Iji

The fact that the two endings result in differences in the village (i.e. whether it's fortified or not, it's safe to assume Iji or Dan encountered its builders.

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

Since Ulti still seems to be reading this thread, I thought I'd just comment on the "what this game did/didn't do wrong" subject. I think the plot is fine at this point—it's annoying that you can't really save any bosses, but it is what it is. Changing the plot again would be more trouble than it's worth.

What I think is the real flaw in Iji, that becomes very obvious if you've played Undertale, is just that the game has more options and more depth if you're killing stuff than not. And is honestly just more fun because of it. It's very obvious to the player that the ability to be a pacifist was tacked on at the end. And it's made worse by the fact that to get 0 kills, you're forced to sink half your upgrade points in weapon stats that you'll only even use once in the whole game. You just carry around this huge arsenal you can never use.

So if you were looking for something to revise, I would make one and only one change: add a pair of nonlethal weapons at Tasen 6 and Komato 6 (or somewhere around there). Make them less effective than the real weapons, and maybe ammo-hogs to boot, and leave behind slumped-over aliens that'll still draw enemy fire and count against you if they die. Such a weapon existing at all would improve the game, even if you could only afford to use it a couple times per level.

(If I were designing them, I'd make the one of them function like the uncracked komato flamethrower and the other one have similar range but deal 1 HP damage with a long reload time instead. And since both do one damage at a time, kicking enemies to weaken them would be viable. But the important thing is to have something that uses the stats you're already forced to invest in.)

you're forced to sink half your upgrade points in weapon stats that you'll only even use once in the whole game. You just carry around this huge arsenal you can never use.

You can reset your skill points at any time. The only downsides are that you don't get automatic healing, you lose your ammo above 10*, and you're vulnerable until you find the upgrade points.

• Ammo is really important if you're going for the Proxima supercharge, because you'll have to save up MFB ammo for a while to have a chance. Which means you can't do any resets on that level, which is pretty annoying.

edited 27th Nov '15 8:52:46 AM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Hello Mr. Remar! I invite you to come over to raocow's forum, and maybe discuss the game with us. Some people over there are wondering why you can't run, or shoot and jump.

http://talkhaus.raocow.com/

Oh come on.

Oh come on!

You can't fire the Null Driver on reallyjoel's Dad difficulty.

Anyways, farthest I've made it is where Mia's ribbon would be.

There's a thing that bugs me a bit about Iji's like "This weapon is aimed at your head."

Namely, that she has a grand total of two guns that are precise enough to hit Asha without pulping Dan in the process, and both are cracked ones (the plasma cannon and Velocithor V2-10).

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

Given how wide both of those beams are, I wouldn't call them precise. Not for this context, at least.

But then, Asha's plan was to kill Dan to demoralize Iji. Guess it just didn't occur to him that Dan could be used as a meatshield.

Unrelated random thought: I wonder if Iji (the game) could be a first-person shooter.

edited 29th Nov '15 3:35:33 AM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

The plasma cannon is precise enough, at least. As the documentation says, only the center of the beam is destructive, and "the surrounding light show is harmless".

Looks like I underestimated the Velocitor beam's width, though. I remembered it as head-sized, but it's more torso-sized.

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

Oh yeah, now I remember. I stand corrected.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

the game has more options and more depth if you're killing stuff than not.

Yes, definitely. The idea I mentioned before was to let Iji change her gun to a "passive mode" somehow, which would turn the 8 base weapons into different, non-lethal ones that cannot be combined. It's hard to say if it'd make the game more fun on a pacifist run, but it'd at least give you some more options. The main problem is how to change to passive mode and back without adding an extra button - maybe duck and press the fire button?

And it's made worse by the fact that to get 0 kills(...)

Zero kills is pretty much a puzzle in this game - all it does is give you the Massacre and an unlockable. Although it stems from a lack of modifiers, in terms of story it's not an alternate ending, just a number. (Nearly all pacifist modifiers just check if Iji's total kills are < 5*sector number.) So I was fine with hiding it like that.

Which reminds me that some people won't like certain parts of the Strawberry game - sometimes I'd rather make games where some crap just happens without the player having any say. I know many games (including mine) are an escape, where the player is in complete control if they just perform the correct sequence of actions, and feel unfairly treated if something happened without their explicit input. Although it wasn't intentional in Iji that there are some things you can't affect story-wise, it was in World Fell Silent and will be for some things in the Strawberry game. But since they are less of a game and more about a story without distinct paths and endings, I don't think it's the same as e.g. a hidden deathtrap in a platformer.

I don't think any of this makes sense, I'm kinda tired.

Some people over there are wondering why you can't run, or shoot and jump.

Well, I've answered that before. It's not the kind of game I wanted, it'd make the level- and game design significantly harder, and it already took forever doing all the animations. :p

There's a thing that bugs me a bit about Iji's like "This weapon is aimed at your head."

