Again, this thread, no Fez.

Come one guys. Aren't trixles enough for you?

To open up the minigames and changing room, regedit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Game Maker\Scores\834524 and change:

Did you manage to figure out the encryption or did you get those rooms the normal way?

I only managed to get the sun room (just luck) by messing with the scores. I didn't spot a normal CRC, but the encryption seems weird, a little change anywhere and I lose the shortcuts.
(was mainly trying to get more tiles in the editor)

No chittering about hacking Spelunky! You can do that somewhere else! IM each other or something. This thread is for feedback. If you want to teach Derek how to make his game hack-proof, that would be cool. Telling everybody how to hack the game isn't.

Woah, vehement reaction there dolphin boy. it's not that big a deal. It's a post at the bottom of the screen so if not for links like yours most folks wouldn't find it, and it's a free game. If folks wanna hack it let them. Doesn't mean you have to. Cheating is a time honored tradition to help the skill-less overcome their shortcomings. Complaining about is like teaching a pig to march. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

I got this too and it made me raise my eyebrows. It's a real professional presentation with an aggressive marketing scheme, and I can't help but wonder what's the angle here. There's got to be a business model behind this sort of thing because there's clearly a business behind it. It just seems a bit higher brow than this sort of thing warrants.

If I had any inclination to do mobile gaming right now I'd jump on this thing, tho.

http://www.cymonsgames.com/about-joe

Of course Cymon's Games is an attempt to allow others to learn the way I did. Successful or not? You decide.

Cymons Games is back...ish. Despite the SOB who did this I'm thinking I can make it a positive thing. May be time for that redesign I've been thinking about.

On an unrelated note, because I'm tired of talking about the subject at hand, did anyone make a FAQ for YHTBTR?

Actually, some of the writing on the wall does suggest that someone has been through the exact same experience as you. The room on the level with the cube is actually pretty damned "hilarious", try to check it out. Love poems, pictures of girl's bodies with the cube instead of their head. It's great

Anyway, I really have to try those new levels, apparently

Yes, yes you do.

Am I the only one who played Portal TFV map pack? It was brilliant. More challenging than the original levels, but not unbeatable. Disorienting and easy to get lost in, but solvable. I'm no "hard core" gamer, so I didn't want any impossible challenges. Plus, the last boss was pretty satisfying.

Finished it today. Really fun to play; double hinges make it too easy, as tantan said. All it needs now is an in-game custom level portal thingie.

Also: A rhombus is the kind of a rectangle a bitch would draw. :D

Okay, double hinges bad, but how to prevent that? that's part of the problem with a physics game. Eventually someone is going to find a way to exploit it.

I remember reading more about GlaDOS somewhere that one of her personality cores was based on one of the scientist daughetrs, and that, given GlaDOS dialogue in one of the first tests chambers, Chell is likely a clone (of probably many) a daughter of one of those scientist. There is the possibility that GlaDOS and Chell are based/cloned from the same person.

The whole thing leads me to believ that GlaDOS has a sort of "penis envy", where she is jealous of the clones because they are what GlaDOS can never be: a human. Thus, GlaDOS awakens one of the clones just to mess with them and torture them as means of revenge, probably going in cycles. It is likely each of the clones progressed further than the others, by leaving clues and crap, until the current iteration, the one shown in the game.

I immediately thought that Chell was a clone (heck, her name even sounds like "cel"), and was thrilled to see that supported in TFV portal mappack (tho, I think those elements were removed from Portal: Still Alive for the 360). If that were the case it leads to some interesting story elements:

• The clones may be blanks when the game starts. (Unbased assumption, but it makes for some interesting ideas, so go with it for now.)
• Born with a portal gun as one of their first "toys" they've shown a nearly 100% effectiveness rate, since they're learning to portal almost as soon as they're learning to walk.
• Somewhere in the half-life world theres a bunch of Chells running around with portal guns.
• GlaDOS keeps running clones through because she, at least part of her, doesn't want to live, but the auto repair system keep undoing the damage, so the only recourse she has is to keep running clones until the on-hand resources are depleted so she can die.
• Since the clones are blank they couldn't be the ones reading and writing the "mole man" messages on the walls, so at least at some point GlaDOS was tormenting "real" people, the scientists and employees of Aperture is my guess.
• Also, since the clones are blanks all of GlaDOS' taunts are falling on functionally deaf ears. (That's my favorite part.)

Come on, guys. Everyone knows that X-Com has been developing terrestrial and submerged alien fighting technology in secret for years, simply waiting for the impending invasion to start while the Men in Black keep us oblivious to the aliens that are already among us so that we can go on with our mundane lives. Meanwhile the Stargate initiative is using discovered alien technology to explore the galaxy, to make alien allies, and prevent malicious alien symbionts from attacking. And the whole thing is administered from an underground bunker at an off-the-record airforce base in southern Nevada as well as coordinating the actions of branches of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in New Mexico and Connecticut.

I never liked burn the rope that much. Sure it's a satirical poke at the current trend in video games, but it had such low production values and was so blasted short that it was hardly a game. More of a digital toy. Heck, I think I spend more time checking out the credits than I did playing the game the first time because I expected something, ANYTHING more than that.

So I didn't like the game in the first place, but then there's the IGN nomination. Way to set the bar, guys. Practically just laid it on the ground. Why not just put a banner on your site that says "minimum spec = Viral". It's a wonder Super Obama World didn't get a nod too.

