DT3 - raocow and the game that ended

[Alice]

That lava lotus room was a pain in the ass for me. I think other than the boss that room took me the longest to actually get through. Also it's a very good thing you got that fourth heart piece before reaching the boss. It may not seem like much but it's going to make a world of difference in the fight.

[Grounder]

started playing this myself today

without a hint, rao is probably never gonna find the mushroom kingdom map, because goodness knows that it took me a while to find out how to get it

[ZephyrBurst]

EDIT: Zephyr is it possible to make the game prompt you to save before returning to the Title Screen from the menu? Or at least have an "Are you sure?" dialogue box.

Petition to add "Jerry, let's get hairy" to the things that can appear when you switch to Jerry.

Yes to both!
The first needed to be in since the beginning honestly. There needs to be a confirmation prompt for both reloading from previous save and returning to the title screen from both the game over menu (especially this one) and the pause menu. Nearly every Lets Play I've seen, the player has made a mistake regarding this.

Also, someone needs to draw hats.

Edit: I also like the idea of giving Unreal Guy a volume slider of his own. He could use some player-guided calming down if they want, cause yeah, he does get really excited. But you know, you are killing lots of stuff in great succession and that's his jam, ya know?

[WhattayaBrian]

The first needed to be in since the beginning honestly. There needs to be a confirmation prompt for both reloading from previous save and returning to the title screen from both the game over menu (especially this one) and the pause menu. Nearly every Lets Play I've seen, the player has made a mistake regarding this.

:(

[memnarch]

raocow, such a jerk.

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Also, someone needs to draw hats.

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[ZephyrBurst]

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What did you do?
https://gyazo.com/2fd38a7be7c60e34e7019b347eead900

[gamercal]

Hooooly hell... this is probably going to sound ranty, but I gotta vent after this one. Most (probably all) of this is opinion, so disagree with me as much as you want. I just need to get this out there!

Nightmare Gate 3 is... well, awful xD. Proooobably wasn't a good idea to do that late at night after sorta-raging over Death's first phase for a good half an hour first, but I don't think my opinion would be too different even if I did it totally fresh and unspoiled by Robin.

In theory it's actually pretty cool, and there are some really neat moments within it. Having the shadows of everything interact with you is neat, and there are a lot of possibilities stemming from that. You cover those fairly well, with movable light sources to create shadow switches and the like. I would've liked to have seen some actual platforms that you could move the shadows of but eh, not a big deal. The last room where you have no dash is also really engaging, since it doesn't really go overboard with gimmick.

My problem is with the implementation. i don't know jack about actually making games, so unfortunately I don't have anything to offer from a technical standpoint... but man this place felt really rough! Most of the time the shadows were bending around a light source (that may or may not have been moving), which made their movement wild and glitchly-looking. Mace chains are the biggest offender; even though they aren't harmful they were visually very distracting when they spazzed out all over the place.

The relative speed of the shadows compared to their source was another big problem, especially with the "Thowmp" traps. When an object moved vertically past a light source, its shadow would do this crazy huge arc at a speed far greater than its source was moving. Which ok, is probably realistic, but it made a lot of situations impossible for me to predict where I should be to not take 8 damage over and over >_<. The "Thownp" traps were even worse here since their shadows were usually player-side, meaning there really wasn't anywhere you could go to avoid taking a hit. All of these things got worse when multiple light sources were active, as you'd expect.

And don't even get me started on the Wallmaster... I swear that guy's shadow flat out teleported into me on at least 5 occasions. He suffers all of the problems mentioned above, only exaggerated in places since he's a roaming target.

I did enjoy the boss though. Maybe it's because it only has one light source, but it really didn't feel unpredictable at all despite how spastic its movement was. I was quite comfortable wailing on it with the whip once the light came a bit closer so his shadow was even less of a threat. ... actually, that is a fair point - his shadow was basically decoration for almost the entire fight, but I'm not sure what you really could've done about that since you already said that it went super out of control before you wrestled it down and made everything more scripted.

