kieranmillar
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Do you want to like DROD RPG but are just no good at it? Come and watch my video series where I go through some of my top scores and explain how I manage to achieve them. Then you too can become an RPG expert!

In the first episode we take a look at Bomber50's excellent entry to the 2016 Year of RPG contest compilation hold, One. This one-screen puzzle heavily tests your understanding of stat gains, and so is an excellent place to cover the fundamentals.



This is my first ever commentated video thanks to my new microphone, so any comments and suggestions for improvements are very welcome.

navithmastero
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Wow, super interesting! I don't know what you've planned for the next episode, but one thing I'm interested in is HP vs stats or stats Vs keys tradeoffs. Obviously these are more situation specific, but do you have any guidance in this area?

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kieranmillar
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quote:

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navithmastero wrote:
Wow, super interesting! I don't know what you've planned for the next episode, but one thing I'm interested in is HP vs stats or stats Vs keys tradeoffs. Obviously these are more situation specific, but do you have any guidance in this area?

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Sure, I can cover this. My next video was going to be the first scorepoint in Tendry's Tale, mainly because it's a more practical example and one that literally every player should be familiar with. However, health is not really a consideration there.

So after that I might go through Trial Tower. This is something I hoped to do at some point, it's one of my favourite holds and fun to optimise, and does contain a bunch of health management and key tradeoffs and that sort of thing. It even has percentage damage so can cover that too.

slimm tom
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Although I was already familiar with the concepts explained in your video I found it quite enjoyable to watch! Looking forward to more videos.

kieranmillar
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In Episode 2 we take a look at how to achieve the best score for the first scorepoint of Tendry's Tale, Defeated Gray Man.



Still getting used to recording this sort of thing and flubbed it a few times. Feedback is still welcome, I didn't plan this out in advance so hopefully I explained things properly, but this part of the game is very linear so there are a lot of non-decisions in places that I zoom past. Ask if you have any questions.

ErikH2000
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I watched the first one. Really nice job on it. I would have a hard time keeping a coherent, pause-free narration going for so long. I'm assuming no editing, or at least very minimal.

-Erik

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kieranmillar
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Episode 3:



This one primarily tackles the second scorepoint of Tendry's Tale. We will not be going any further in Tendry's Tale first half at this time and will move on to a new hold in he next episode. This is partially because I still have not successfully achieved the top score for the third scorepoint in Tendry's Tale.

I had to change my recording setup for this episode so hopefully it is all OK.

quote:

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ErikH2000 wrote:
I watched the first one. Really nice job on it. I would have a hard time keeping a coherent, pause-free narration going for so long. I'm assuming no editing, or at least very minimal.

-Erik

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Yes there is very little editing, mainly just noise reduction. I can just drone on and on. Not sure if it qualifies as a talent in any other situation but it works for here!

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 08-30-2018 12:19 AM]

ErikH2000
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quote:

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kieranmillar wrote:
Yes there is very little editing, mainly just noise reduction. I can just drone on and on. Not sure if it qualifies as a talent in any other situation but it works for here!

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Agree it works! But also, it's clear communication that shows how you are thinking. And rarely do you repeat yourself or say something wrong. So yes, that is a talent, and a rare one.

-Erik

____________________________
Godkiller Gamedev streams (live sessions where I make a new puzzle game. NSFW, mature content)
youtube (archive of live streams, and some animated videos I made. Again, contains mature content.)

kieranmillar
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Episode 4:



Now we are going to go through all of the user-made hold Trial Tower by PigmyWubba. It's fairly short but has a lot to do and we'll be making some more complex analysis in later floors of the tower.

One addition to my commentary in the video, when looking at the sword there is the option to spend 20 greckles to hit a pressure plate that opens the green door that I mostly skipped over. It is actually impossible to make this trade as you can't gain any money before breaking any crumbly walls, which requires the sword, so I'm not sure why the option exists.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 09-02-2018 10:11 AM]

PigmyWubba
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Its been a long time since I made that so I might be wrong, but I think in the initial drafts of the level the crumbly walls in the entrance and 1w didn't exist and there are some oddities related to that.