As someone who thinks YHTBTR is absolutely brilliant, I still don't understand the backlash against it.  I mean, if it's not your sense of humour then fine, but for me that was probably the funniest game I've ever played; it's literally had me on the floor a couple of times.  The simplicity isn't a problem, and given what the game was about I don't think the low-polish was much of a problem either (and guys, come on, there are piles of games with FAR lower polish than YHTBTR).  Really, I think YHTBTR is all about sense of humour and taste, and if you don't "get it," while enough other people do, then there's some natural bitterness there/"these guys are idiots for liking this."

So yeah, I think it totally deserves the innovation award because it does innovate; innovation in gaming really should look like something that's hardly "gaming as we know it," and I think YHTBTR qualifies as that.

Did you ever play the game PYST? If that game had gotten a nod for anything... I guess that experience kinda jaded my view of parody games. YHTBTR at least keeps it's commentary fairly deep.

But what really bothers me is the apparent amount of work that went into YHTBTR. If a game that thrown together can get critical acclaim simply because it's viral then IGF is on a slippery slope.

Wasn't You Have To Burn The Rope a bitter commentary itself on how Portal was successful despite being a spoon-fed puzzle with a catchy tune at the end?

I was always assuming that it was just a translation of the much older browser game Quest for the Crown, into the platforming genre.

I'm a little baffled at the "Innovation" nomination as well, but whatever. 

I never liked burn the rope that much. Sure it's a satirical poke at the current trend in video games, but it had such low production values and was so blasted short that it was hardly a game. More of a digital toy. Heck, I think I spend more time checking out the credits than I did playing the game the first time because I expected something, ANYTHING more than that.

So I didn't like the game in the first place, but then there's the IGN nomination. Way to set the bar, guys. Practically just laid it on the ground. Why not just put a banner on your site that says "minimum spec = Viral". It's a wonder Super Obama World didn't get a nod too.

Also, what kind of easter eggs? I can't remember finding any :\ I kept finding small rooms with nothing interesting in them.

I think he means those rooms hinting at the story, the mentions of black mesa, the couple of squids on the wall (not sure what that's about myself), the keyboards that highlight the keys of Adrian Shephard's name, and the login for aperaturescience.com. All cool stuff. Most of which I found after the fact (except for the login).

You're adding evidence to the argument that designers are dead weight.

That was a little harsh, I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just tired of "hey I have this cool game idea now I need people to make the game for me" posts.

Don't confuse "hey I have this cool idea" guys with game designers. Coming with cool ideas is easy - everyone has some. It's the ability to make the game stylish, consistent, balanced, playable and well thought that defines the designer. And not well thought as in: "we're gonna have this cool weapons that shoots fire lizards" .

Any competent programmer should be able to program a game like World of Goo, but not necessarily design a game like World of Goo - with all its little touches, style, balanced progression and message.

But I agree with one thing. With awesome tools like GameMaker, Blitz, MMF and other editors (even ones for normal games) being available, there's no excuse for a good designer to not be able to make at least the simpliest of his/her ideas happen.

I mentioned a little bit about my stance on what I call "idea men" a few weeks ago on a post about procedural generation. Short version, I'm with you on this.

And I also agree with GM, MMF, etc are excellent tools to let the idea man with even the slightest inkling of ambition to actually DO something without needing to be a programmer really. In fact I'd say that's what we're seeing happening and the results are awesome. People like Cactus andVirtanen Games producing games to critical acclaim. They're not great as far as games go, but they're innovative and fun.

Oh, thank you for bringing this thread back up. My first game is now available for download. I made it a Christmas gift on Cymon's Games. It's called Gravity Whip. Enjoy.

working link

Thanks for that. Don't even know the name of my own game (Named back when 8 characters were the limit).

Apparently you can blow up saucers by using the rope from under them, although this does have interesting side effects: http://dump.thecybershadow.net/04e9ce2c104f0f20a221b02bba5f49c5/00000229.png

HA! Side effect.

The advanced levels never quite cut it for me - glados just made about that entire game for me. Her absurd personality combined with Ellen Mclain's amazing voice acting is simply awesome. Also, the whole damn thing is filled with pretty fun easter eggs.

And I couldn't stop laughing when I heard the ending song. Such a bloody shame I spoiled it for myself just because so many people were talking about. Jonathan Coulton's song writing is just pretty awesome.

I agree. Most because I sucked at them, but partially because I play games for the story, not the challenge. I'm just not hard core enough. That's why I'm indie.

The ending was fantastic. I don't know how you managed to get this far without spoiling it.

Now you need to download and play Portal TFV mappack. It too has a great ending. And a great middle. And a great beginning. In fact the whole thing is great. Unfortunately their story elements were taken out when the maps were ported to the 360 for Portal: Still Alive, which is a shame because I was totally down with their suppositions.

Oh, thank you for bringing this thread back up. My first game is now available for download. I made it a Christmas gift on Cymon's Games. It's called Gravity Whip. Enjoy.

I just wet myself.

Oh, and on a side note, PUT A SOCK IN IT IF YOU'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE ABOVE!

Fish, I'm astonished at the level of detail in that single block. If every block in the game is going to have that level of detail how in the world are you going to run this game on anything less than a top-of-the-line system?

Then again, that's what you do, isn't it?