Topic: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

[RABicle]

As a massive Penny Arcade ****** I couldn't help myself and downloaded the demo and before I knew it, payed my $20 and got my registration code. I like how registration was completely instantaneous, if gave the code and I copy pasted it right into the game.

Anyway it's been pretty fun so far, the time battle events are reminiscent of Paper Mario except that blocking is much much harder due to the lack of any real guide to the timing. The banter between Gabe and Tycho is pretty spot on and I'm hoping I run into Frank before long.

[ShyGuy]

I may get the Linux version of this.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm really interested in this game, but all my game money right now is tied up in Wii points and saving for a wireless nunchuk. Is there a demo of the Mac version?

[RABicle]

Yeah I'm playing the mac version. What's cool is apparently the same code works for all versions so I might get the windows version jsut to chew up the Windows partition of this drive.

What is lame though is that the demo is teh full game, so yeah, 222meg download. It's not so much a demo as it is crippleware.

[Pale]

H-Scroll busting bloated png screenshot of my purple-pantsed character!

[Pale]

Wow, new forums have h-scroll protection!  Right-click and view image to see full res.

[Pale]

Triple Post!

But yeah... hilarious advertising for the game!

http://palehour.com/index.php?PBPost=160

[Caliban]

Hahaha that was quite smart of them.

[Maverick]

I just beat this tonight.  I must say, at first I was quite hesitant of the 20 dollar price point, but it was well, WELL worth it.  What a fantastic game.  Awesome gameplay, great humor... just an all around good experience.  It was also great to have some good ol' fashioned RPG action, as I haven't played a single RPG this gen so far.

[RABicle]

Wow, I just beat it then too!

The sneak peak at next episode was pretty exciting! Charles!

The game was really really good all up though, my main and only real grievance was with te battle system, that being, when I choose to use "first aid" which heals the whole party 50% WHY THE **** DO I HAVE TO TARGET SOMEONE? It bloody heals everyone, there is no point targeting someone. At least a dozen times against the final boss I would've clicked it and then clicked somewhere else in preparation for the next action only to find I haven't healed myself.

[Maverick]

That is a little redundant, but it didn't bother me too much.  My main beef is that I couldn't do a separate save so that I could go back and search for all the things I missed.  I upgraded all the weapons and finished all the cases, and got several achievements, but I wish it would let me load a save before the final boss so I could go back and get every last little thing all on one profile.

[ShyGuy]

Bump of Darkness!

I just played through the demo version (runs well on Linux) and it was more linear than I thought it would be. The humor is well done though and the combat wasn't too annoying.

[Maverick]

I really liked the linearity.  I hate grinding, so it was right up my alley.  Straight to the point and very funny. 

[Morari]

The demo was boring and felt horribly uninspired. The writing didn't even seem up to general Penny Arcade standards (at least, the standards I've seen from reading on occasion). It boggles the mind that a couple of guys who spend their time making fun of bad games went off and... well, made a bad game.

[Maverick]

What didn't you like about the game?  Like, gameplay wise?  I had a blast.  Then again when I played it had been several, several years since I had played an RPG, so I may have been a little starved.  Although basic, I loved the attack system, I loved the countering and how even if you missed the EXACT time you could still do a partial block.  I don't know, I had a good time with it.

[Morari]

The game is obviously little more than a vehicle for the Penny Arcade brand of humor. With that in mind, I must say that I never felt much of that humor, at least not in a way that would standout as something only Penny Arcade could do. Rare was it in my time with the game that a joke truly made me think of that little daily comic strip.

The gameplay was barely even what I would call gameplay. It is basically a glorified point and click adventure game, with extremely rudimentary JRPG fighting sequences. The little Paper Mario-esque clicks during battle do keep you more engaged than many similar combat systems would however. But even then, there was never any even resembling difficulty. Considering that the game is a sidescroller with a limited (and seemingly useless) field of depth, I would have expected a little more in the way of platforming to break up the mediocrity.

I thought that the character creator was an interesting touch, especially as it worked itself into the comic styled cutscenes. Outside of that though, I just felt supremely disappointed in the game. It didn't have the quirky humor that I was expecting, and instead felt very mundane in every sense. I can certainly understand how many people could be amused by it, but I wasn't. I'll go play Dink Smallwood instead.

[bosshogx]

To those who have played and completed it, how long would you say it is?  I just downloaded it this weekend and got by the opening part.  I'm hoping for a game under 10 hours to be honest.  As I've gotten older, I've liked my games shorter (6-10 hours) or portable.

Stupid real life getting in the way all the time.

[Pale]

Should be about 6 hours if you really take your time and enjoy it.


To Morari, I don't understand how platforming would work at all.  The game is definitely not about precision moving at all, and would have thus required a completely different input mechanic.

I really enjoyed it.  While part of me was wishing for a modern day true-to-the-strip setting, I appreciated what they did with the writing.

Also, I enjoyed the fancy attacks with the crazy input schemes, though Gabe's was near impossible on one of my keyboards because tapping that fast just couldn't be done.  It wouldn't register.

I actually just replayed the final boss yesterday to test out my new computer, and I was still really enjoying the battle system.