I think he took me 3 tries, compared to about 60-70 for the rest of the place. Almost all of those tries were before the last room too, that only took 4 >_<

Also, from a player standpoint what counts as a Normal damage source? Is that all Red numbers? I know Green is elemental and Yellow is explosion, but when looking at a piece of gear saying it'll reduce Normal damage taken I dunno what that does that Contact reduction doesn't already do. I don't want to waste my Internetz after all!

[Count Mohawk]

Also, from a player standpoint what counts as a Normal damage source? Is that all Red numbers? I know Green is elemental and Yellow is explosion, but when looking at a piece of gear saying it'll reduce Normal damage taken I dunno what that does that Contact reduction doesn't already do. I don't want to waste my Internetz after all!

All contact damage is Normal-type damage (I think), but some projectiles also deal Normal damage. The two types of defense do stack, however!

[Grounder]

And I think I've finally hit a wall.

Helmethead's last phase... Why?

Edit: Ending up sequence breaking for now, I think?

[Plutia]

so i dunno if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but i can't run the game without incredible amounts of slowdown (like maybe 2-3 frames per second is what i'm getting right now)
i tried the things in the readme but they didn't change anything??

[Count Mohawk]

Ah, raocow has reached the first of the Nightmare Gates. These are basically shorter, more challenging versions of the Gates you find them next to. You could probably beat them in one, maybe two videos total. They are technically optional, buuuuut:

You will eventually need to complete all the Nightmare Gates in order to reach the 'true ending'.

The reward for clearing this first Nightmare Gate is reasonably useful (

it's a Heart Piece

), so I would at least give it a try. But if you find them too challenging, there's no shame in coming back later with more hearts or better equipment. I personally waited to clear them until I reached the very last chapter, and to be honest I was glad I had waited that long.

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

So I noticed that during today's video raocow gets hit by a bullet bill while going down a pipe at around 11:28 in the video. That should probably be fixed because it seems pretty unfair. (It also brings back terrible memories of Metroid 1, where the same thing could (and often would) happen when going through doors.)

Anyway, I don't really have anything to say about the boss raocow just fought, but I do have stuff to say about the previous boss, Bowser. I like that this boss fight works the same as the fight in Super Mario Bros. 3, but then it changes things up with the switches when it looks like you're almost done.

Also, about the nightmare gates, if you stand in front of it you will see a recommended amount of hearts. If I recall correctly the recommended amount for this one is 5, so you could probably do it now. Though if you don't have the recommended amount for future ones, I wouldn't recommend doing it until you do (I had one less heart then the recommended amount when I did the first one and, while I did complete it eventually, I really wished I had waited until I had one more).

[Katazuki]

Do that Nightmare Gate, cowrao. It beckons you to compulsively do it right now.

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

...I would wait until you get another world done before you enter that red gate. It probably needs extra abilities to get everything there.... Plus, you can get the hang of having a huge character compared to everything else again.

Anthesma also could have worked for the boss encounter here. It's personal preference who's better, really...

[ano0maly]

@raocow:

For casually playing this game I would personally go for the nightmare gate after I'm done with the respective main gate, but for LP purposes I think you should wait on it, or maybe give it a try as a preview and then save it for later if it's not working out.

You can teleport out of it if you want to leave, but if you quit midway, you'll have to start from the beginning when you come back.

For that arrow quiver in 14:04, I'm not sure why the obstacle was designed so that you can get over the bullet bill cannon at the top of the screen. This game discourages obstacle design of that sort and generally doesn't allow you to go over the top boundary.

There's another way to get up to the item using an ability from much later in the game.

You can select the map in the pause menu, just like you can with other tabs. This will help you with item collecting.

@ZephyrBurst: Doesn't Jerry have three character switch lines already, while Claire has two? I think people should suggest more lines for Claire here in this thread.

So I noticed that during today's video raocow gets hit by a bullet bill while going down a pipe at around 11:28 in the video. That should probably be fixed because it seems pretty unfair. (It also brings back terrible memories of Metroid 1, where the same thing could (and often would) happen when going through doors.)

