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Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

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Dude... it's the internet...
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

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aterraformer wrote:Dude... it's the internet...
do i look like i care
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Leet »

aterraformer wrote:Dude... it's the internet...
*the police pull up to a crime scene* "sir youre under arrest for murder" "dude its the INTERNET" "what the fuck are you talking about"
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

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AUDIBLE SIGH
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Jesuiscontent »

Morning

I suppose I'll reopen this?? Though fair warning, the next person being an idiot will stay 24h away from the forums
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Pikabread »

Jesuiscontent wrote:I suppose I'll reopen this?? Though fair warning, the next person being an idiot will stay 24h away from the forums
Not your fault, since you didn't watch the episode, but dear god this was a bad day to open it on.

Relevant: poor raocow :c
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Willhart »

He did give it a honest try, and I respect his effort to make this enjoyable to watch.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Redesignated »

Jeez, that — took an hour to record? An hour straight of that mini-game? That's a lot more dedication than I'd probably be able to muster. Nobody can say you didn't give it an earnest attempt. Curious how much of the excised recording was utter silence or had actual commentary, though.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by jayScribble »

Sometimes I just think some of my guidelines are just things I say to myself when playing games and never listen to them.


Progression and optional upgrades often mutually exclusive, but sometimes one needs another. If the game is demanding and is related to progression, you try to change things up either by trying a different play style or go for optional upgrades that allow you to overcome that. Often, getting optional upgrades does not force you to change your play style and allows you to experience the game in your own way.

However, getting the optional upgrades often requires effort, luck, and/or time to find and get. For example, the shooter game requires all three to get a defensive upgrade. Therefore, you must allow to limit yourself and see what upgrades are worth it and what is not. Often, progressing is the most important thing and seeing if you can do so, and if not, try seeing what you can change.

With this in thought though, it's up to you to experience the game in your own way and not allow anything else to ruin it. Exploring, experimenting, collecting, upgrading, progressing, overcoming, winning: these is what people normally play these types of game for. It's up to you to see which any of these you enjoy the most and go on from there. If you feel overwhelmed, take a break, and see if you want to continue or not.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by KobaBeach »

all those meteorites and ufos at around 5000 points


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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by tirakai »

That minigame probably should have been around 5000 for the upgrade I think. Would be enough to enjoy the challenge but not get annoyed by it much.

Thinking about it, this game in general reminds me a lot of those levels you always get in the hack contest where there's a bunch of decent ideas but they overstay their welcome by being a bit too long, throwing in too many enemies, trying to be too ambitious etc.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Redesignated »

tirakai wrote:Thinking about it, this game in general reminds me a lot of those levels you always get in the hack contest where there's a bunch of decent ideas but they overstay their welcome by being a bit too long, throwing in too many enemies, trying to be too ambitious etc.
And a lot of those levels tend to come from new level-makers — or, in this case, new game-makers. Good ideas, but a bit flimsy in the execution. He tried to do a lot for a single-person project, but it ends up not really coming together with the expected polish. Kinda too bad.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Well, you only lose if the player gets hit, so it looks to me like the best strategy is just to keep your focus on the space around the player and don't worry about anything unless something is in that danger zone.

Of course, it's hard to tell from a video if raocow was doing that or not, and even if he wasn't I doubt he's interested in giving it another try.

If there was actual shooter-sounding music and more variety to the things you shoot, this might be more manageable. I probably would have started playing some other music just to make it more bearable if I were trying this.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Taigiry »

Gotta admit, I kinda skipped forward in this episode. That really seemed way too hard for such a sudden genre change at a certain point. Good job on breaking the 9000 points mark, though.

To be honest though, despite how much we always nag on the game, I'm legitimately curious how a potential remake would turn out. The game is, what, 10(?) years old? I'm pretty sure the maker has learned a few new things by now. Yeah, the game has a lot of faults, but I wouldn't call it unsalvageable. The main flaw, as I see it, is the difficulty. Maybe even add a few cutscenes? I remember when the game started, while the dialogue wasn't stellar, I can appreciate a game that doesn't take itself that seriously. Too bad it was never brought up again.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Hoeloe »

Minigames are something that is very, very hard to get right. Like so much in Soldexus, there wasn't much thought put into this one and it shows. That doesn't make Soldexus a bad game, but it does mean that there are a lot of things that could have been much better with a little bit of thought put into them. This minigame is one of the most obvious examples.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Voltgloss »

In my opinion, all that minigame needed was to (1) lower the first points threshold where things start to speed up, so the beginning isn't so boring - maybe to around 1k; and (2) lower the end goal points threshold to 8k or 9k.

