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Tacticular Cancer: We'll have your balls

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Completed What does it mean to be human? Let's reply this question in Wonder Project J

Discussion in 'Codex Playground' started by lightbane, Jun 28, 2012.

Page 1 of 3

lightbane Scholar

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#1

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This summer I thought about making another, quicker lp of a short, terribly obscure but very fun game (a SNES title that pushes its hardware to the very limit, has wonderful music, tons of animations and even minor voice-acting). So, without further ado:

This game is a strange mix of JRPG, raising sim and point-and-click adventure, with obvious influences from Osamu Tezuka and Studio Ghibli. The game is also heavily inspired by the old Pinnochio tale (complete with a character called Geppeto), the setting is Corlo Island: a somewhat futuristic, anachronistic place in which humans and sentient robots live. The backstory is quite vague, but apparently there was a war, after which the robots helped colonize the island. Unfortunately, there's been an increased hatred and racism against the robots (called Gijin).

The game's themes are about if there's a way for synthetics Gijin and mankind to coexist peacefully (in a non-retarded Biowarian way) and what exactly means to be human (interestingly, even the lowest Gijin is advanced enough as to have emotions, understands abstract concepts such as family and parenthood and even willl attack humans if they really must). However, despite the appearances, the game is not for kids, it is actually very dark. Not only because of the racism, but because many people will die during the game (the protagonist himself included can die if you screw up). Thankfully these game overs are rare (by the way, if you're cruel you can smash the protagonist's head with a hammer to death). Naturally, the game never left Japan, but there's a fan translation here: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/497/

Right now, before starting the LP I need the Codex's wisdom, especifically for two things: Our main character's name (whose default name is Pino) and our alias (the game has an interesting way to break the 4th wall to immerse you inside the story, reminds me of Beaten Kaitos). The only rules are that it can only be 7 letters long and not to be something offensive. Unless someone says otherwise, I'll rename Pino as Astro to honour Tezuka's memory and our alias shall be Willy (because Doctor Willy knows everything that should be known about robots).

This LP will have an hybrid format, the "boring" sections will be done entirely with screenshots and text, while the important/interesting parts will be recorded in video for your enjoyment. However, the updates will take a bit longer than usual to be done, but I'll try to finish this LP as soon as possible.

Lastly but not least, here's the opening:

And a random gameplay video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8957wm0AWtU

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
lightbane Scholar

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#2

Contents:

Act 1: Tutorial, or how to be a (bad) parent for dummies: See below.
Act 2: Learning how to throw a rubber ball
Act 3: I want to be a farmer
Act 4: I want to be the king of sports... No, wait, an adventurer!!
Act 5: I want to be the King of Fighters
Act 6: I want to join the circus
Act 7: I want to be a thief
Act 8: I want (not) to be a dragon
Act 9: I want to meet the Princess
Act 10: I want to be human... Or do I??

True ending: I really want to be human, I don’t care about the consequences!

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
lightbane Scholar

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#3

We'll start with Act 1, a short tutorial, so short I made it completely on video. Here it is:

The LP will start tomorrow, if everything goes well.

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
Renegen Scholar

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#4

I played this when the translation first came out. Could not get past the first part of the game or something, I think I was stupid. Call the robot Wyrmie.

Let's Plays
Path of Exile beta | Doom RL
Crooked Bee Nyadmin

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#5

Wyrmie is a perfect name for a robot.

Also, the music is irritating.

Also, screenshots or GTFO.

Codex Retrospective Interviews: click here
Codex LPs: Wizardry 4; Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan; Dark Heart of Uukrul

You want I should stick my head in the oven?
spekkio Cipher

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#6

BRO, no boobs or teh newshit?

Don't forget your audience...
laclongquan Liturgist

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#7

Chap, if you dont do a screenshot LP nobody will bother with your video. Proven fact!

Screenshot LP is a stone cold bitch, which is why people are gonna look at them.

Are you man enough to spank this bitch?
lightbane Scholar

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Jun 28, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#8

spekkio said: ↑

BRO, no boobs or teh newshit?

Don't forget your audience...

But mang, if you followed my LPs so far, you should've known that usually there's no next-gen shit nor boobs. And yet people continue reading these, so...

Crooked Bee said: ↑

Also, the music is irritating.

The game is filled with (IMO) good music, so don't judge too early. Besides, voice acting in a SNES game??? That truly was innovation for that age...

laclongquan said: ↑

Chap, if you dont do a screenshot LP nobody will bother with your video. Proven fact!

Screenshot LP is a stone cold bitch, which is why people are gonna look at them.

Say that to the 18 views my video got since I posted it yesterday, it means that at least someone here watched it.

Anyways, it's settled: Wyrmie will be the new name for Model 4549 and the human operator shall be known as Willy. He seems to be happy about the idea.

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
laclongquan Liturgist

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Searching for my kidnapped sister

Jun 29, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#9

Well, it's YOUR funeral.

