Iji

Huh, what pu-*notices it* Ooooooooooooooh

So I've installed the game on a new machine and began playing again. Normal difficulty, zero kills, no reflector (for unlockables like the sectors 3 and 5 posters or the scrambler, I do the level twice), all ribbons, and as many supercharges as I can get (which is probably eight, because sector 8 requires depopulating half the level and sector X requires killing Asha 2).

I do "kill" some enemies by tanking rockets near them, though, because I need the nano.

I've finished sector 6 so far. That MPFB turret obliterated me, thank Daniel for the checkpoints.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Tanking rocket to the face, LIKE A BOSS. Only in Iji!

BTW, is there any new stuff after 1.6? I didn't play Iji for a while...

Give me cute or give me...something?

Apart from the guide Daniel posted on his website (which I make a point of not using right now, I have good enough memory for that^note though I did check the sector 2 map, to find out what went wrong with my rocket jump the first time — silly me did the first part but forgot to take the rocket launcher immediately afterwards *facepalm*), not much.

Captain Lhurgoyf's MSPFA stopped updating early in sector X I think (More exactly, here◊), and half its pictures have gone missing from ImageShack anyway...

Edit: The MSPFA edit of the game itself was cool though, some of the new weapons were great.

edited 28th Sep '14 11:35:45 PM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Ah...

One day I really should try to do unlock run...the only things I really got was the Massacre (which is easy due to no kill run and all that), beating Hard/Extreme/Ultimortal, and the Scrambler I think.../me want those Banana Gun and Null Driver!

Since I lost the game (and thus probably the save)...or maybe not. Just found it lol. Still, rusty skill...

edited 16th Sep '14 10:33:06 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Medinoc, I'm surprised (and touched) the game's not boring for you by now, since you've played it so much already.

There are some old games from my childhood I play as "comfort games" sometimes, as I know them inside out and they are quite fast to complete, and it gets me in a better mood. Like, instead of eating a bucket of ice cream. Is it something like that? :p

Well, since I haven't played it in a while, it's more a memory exercise than anything boring... EXCEPT for the logbooks, which I do not wish to read all over again.

Except I will have to, to "discover" the secret skills. Whatever, I'll have all the time in the world to do that during the Sudden Death Sectors.

The kind of "comfort game" you mention would probably be The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for me. I know it inside-out (except for the easter part of Death Mountain, which I know less, because it's tricky and there's not much to do there) and can do a fairly complete run (all items, 19+ hearts) in two days, to which I go back from time to time.

I fact, I got the urge to play Iji again after showing him a "Asha 2 Ultimortal" video to a friend, to encourage him to try and try again like I had to (and will have to again soon enough), as he's currently blocked in another game.^note A floor-creating block room in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

---

PS: onyhow, when I mentioned the MSPFA mod, I forgot the part about Maximum Charge Iosa, which I was just reminded of (note that I'm playing the regular game now).

edited 17th Sep '14 2:17:02 PM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I've been meaning to play that mod, but I cannot find it gramble

And then there was silence

Uploaded.

Edit: And the recap I made after discovering the new nanoweapons.

Edit2: Well, my Normal full pacifist rerun is done. Of note, I didn't reach level 50: I got only enough nano to get up to 49.

• Time: 3:36:04 (not counting levels done twice or restarted)
• Kills: 0 - Innocent (not counting kamikaze, but I didn't even create the reflector; got a couple automatic ones, though)
• Damage: 362 - Overconfident (quite normal for a full-exploration pacifist play)
• Cracks: 82-7=75 - Nanomaster (I think I actually failed one crack, while others were me being rudely interrupted by explosives)
• Posters: All 10 (I re-started levels where it required killing; which did NOT include Sector X because I kamikaze'd the Troopers before using the Nuke)
• Supercharges: 8 (In Sector 4 I actually dodged the Tasen Scout)
• Ribbons: All 10
• Hidden Skills: All 4.
• Scrambler: Obtained (redid the sector afterwards)

Next step: Either Sudden Death or Extreme. Either way, likely Killer.

By the way, in Ultimortal, only the sector 4 supercharge (and maybe sector 8 if there's time) can be obtained, right?

edited 19th Sep '14 12:24:59 PM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I think so, maybe Sector 9 too? I don't remember if it was possible.

