Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Spoonweaver »

I think the charbile mystery friends game is the clear winner personally, despite being late.
even with the point deduction for being late, I'm sure it still wins.
And I don't think it really breaks the rules and gets a DQ

The rules are if you based it off SOMEONE that opts out, you lose.
However the rules dont say anything about using people's sprites or other game assets.
No one that opted out is mentioned.
And if we DQ people for using sprites or characters they had no permission to use.... well....
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Rue »

ULTIMATE TEAM UP
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Rue »

The rules are if you based it off SOMEONE that opts out, you lose.
wasn't I the only one who opted out? and that was mostly out of "hey guys, it's safe to opt out, nobody will give you slime!" ahahaha.

I'm not even in the game. My name is just in the credits. Technically it could be some other Rue.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Fenrir-Lunaris »

Okay so here's my basis for each game's score. It's a simple metric.

1 point for completion.
1 point for on time.
1 point for fun value.
1 point for on-topic.
1 point by default - because a game can only get a minimum of 1 point anyway.

Bob vs OHR
There's a reason it's called ROCK BOTTOM.
There's a reason it's called ROCK BOTTOM.
BUTTDUNGEON.png (13.46 KiB) Viewed 2307 times
The entire game's premise can basically be summed up in this one video:

So how does it stack up? It's grossly incomplete, but it at least got a release on-time, and it gets a free point just by virtue of existing. What about the other two metrics?

It's mostly on-topic, at least in the game's opening where everything is more or less a giant love-letter to Bob / Wandering Hamster. As far as sticking to the feel of a James Game, the opening act certainly fits the bill. The old trees that we all remember are back in their lovely lollipop-shaped glory, as are strange creatures both in and out of battle. Imprawn can be deep fried, and turn into cooked shrimp. The world's got a "Disney Cartoon" vibe to it, and it makes sense, because Bob and the rest of the funny animals there wouldn't be that far removed from some of those 1930's Disney Cartoons. The game's plot basically revolves around Bob the Hamster (or *A* version thereof) finding himself roped into an adventure that takes him across the multiverse of OHR games to collect the remains of a particularly powerful magical creature for... reasons unrelated to Castlevania II, we swear.

That leaves the "fun value" up in the air. There's a few visual and narrative gags that made me giggle, but there's a LOT of open, empty areas that absolutely feel like they need to be filled up with content. The game still follows the "STOAT" method of level/event design where each area is effectively a linear path with slightly open areas containing either a treasure, an story-event, or a silly reference. Think of a series of chambers, and each one has something unique inside it. And while there's certainly MORE of those chambers overall, the game as a whole is much bigger, and these scenes are spaced out too far and too few to have the same impact as in their spiritual predecessor. With significantly more development, this could be a more worthy addition to the Fenrir library of games, but much of the game's humor and jokes will likely fly over most people's heads. Or gross them out completely. On the whole, I feel like this one's a bit of a missed opportunity in a lot of ways - but it DOES have a Harpy Dance, and there's not many games that can claim to have one of those. I'll give this point begrudgingly, not because it's my own entry, but because I did have *some* fun here.

So I'm giving Bob vs OHR 4 out of 5 points.


Charbile's Hatful Adventure
YOU DIED
YOU DIED
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This game is basically the OHRRPGCE version of Tunic - which as far as I can figure out is a game about a Fox, with Dark-Souls style bosses.

So how does Charbile's Hatful Adventure stack up? It was late, and it gets a free point for virtue of being in the contest. It absolutely nailed the premise of making a Charbile game. Which leaves the fun factor and whether it's complete - both of which are tied up in eachother.

First and foremost, this game NAILED the "Charbile Aesthetic". And not just because of the fox jokes. It barely uses the engine's default features, instead portraying itself as a sort of Twin-Stick-Shooter with pixel based movement. It also being late is also totally in keeping with the tradition of Charbile games.

