ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: REVENANT

[Ross Scott]

Have you also tried Fallout Tacitics? It has a real time mode which is super chatoic

and nearly unplayable. The moment you turn the game back to turn based it's fun again.

Yeah, and I beat it using that "unplayable" mode. That's the only reason I didn't include it on the list. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that some people appreciate the tactics behind it, but for me, it's like a wall between me and enjoying the rest of the game. Besides, only some games really use tactics. Are you really using tactics on random enounters from old Final Fantasy games or is that just pure grind?

 

Related, can we have a behind the scenes special of you making your videos Ross?

Maybe, if enough people want it I could have that, but I'm going to be moving soon plus I don't have much of a video camera at the moment besides a cheap webcam. Some people might find my setup interesting since I actually use a custom GUI I made for Windows. People who have seen it confuse it with Linux sometimes.

 

Ross, i dont have money, but do you accept games as Stronghold: Crusader (original one) and Dead island: epidemic beta gift as bet? (total value of what i have offer is about 8 euros+??? euros)

I have so many games already I haven't been in a hurry for more. Maybe in the future I'll start accepting game gifts. So far I've moved so much that my total amount of possessions tends to decrease. Hell, before I moved to Poland, I converted about 98% of my discs to CD or DVD images, since they drastically cut down on weight and left giant boxes of discs with a friend of mine.

[VeryShyPerson]

Maybe, if enough people want it I could have that, but I'm going to be moving soon plus I don't have much of a video camera at the moment besides a cheap webcam. Some people might find my setup interesting since I actually use a custom GUI I made for Windows. People who have seen it confuse it with Linux sometimes.

 

Isn't that appeared in the video for a moment? (Around 19:20 in the first video.)

 

 

 

 

I actually paused the video momentarily to try to figure out what the heck that was.

[Alyxx Thorne]

This game seems really cool for the time if you can get around the controls. Shame it's such a bitch to run though.

[HLPrincess]

Have you also tried Fallout Tacitics? It has a real time mode which is super chatoic and nearly unplayable. The moment you turn the game back to turn based it's fun again.

Yeah, and I beat it using that "unplayable" mode. That's the only reason I didn't include it on the list. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that some people appreciate the tactics behind it, but for me, it's like a wall between me and enjoying the rest of the game. Besides, only some games really use tactics. Are you really using tactics on random enounters from old Final Fantasy games or is that just pure grind?

 

I wanted to add my 5 cents to turn-based combat in games. On the top of what Ross said

 

DOES ANYONE EVER IN REAL FIGHTS WAIT FOR AN OPPONENT TO MAKE THEIR TURN?

 

No one!

 

You say to your enemy "Wait, I have to figure out my strategy" and you get hit. In real life you improvise as much as use strategy.

 

No one in a real fight waits for you, especially in a bar brawl.... When I play I like to jump on the enemy and slash them with my sword/shoot with a gun/whatever weapon I'm using. I played some turn-based game too, years ago and I didn't enjoy it and I realized why, after Ross told me. Turn based combat is boring and unrealistic.

[Durza1315]

Have you also tried Fallout Tacitics? It has a real time mode which is super chatoic and nearly unplayable. The moment you turn the game back to turn based it's fun again.

 

... Besides, only some games really use tactics. Are you really using tactics on random enounters from old Final Fantasy games or is that just pure grind?

 

I wanted to add my 5 cents to turn-based combat in games. On the top of what Ross said

 

DOES ANYONE EVER IN REAL FIGHTS WAIT FOR AN OPPONENT TO MAKE THEIR TURN?

 

No one!

 

You say to your enemy "Wait, I have to figure out my strategy" and you get hit. In real life you improvise as much as use strategy.

 

No one in a real fight waits for you, especially in a bar brawl.... When I play I like to jump on the enemy and slash them with my sword/shoot with a gun/whatever weapon I'm using. I played some turn-based game too, years ago and I didn't enjoy it and I realized why, after Ross told me. Turn based combat is boring and unrealistic.

 

I also want to point out that among chess players - you know, chess, the turn based game of all turn based games - one of the most popular forms of playing it is *with a timer.* Even -chess players- value some pressure.

 

I also want to refute the implication I think I'm hearing that a game needs to be turn based to have tactics, or has tactics because it's turn based. I've played a number of turn based games where it's essentially rolling dice and praying. Sure, some tactics, but a lot of turn based things where I can adjust tactics -second to second- in real time relative to a bunch of other things happening simultaneously was a huge deal.

