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2009/07/24: Random stuff

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So, my laptop's headphone jack died. It was getting looser and looser, the headphones weren't staying in, they were sounding like they were hanging halfway out ... I decided enough was enough, and I opened up my laptop in search of the problem (with a certain amount of difficulty, because one of the screws got stripped and won't come out). There was this bracket that had gotten somewhat bent out of shape, and I somewhat made things worse by trying to jam it back into place, which completely bent it out of shape. So I went to Radio Shack and got a $10 USB headphone-jack. With a built-in microphone, even. So that was cool.

I logged into Steam for to play Audiosurf a few minutes ago, and discovered "new RailWorks DLC." RailWorks turns out to be "an ultra-realistic train simulator." Um ... okay! I suppose there must be some market for it. Of course, they're still charging $50 for the game itself, and a combined $80 for all the DLC. Do they think we're made of money, especially in this economy!? Especially train nerds!? (Mind you, the playerbase of RailWorks is probably perfectly happy going "What, those shooter-things with cute girls? What kind of dork plays that!?" But at least I'm self-aware about that kind of thing.)

I mentioned Audiosurf before; I've had it for a while now, and it's fun. And unlike osu!, which I've also discovered recently, it works on any audio file, you don't have to create a "beatmap" or whatever for it. Another thing it has going for it, in my opinion, is that Audiosurf scores positively; that is, it shows how well you did, strictly in terms of a numeric score. On the other hand, osu! scores you negatively; that is, it shows how badly you did, compared to some unrealistically impossible "perfect" score. Also, in Audiosurf the multiple difficulty have no overall impact on your score, they're just listed differently from each other, whereas osu! instead penalizes your score (or gives it a bonus if you choose something more difficult), and is also more difficult overall. In Audiosurf, you also can't lose — it keeps playing the song to the end; osu! needs you to select this as one of the cut-your-score-in-half difficulty modifiers. Okay, yeah, sure, skill-players of a sufficiently high skill need some sort of "YOU HAVE FAILED ME" setup in order to have a real penalty for a skill-failure, but there are other players, and lumping everyone together instead of sequestering scores ... well, okay, I know there are some skill players reading this. Would you rather have a score which is obviously really high compared to "tourist" gamers who want or need "training wheels" like the lower difficulty options, or would you rather they be scored separately altogether?

On the other hand, it occurs to me that there are certain storytelling possibilities in osu!; for a while, I've had this idea for a "rhythm game" which dealt in action rather than music; there'd be cutscenes to exposit the action, and possibly moving-around-in-the-world, but the aciton sequences would be rhythm games, where hitting the notes would directly correspond to attacking or defending. I don't know if that's literally possible in osu!, since I haven't really touched the beatmap-editor yet, but ...

Uh ... oh yeah, I was going why I was going to play Audiosurf. (Which I haven't; I got distracted making this blog post.) I was going to help myself memorize Yuka Kazami's various fight-themes; I have "Inanimate Dream" (Lotus Land Story final-boss) memorized, and I have "Sleeping Terror" (Lotus Land Story stage 5 boss) mostly memorized, though I keep forgetting bits sometimes; I've barely started on "Flower of Japan" (Kiyoh Gyoku theme). Then I realized I don't actually have "Flower Land" (Phantasmagoria of Flower View) memorized. Oh, I have "Flower of the Sun" (a remix thereof by IOSYS) more or less memorized, but not the original. Guess I should put that on my list, too.

1 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

eidrag

I think for osu! and Audiosurf they should use separately new scoring for new and experienced player. I played a lot of rhythm games (yeah, I am a sucker for this type of game... DDR, Beatmania, GH, Pop'n Music, Osu! Tatakae Ouendan [and I have Ouendan club at my school] Stepmania, O2jam/mania, VOS)
For me, I would like scoring system from Beatmania, where A and above would be in 13~20 of something, 12 something is B, and D would be 10 something... Doesn't matter what song you play. Basically, the scoring would be based by 20 something per notes in that song...
Gameplay-wise, I prefer DDR/Stepmania. Why? It's simple for me (4 notes only) and takes minutes to learn (but lot of time to master the song). But depends on stepfile (or simfile or whatfile) will make it fun or hell. Sometimes I would play Audiosurf because the song I want to play isn't yet get stepped... And Audiosurf is kinda relaxing for low level play...