Are you man enough to spank this bitch?
lightbane Scholar

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Jun 29, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#10

Act 2: Mastering the art of ball throwing

Spoiler
Toggle Spoiler

Tinker: “Willy! Let’s see if we can find a way to rescue him! Hmm… If I recall, there’s a ball lying just in front of Gichuu… That’s it! Let’s hit Gichuu with that ball and punish him! In order to do that, we need to have Wyrmie master how to throw a ball! You see that ball lying there? Guide Wyrmie to the ball. Wyrmie will decide what to do with the ball on his own. If he throws it, be sure to praise him! If you keep praising him when he does it right, he’ll master it! On the other hand, if he doesn’t do what you want, you can scold him and he’ll do that action less. Understand? (generic Yes/NO reply) Okay, let’s go ahead and have Wyrmie go out to that Gijin’s location before he masters ball throwing and see what happens. Ready? I’m going to wake him up now! Wyrmie!! Time to get up!”

So that’s our main objective: Help Wyrmie to become human activate Circuit J by doing random task and completing achievements (or in other words, finish each Act). Thankfully, Wyrmie won’t have to do boring stuff such as learning what is to be scammed, be sold to slavery and had the disgrace of being eaten alive by a giant whale. Instead, we’ll do more awesome things such as joining a circus, break all records in physical sports, beat the strongest warrior of the Island, find a legendary treasure and much more. Before doing anything let’s talk about the HUD.

The left top corner shows Wyrmie’s physical health, which is consumed every time he does strenuous activities such as walking, running, fighting, jumping, climbing, being hurt, studying, etc. At the top right corner the remaining energy is shown, which is reduced every times he does something that requires concentration (like reading books, playing instruments, singing…). Almost all of the advanced activities spend both health and energy, though.

Our lovely robot has 4 attributes that encompass all of his stats. Depending of which stats are higher, the related attribute will increase, influencing his personality (if Agression is high he’ll be very rude and mean; if Athleticism is high he’ll have a hard time standing still doing nothing; if Sensitivity is high he’ll become really girly expressive, etc.). Now, I’ll explain each stat:

+Attack and Defense are self-explanatory, these are used only for the (few) occasions we need to punch someone in the face.

+Arm Power and Leg Power shows how strong he is when running, kicking, throwing stuff, climbing, etc.

+Balance means how good is our Gijin at keeping his cool and not falling to his death when he’s trying to cross a very narrow passage (to say an example).

+Reasoning and Imagination indicate how intelligent our kid is. The more he has, the easier time he’ll have figuring out how does each item work (more about that later). However, low scores on these two will cause him to be stupid enough as to not to stop before hitting a wall and unnecessarily hurting himself (he can potentially crash against a wall over and over until he dies, assuming both your patience and cruelty are immense).

+Feeling and Expression are used for certain actions such as talking, playing instruments and singing.

+Kindness will influence how nice Wyrmie is to other people and how good he is at expressing himself.

+Confidence (or better said Courage) tells how brave the main character is (if it’s not high enough he’ll have a sudden attack of common sense cowardice and refuse to do dangerous things such as fighting someone to death or climbing really high walls). A very important but easy to raise stat, because every time you praise him his self-esteem increases. We want Wyrmie to be a healthy child, not a Final Fantasy reject, so maxing this one will be one of our priorities.

+Honesty is used for very specific actions such as praying and little else.

+Diligence tells how long will Wyrmie keep repeating the same action over and over before becoming bored.

+Charisma is only used when you have to impress someone.

+Trust means well, how much trust the Gijin has on you. Hit him for no reason or scold him too much and he’ll stop obeying you, so be careful.

+Luck is only relevant in like 2 occasions on the whole game, I believe it also influences the outcome in battles.

+Stress is an odd stat, it slowly increases as you force Wyrmie to do stuff, if it’s too high the effectiveness of recovery items will be greatly reduced. I assume it’s done to prevent you from powergaming, but unfortunately it’s a poor attempt to do so, the game is not hard at all.

Two things worth mentioning are that (usually) when you increase a stat another one lowers, and that maxing out stats is not always a good thing. For example, if Kindness is too high he’ll refuse to do violent actions such as fighting or even touching a sword.

Well, that was quite a mouthful, time to start the game properly. What about trying to directly rescue Model 46? Wyrmie cannot be as stupid as to not to know how to throw a bloody ball, no?

One of the things I like of this game is that many of Astro Wyrmie’s actions are influenced by his personality, a fact that’s clearly seen every time he tries to open a door. Depending of his mood he may try to kick it open, smash it with his shoulder, open it using the handle like a normal person, or, my favorite…

Yell at the door SO HARD that it opens. Whoa, not even Shepard can do that.

I took a moment to pick up both the rubber ball and the steel dumbbell before moving out. The inventory is quite large, able to hold like 30+ items, so don’t worry about not having enough space to pick up something. Before going to our destination, I clicked on the chicken to see how Wyrmie reacts.

