I beat the last boss without shield actually and pouch was useless there.

Pouch = bottled potions and fairies.

This is pretty good, Xion. I especially like the first few pages- pure spaceporn.

I am like 12 pages in, where is the alien sex???




...oh

EDIT: I thought the bar fight was a drunken alien dance party when first I saw it.

Mmmm, yes, more comics to read...

I just caught up with Evan Dahm's latest comic "Vattu": http://www.rice-boy.com/vattu/

These homeowners are kinda irritating. They live relatively close (it only flew 700 yards til its first hit) to a bomb/firing range and claim not to know these kinds of experiments are going on, you know, with things exploding and/or being fired. Not to mention, the whole thing was an accident. Its not like they just fire cannonballs into the air all day in random directions. These people are much more likely to get injured in a car accident .

I haven't looked at Flash in a while, but I am pretty sure the Stage object is more or less the main drawing screen that exists for every Flash game. MovieClips have a stage property you can get the reference to the Stage from. FlxGame inherits from Sprite which inherits from DisplayObject, which has the stage property, so you may need to use FlxGame instead.

Internet artists provide endless entertainment.

I can't believe that Eiji Aonuma is saying that this Zelda chase is interesting. I also can't believe that Zelda has to be the "prize" at the end. Getting rid of the evil world destroying monster is totally not even a reason to keep playing if it isn't to free Zelda. Zelda being a character to work with instead of a character that constantly needs saving was not ever an option.

My thoughts when Zelda got kidnapped and taken back in time at the end of the game was 'what did I just spend the whole game doing then'.

My thought was "It's about time".

But slot machines do have another advantage over social games in that they can give out real money as a reward.  This helps quite a bit with the adictiveness factor.  Also, it pretty much rules out the possibility of "smart" slot machines as if there was any time when the odd's where in your favor people could abuse this to win money from them. 

I'm not sure how I forgot the "cash winnings" factor. Of course, most people don't actually walk away with more money than they arrived with. The idea behind the "smart" slot machine would be that it would be able to identify a user via some kind of ID or payment card used to hold record of their winnings, after which, a proper experience could be created by slot machines to ensure that they would win just enough to keep playing and think they are "lucky", but never enough to significantly profit from the casino. Casinos give out all kinds of freebies because they always get more back then they put out. Even if a dozen or so people take home $100, they know they have just as many losing thousands.

These games are arguably worse than slot machines. Instead of just being addicted to winning and chasing after that, you're simply addicted to playing. The experience of the game is carefully designed to program you based on the amounts of time, real money, game money and other resources gained and lost. Similar principle behind giving away free addictive drugs before charging for them. Slot machines don't recognize new players and tilt the odds to make them win at first before lowering them to ensure the now addicted player only gets enough winnings to feel like they are still making "progress" that they have earned (or do they? are "smart" slot machines a thing?).

The only thing slot machines have over such games is that they are based on luck and can use peoples' superstition about how luck works to their advantage where a more formulaic game cannot (unless it introduces luck based mechanics). People who gamble can believe that certain actions or rituals will allow them to win, that a certain machine that hasn't put out for a while is "ready", that they shouldn't walk away from a win streak when they can win more, and that if they are losing they still have a chance to win it all back if they keep playing.

it's not so much about the mechanics themselves. a lot of "real" games use "skinner box" and slotmachine mechanics as well (JRPGs for instance). also casino activities ARE already called games and iirc (not entirely sure) the term "gamer" was originally used by gamblers to feel better about themselves.

the increased prevalence of scam-like methods of monetization coupled with games that are designed around being "addictive" IS a problem though. also the entire attitude behind these games just seems morally bankrupt.

Yeah, I was just saying it is weird to see casino activities called games, when they are "games" of chance, which aren't really games at all, even though they have been around for quite a while.

JRPGs usually rely on some sense of story and presentation most of the time, even though the story might be poor. Either way, JRPGs don't seem to blatantly be about getting players addicted and are still games with progression and an ending and no real money paid after the initial purchase.

