of the trenches.
* Build a bunker under the first one. Move the officer and a signaller in there.

Congratulations. You should now be able to get the badge. If you want to make it further please refer to the strategy at urbanprophet.com.

Feudalism II made me crazy. How could you take over the city of Nagoya so you could duel the champion? I kept on getting oneshot by ninjas. It seemed impossible. But the solution is simple. Since the ninjas gain stronger attacks the better armor you have, you have to take the armor off. Once you own the city just battle the champion. Congratulations on the “There Can Be Only One” Badge on Kongregate.

Here’s a walkthrough for the Remembering the Alamo Badge at Kongregate. The problem I found with every guide for Storm the house 3 was that they required you to shoot like crazy. I’m a lazy player and I needed something simpler. This walkthrough is based on a guide I found on the Kongregate forum.

One thing I noticed was that you probably don’t have to upgrade the Shotgun as I did. Possibly only reload.

Day 1: 2 gunmen
Day 2: 1 gunman
Day 3: Combat Shotgun
Day 4: 1 repairman, 1 gunman
Day 5: Save

Focus your fire on the riflemen.

You might have to repair your house
after day 5.

Day 6: Flamer Joe
Day 7: Upgrade Flamer Joe’s Range twice
Day 8: Upgrade Flamer Joe’s Range once, upgrade wall, repairman, 2 gunmen

Summary Day 8:
6 gunmen, 2 repairmen, Flamer Joe range 65, Combat Shotgun, 200 hp

Only shoot riflemen and cars

Note that you can fire the shotgun even
when it’s reloading

Day 9: 4 gunmen, 1 repairman
Day 10: Missile Turret
Day 11: Missiles (MT), Fire Rate x2 (MT), 2 gunmen

Cars are now your main priority.

Day 12: Missiles  x2 (MT)

Summary day 12:
12 gunmen, 3 repairmen, Flamer Joe range 65, Combat Shotgun, 200 hp, Missile Turret (6, 0.8, 60)

Day 13: Missiles (MT), Damage (MT), Fire Rate (MT), 1 gunman
Day 14: Laser Tower, Fire rate (MT), repairman
Day 15: Fire rate (MT), Damage x3 (MT), upgrade wall, gunman
Day 16: Sell Flamer Joe, Laser Tower, 2 repairmen, Fire Rate x2 (MT), Damage (MT)

Summary day 16:
14 gunmen, 6 repairmen, 2 laser towers, Combat Shotgun, 300 hp, Missile Turret (7, 1.8, 110)

Only shoot cars now. Watch out for the trucks.

Day 17: Damage (MT), Fire rate x2 (MT), repairman, 4 gunmen
Day 18: Fire Rate (MT), 3 repairmen , Fire rate (LT x2), gunman
Day 19: Space Laser, Fire rate (LT x2), Ammo x3 (Shotgun), Reload x2 (Shotgun)
Day 20: Ammo (SL), Fire Rate x2 (LT x2), Reload x4 (Shotgun), gunman
Day 21: Ammo (SL), Fire rate x2 (LT x2)
Day 22: Ammo (SL), Wall, Fire Rate (LT x2), Ammo x2 (Shotgun)
Day 23: Ammo (SL), Damage (LT x2), 2 repairmen, 2 gunmen

Summary day 23:
22 gunmen, 12 Repairmen, Wall 400 hp, Shotgun (12, 6, 22), Missile Turret (MAX), 2 Laser Towers (14, 155), Space Laser (5, 30, 0.6)

Day 24: Radius + Reload (SL), Damage (LT * 2), repairman, 3 gunmen
Day 25: Reload x2 (SL), Radius (SL)
Day 26: Damage (LT x2), Reload (SL), 2 repairmen, 2 gunmen

Tanks arrive at level 26. Spam Space Lasers, focus on Tanks, let turrets and gunmen deal with everything else. Switch to shotgun for trucks.

Day 27: Reload (SL), Fire Rate (LT x2), 6 gunmen
Day 28: Sell Missile Turret, buy Laser Tower (Upgrade to 19, 175), 24 gunmen

Choppers arrive at level 28

Day 29: Upgrade Laser Towers as much as you can.
Day 30: Max out Laser Towers, Radius (SL)
Day 31: Upgrade Space Laser as much as you can, 3 repairmen
Day 32: Reload (SL), 4 repairmen
Day 33: Max out Space Laser, Max out Shotgun, 7 gunmen
Day 34: 6 gunmen, 5 repairmen

Here comes the giant mechs!

Day 35: 3 repairmen

Now you have everything you need to win the game.

Maxed Space Laser
Basic Combat Shotgun
3 Laser Towers
70 Gunmen
30 Repairmen
400 Health

Just spend the rest of your cash wherever you want. Max out your wall, get more gunmen or repairmen, and so on. As long as you keep spamming Space Lasers rapid fire against the tanks and mechs,
you won’t have any problems.

Gordon over at irRegularGames released a new game containing a small tribute to You Have to Burn the Rope. It features a sample from my song Now You’re a Hero.

Play The irRegularGame of Life

I’m hanging out on Kongregate a lot these days. I found a game called Age of War which is really interesting. There’s an Impossible difficulty setting that I’ve spend the whole day trying to beat. Finally I did it. Thought I’d share the strategy with you.

1. The first thing you have to do is to wait until about five enemies is visible. Drop the Special attack and hope that at least two or three dies.
2. Now you can buy an Egg automatic.
3. Use lots and lots of Club men to keep the enemies at a distance while you let the turret do its job. Use the Special attack whenever it’s available.
4. Don’t evolve at first. Stay at age one even though the computer evolves. Use the same strategy until you reach enough experience to evolve straight to age four.
5. Add turret spots when you can afford it. Buy Egg automatics to fill the space.
6. Towards the end of age three, the computer sends a lot of attackers with guns. Be sure to prepare for that and buy many Club Men to protect your base.
7. When you get to age four, sell an Egg automatic and buy the best turret you can afford. Keep doing that until you can keep away the enemies with only turrets.
8. By now it should be easy. Evolve to age five whenever possible and buy four Ion rays. That will protect you from anything.
9. Save 750.000 and buy five Super soldiers. Clear the path with a Special and watch them do their job.
10. Be happy.