It seems his kindness is too low to even have a shred of empathy, especially when I left him to his own devices for a moment and he decides to kick the dog for the lulz.

The dog bites in retaliation, causing him to cry. That will teach him. That’s right, the protagonist is autonomous and will automatically interact with the scenario if he’s left alone. Depending of his stats, mood and actions he learned so far he’ll react differently each time, but sometimes he’ll do something random because he can. Also, he seems to lack any sense of self-preservation, if unsupervised he will do things that could endanger or outright kill him (like trying to climb a rope when his health is near zero). So he’s not really much different from stupid human children.

“You have no idea. Once I tried to create a robot better than Megaman, Bass. In order to do so, I gave him a strong personality, akin of a teenager, b-“

“I HATE YOU DAD! I came to visit y- I mean, I was walking around and your house was in the way, it's not like I worry about you or anything. Now I’m off to play with my do- I mean to cause more mischief and disobey you because I’m evil. Seeya! ”

“... As I was saying, I’m not sure yet if Bass was a complete failure or a complete success.”

Just to demonstrate I’m serious about the lack of self-preservation thing, I leave Wyrmie alone for a few more seconds, he randomly decided to jump on the water well because the idea seemed fun at the time…

…A terrible idea with a predictable outcome

Tinker: “The pod computer is running the auto-repair program, so he’ll be okay, but it’s going to cost 3000 Corlo for the power and take 3 days to complete. Be careful next time, okay?”

Thankfully, actual game over screens are rare, as long as you have enough money Wyrmie won’t die. However, certain events will kill him for sure if you screw up (or if you run out of money). Good thing that the pod can be used at any time to fully heal our Gijin in exchange of mere 100 Corlo.

Of course, such massive failure never happened, we’re back to the House/Secret Laboratory after trying to help Model 46 and failing. Just for curiosity I tried to convince Wyrmie to use the Computer to see what happens.

But his Intelligence is too low to realize what a bloody computer is, despite being an AI himself *headdesk*

Whatever, I decide to explore the rest of the house before beginning the training. The two items on the ground are a Stick (used to increase Arm Power and learn how to fight, a Sword is better for the latter) and a Pudding (an item that not only heals Wyrmie, but also gives him a sizeable boost to Confidence and Diligence, Gijin ABSOLUTELY love Pudding for some reason). The game doesn’t tell you explicitly but the drawer on the left can be looted for more stuff. We instruct Wyrmie to do so.

Yay, a Health Battery and an Energy Battery free of charge! The former gives +50 points to Health and the latter +50 to Energy (the limit for each is approximately 500).

The upper floor has more stuff to loot/interact, such as a Sleep-Aid (forces Wyrmie to sleep, spending an entire day but healing him for free, useless), a Stand-still (a drug medicine that forces the kid to stand motionless until he’s given an order) and a Grammar book (increases his intelligence and teaches him how to read… Geppeto only had enough time to give him a really basic programming, isn’t it?). There’s also a table that Wyrmie doesn’t know what to do with, a cat (who will be eaten by Wyrmie if his kidness/intelligence are low) and a Picture Frame.

As I said before, whenever he’s idle he may do random things depending of his current mood/ personality, such as taunting an invisible enemy like he’s doing now, or get impatient and yell at the player if he’s ignored for more than a few seconds.

The Picture Frame is the only thing remotely interesting. It pretty much explains how the game works.

“1. Practice proper use of praise and scolding to maintain skillful control. Scolding is also an important part of parental love!
2. When having him master an action, be consistent with what you tell him.
3. Check his stats often!
4. Take full advantage of the items in the shop!
5. And above all else, maintain his trust!”

That’s the ONLY text that Wyrmie is able to read even with a low Int score, everything else requires a lucidity higher than the seaweed.

Here Wyrmie gets impatient yet again and taunts an invisible foe...

Then he has another attack of childish impatience when Wyrmie realizes he’s not being attended, throwing a tantrum as a response (I was trying to bring out the Steel Dumbbell and the Rubber Ball for the training, bloody ADHD).

This is the only way to complete every puzzle of the game: To click on something and hope the protagonist does what you want him to do, instead of breaking or eating the object (which he’ll do sooner or later).

He... sniffs the ball for some reason. That’s not what we want, he’s scolded to motivate him to try something else.

He finally throws the ball with (pitiful) strength. He’s praised for his efforts…

But then he screws up and has to be scolded again. You have to continue this routine every time until he figures out what to do. That’s why having a maxed Intelligence always help.

Unfortunately, his short attention span denies our progress. Oh well, time to work these synthetic muscles with the dumbbell.

It takes him a while to realize the primary function of the item.

But soon enough he stops paying attention.

Alright, that’s it, he’ll be given a Pudding to increase his Diligence and speed up the process.

He completely eats it, dish included

Now I’ll spare you the effort of watching how he tries to throw the ball over and over, until he finally realizes that the rubber ball is meant to be thrown.

