I DID IT! -Off Topic Edition-

[CStarFlare]

Just submitted my master's thesis. It's over.

I don't even know how to feel right now. I think I need alcohol.

[Stevens]

Good luck.

I took the comp exam and my brain was fried at the end. I can't even imagine how you feel.

Find a bar (perhaps closer to lunch), burger and a beer or three.

Keep us posted!

[Skykid]

Just submitted my master's thesis. It's over.

I don't even know how to feel right now. I think I need alcohol.

Do it! (And congrats!)

[Weak Boson]

Just submitted my master's thesis. It's over.

I don't even know how to feel right now. I think I need alcohol.

Congrats! Just make sure you don't look at your thesis until literally never. The work is done, you can't change it, the time for reflection is over. Now take some time to celebrate, relax and recuperate - you've surely earned it!

[CRI]

got my first doom 2 speedrun / no death run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccJp2x7XUz4

[CStarFlare]

Thanks guys - I absolutely did do my drinking (continued tonight, and will continue tomorrow, and...) and I absolutely won't be looking at that paper ever again.

I think I'll take a week to wrap up some games, do some sightseeing and generally do nothing important before I think about jobs. It'll be fun~

[atheistgod1999]

Man, I got the SATs this spring or something

[Shepardus]

Completed all 100 episodes (500 levels) in N 1.4!


My first exposure to N was on a Flash games website that was hosting version 1.2. I don't remember exactly when that was, but it was likely in 2006 since I remember playing that from time to time for over a year before discovering version 1.4, and I have custom maps I made for N 1.4 dating back to late 2007. So this is technically nearly, if not more, than a decade in the making! Of course I wasn't playing N for all those years and much of the time I spent on it was on playing and creating custom maps (I was a fairly accomplished "DDA" - Don't Do Anything - map maker, if I do say so myself). Even so it's still satisfying to complete something so long in the making.

I spent much of my free time in middle school on this game, and was only pulled away from it in early high school by the combined effects of a computer virus eating the maps I had been working on and my discovering Touhou. I still kept my save data (which I remembered to back up when the computer virus hit, unlike my userlevels.txt) and that's managed to survive across multiple computer and OS upgrades. I'm not much a fan of platformers in general nowadays but I still have a soft spot for this game and its smooth, momentum-based movement, so the recent release of N++ on Steam encouraged me to revisit the original game and finish the last two episodes I had left, 88 and 89.

Turns out that not being greedy and skipping gold I didn't need made the early levels of episode 88 easier than I thought they were when I played them four years ago. 88-4, "Mother Thumping Impossible," however, lived up to its reputation as the hardest level in the game, and I spent hours on that spread out over two frustrating days. I probably spent more time trying to clear that 1.5-minute level than I did 1cc'ing some shmups! Compared to that level episode 89 was a cakewalk, though 89-4 also took me quite a few tries.

Now that I've finished all 100 episodes I can finally lay this game to rest and check out N++! Hopefully it runs more smoothly than N 1.4's Macromedia Flash Player 7!

[Blinge]

^ While that was like reading another language, i think I get it.
Damn man, if you had to guess, how many hours in total did this take you?

A balls hard level in a game like that reminds me of 'The Kid' unlock level in Super Meat Boy. *shudder* I don't think I ever beat it.

As for me, I've beaten Ys I and II on steam on nightmare mode and got all achievements

Vaguillon and Dark Fact were horrific on nightmare.

[Shepardus]

Level 88-4 alone took me around 5 hours, but I don't think I spent nearly that long on any other level. I don't have a good idea how long it took me in total, since the time I spent on this game was too long ago and spread out over too long a period. My savefile has a total of 60,235 deaths recorded in it, which excludes most of my deaths on user-created maps (I usually played those in debug mode which doesn't record stats) but does include time spent replaying levels for better times. Unfortunately I don't know how long my average life was, so I'm going to make a wild ballpark estimate of ~200-300 hours playing episodes I hadn't already beaten. That doesn't sound quite as impressive as sixty-thousand deaths, does it? It sure felt longer than that but I doubt it was, I was much worse at games back then but I don't think I was that bad. I must have spent many times that on custom maps though.

By the way, I just played through all the solo introduction levels in N++ and my initial impressions are that it's like N, but without the awfulness of Flash (especially the ancient version of Flash N 1.4 used), and with some of the more annoying physics quirks ironed out, making it feel smoother, more precise, and more responsive. The new stuff is nice too but even if it were just N with a smooth framerate and better handling of perpendicular jumps off sloped surfaces, I would still highly recommend it.