Due to references to the demo in the guide (which I'm now reading again since game completion), I tried it again (scrap pack 2). I could never reach the logbook in the right room. Taking a rocket in the face doesn't work (sends Iji against the wall above the ledge), and I can't go from below (not even to rocket-jump) since I can't jump high enough...

Ah, thanks. It's tough dodging him and his rockets long enough to go kill everyone above... but I succeeded.

edited 20th Sep '14 10:19:03 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Just checked it out, you need to be smacked by a Commander from the bottom level. The logbook just tells you about cracking enemies though.

Well, I am completely enjoying the mod right now.

I was not expecting the Buckshot Ampisploder. Or anything else.

And then there was silence

Late, I know, but yeah, I pretty much gave up on the fanventure a few years back because I had a personal crisis in which, to make a long story short, I didn't feel comfortable being involved with the MSPA forums any more for unrelated reasons. Now it's pretty much pointless, given the broken pics and the fact that the whole thing devolved into...well, even more of a plotless clusterfuck than it already was towards the end. Even if I wanted to go back I don't think I could go anywhere with it. I had lots of plans for the Tor battle, but I don't even know how I'd get to that point to begin with.

I have entertained the thought of doing a reboot at some point, but I have no idea where I'd host it, since I'm pretty much averse to most things Homestuck-affiliated now. I've considered Tumblr, since I know how to use it and I dearly wish Iji had more of a presence there when I look at how much people have posted about other indie games like Off or Five Nights At Freddy's, but I have no idea how well that works for user-driven suggestions. I do know that I'd be keeping a much tighter hold of the plot this time and doing away with some jokes I thought were funny at the time but were really groan-inducing in retrospect (I have no idea why I thought that Don't Ask Don't Tell references would be anything more than glaringly dated), and I'd be improving the art as well - I know how Daniel feels about the cutscenes, believe me. But I don't even know if that's something I want to do right now.

edited 20th Sep '14 9:54:00 PM by CaptainLhurgoyf

I wonder what's for dinner?

At least we learned something in the experience: ImageShack sucks. Still, it's a bit disappointing that it stopped so close to the end... It's like RPG World all over again.

At some point I tried to compile a list of broken pics. However, I couldn't go farther than page 26, and there are probably more broken pics by now... Maybe you could upload a ZIP will all pictures somewhere, to ensure they won't be irretrievably lost?

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

The problem is I deleted most of the pics from my computer after I uploaded them thinking they'd be safe. I am a moron.

If anything I could redraw them. They could use a redraw anyway, especially the earlier ones.

I wonder what's for dinner?

---

I've started playing extreme now, since sudden death sectors are still locked. One thing I've noticed is that now that I've done a full-unlock run, the low level cap speeds up exploration drastically: No need for posters, ribbons or hidden nano; only supercharges (requiring reboot this time) and trapmine are important now.

And in Ultimortal, not even the former, since I'll likely reach level 9 before I run into the first accessible supercharge.

Edit: Oh by the way, my previous run finally answered a long-time question of mine: Yes, I can reflect at Tor a charge ball that's orbiting him.

edited 22nd Sep '14 5:22:56 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Soooo, in light of the recent information, I have an important announcement to make to everyone.

As of late I've been in an Iji mood, thanks to unrelated circumstances too complicated to go into here. That's what brought me here. Now, I had had thoughts of rebooting the MSPA in the past, and when I saw that people were asking about it here, that only put more thoughts in my head, especially when it's become evident that the first round is more or less unsalvageable at the current moment. The only real thing stopping me was that I didn't know how well Tumblr would work as a platform for it, but I've since seen some examples of it being used for this sort of thing and it's managed to convince me that it'd work.

So with that in mind, I'm proud to announce that Iji will return in the near future.

I've thought of some ways I want to do things differently this time around, and as much as this is probably irrelevant to this thread, for lack of a better place to put them I think I'll put them here.