As far as the fun factor goes though - it's *WAY* TOO HARD - at least for me. The player character's hitbox is too large for the hundreds of projectiles being thrown at them, they've got too little health to survive more than one or two hits, and the bosses are huge and extremely agressive. The player character controls well enough and it's fun to dash around and fling projectiles in every direction, but you're dropped off in the thick of things too early and there's not really any way to get stronger. If that sounds like your cup of tea, more power to you. Just don't expect to get to the ending in your first sitting.

Because of that difficulty, I... can't get to the end. Not legitimately anyway. This is one of those times where I had to break open the game file and edit in a bunch more HP so I could tank my way to the end. Even at ten times the base health, I still died more often than not. But I CAN confirm there's an ending to this adventure so there's a point in it's favor for that!

3/5! A perfect score! And despite it's flaws, this is still 100% a game worth checking out!



Cthulhu's Paradox
He's right, you know.
He's right, you know.
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This game is RMZ's take on Char's Sleepover, what with rapidly shifting cutaway scenes, gags, and meta commentary. Superficially, the premise feels a bit like Bob Vs OHR, but they end up being VERY different games.

First and foremost it's complete, and it's on time, plus it gets that free point just because. I've a feeling I'm going to be repeating that line a lot going forward.

Cthulhu's Paradox is a game about... me? Or at least RMZ's interpretation of me. We play as Cthulhu, who seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis, reliving scenes from a variety of Fenrir-Lunaris games, and then a few others for good measure. We even drop in on an Artimus Bena stream of Mario 2. I can't say it's 100% accurate, but it hits enough notes that I'll mark it as counting for the point. The game's opening act is more or less the second fifteen minutes of Vikings of Midgard - not the first fifteen - RMZ starts off in media res, revisiting familiar enemies, locations, and characters. It's all a setup to pull the rug out from under the player, but many of the gags require at least a passing knowledge of Fenrir-related stuff. The big ones anyway - Vikings, Meh, Spooks and Summons.

Is it fun? It's an RMZ game, so some of the jokes are hit and miss, but most of them are good natured. I didn't get the Seinfield reference, but I can appreciate the work that went into it. You're also somewhat on a railroad track with this one - when you're offered a narrative choice, you have to pick the one that RMZ WANTS you to pick (even if it's not one that Cthulhu himself would go with). It's a wild ride.

My only REAL complaint is that there's a rather big difficulty spike when the game suddenly decides to pit you into a stealth segment with monsters that periodically stop to listen for the player moving. If you're moving the moment they decide to go into their "seeking" mode - you're as good as dead. Even if you've let up off the controls - as long as your character sprite's in motion - you'll fail. This ONE segment alone was almost enough to convince me to give up on the whole game. If it weren't for an exploit where you can bring up the menu to save, I'd have never made it through. Before and after this point - the game's a delightful romp! I'll give it the point for fun, but that's largely because of everything else in this adventure.

Five slimy tentacles out of five.



Global WARming
Careful PJ, once you go furry, you never go back.
Careful PJ, once you go furry, you never go back.
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This is the Gizmog game we've been waiting for.

It's complete! It's on time! In fact it was the ONLY game released well before the competition's deadline.

Like Charbile's Hat, this game's another "twin stick shooter", but using more of the engine's default tile based movement. Enemies seem to more or less randomly seek out the player and "shoot" at them. Five hits and you're out. There's also a sort of River City Ransom element of carrying around food, like burgers and chicken sandwiches to recover your health, and buy ammo for your own trusty pistol. This one's not TOO hard, but there's a few quirks about the enemy movement that can make this one a bit of a slog. No save feature either. I'll give it the point for fun value at least, as I must've sunk at least an hour or two into it. I do wish the NPCs wouldn't immediately shoot at your location though - a delay between when they notice you and when they fire would be perfect.

Like most of Gizmog's legendary stories, the plot is mostly nonsensical rambling, and has the occasional naked lady. I can honestly vouch that this is 120% accurate. Point for authenticity.

5 out of 5. Be sure to stop by in Lousiana for our authentic paw pies.