Whenever he figures out what he’s supposed to do with a certain item, he’ll have this reaction. However, he may mistakenly try to apply what he has just learned whenever he interacts with other objects (such as throwing out a grammar book instead of reading it), you'll have to keep praising/scolding him when necessary.

Soon enough, he understands what the dumbbell is supposed to do. At this point, to complete this Act you have to alternate between the dumbbell and the rubber ball to increase his physical scores.

Whenever one or more of his stats reach a certain score he’ll make a comment about how he’s becoming stronger, more sensitive, etc.

For example, now that his Arm Power and thus Athleticism is the highest stat, his personality changes.

That should be more than enough, let’s see if the training was successful:

Act 2 is over. Next one will feature Wyrmie performing more awesome feats, such as learning to read and farming. Stay tuned!!

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto

Multiple Sarcasm and schluberlubs Brofist this.
Luzur Good Sir

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Jun 29, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#11

i remember reading about this game in the RPG News section of Super Power.

"Bet´t Kinder, Bet´t
Morgen kommt der Schwede
Morgen kommt Oxenstern
Wird die Kinder beten lern´n
Bet´t Kinder, Bet´t."
- German rhyme from the 30 years war.

"i imagined myself sitting in Köpenhamn castle, my naked sweaty ass leaving stains on the danish queens throne, fapping off in her face while she laid chained at my feet and then wiping my dick with their flag while her magistrates where signing the peace treaty of total submission and annexation in tears and halberds on their necks.

it was glorious, bros."
spekkio Cipher

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Jun 29, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#12

Heh. I miss the days of good looking AND functional interfaces.

Also: +5 to everything for the fairy.
lightbane Scholar

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Jun 30, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#13

Act 3: I want to be a farmer

Spoiler
Toggle Spoiler

We have the goal for this Act: Turn Wyrmie into an capable farmer. But in order to do so, first we go to the town for some gossip and shopping.

The game sadly doesn’t feature deep, branching dialogues. Instead, when you “talk” to these townspeople they just make a comment about your latest exploits and the occasional hint. For this act, they say (from right to left):

Girl A: “I’m so sick of those Gijin. So what if they colonized this island 50 years ago? They’re no longer needed.”
Girl B: “We’d all be better off if they’d just leave.”
Wyrmie: “Hey… that’s mean!!”

Guy 1: “This area is now off-limits to Gijin.”
Guy 2: “Really? I don’t think they need to be that strict with them…”
G1: “What are you, some kind of Gijin-lover?”
G2: “Eh, uh, no! Of course not… It’s just…”
Wyrmie: “…is what they said.”

Man: “It’s so true. It’s so difficult to get hold of vegetables on this island.”
Woman: “It’s really a bother. I’m sick of synthetic food.”
Wyrmie: “…is what they’re saying.”

Weird guy: “Fam… gave up on the farm… There’s no one to carry on the work. This island… it’s changed since our time…”
Wyrmie: “…is what he said.”

Boy: “Look! Over there, that boy.”
Girl: “Hmm, never seen him before. I wonder where’s he from.”
Wyrmie: “…they’re staring right at me. This is kinda embarrassing.”

Fun stuff. The shop is the most importation location in the whole game, you can find nearly all of the items necessary to complete the puzzles here, the rest are hidden and must be found somewhere.

Fun fact, the Clerk is one of the few NPCs that react to Wyrmie’s current mood. Depending of which personality he has, he’ll react differently. Right now he recognized Wyrmie as an athletic fellow, because Athleticism is the highest attribute (on the rare case that two or more attributes are tied, the last one to be increased is the one that counts for changing Wyrmie’s mood).

Clerk: “To make your purchase, please choose an item from the menu on the monitor. Use the up and down arrows on the side of the monitor to change the menu. To sell an item, simply place it on the counter! ”

Amusingly, the shop is the ONLY place in the game that Wyrmie will stand still and quiet, no matter what. I suppose it was done to prevent weird bugs when you’re trying to shop. Anyways, there are lots of stuff sold here, including lots of drugs medicines and weird items that change several stats at once. Unfortunately, in most cases they’re too expensive and the stat changes too small to be worth buying. So, for this Act, the things I buy are:

“You could use it to practice for the fighting contest.”
Not immediately useful right now, but it will come in handy at some point. One thing of mention is that the game is kind enough to automatically give you a weapon when there’s a battle (assuming you don’t have one already).

“With it you can take out targets easily even if you aren’t very strong.”

This will be used once or twice to kill some enemies from a safe distance.

“When you read it, you can just feel yourself becoming kinder and less combative.”

This will be used to teach Wyrmie how to be nice towards animals.

“It’s the best got increasing your intelligence and imagination.”

It will be used to increase Wyrmie’s intelligence, right now he’s too dumb to do anything at all.

“That’s a Hoe. But with no-one in this island knowing how to use it, it is a mere decoration.”

It will be used to teach our Gijin how to farm.