The offensive part of these freemium games is the addictive + continuous money cost + lack of solid game mechanics. Its just a slick interface pasted over a alarm clock, some numbers representing your virtual worth, and a form to enter your credit card info. information.

Some sick part of me sees nothing wrong with these freemium games. It just seems like companies squeezing money out of people who don't know what actual games are who let themselves get put in a Skinner box. Would such people even pay to play a "real" game that was challenging and/or fun that didn't program them to keep playing?

The only thing is that this form of design is becoming more normal, and that this could be the main things games are known for in the future. I'm still kinda frightened that various casino activities and machines are called "games".

I don't think Timmy's idea is too big of a change from the typical Zelda formula. It is a logical extension of the Chrono Orb in SS, the Enemy Weapons from WW, and the blue fire from OoT.

You continue to follow a cycle of exploring a dungeon and acquiring a new, unique item that you keep forever. However, instead of one new item per dungeon, you acquire a variety of items and some of those are understood to be only temporary and cannot be removed from the dungeon.

You might make those items similar to the dungeon map and compass (or the Big Key from LttP), items that passively enhance the player but are understood to be dungeon specific.

Maybe I didn't understand him then. I am all for using a unique mechanic or theme for a dungeon that requires more effort than exploring the dungeon, finding the item, and then exploring the dungeon again with the item.

The only problem with these good ideas is that they somewhat break the established Zelda formula that the series is based upon. Everyone loves it because they already know what its going to be and because they more or less liked the last one. Skyward Sword already messed with the formula, albeit in some bad ways with pointless tasks and dungeon items being too specialized. The beetle was probably one of the best items in any game, but its use was still rather limited. After getting the hook modification, I don't even think I really had to use it in other places than the area I got it in. There is no reason such drastic changes could not be applied to a completely different game/series.

I don't see any problem with the Macguffins that had you go to a new place and do something somewhat interesting.

• The propeller, water basin, and anything that had you back track to a random place were definitely bad.
• I don't see anything wrong with finding flames, since each of those was a new dungeon to do.
• The tablets were annoying because you had to return to that goddess statue every time.
• The seachart is just a reason for you to climb to the top of those pillars on the island in the sea area.
• Holy water was one of the worst ones because you have to redo an entire old dungeon.

The dragon songs were not horrible, though they had you do more or less long minigames to complete them. I found the goddess challenges to be fun, but only when I am actually in danger (but not too much. Some of those guardians have too long reach) since the long guardian deactivation time makes it boring. The minecart was also fun when I was doing it full speed the entire time.

The earrings were bad because they really did nothing but allow you to explore 1 area. They could have easily replaced this with something useful that led to some puzzles like being able to generate blocks of magic ice you have to stay near to not light on fire when in extremely hot areas.

Each region has you fully comb the area in search of something like for the kikwis, fire key pieces, and the combination to open the dungeon to the time gate. They aren't too bad, except by the time you've gotten these tasks, you've already fully explored the area so backtracking needs to be done.

Imprisoned is probably one of my favorite bosses in the game. Especially since there are multiple ways to fight him depending if you want it easy or difficult.

All in all, I think that the game could have been greatly improved by cutting out the blatant, pointless backtracking parts that did not lead to new areas. You should never need to return to place a tablet or learn a song. Fi should point your next destination out SINCE SHE DOES IT ANYWAY EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT HER TO.

I don't see the code where you clean up dead enemies and bullets that you said you added.

Could you post your code so I can see the changes from last time.

What about the new code you added to handle dead entities?

What does the Player and Enemy and all that other code look like.

One thing missing from all these games is the ability to make your own automated, possibly parametrized, script. No one does all this crap manually (except in movies). Having to type these commands or click everything individually (I've played Uplink and some other hacking game and don't remember which was more involved and used the command line) made me get tired of both games.