HBA Twink Episode
I mean, she's already in a Pizza Parlor...
I mean, she's already in a Pizza Parlor...
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Idontknow tells us a story of what happens after Hati's Bizarre Adventure.

It's complete and on time, and seems to know its source material.

This isn't so much focusing on any one person in particular, but does seem to be gunning for Charbile and myself with a little of Idontknow thrown in the mix. That's important - because the main characters in this game are (presumably) the boyfriends of the heroines from Hati's Bizarre Adventure. The mechanic of gaining new skills by building bonds with your teammates returns from HBA as well, and they're spaced out periodically so that when you're sorely needing an edge, it's probably time to go see what your friends are up to. In many other aspects, this is definitely an Idontknow game, with fennecs, cheeky and mysterious references, and being able to visit your mom. This is also one of those games that you probably shouldn't show your mother, but I am NOT you, so your mileage may vary. Points given where they're due, Idontknow knows enough about both Char and myself to make a game that COULD fit into the HBA setting. The whole "Dogero wants to go training" being pretty much his entire personality is kind of funny. Hati's boyfriend is REALLY into horses (they're neat). But moreso this is a story about Damien coming to terms with the fact that everyone is at least a little messed up in some way, and accepting others for being who they are, faults and all.

Is it fun? For me it was, but I'll admit that it's a little rough around the edges in some spots. This is more or less a full length RPG, and it tries some things that I don't think I've seen Idontknow tackle before. You have to select which area you want to go to from a custom menu, for starters. The dungeon itself also has some wallmap issues in places, sometimes forgets to save your progress for the game's fast travel mechanic, and some of the key scenes require a specific sequence of events to play out correctly before it'll let you progress. The dungeon is also HUGE, but given there's the fact that there even IS a fast travel mechanic at all is wonderful. It's also full of Idontknow's cheeky humor. Expect fennec jokes. It's a game that doesn't take itself all that seriously. Just sit back, and enjoy the ride.

5 screeching fennecs out of 5.



Mystery Dungeon Friends 2
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER
Mystery_Dungeon_Friends_20000.png (104.55 KiB) Viewed 2307 times
Charbile fell into a time warp and brought us the sequel before the first game was even completed. I'm not complaining. Unfortunately the time warp spat him out a few days after the contest deadline. It is a Charbile Tradition, after all.

So there's a scene in the Castlevania anime where Isaac the Forgemaster offers one of his companions a berry. Overcome with nostalgia from the taste of the sweet fruit, the companion can only utter the word "memories". THAT is my reaction from playing this game. Nostalgia, and memories.

Oh what delicious memories. This is a tower-defense game whose subject more or less IS the OHR community. THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY. Familiar NPCs walk along a predetermined path to reach a smiling, grotesque heart at the other end, and after so many creatures slam into it, the level's over. Your team of Pokemon.. er.. OHR community members, have unique skills and personalities that will help you overcome the game's challenges. Learning how each one builds off the others' strengths is the key to success. OR like in true OHR community fashion, just rely on TMC to do the heavy lifting to carry you to success. The game itself is surprisingly forgiving, and I didn't really feel like any one segment was too punishing. Maybe waiting for an enemy to hurry up and reach the heart once it made it past my defenders was the only real downside.

4 out of 5 points, but don't be mistaken - this is my personal pick for the BEST game of the contest, score notwithstanding.



OHR Afterlife
Steve
Steve
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Spoonweaver brings us a trivia game.

It's complete, it shows it knows a good bit of OHR community history, and it's on-time.

The goal is to answer ten questions correctly. Mess up once, and you have to start over from scratch. Some of these questions are math puzzles, but others dig into ancient OHR games that very few people remember. So while I'll give props for knowing a little about the intended audience here, I'd be hard pressed to pick out any one particular person that this is largely based around. It isn't, near as far as I can figure, but I could be mistaken. It hits a few common notes that you'd expect to know from a cursory examination of the various community members. Fenrir's a wolfman. OHR Minecraft is a thing. Karrible existed. A 15-year old teenager got banned from Discord for lying about their age to an Admin. But beyond these simple, factual statements, there's not much else here. This could've passed for a game made for the 48 hour contest. Or really, any other contest. I'll give it the point for knowing some specific facts about OHR personalities, but it's very cut-and-dry.