• Perhaps the biggest thing, as I said, I'm going to be keeping the plot under more control this time. I think my downfall with the first adventure was my overwillingness to take reader suggestions, regardless of how irrelevant, complicated, or embarrassing. So as fun as it was to have 30 unrelated plots at the same time, for this adventure I'd show greater restraint. I still plan to include side plots, but only if they're clearly connected to the main plot in some way. Crossovers, if they happen, would probably be limited to other Daniel Remar games (and even then, probably just the Hero games, since they have precedent). Other indie games and/or sci-fi stories might get referenced with some name-dropping, but no more than that.
• Going off that note, I was wondering about what I would do with Iji's character now that Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff most likely won't be something that's spoken of as existing in the game's universe. I plan to make character personalities as a whole more grounded in how the game itself presents them in its more comedic moments. So while Iji would still be largely clueless and prone to random acts of idiocy, she wouldn't act like a DA fangirl so much.
• I was thinking about the art I want to use for this. I've been practicing, and of course I would be putting more effort into making things look good, but I also think that I'd like to have a consistent and relevant style to use for the reboot. I'm not even sure if I'd use copy-pasted sprites and environments any more - I think that drawing every panel from scratch could make for an interesting look and fully explore the potential of using hand-drawn panels. Of course, that raises questions about the style I'm going to use. The two ideas I have right now are to base it off the game's art style or to imitate Yukabacera's art from the logs on Daniel's site. The former would probably be more recognizable and have more detail, but the latter might be more suited for a light-hearted tone. Alternatively, I could combine the two, using sketchy outlines with flat colours.
• On the subject of Daniel's art style, I'm not even sure if I want to use screenshots at all this time. I'd still be playing through the game, of course, but illustrating everything myself could allow for a more dynamic look with different angles and perspectives. It also could allow me to take more license with how things look if I'm not bound to matching how they look in the game - for instance, I was thinking of giving Yukabacera, Vateilika, and maybe Denise and Katelyn some new design elements so they don't look exactly the same (though what those elements would be I don't know).
• Lastly, I don't think I could get away with just calling it "Iji". I did that for the MSPA because the Cave Story forum adventure used the game's title, but if I want to open a Tumblr for this it might serve me well to do something more distinctive so people don't confuse it with Daniel's official website. Though I have no clue what I'd call it.

To whoever's interested, any thoughts on these ideas? I apologise for making such a long post about something so self-indulgent and unrelated to what most people viewing this thread are probably here for, but again, there's no other place to put it since I have no interest in going back on the MSPA forums, so here you go.

I wonder what's for dinner?

As one of the people who entered dumb requests, I'm going to say sorry for my suggestions.

As for what you want to do, just do what feels the most natural for yourself.

To be seen, stand up To be heard, speak up To be appreciated, shut up

You are the guy who did that silly Iji MSPA thing?

Well, if you start it over again, I personally hope next time you do it it won't have random crossovers with certain type of things I have personal pet peevee with people who stop reading something because they didn't like direction work went, but still keep using their own version of the story.

I agree that too much crossovers scattered the adventure, especially with Touhou and the multi-layered imaginary universes. I'll miss the missile pony silliness and Cairo Overcoat if they're not included, though.

As for the title, maybe something like AlphaStruck, DCMFPR Stuck, Iji's (mis-)adventure, or any combination thereof?

When it comes to screenshots, I think they're part of the charm, especially when edited (before the mod was done) or showing off the cool new weapons/alternate outfit.

edited 23rd Sep '14 1:44:18 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I like AlphaStruck quite a bit, actually.

And then there was silence

I actually really do like the sound of that. Going off of how I'd be doing this on Tumblr, I was thinking of calling it something like Ask The Anomaly, but that's even better.

And you guys don't need to apologise about the suggestions. The crossovers really were fun while they lasted in their own way, and I don't regret them. It's just that they had their own pitfalls associated with them, as Medinoc pointed out, that I plan to avoid this time.

Missile ponies, though, are something that's talked about in the game, so they could easily make a return (in fact I'm surprised they didn't show up earlier). And I can give Tor an overcoat as a Call-Back

In unrelated news, I present the Tasen national anthem.

edited 23rd Sep '14 6:26:23 AM by CaptainLhurgoyf

I wonder what's for dinner?

but what about Dan's shirt?

And then there was silence

I reserve Aliens and Anomalies for the day someone decides to do a Campaign Comic about the game. Somehow. Despite having a single protagonist who hogs all the screen time.

Edit: Or maybe this could almost work if we added Pitch as Player 2? That way we'd have an adventurer duo with a pacifist and a murderhobo, and in the end Pitch decides to rob them of the pleasure of destroying the world by GPB-ing Tor. Awesome.

edited 23rd Sep '14 8:12:41 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."