The idea was that Asha had no idea what weapon Iji's gun held loaded. It can fire without warning after all, and the Plasma Cannon could hit Asha in the fight prior (though the player is unlikely to have had it at that point). But yes, it is a pretty contrived way to have Asha back off - I didn't know what else to write...

Eh, I think it makes sense for story wise there be things you can't just see coming.

It made sense to me. He can't teleport while holding a dude, I don't think. So whatever Iji hits him with is going to do a ton of damage. Its a mexican standoff where the longer he delays, the better chance Iji has of hitting him without hitting Dan.

Once the ambush failed, he doesn't have a good reason to hang around. And trying to be spiteful will just get holes put in him.

Plus he just saw Iji one-shot someone with her shotgun, haha

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Well, when I saw Undertale brought up I had wanted to point out that, while it is interesting to look at the similarities between it and Undertale, that they're ultimately not truly comparable for a number of reasons...

But then Daniel himself showed up and said much the same. Pretty surprising turn of events, but welcome nonetheless. :P

Yeah, I guess comparing it to Undertale isn't really fair. Toby set forth with a goal in mind from square zero, a story he wanted to tell and game mechanics designed to play into it. Daniel had a different story he wanted to tell, with different (though related) themes. Of course it doesn't shine as well in the same places, but it does shine brighter in others (combat when you're not being a pacifist, ease of replaying and experimenting, more actiony boss battles).

About the "gun pointed at your head" thing, my interpretation was that it was more "If you kill your hostage, I will pull this trigger faster than you can teleport and you'll die too." Which is a reasonable threat, if you ignore the fact that Asha can clearly teleport while holding Dan (so he could just teleport away with Dan, kill him, and leave the corpse in the next hallway).

As far as we know, Asha is the kind of person who jumps into things without much forethought (which is how he lost an arm in the first place). Sounds in-character for him not to be quick-witted enough to come up with a Plan B besides getting the hell out of dodge if something goes off the rails.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

I think the big difference between a Pacifist Run in Iji and in Undertale is your motivation.

In Undertale, you don't want to kill the monsters because the monsters are sympathetic characters — they're people to you, basically. In Iji, you don't want to kill the aliens because Iji doesn't want to kill the aliens.

she her hers hOI!!! i'm tempe

Thank you for the answer Mr. Remar!

http://talkhaus.raocow.com

edited 30th Nov '15 9:54:02 AM by Sebby19

So apparently you need 80 Crack to crack Annihilator Iosa? This, considering the usual level that says "you're not going to crack this ever" is 15, and that normal Annihilators only need 10 to be cracked. Where did Iosa get nanofield security that tight?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

It's her special armor. Also, she's not the only one with above-15 security, and not even the highest-security: Asha has 20, Krotera and Yukabacera have 25, Proxima has 40 and Tor (also in a special armor) has 250. I'm more surprised that Ansaksie has only 12.

But she makes up for it by having a custom message.

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

A common complaint shows up on Raocow's comment section - why should Iji spare the Tasen and Komato when they're not sympathetic? But I consider pacifism as something that has bigger implications when you avoid harming someone who is unsympathetic to you. You don't shoot those you like, that's common sense. But what if someone harms those you love and you don't fight back, even if they might harm you too? Is it the right thing to do? I think people have been asking stuff like this since the dawn of humanity. :p

Iji has some reasons for not going pacifist - self-defense, increasing her chances of survival and saving the planet, and most Komato she encounters are just there to wipe out the Tasen. Dan says as much when he justifies her violence. But if she does respond with violence, the cycle is implied to continue in the ending, with the children playing with Komato weapons and the city erecting a wall around it. So the ending favors pacifism.

But if you don't stop an already advancing army, even more may die. Depending on where the story's setting lies on the sliding scale of cynicism vs idealism (pretty sure that's a trope), pacifism isn't a magic solution either. If it was, there would be no "moral choices" involved. Iji is somewhere in the middle of the scale I guess, leaning towards idealism, so most things go to hell anyway, but it's more about what effort you put in to break the cycle. At least I want this idea to be better represented in 1.7, where sparing Iosa is a bad idea. :p

I just can't write any short posts lately.

edited 5th Dec '15 7:53:58 AM by Ulti

Ye, I think its kinda missing the point of pacifism to be like "But come on, they are jerks, just shoot them!"

I mean, yeah, you can argument whether bad people should be killed or not, but its still kinda missing the point of pacifism :P

edited 5th Dec '15 8:22:23 AM by SpookyMask

I guess in a pacifist run, Iji really takes the moral high ground for choosing not to kill people even when she has every reason to do so (self-defense and/or vengeance).

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

I find that the inclusion of Ansaksie adds an interesting middle ground

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

I have no comment, I just think this is hilarious.