[Zaarock]

Nice, congrats. I remember spending a ton of time on N+ (xbox360) 8 years ago clearing all the levels but not nearly as much as that (seems to be less levels and more accessible difficulty). Didn't play the original as much. Digging N++ too, the features they added are great along with the new presentation/music.

[Aliquantic]

A balls hard level in a game like that reminds me of 'The Kid' unlock level in Super Meat Boy. *shudder* I don't think I ever beat it.

I ran out of patience on Skyscraper (the first world 5 warp zone), annoying as hell bandages with 3 lives on a super long stage? At least the Kid levels are short, unlimited retries, and fun™...

There aren't many hard N++ levels to just clear, but all gold and goals can get PRETTY painful. Feel free to add me on Steam (Aliquantic) if you want to compare progress and terribad times (speedrunning 2000+ levels is a bit tough)

[Blinge]

I ran out of patience on Skyscraper (the first world 5 warp zone), annoying as hell bandages with 3 lives on a super long stage? At least the Kid levels are short, unlimited retries, and fun™...

Fun eh? I played long before I tried a shmup or learnt that discipline so maybe I'd enjoy them more/do better now.

Feel free to add me on Steam (Aliquantic) if you want to compare progress and terribad times (speedrunning 2000+ levels is a bit tough)

You talking to me, Shep, or do we have to duel for the honour?

[Mischief Maker]

Finally beat the fire dragon boss in Ys Oath.

That fucker's been my personal white whale for almost a month off and on.

In my own weak defense I thought for the longest time I was supposed to use my new wind powers to extinguish his flames, not just to avoid him until the flames died out on their own.

[maximo310]

Finally beat the fire dragon boss in Ys Oath.

That fucker's been my personal white whale for almost a month off and on.

In my own weak defense I thought for the longest time I was supposed to use my new wind powers to extinguish his flames, not just to avoid him until the flames died out on their own.

If you're playing on Nightmare, the next boss will probably be more frustrating. The higher difficulties in the game really give you a run for your money.

[ShamefurDispray]

I adopted a retired racing greyhound Meet Rocko: https://youtu.be/O0xMivuM-UY

He's a couch potato and a good boy. I love him.

[Mischief Maker]

Congratulations on the new dog. I love his whole, "I'm retired from this shit," attitude.

[atheistgod1999]

I know I shouldn't be posting so much about my personal life; I won't post so much about it any more. However, I think this is somewhat more relevant than ramen, or my first day back to school being alright, because this rectifies something stupid I posted a few months ago:

Spoiler

I decided to put in some effort for once, and managed to get a 96% on my first English essay of the year. That's by far the highest grade I've ever gotten in an English class. Higher than a C+, don't you think?

Now you people can't use that as ammo anymore.

[CStarFlare]

Good one, it's always good to see effort pay off. Keep it up!

[Vludi]

2-All'd Sunset Riders and broke the replay in the process , but no biggie.

[KennyMan666]

Landed in the mailbox last week:


(click for larger)

As one can see from the dates of the classes, my academic journey has been long, but I never completely gave up and eventually I realized what the thing I wanted to do more than anything was. And now I'm doing internship as the first semester of my Master's year.

Woop.

[ryu]

Congrats.

[wiNteR]

Cleared the arcade mode (5000ft -- normal difficulty) of Mr. Driller. Lost two lives. Lost the first life somewhere around 3500-4000. Then the second just life just near the end (around ~4800).

As far as N+ is concerned, I think its been a long time. I did clear each of the 5-level sets individually with one life (which wasn't that difficult because just 5 short levels). However, I didn't go for gold/time at all.

For Super Meat Boy, the kid warpzone is hard when you do it the first time. When I cleared the first time, I lost a lot of lives.

And then after a long time I came back to it (after no-miss clear of all dark worlds), trying to finish all warp-zone levels no-miss (which were all easy ofc except for this one). I still lost a lot of lives for the "second" first time clear. However, soon after I was clearing it in few attempts. That's because once you are tuned to the rhythm it becomes manageable. But still it must have been at least 20 or so times when I cleared the warp-zone with less than five lives (and many more times with 5-15 lives lost) before I could no-miss it (I was also counting lives lost on the first level of warpzone).