It's also... well... fun may be a bit of an overstatement. I had to brute force my way through many of the answers. This is a game that you'll get to the ending of if you're persistent. I played to complete it out of obligation, and not out of enjoyment. I WILL admit that I haven't seen a game like this in the community before.

Four out of five points.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Hedera »

charbile your game needs a level select or a save feature or a way to skip cutscenes, 5/5
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by pjbebi »

Hedera wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 2:35 am charbile your game needs a level select or a save feature or a way to skip cutscenes, 5/5
implementing saves with such a slice heavy game is tough. I'm dealing with the same thing. also, it's hard to rate this stuff. do I give myself any credit for an original soundtrack and being on time, or give all points to Charbile's glory? trouble in paradise.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by charbile »

Just wanted to say feedback is appreciated. i will toggle the virtual gamepad off (forgot it existed) and likely put in some kind of save/stage select feature, and other things. maybe

but first i want to play the games

glad everyone enjoyed it. it was way late so therefore it should get last place (plz fen), just like the first one, as that would be cool to brag about. who else but me could boast a double last place showing?

oh, also: if i missed anyone in the credits, let me know
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by SwordPlay »

where is the list of credits so people can check?
RMZ streamed the entire thing, so anyone can check his Twitch I guess?
credits from 2:35:20
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by FBI Van 15 »

There were some different names in my playthrough's credits vs. RMZ's or when I watched the tail end of someone else streaming it in the Discord. The order is randomized for sure, but unless I missed some memorable ones one time or the other, I dont think it's the same names every time.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by RMZ »

If the credits are randomly generated then we severely underestimated Charbile.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by polkakitty »

Well, all the scripts for Mystery Dungeon Friends 2 are in the "_scripts" directory in the zip file, so we can just look at those to see what's really going on during the credits roll. (And I have to say thank you to Charbile for including those scripts; I don't know whether or not you included them because of what I wrote in the podcast thread about looking through the scripts for your games to learn about how to do things in HamsterSpeak, but I think they will be an incredibly valuable resource to study. Not just for me, but for anyone who's new to the OHRRPGCE, and who has some crazy ideas for features to put in a game, but isn't sure how to go about implementing them. Especially since those scripts seem to make extensive use of features like expanded slice extra variables that, officially, are being added in Ichorescent, but they're already in the latest nightly builds of ohrrpgce-game and ohrrpgce-custom; if they weren't then nobody would be able to play the game.)

The code that takes all the text and puts it together into a group of slices is in a script called "credits timer" in scene_credits.hss, and the list of all the names (other than the ones that aren't random, e. g. RMZ is always credited as the "actor" for Zangoose, and is never credited as the executive producer or something,) is in names.hss. It has 102 names in it. What "credits timer" does is, it creates an array with all the numbers between 0 and 101 (in the form of a container slice that has 102 child containers with numbers between 0 and 101 in their first extra variables.) Every time a random name is used in the credits, "credits timer" calls a subscript called "pull credit name" which randomly chooses a number from the array, removes it from the array (so the same random name can't be used more than once,) looks up the name associated with that number, and saves it in a string variable. Then it calls a script that's used to write text throughout the game, which converts the string variable into a group of visible slices. (For what it's worth, this "remove random entries from one array and add them to a second, initially empty array" trick is the method that almost every computer program uses to accomplish tasks like shuffling a deck of cards, so it's worth remembering.)