“It’s effective at helping Gijin with low attention spans that seem to get bored easily.”

Useful if you want your character to stand still for a minute for whatever reason, it also helps when you want to teach him something. Sadly it becomes obsolete once you max out his intelligence.

“Of course, no one grows plants on this island anyways, so there’s not really much point in stocking them, but that old man Fam kept insisting…”

Same deal as the Hoe. I forgot to screenshoot it but I also bought an A charger (a battery that increases Health and Energy by 200) just to be sure. They’re expensive (4000 Corlo), so we won’t buy more than one unless absolutely necessary.

Alright, let’s see if Wyrmie possesses the minimal grey matter to be able to read the Grammar book…

The first thing he tries to do is throwing the book. Unacceptable, he’s scolded and encouraged to try again.

He trashes the book. Good thing we have savestates…

But he does the same yet again

Luckily, the 4th try is far more successful.

Well, that’s a start. He’s praised for his efforts. He keeps trying until he realizes he has to read the books, not to trash/eat them.

Now we have to keep trying until he becomes smarter.

Not bad. Reading books also increases your Diligence, which allows Wyrmie to keep his focus on something for more time before he gets bored.

However, that’s not the case yet. Just for fun, I indicate him to read the Encyclopedia to see what happens.

Gosh, he sounds like the average 10 years old consoletard… Oh wait, he is 10 years old (sort of). Oh well, perhaps this time he’ll be bright enough as to treat the animals with respect (or at least not to kick/eat them).

Nope, he isn’t. The first thing he does is to kick the dog away.

The dog bites him in retaliation... Again.

The second time he doesn’t kick him but instead realizes that yes, it is a dog. His intelligence is not high enough, it seems.

Willy keeps trying to become smarter until…

He’s smart enough to memorize the alphabet. Yay!! A few tries later, he’s ready to use the Picture Book.

Three tries later, his stats have changed.

Alright, now he has the minimal empathy necessary for this act. Time to (ab)use the Encyclopedia.

Except that I accidentally go too far and he becomes exhausted (whenever his health or energy are low, he’ll have a different idle animation to demonstrate that you should give him a break before he drops dead).

Bah, he can keep at it a little more, I mean, it’s not like he can literally study to death, no?

Looks like he can. If at some point health or energy reaches zero, he breaks down. That’s especially dangerous, because even if he has low health or energy, he'll attempt to interact with his surroundings anyways, which will kill him if you’re not fast enough to cancel his movement. Also, he becomes unable to run and instead will wall very slowly.

But that demonstration of brutal child abuse never happened. Instead, I gave him the Battery I found back at Act 2 to increase his energy, then force him to continue reading the Encyclopedia.

Hmm, his Reasoning it’s very high, but not enough. However, before continuing with the training, I would like to see if right now he’s sufficiently smart to operate the Computer.

“The entrance to the mine will open to a loud voice. Inside, there’s an imitation Iida statue, huge pits, rope-like bridges, and a voice activated door.”

He is. Operating the computer is awesome because it increases two stats without lowering others (like most actions do). However, the increase is pitiful, so Wyrmie is convinced to keep reading.

Almost there. I could use the Pod to recharge his Energy to 100, but instead I decide to give him the A Charger.

Excellent. He keeps educating himself until…

Awesome, maxed Intelligence!! His Arm Power was severely decreased but it's a small price to pay, there aren’t any downsides for having a superhuman intellect.

In fact, he’s so smart that he automatically learns what I was trying to teach him (for some reason he’s unable to pat the chicken, that’s as nice as he can be towards animals).

This is yet another special action that enhances multiple stats without any drawback. Next, he’s told to examine the Hoe, let’s see what happens…

He immediately realizes what he’s supposed to do

But his Arm Power is too low to correctly wield the Hoe. Not a problem, both the Hoe and the Seeds increase Arm Power when used. In fact, before I clicked on the Seeds he automatically understood what to do with these.

Having a Cleveian-like IQ helps a lot in this game. I tried to show him the Sword we previously bought at the Store, he instantly understands what to do with it as well.

However, because his Agressiveness is too low, he doesn’t know how to wield it (and his above average Kindness makes him feel bad when he touches that weapon). No matter, we can practice later. For now he alternates between using the Seeds and the Hoe until his stats are like this:

That should be enough. Time to wrap up this Act:

That’s all for now. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’ll have to delay the next update for a while, as I won’t have access to my PC for approximately two weeks, sorry. Stay sharp until then.

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto

Multiple Sarcasm and schluberlubs Brofist this.
Renegen Scholar

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1,856

Jul 1, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#14

Looked great, is it easy to fail in this game if your robot destroys too many items?

Let's Plays
Path of Exile beta | Doom RL
lightbane Scholar

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Jul 1, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#15

Frankly, I don't know. You start with more than enough money to replace your broken items (seven several times), you would have to intentionally try to destroy all of them to force such situation. Then there's the fact that once you have access to the Farm you have a reliable source of income, plus you can sell unnecessary items to get extra Corlo.