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kieranmillar
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Episode 5:



We start again in order to optimise the second scorepoint. Watch me panic as I think I'm making a wrong decision at one point, but I manage to realise the logic behind why I was correct all along.

kieranmillar
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Episode 6:



In this episode we learn about the value of money and are much more spend-thrift than in previous episodes. It's a good life skill in general.

I had to record this 3 times until I stopped making stupid mistakes and did things properly.

kieranmillar
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Episode 7:



In this episode where are faced with the choice of picking up a health potion or getting stabbed in the face, and take the latter. The things we do for optimising!

Sorry for this episode taking a while, I kept improving upon this score, which now sits at 4 or 5 points higher than it did about a week ago.

kieranmillar
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Episode 8:



Just a quick update making people aware of the new optimal path for the scorepoint we covered in Part 3. A new official World Record has been achieved, thanks to what could be considered a scripting bug.

Credit to greenscience for making me aware of this.

kieranmillar
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Episode 9:



A month later but we're still going. This time we make our way to the end of the hold, but not the end of the Trial Tower videos.

I messed up recording the game audio for this video, so it's just my voice combined with raw silence, sorry about that.

PigmyWubba
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Thanks for doing this series so far; I made this hold around 5 years ago and at the time I wasn't as good at making holds in general, its pretty unpolished especially aesthetically but there are some mistakes on how the doors are connected and such.



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kieranmillar
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Episode 10:



A quick entry finishing off the last of Trial Tower. In this episode we defeat the deadly Dragon! .... well alright, he's not that deadly, less dangerous than the spiders, and we've already dealt with 3 of them!

So what's next for this series? I'd like to show people the various door tricks you can find in Paycheck, and I might finally have an idea on getting the top score of the third scorepoint in Tendry's Tale, but that has already eluded me for years. After that I think I will be putting this down for a while, maybe to return with some other hold another time.

kieranmillar
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Episode 11:



What?! Two episodes in one day? I spoil you!

In this episode I run through Paycheck and show off a bunch of door tricks. And also some ... Aumtlich tricks?

kieranmillar
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Episode 12:



In this episode we continue on with Tendry's Tale.

The top score of this scorepoint had eluded me for over 2 years, in the end what was missing was the trick to stop the Grey Man boss from spawning back in Rule 3.

That's all from this series for now. It will likely return, but I will be putting it down for a while.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 11-11-2018 08:07 AM]

kieranmillar
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Episode 13:



I go through the first scorepoint of Great place by Komachi.

Hopefully this one is interesting, there's not that much to see for this particular walkthrough but there's a couple of interesting tricks in here.

This video is probably going to be a one-off for now.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 06-17-2019 06:33 AM]

kieranmillar
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Episode 14:



A bumper-length episode to make up for the much less interesting previous part.

Watch as I talk myself into a solution that is better than what was on my notes! Optimising by the seat of my pants!

kieranmillar
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Episode 15:

Meta
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We can reach the optimal score of the scorepoints lvl 2 and Distraction End of the hold Ten-minutes distraction with 2447 HP and 213 HP, respectively.

The 2 HP saving comes from delaying the ATK in L1: 1N3E, and getting the DEF in L2: 2S1W quickly. HP is a bit tight, but it is doable.

kieranmillar
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quote:

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Meta wrote:
We can reach the optimal score of the scorepoints lvl 2 and Distraction End of the hold Ten-minutes distraction with 2447 HP and 213 HP, respectively.

The 2 HP saving comes from delaying the ATK in L1: 1N3E, and getting the DEF in L2: 2S1W quickly. HP is a bit tight, but it is doable.

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So spending your GR on the DEF rather than the attack really can be made to save more after all. The best I could ever do was 2 HP worse.

It never stops surprising me how you can spend so long on such a simple level and still there are optimisation surprises lurking within.