 

I think that was part of the love of the original Halo for me. Halo was one of the first games I played on a console. I remember picking it up for the first time. First level, getting gunned down, so I start just holding down the trigger to drop a charging elite, leap behind cover while reloading, only to find a grenade is thrown, lands next to me. I jump back -over- the cover and charge in and circle behind an Elite by baiting its melee attack, one shot it from behind, and the Grunts scatter. There's a -lot- happening there, I don't know that turn based gaming can actually do justice to the dynamism and energy of it, but I -definitely- had a tactic there: I was going to offset having no ammo in my gun and no cover by demoralizing the grunt squad by executing their leader, and it had to happen in seconds, and I still remember how proud I was to think of all that on the fly. That was some tactical thinking, I think I only play FPS for those clutch moments of energy and dynamism where I have to make something happen that will hold me up for the moments to come.

 

Anyways, Ross, I'm not betting that you CAN'T finish Freeman's Mind. Why would I do that? If I lose, I'm out $20.00. If I WIN, I STILL lose, because Freeman's Mind hasn't been put out, and I don't think getting $20.00 off of you would actually really offset that for me.

 

My viewpoint here is that Freeman's Mind is the series I enjoyed more. And I want to do you some justice here man, after hearing there was no Freeman's Mind because a Game Dungeon was done instead, I went back and watched ALL of your Game Dungeons. It's good content, and well done on Revenant. I just prefer Freeman's Mind and hope that takes priority in the future. My opinion has no real merit beyond reflecting my personal desires, though.

[K4_Kydure]

I cringed at all of that stun locking that took place in the video. It reminds me of Dark Souls 2.

 

Have you also tried Fallout Tacitics? It has a real time mode which is super chatoic

and nearly unplayable. The moment you turn the game back to turn based it's fun again.

Turning on the real time mode in Fallout Tactics I find is better suited at trying to sneak your way through the game and getting the drop on enemies. It was really intense having to sneak through enemy filled bases knowing at any moment you could blow your cover and be completely overwhelmed.

 

It also has the added benefit of being really satisfying when you sneak your squad behind the enemy and deliberately set off the alarm once you've set up a kill zone for the incoming guards. The only problem is it makes the game really slow. Easily an hour or more each mission if you don't know where the enemies are.

[GordonFreeman]

I'm interested to know what's in those 1500 files. 1500 redundancies? Or seriously loading 1500 files one bit at a time or something?

[Crawfish]

This isn't 100% on-topic, but the art style of this game kinda makes me wanna play Tyrian.

I wish someone would reprogram the game so it doesn't need to run on an emulator. I'd be even happier with a full remake, with remixed music, higher frames and (maybe) HD spites and art. Keep the writing though, don't even think about touching that writing!

Tyrian would make a great handheld game.

[Prometheus]

Ross, thank you for introducing this game's soundtrack to me. I listened to it and looked around a bit for an "official" version of it to drop a dollar on or whatever, but I didn't find one. Closest was a piratebay link, so I'm ripping from youtube because it's faster for me.

 

This will be part of my gaming music collection from now on. What an absolute gem. Thanks again.

[kingkolton9]

Related, can we have a behind the scenes special of you making your videos Ross?

Maybe, if enough people want it I could have that, but I'm going to be moving soon plus I don't have much of a video camera at the moment besides a cheap webcam. Some people might find my setup interesting since I actually use a custom GUI I made for Windows. People who have seen it confuse it with Linux sometimes.

 

Would you be willing to release the GUI for download, or sell it in the shop when it's opened back up?

[sullygass95]

It's been a little while since the last RGD, so I can't really say if this was above average or just standard, but what I can say is that it made me laugh a lot. This is at a point in time where shows (like The Simpsons and Family Guy) that I've been watching and laughing at for years are starting to grow stale. These videos, whether they're RGD, FM, or Civil Protection, remind me what it feels like to laugh again, and can't emphasize enough how much I appreciate that, so thank you, Ross.

 

Edit: Also I love Ross's gung-ho attitude towards the doubt expressing peanut gallery. I wish guys like George R.R. Martin or Bioware had more faith in their production speed.

[Lord Ornlu]

Awesome episode as always. RGD is fast becoming one of my favorite series around. Come to think of it, that along with FM are my favorite series around (including TV series). Thanks for your work Ross.

 

As an afterthought, have you ever played Abuse before? I'd like to see that on RGD at some point, if at all possible. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend it.

[Koockaburra101]

This isn't 100% on-topic, but the art style of this game kinda makes me wanna play Tyrian.

I wish someone would reprogram the game so it doesn't need to run on an emulator.

 

There is always opentryian: https://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/

 

Runs on modern computers and has some graphics enhancements as well (Though I haven't played the original so I'm not sure how different it looks). They even have an android version apparently, but I have no idea how that works.