However, unique/rare items that cannot obtained at the Shop are another case, that's why I always try to max out Intelligence, lest the Gijin tries to do something stupid (but he will sooner or later). In any case, there aren't items that are REALLY necessary for the plot. Besides, the puzzles require teaching your robot the necessary tricks to bypass these, you don't need special gear. Lastly but not least, you can find/buy joke items not required to finish the game but are there anyways for the lulz (such as the dreaded Mini-TV, utterly useless garbage, if used it massively reduces Wyrmie's Intelligence and Physical Stats, I think the developers were trying to tell us something ).

TL;DR: The game is not hard at all, you will be warned if you're about to meet a potentially unwinnable situation (except later on a certain point at the endgame, if you screw up Wyrmie will be inmediately captured and executed without prior warning, a sudden dick move that comes out of nowhere).

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
procrastinator Learned

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Jul 1, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#16

Nature of a man... Nature of a man never changes.
lightbane Scholar

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Jul 17, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#17

Alright, I'm back. Sadly, it will take a little longer than usual for the next update, because Act 4 has more content than the ones we've seen so far...

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
lightbane Scholar

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Jul 24, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#18

Act 4: I want to be the king of sports… No, wait, an adventurer!!!

Sorry for taking so long to post an update, somehow it was harder than usual. I blame the Codex, naming a character after a Codexian made things harder than usual. Now, without further ado, the Act's intro:

Spoiler
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This act gives us accest to two new areas: The Stadium in which the contest take place and the Forest. The latter is an excellent place to teach our robot physically-related skills. Before doing that we’ll visit Number 46, then go to the town to hear the latest gossip.

Gijin #46: “Too bad about the foot race. Perhaps your legs aren’t strong enough? Practicing with a soccer ball may help, but in order to run fast, you need confidence and determination as well as fast legs. And having high strength may actually help, if you can let it all out in a burst of energy. But the other Gijin are really practicing hard, too, so…”

You heard the man (?), you’ll want high physical stats overall to win this Act. However, there’s another, less obvious goal in this act besides becoming the Sports King. We’ll learn it later on.

Wyrmie uses his super-hearing skills totally not borrowed from Astroboy to listen the townsfolk’s ramblings.

Girl A: “Hey, do you have any idea what that writing on the tablet near the Great Corlo Tree means?”

Girl B: “Beats me!”

Wyrmie: “…is what they said.”

Guy 1: “What are the events in the sports meet again…?“
Guy 2: “Foot race, shot put, hole-in-one, and the free kick contest.”
Wyrmie: “…is what they said.”

Man: “You know, I haven’t seen that good-for-nothing treasure hunter bum around lately.”
Woman: “He’ll probably turn up soon enough.”
Wyrmie: “I wonder who they’re talking about.”

Since Wyrmie usually finishes these ‘dialogues’ with ‘…is what they said’, I’ll not write these anymore unless he says something different for a change.

Weird guy: “I wonder how Add’s doing lately. Add, you’re the last of the real adventurers…”

Girl: “That shop, it’s always sold out. And what they do have costs too much. It really sucks.”
Boy: “Can’t be helped. This island itself is lacking in resources.”

That reminds me there’s new stuff to buy for this chapter. Let’s see…

Before buying anything, I sell some unnecessary stuff we no longer need, like the Sword, or the Seeds. Then the following items are bought:

Clerk: “Are you planning on participating in the hole-in-one contest? In order to use that well, you need a balanced set of athletic skills.”

Clerk: “I wish I knew how to play it.”

Too bad. It’s not immediately apparent why you do need a trumpet, you’ll see the reason later.

Clerk: “The contents have a bad effect on children, making them become combative and unkind.”

Strangely enough, said Bad Book also increases Wyrmie’s Intelligence. Hmm, a book so enfuriating that it requires the reader to be very cunning to read it. I wonder what kind of book it could be…

Nevermind, I remember now

Anyways, Willy also acquires a treasure box, to start training Wyrmie how to raid dungeons and loot everything that’s not nailed down.

Clerk: “It’s locked, and even if you open it, it will lock again when closed. It’s great for practicing to open locks! But there’s not actually anything in the box.”

Hilariously, Wyrmie’s skill at picking locks is related to his Intelligence score, not Arm Power. So the greatest minds are also the greatest criminals… So true.

Changing the topic, Wyrmie goes to the forest. It’s an excellent place to train for these sports. In fact, this area has many, many things to do. Before doing anything, a quick check of Wyrmie’s stats is required:

Meh, physical stats in general are low except Arm Power. But the problem can be easily solved with physical exercise.

One of the possible exercises to train with is (attempting to) climb the rope. However, Wyrmie is too weak at the moment, but at least whenever you use it, both Leg Power and Arm Power are increased at the same time (in exchange of reducing Intelligence).

The Log Bridge is used to increase Balance, but Wyrmie is too clumsy and cannot reach said bridge at all.