As far as comparison is concerned, I think N series definitely has better controls (but I wish the graphics were better though). But on this note, it is a bit surprising that the SMB lost levels (similar in the sense of being pure platforming game -- as opposed to platform games with more mechanics) is never discussed. I only played it a little once but I think it is certainly a solid game, quite likely much better than N+ too (and N series itself is pretty good apart from graphics).

[Imhotep]

got the 1cc in Alien Syndrome today. It's moderately difficult for an arcade game, but 3 lives / zero extends means little room for errors.

it loops infinitely, I've played into maybe the 10th looping with dips set to "free" lives, and gets moderately harder with each loop, I'd guess Round 6 is the real hurdle, the bosses are cake. Strangely, some levels definitely got easier again in the higher loops, first time I've expierenced this in a video game. Also strangely, the game game over'd me at some point, and I was able to put in my initials for an 2'8xx'xx score.

if the timer still is three digits when killing the boss, the game rewards you with 60k. I've found this to be more lucrative than rescuing the remaing crew (2+3+4+5+6+8=28k, plus 15-20k time bonus). The 60k bonus doesn't seem available in the loop, as you get less time and the game doesn't seem to lower the barrier accordingly.

I've also found a bug that might be of interest highscore-wise: when killing a boss at the last possible moment (the speaker is already "initiating" the self destruction of the vessel), the timer seems to reset and you get the 60k bonus. This might not be relevant for a WR run though, as there's loop after loop

[Necronopticous]

I just wrapped up a particularly masochistic Dark Souls run: base-level thief, initial equipment, standard upgrades only, no healing/offensive items. I streamed the entire thing and highlighted all of the boss fights on my Twitch channel, but here are just a couple I'm most proud of:

Thief Class Challenge - Ornstein & Smough
Thief Class Challenge - Knight Artorias
Thief Class Challenge - Manus, Father of the Abyss
Thief Class Challenge - Four Kings

[atheistgod1999]

Passed the last standardized test I'll ever have to take. Yes, I know I have the SATs coming up, but at least I don't have to take any more standardized tests.

[Blinge]

Just watched the Four Kings fight Necro, that was nuts man!
Red tearstone, all or nothing eh?

I might have to use that on my low level invasion/ stream sniping build.. Been struggling on the Kings.

[atheistgod1999]

Did the PSATs. It wasn't not that hard.

[I'm guessing no one will care about the other stuff I wrote, so I'm putting it in a spoiler tag]

Spoiler

Most of the questions were easy (at least, I think), but if I stopped focusing for even a minute, I'd lose a huge fraction of time for even the longest section. Not losing focus for a whole section was nearly impossible. I barely managed to complete each section in time (didn't rush through anything, though).

For each section, I put the number of questions I wasn't 100% sure about, adjusted it for the number of questions on the actual SAT vs the PSAT (rounding upwards), plus a couple more, into an online SAT score calculator to estimate the lowest score I probably got, and, according the lowest possible scores it calculated, I got at least a 1390/1600, which is apparently the fucking 99th percentile (EDIT: actually 97th) (EDIT 2: Turns out I wasn't using the right method; using the correct one, it looks like the lowest possible score is 1420)

I know whoever bothered to read this thinks that I actually got a much lower score, but I got about the same number of questions wrong per section on a full-length PSAT practice (for a practice) test I did at home as the ones I wasn't sure about on the actual PSAT. I'll get my results in January.

I selected to opt out of Student Search Service. Was that a good or bad choice?

[CStarFlare]

Nice one! It's glorious what a strong standardised test score can do for you.

If you take a second time, do they only record the higher of the two? I forget. When I got my GMAT score (similar standardised test) I didn't really believe it, but they take the last result you give so I decided not to press my luck with a second try.

Edit: I'm not sure what the SSS is and am too lazy to look it up - but if it is what I assume, you'll probably have an opportunity to opt in later. If not you can send your results to schools manually.

[Skykid]

ALIENS

Game Over Man.

After about 25 years I finally got this one. Not 25 years of consecutive play, but I used to play this when I was a little kid, and it was my first ever concerted 1cc attempt. Finally decided to revisit it with intention to clear and got to the same place I always did when I was little - around about the electric alien twins or just after - and then just had a really good run with a twitchy and very cagey fight against the Queen that seemed to take forever. She even got a cheeky stab in when I got in the walker and tried to grab her for airlock evac.

Didn't bother with the second loop at all. 502500.