There are 102 names that can be chosen randomly, but "pull credit name" is actually only called 76 times, so out of all the possible random names, essentially 3 out of 4 of them will be used each time the credits are displayed. I'm not sure whether this is because Charbile added some extra names to names.hss at the last second, because his sense of comedic timing dictated that the credit sequence should be shorter than it would be if it included all the names, or because he just intended this to be a sneaky way he could add more names in later updates to the game without it being obvious that he'd changed anything, but it is actually true that, every time you reach the end of the game, it will change not just the order of the names, but some of the actual names that are included in the credits.
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by kylekrack »

Salute to polkakitty for putting in the work to answer the real questions.

Also I made the CHA GitHub repo public if anyone wants to fork it or just check it out. Anyone is welcome to reuse scripts or assets. I'll make a readme for the repo to make that more official. I have no idea if anything in there might be useful to anyone, but I learned a lot scripting this game, so maybe someone else can learn from it too.
https://github.com/knemeth/CharbHatAdventure
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Bob the Hamster »

I need strategies for beating Chadbile. I can't even get his life at down to half.

The charge is what kills me most. I can dodge with dashing, but it isn't quite sustainable, and I can sometimes knock him out of the charge with a hit, but he goes back into it so quick it doesn't help much.

Charvile was hard, but I still managed it after about 4 or 5 tries. Realizing the slimes could drop heals helped a lot

(I know the pigs drop heals in the Chadbile fight, but I'm too busy dying to farm them)
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by Feenicks »

A very inaccurate impersonation of tmc wrote:The contest already wrapped up?????
Anyway, votes:

Bob vs the OHR - 3 [The march towards the platonic ideal of a Fenrir game continues on; take that as you will. Feel the 'stuff' density is fine, except in the ice cave. Should've gone through with the joke of being penalized for stepping on flowers. Has a vore level and toilet humor so two points are deducted as a matter of principle]

Cthulhu's Paradox - 3 [Doesn't have any areas that drag on forever so this is RMZ's best game by default. Still suffers from the 'I got the minigame code and am going to use it way past the point of it being interesting/funny' issue, but what can you do. Yo Ghost automatically attacking enemies with counters is obnoxious and I left him KOd in both the bosses where that was an issue. Has a vore level and toilet humor so two points are deducted as a matter of principle]

Global Warming - 3 [Got to Alabama. Fun and cute by a certain deranged definition of the word, but I have to agree with the other people and say that the instant shooting gets annoying, especially when there's no way to set up easy shots or when enemies start taking multiple hits]

Hati's Bizarre Adventure: Twink Episode - 4 [Like the character stuff, and I'm a mark for big singular dungeon dives. Also like what I'm assuming is some sprite editing done for the harpy enemy. Started falling apart mechanically at the end, culminating with the final boss dropping everyone's speed to 0 and thus making it unwinnable, so I'm docking a point for that]

OHR Afterlife - 1 [Are a few of the questions not being related to the community at a meta commentary of sorts? The nathan bit got a laugh out of me, but apart from that there's not much here.]

Charbile's Hatful Adventure - 3 [Want to like this more, but man that's a difficulty wall. Need an easier charbile variant to bash my head against before the other two, you know? Also I died twice and my dash/bullets stopped regenerating, respectively]

Mystery Dungeon Friends 2 - 5 [Legitimately a game I'd show off to other people, and if you clear that bar I kinda have to give it the max score. Same goes for it being a game I'd go through a second time, if only to get a run where I don't end up losing HP on any of the levels. Yeah it's late, but this contest was originally scheduled to end on the 1st, lateness is fine]
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Re: Ridiculous/Terrible Games Competition 2022 - The Homage Strikes Back

Post by pjbebi »

Feenicks wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 3:43 am
A very inaccurate impersonation of tmc wrote:The contest already wrapped up?????
Global Warming - 3 [Got to Alabama. Fun and cute by a certain deranged definition of the word, but I have to agree with the other people and say that the instant shooting gets annoying, especially when there's no way to set up easy shots or when enemies start taking multiple hits]
It's great to know everyone's biggest complaint is a real easy fix. thanks!
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