I wonder how many, if any, testers the developer had? I expect it's quite difficult to get dedicated testers for a purely solo-developed effort - even more so years back, when the indie gaming "scene" wasn't nearly as prominent.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by SAJewers »

Dragon Fogel wrote:Well, you only lose if the player gets hit, so it looks to me like the best strategy is just to keep your focus on the space around the player and don't worry about anything unless something is in that danger zone.
So basically, play it like a bullet hell.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by randoguy101 »

I dunno rao, I know AUS had a game almost exactly like this one (shoot rocks and ufos, it gets crazy a few thousand points in) and I remember that being pretty much the low point of the entire game for me, even more than the running minigame. Although I suppose not having played Soldexus I can't say how much better/worse the differences are. I think the AUS version had multiple hits and an occasional invincible super mode so there's that.

I think in general trying to fit in minigames that are completely disconnected from the actual game they're in is when they start to get kinda irritating. Like VVVVVV had the postgame super gravitron which was really fun, but in that case it was following the actual rules of the game that you were already playing so it doesn't feel shoehorned in I guess.

I haven't actually read this thread yet sorry if this was said already
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Validon98 »

I'm glad I didn't look at the thread the last couple days because that looked like a disaster. Not to say I can't blame some people since I agree the game is really meh, but eh, leaving it at that to not redredge that part.

As for Shoot Stuff... geez, this was like a poor way to hide an experimental GM project or something (not that it was, making a half joking statement here). It doesn't look fun, it gets like stupidly impossible right as you're getting to the end, and it's rather kind of... boring. I dunno, people are mentioning AUS minigames, and I somewhat remember raocow having some trouble there, but... eh? I'm not as like caring because here it's piling bad on mediocre, at this point, I'm still watching to see if there's a payoff (like something incredibly silly/stupid that'll be like the highlight of the LP) and also so I can see what else about game design I can learn from.this. In the "what not to do" sense.

Also yes game was over hyped blah blah we get it I think we should all stop mentioning that part.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Sebby19 »

Wow, an HOUR?!? You need some help with this minigame.

So watching the video, my main tip to you is to make more general sweeping motions with you gun, you were way too stationary.

The game difficulty seems to go up every 2000 points.
0-2000: Seek out the asteroids to up your score early on, and get out of the boring part.
2000-4000: Focus on the UFOs, they will be your main source of points
4000-6000: Watch more carefully where you make your sweeping motions, move back and forth more often.
6000-8000: Enter survival mode, the points will come to you. Tighten your back and forth motion, but try not to stay in the same general area.
8000-10000: Full on Survival mode. Watch those lasers, keep wiggling back and forth.

I will admit that it is incredibly frustrating to keep losing to this game, since it is supposed to be the simplest one to do.
Take a break for now, but do try again later on. Maybe after the 3rd boss? Remember to buy Parry first (you are right next to a warp point).
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Grounder »

I think that asking raocow to spend more time on that thing is being a bit too hopeful, Sebby. If he's had this trouble with what, according to you, is the easiest of the minigames and the reward is, like, one defense point, I think that it'll just be a waste of everyone's time.

He's shown it off already at any rate.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Voltgloss »

raocow, do NOT buy Parry now. I've gone ahead and spoiled myself as to some aspects of the game, and you will apparently get Parry for free later on - and potentially quite soon - so long as you don't buy it now. Save your money.

I suspect Sebby just found out about this himself, by the way.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Willhart »

I don't think the one defense is really worth the amount of time each retry to get it takes. I think the player might have better chance of survival right next to the wall though, since the enemies can't spawn outside of the screen. You will only have to avoid bullets and the enemies coming from the open side. This does limit the area you can move too, but having less things to look for could be helpful.

I do feel like making progress on the map would be more important right now though.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Sebby19 »

I recently watched Pneophen speedrun his game, and I was surprised to find that Parry was available after the 3rd boss. My guess is that he was playing an earlier version of the game. raocow got the v1.01 version, but I know there is a v1.02 version (might contain some bugfixes, as I encountered some I don't remember from my initial runs).

So it might be worth it to pull a Science and see for yourself, rao. Your choice.
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by SAJewers »

Based on his website 1.02 appears to just fix Vista compatibility.

EDIT: Changelog on his website says this:
What's new Version 1.02
------------------------------------------------
-fixed float bug
-fixed a bug with slicer
-tweaked easier
-disabled a debug key that I forgot to earlier
-due to my computer keeling over I lost some fonts
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