But here’s a solution: A foot soccer-ball!

Thanks to his superhuman IQ, Wyrmie realizes that yes, it is a soccer ball, something that’s supposed to be kicked around. He instantly does so.

It slightly increases Leg Power. But that’s not good enough, there are better ways to do it. In any case, after kicking the ball for a while, Wyrmie acquires the necessary leg strength to jump on the log bridge…

Then he falls on his ass because his Balance his shit.

At leat his Leg Power is now high enough to climb that rope we saw before. But there’s yet another way to increase Leg Power.

This jump slightly increases your Leg Power, but it doesn’t reduce any other stat while doing so. Good for powergamers. But enough athletics, let’s explore the rest of this forest.

That’s the stone tablet that we heard about back at the town. Let’s see if Wyrmie can read it…

“If you worship Iida, you will be saved. When the time is right, the path between here and the castle will open.” That was easy. On the other hand, this action can fail even with maxed intelligence.

The game says not much about religion in this setting, but one thing is clear: You do not fuck with the Turtle Rock. Wyrmie can interact with said statue in several ways, however said god is a rather butthurt one and will punish Wyrmie dealing damage at him, if he tries anything that is not praying. So we better not mess with it yet, Wyrmie’s Honesty/Faith is too low, at the moment he doesn’t know how to pray.

These flying thingies are one of the few things that could be called “enemies” in this game. Actually, you don’t have to fight these at all, they fly up and down in a predictable pattern, so you could evade these if you wish (however, if you’re hit Wyrmie will be zapped and lose a bit of health). The other type of enemies are special fights against other creatures in a way similar to Princess Maker games. For now I’ll tell you how to destroy these creatures: You must tell Wyrmie to “use” an offensive item such as a sword, then be sure that when the robot uses it, the animation connects with the enemy. It’s very clunky and awkward, but at least it’s better than indestructible chest-high walls thrown everywhere.

Naturally, being this a jrpg land, Wyrmie has no qualms about brutally murdering a bunch of innocent creatures defending himself and defeating these monsters (monsters drop money when slain, as expected).

The way is clear. Here there’s a “hidden” way to massively increase Leg Power. It consists on clicking that Rock, Wyrmie will kick it, he’ll be hurt but his Leg Power will increase a lot, you have to keep kicking the rock until it breaks. Normally, the only thing that you would accomplish doing such inane action is a broken leg, but thankfully Wyrmie doesn’t have to worry, he has metallic joints.

See? It worked. Granted, his Reasoning was severely reduced but still...
Even better, we obtained the Turtle God's Charm. This thing can be “worshipped” to gain a few bonuses to several stats, and more importantly, it can be sold for lots of jewgold money. But Wyrmie still doesn’t know how to worship. You know, he has received more than enough punishment for today, so he’s told to go back to his house to continue being horribly exploited rest.

Before doing so, he’s given the Bad Book, I would like you to see its effects.

Quite effective. What about the trumpet?

Wyrmie throws it against the ground, before he “learns” a trumpet makes sound.

I think I overdid it when he was ordered to kick that rock, he has become barely more intelligent than the average Bethesda fantard. Time to fix this issue.

However, his willpower is too low, forcing me to give him a break and rest for real. After that he's told to keep reading until he regains his Cleveian intelligence.

That should be enough. Even better, now he can play the flute.

Note that it doesn’t mean he’s GOOD with the musical instrument, at first he’ll do an horrible sound when trying to use the trumpet. You'll have to be patient and keep trying. However, starting from Feeling 60 he can correctly play the flute. But it’s not enough for me, so Wyrmie keeps practicing until these are his stats:

That should be enough. We could start practicing with the golf club, but before he did, Wyrmie went to the Pier, there’s something interesting to see there.

That’s the 2nd objective of this Act, meet the Turtle god and complete the related quest. But we’ll do that later. For now he’s given a battery to recharge and is told to use the Golf Club. Come on Wymie, surprise me with your superman intellect.

Close enough, you’re supposed to wield it, not worship the golf club.

Better. Hey, what about that turtle god statue? Perhaps something awesome will happen if Wyrmie prays to it, the turtle god doesn’t mind if one of his followers is not human at all.

A rope appeared from nowhere and Wyrmie received massive bonuses. The rope is too long for Wyrmie to climb, he’ll have to keep trying with the other rope until his Arm Power’s score is greater.

That will do. A health battery later, Wyrmie is ready to explore the unknown.

This area is a “secret” one, you’re not supposed to be here until the endgame. But it’s worth enough to go out of your way to enter this place, it has awesome endgame loot to compensate.

Of course, it has traps, giant spikes that will send Wyrmie in a world of pain if he’s hit. Thankfully Wyrmie is fast enough to run past them.