[Ross Scott]

Would you be willing to release the GUI for download, or sell it in the shop when it's opened back up?

Well I didn't code it or anything as I'm not a programmer. I use a combination of Litestep, Nexus Dock, Autohotkey, and Directory Opus. I use Nexus Dock to replace the taskbar pretty much, Directory Opus to replace Windows explorer, and Litestep replaces the rest of windows, like the start menu, my most commonly run programs are integrated into it, etc. I could release it, but honestly Litestep is such a customization process, you would kind of have to learn how to configure it to make it work for you. I recommend just trying to run a vanilla theme of it first. Plus, I have no idea how it works on Windows 8.

 

This will be part of my gaming music collection from now on. What an absolute gem. Thanks again.

Yeah, some of the tracks are just incredible. I kind of butchered the intro music a bit to shorten the length of the intro, but the full thing is on the MP3 tracks.

[Ross Scott]

I cringed at all of that stun locking that took place in the video. It reminds me of Dark Souls 2.

 

Have you also tried Fallout Tacitics? It has a real time mode which is super chatoic

and nearly unplayable. The moment you turn the game back to turn based it's fun again.

Turning on the real time mode in Fallout Tactics I find is better suited at trying to sneak your way through the game and getting the drop on enemies. It was really intense having to sneak through enemy filled bases knowing at any moment you could blow your cover and be completely overwhelmed.

 

It also has the added benefit of being really satisfying when you sneak your squad behind the enemy and deliberately set off the alarm once you've set up a kill zone for the incoming guards. The only problem is it makes the game really slow. Easily an hour or more each mission if you don't know where the enemies are.

It's been a while since I played it, but I remember equipping all my guys with accurate single shot guns (except whoever was in front) so they wouldn't shoot each other, fanning out in a small cluster to further minimize it, trying to take people down at a distance as much as possible. Often the noise would draw out a lot of enemies. My memory is fuzzy on it though, but I definitely used the realtime mode. It does make some tactics unusable then, but hey, it's still beatable.

[turbodevil]

This (awesome) review + discussions about FM schedule + personal inclination towards sadism had me inspired.

 

I hereby challenge Ross to complete Dungeon Siege Pit of Despair level (google it I dare you!) should he fail to deliver Freeman's Mind ending episode this year.

 

Muuaahahahaaa!

[Veyrdite]

Nice UI. I dumped a video frame just like VeryShyPerson did to check it out.

 

I think the icons are from some variant of Tangerine. I can see why people think you're running a Nix environment.

 

Back when XP was my main OS I took a similar route. BB4win (blackbox for Windows) was my cake and Asuite was my machete. Never eat cake unprepared.

 

 

Now, as a guilty game game developer I think I know what's happening with the pink-backgrounded text. Before image formats supporting transparency were common, games used 'special' normal colours to indicate transparency. So enters supreme FF00FF pink , leader and most popular of the invisibles, probably because there were not many Barbie games (yet).

 

Alas in this setup the transparency is 1-bit -- things were either entirely transparent or entirely visible, nothing inbetween. Mixing magic pink and normal colours would yield horrendous non-transparent results.

 

If you scaled, blurred, rotated, texture-compressed or mutilated these images in any way that would try to 'blend' the colours, this mess would result. Any combination of driver shenanigans could be enforcing some form of texture compression or image-scaling -- does the game have any options to run at a lower screen resolution for example? Who knows, perhaps all of the testing was done at 640x480...

[Presence]

There is no compelling reason a save should need more than one file, except perhaps to hold player generated content such as screenshots. I guess maybe if the individual files were split by game area because they were somehow getting too big to hold in memory and were loaded on area transition. This is just a crazy outlandish idea.

 

Large numbers of files would create all the problems of unfixable fragmentation and waste the tips of more clusters, both of which would have mattered during the time period involved. Even a bad programmer should know not to do this. I have to imagine someone had a brain fart and thought that exploding the data would somehow auto-magically make fragmentation not matter, or some debugging flag was left on when it shipped. Wouldn't have been the first time.

[Veyrdite]

Always attribute to lack of thought to programmers, and you'll get a good picture of human history. Some of it, anyways.

for (every entity in the game)
  open a new file of name "entity ID"
  dump info
  close file
repeat

 

I've just realised how completely inhuman my first posts have been here. Ross: I love the Game Dungeon. Keep it up . I'm not a robot.

[HLPrincess]

 

I've just realised how completely inhuman my first posts have been here. Ross: I love the Game Dungeon. Keep it up . I'm not a robot.

 

Yeah, I came here especially to check you out, as your nickname reminds me slightly about the ones that spambots take... seriously