Huh, this still happens? I thought it was fixed.

started playing this myself today

without a hint, rao is probably never gonna find the mushroom kingdom map, because goodness knows that it took me a while to find out how to get it

I'm not sure what you're referring to...

...I would wait until you get another world done before you enter that red gate. It probably needs extra abilities to get everything there.... Plus, you can get the hang of having a huge character compared to everything else again.

You can't bring outside abilities to nightmare gates; the settings of this gate are locked to what you had in the main gate before you cleared it. But having better health and stats helps.

Also: I can respond later to Grounder and gamercal about those parts in the game, but I would suggest maybe discussing in the game thread if you're at a place not related to raocow's progress, so that things don't get mixed up when people help with your own progress.

[Slit08]

You have the recommended amount of hearts. Do the NIghtmare Gate next. Shouldn't be too bad cuse other than in other SMW games you can save and restart at the start of each room.

[NegativeZeroZ]

So I noticed that during today's video raocow gets hit by a bullet bill while going down a pipe

There's no excuse for that still being in the game, I told Zephyr at least 4 times to fix it.

Important Information about Nightmare Gates (for cows)

-When doing a Nightmare Gate, you are LOCKED to the ability set native to the corresponding Access Gate. This means ONLY Mario abilities will work inside Nightmare Gate A's maps. While you can build up a health buffer to make things easier, you will probably find yourself on the receiving end of some serious "fake difficulty syndrome" in the form of abilities that have long since been duct taped to your muscle memory being stripped away, and removing those late-game habits for a super-hard extra level will (probably) result in some ragecow.

-Again, Nightmare Gates are HARD. They make DT1's Extras look like fun little side maps. Nightmare Gates are typically twice as long as DT1's Extras (4 maps instead of 2) and handling them as typical postgame (doing all of them in a row at the end of the game) is going to get tiresome. I find that doing a Nightmare Gate right after the Access Gate works the best for pacing, for reasons that should become apparent as the game's difficulty curve reveals itself. After a Nightmare Gate, you deserve a break, not another (number redacted) of them.

-There is nothing to backtrack for in Nightmare Gates, and nothing you need that you don't have. A Low% run can beat Nightmare Gates.

[Plutia]

nevermind all i had to do was restart the computer.
i'm in gate 2 now -- never actually played the source game, for it, haha.

[memnarch]

...

What did you do?
https://gyazo.com/2fd38a7be7c60e34e7019b347eead900

Lol. I'd give making an actual hat a try, but I am lazy.

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

So I noticed that during today's video raocow gets hit by a bullet bill while going down a pipe at around 11:28 in the video. That should probably be fixed because it seems pretty unfair.

'...This is especially obnoxious because it can be fixed by simply giving pipe transitions invincibility frames.
I forget that there's actually 3 people here in the talkhaus directly responsible of DT3's creation, not 2. I still stand behind my recommendation for the Nightmare Gate pacing.

[ZephyrBurst]

@ZephyrBurst: Doesn't Jerry have three character switch lines already, while Claire has two? I think people should suggest more lines for Claire here in this thread.

I noticed that when adding the new one yesterday. I welcome new lines to either characters though.

There's no excuse for that still being in the game, I told Zephyr at least 4 times to fix it.

Yur face. <3

'...This is especially obnoxious because it can be fixed by simply giving pipe transitions invincibility frames.

For sure, and that's actually what it's doing yet it still hits the player in that instance only. I've looked at it 4 times (look above) and every time, it looks good and breaks itself again? Either way, I just added a line of code and I've not been able to reproduce the bug again so... winning? Maybe a bit late, but winning?

Oh yeah, since I'm on a fixing spree again and also making some slight adjustments to a certain level. Now is one of the best times to throw requests at me.

[Sebby19]

Add voice acting.

[Grounder]

nerf the boss i have/had trouble with

seriously

[Slit08]

Please make the overall game easier!

[Alice]

Please make the overall game easier!

Make a mode where all enemies (including bosses) die in one hit, bottomless pits just launch you upward instead, and every damage source only deals 1 damage.