Here it is, the game’s ultimate weapon: Corlo’s Sword, a bigass magic sword so big and heavy that Wyrmie needs all of his physical attributes as high as possible to be correctly used. But I don’t want to use it as a weapon but instead as a gamebreaking training device: It increases your Arm Power, Attack, Defense and Confidence when used but it doesn’t reduce any other stat at all. Probably it belonged to a paladin or one of these spiky haired faggots that are literally everywhere. Whatever, We got our prize, time to return to our lair and test our newest acquisition.

Look at these bonuses, they're glorious!! The only downside is that the mere attempt at waving the sword around consumes both Health and Energy at the same time. But since there’s no time limit in this game you can switch between training with the sword, rest, then keep training until Wyrmie becomes a somewhat schizophrenic, inhumanly strong kid with nearly unlimited intelligence.

A few tries later, here are his new stats. Now he only has to increase his balance and max his Arm Power and he’ll be ready for the Sport Events. But before going to do so, he’s left alone with a treasure box, theoretically he’s wise enough to learn how to pick up the lock by himself…

Nope, he instead tries to eat the treasure box Wyrmie is introduced to hammer diplomacy to stop him from swallowing the gear (sorry for the bad screenshots, I was totally surprised and I couldn’t capture it fast enough).

Wyrmie goes back to the forest to keep working on these synthetic muscles, until his attributes change…

More than enough, Wyrmie is ready to break all records. Let’s see if the training was effective:

Tinker: “The trophy’s arrived, and I had it placed on the bookshelf upstairs. By the way, we never did tell everyone that Wyrmie is really a Gijin. I wonder if that’s okay?”

of Wyrmie. The only thing left to finish this Act is the Turtle God quest, so Wyrmie proceeds to play the trumpet at the pier, once every day. Soon enough, this happens:

Welcome to the game’s first dungeon. It may not be a soul-crushing, fiendishly difficult challenge as the ones that make Crooked Bee squeal, but it works as a (boring and dull) maze filled with traps. Before making another step, let’s see what is Add doing.

Add: “*cough* W-well, how’s the search going?”
Wyrmie: “Hey, quit goofing off!”
Add: “D-don’t be silly! I’m doing my part! Now, hurry up and continue the search!”

Coward. Anyways, the dungeon’s layout is simple, but not easy: all passages look like this, all of them have stairs going down or up to another level. There isn’t anything resembling a map so you’ll to either draw one, or use the trial-and-error method. Whatever you do, don’t subestimate this dungeon, it can and will kill Wyrmie if you’re careless, and he cannot be brought to repair, so if you screw up, this is what happens:

Our first (of several) game over screens. Of course it never happened, instead Wyrmie explored the dungeon, finding valuable stuff like a Sword and an A-type Battery.

He also destroyed the dungeon’s many inhabitants…

And soon enough he found himself lost because I was too lazy to draw a map or go to Gamefaqs close to his objective.

At last, Wyrmie founds the deepest part of the dungeon, in which the treasure lies. He was forced to use the A battery as he took too much damage, but that’s okay, you can buy more back at the shop. Have the final video for this update:

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto

Crooked Bee Brofists this.
Genma:TheDestroyer Arbiter

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#19

I remember when you could find advertisements for this and many other Japanese imports all the time in Electronic Gaming Monthly, Gamepro, Gamefan, etc...always wanted to check out what some of them were like. But those prices!

Living In Corporate Shadows: Business as Usual

Decline, Basketballs and Cleaner Bots-Let's Play Deus Ex 2!

Let's Play Way of the Samurai!
Crooked Bee Nyadmin

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#20

"The Bad Book (tm)." Heh.

Codex Retrospective Interviews: click here
Codex LPs: Wizardry 4; Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan; Dark Heart of Uukrul

You want I should stick my head in the oven?
lightbane Scholar

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#21

Hey, dear readers, would you kindly bump this to next page? 3 updates per page should be enough, no?

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto
Arpad Educated

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Jan 27, 2012

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#22

bump
Crooked Bee Nyadmin

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Jan 27, 2010

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#23

Sure, have a bump.

Codex Retrospective Interviews: click here
Codex LPs: Wizardry 4; Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan; Dark Heart of Uukrul

You want I should stick my head in the oven?
Ulminati I'm watching you... Scum.

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Botlane tribush

Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#24

Know what's awesome? Spoiler tags to prevent text from jumping all over the screen when pictures load.

~12112

Trash said: ↑

Fuck off with your compulsive need to regulate shit.
lightbane Scholar

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Jul 25, 2012 Stats Ignoring

#25

Well, the posts show up correctly for me. I give spoiler tags a try for the next update.
Anyways, I discovered that the Gijin's obsession with pudding may be a reference to Battle Angel Alita, an old manga about cyborgs, GRIMDARK and more overpowered martial arts than the Fist of the North Star. To be specific, there's a certain character, a crazy but genius scientist that for some reason he's always eating pudding.
Also, BUMP.

Let's play some games you may not know about:
Earthbound, Mother 3,The White Chamber, CK2 (on hold), Wonder Project J

Reading is hard, let's read F: NV - All Roads, Pluto

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