Well, after a full day of routing and grinding, i managed to beat my previous record by almost 3 minutes of difference, it has been quite a blast to see the numbers get lower and lower with every attempt, and even thought there’s definitively still room for improvement, i think i’m quite satisfied now, so if anyone wants to try and take the crown, go ahead and do your best!
For now, i’ll take a break and start theorycrafting a bit about another categories outside any%, the more obvious one being one where you end the game with the highest weight value (aka the best ending).
By the way, to chubberdy and others involved on this project/forums, please inform me if the topic of speedruns begins to get obnoxious, i have the tendency of trying to optimize games that i appreciate and push them to their limit, i also thought they could help keeping the flames up with this project, i love the game and i want to see it growth, and i thought stuff like this could help on that regard, alongside maybe helping with its development by showing its exploitable parts that might need to get changed. In short, i’m doing this because i respect this game, and in case i’m doing more harm than good, please let me know and i’ll tone things down.
Nah, you’re good. It’s actually pretty interesting to see the strats you’ve come up with, I know I certainly struggled getting sub-15. Keep up the good work! Next update will have an easy way to track 100% as well.
First contact has been achieved between the ever-growing tum and the bottom of the boundary box! Still making steady progress on these. I’m hoping to make it a little more evident how tough it is for Protagonist to move at higher weight stages, so I had her facial expression change to a bit more of a determined one while she “runs”.
Eh, i feel like the current system of the ending depending on your weight level fits better, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, thought i wouldn’t be opposed to an extra reward for fast completions like an easter egg or some unique dialogue.
I never said to rework the current system but getting an extra artwork as an additional bonus for getting both max weight, and finishing below a certain time threshold would be a handsome reward
Great game, I’ve been having fun with this! My only real criticism that I have is about the graphics options; there are very few windowed mode resolutions, and none seem to be pixel-perfect. That might just be personal preference, but it does look off to have uneven pixels.
Other than that, I really like this, and can’t wait to see what you do next with it!
Alrighty, I am proud to present what is pretty much the final version of the game! It’s been an interesting couple of months, and I definitely learned a lot from this. Thank you to everyone for all the support, testing, and suggestions to make this into an actual polished game! I’ve included everything needed to mod the sprites in the .zip as well, so no need to scroll back through here to find the sprites.
So what’s next? For now I’m going to take a short break, maybe make something for the upcoming gain jam. The next thing I want to work on is going back to my farming game, it needs a lot of work and I have a lot of ideas for it.
As for Spacethumper, I’ll still be squashing bugs as they come up, maybe feature some sprite mods here if people are cool with that, but this is the last major update.
-----V1.0.0
-research table able to be destroyed again
-added research and upgrade count to the end screen for all you 100% speedrunners out there
-slimes will now take damage when all your buildings are destroyed
-added credits page to main menu
-ending screens for prestiges
-added warning message when saves from previous versions are loaded
-changed hit sounds from slimes to something more slimey
-----V1.0.1
-fixed some typos
-fixed "I spy" softlock
-fixed game crash when pressing down+left at the same time
-----V1.0.2
-end screens now also moddable
Also unnecessary image spoiler
Didn’t really notice a big difference in gameplay, but I believe it didn’t take me as long to get to max size and teleport out. The only upgrades I didn’t get were the walking speed ones for maybe obvious reasons. Either way, I still absolutely enjoyed it! Can’t wait to see how I we can prestige now! Don’t think I didn’t notice that new ending scene in the sprite sheets ;3
Speaking of ending screens, one minor issue I’ve noticed is that the minimum weight for using the teleporter seems to correspond to the second image in each set rather than the first. Or, at the very least, I couldn’t figure out a way to see the minimum-size ending screens in-game. (I believe this was actually the case in the previous version of the game as well; I remember noticing that I couldn’t seem to get the minimum-sized ending any more in that version.)
I’ve got to finally play it after today’s work, it’s been quite a fun and one of the NG+ endings made me chuckle a lot, you already know the one. I’ll make sure to recommend the game around my circles, it’s a really fun little time. I also wish you luck with your farm game, I’ve played the latest version until summer and it definitively has potential, I’ll be following it’s development closely!
One last thing, I’ll begin labbing new speedrun categories for this game, the two new ones i thought about were:
100%: Basically complete the game without NG+ and finish it while having every upgrade and building unlocked, and maybe also be at the highest weight level, that’s up to you to decide
“True” ending: Basically obtain one specific ending from NG+, again if you haven’t played it, i suggest you go for it, it’s quite priceless.
I’ll be busy for a bit due to work and a D&D session, but i should definitively be able to make something happen soon enough, so stay tuned!
Thank you very much for such a wonderful game, Chubberdy. Unfortunately I keep forgetting the name of the protagonist in this game, but she’s a really well made character as well as her computer buddy. I will definitely be looking forward to your future projects!
Great update! The only nitpick I have is that the end screens should probably be in a sub-folder, I looked at the spritesheets to see if anything changed and accidentally spoiled one of the endings for myself. That may be on me being a bonehead, but it’s the one nitpick I have nonetheless. Really good game, the dialogue and humor is perfect! I love that Protagonist finally gets her sandwich if you finish with max weight after prestiging once.
Honestly at this point, just roll with it. You kept her unnamed for the entire multi-month development process, so it’d feel weird to give her one now.
The mysterious bloblike alien rides off into the sunset, and no one ever knew her name…
Definitely took way more time, but I think that was more due to not upgrading speed again. It usually boils down to how fast you can get to Mk.III Reactors and both range upgrades, since that’s the fastest net gain you can achieve, but it’s always enjoyable!
I’m assuming that this is the ending you get for every subsequent prestige after the second one, so I won’t dawdle on getting more endings, but I might see how far I can get starting from the second prestige, since I have a save for the beginning and at max size before both first and second prestige. Definitely one of my favorite time wasters in this community, and I definitely see myself coming back to it again.
I’ve been trying out 100%, i still haven’t got a run I’m satisfied with but i think i got an idea of how it has to play out. Crystal generation basically dictates the pace of the run, if you’re going for every single upgrade available, it just won’t be able to keep up, meaning that the most important part of the run is getting both of the crystal generators and their upgrades as soon as possible, nothing else matters more than that, I’ve had runs where i played like a complete moron during the midgame and the crystal generation still was falling short, so I’ll be comparing some different routs available to see just how early the player can push the crystal miners.
Also i might put the custom sprite function to use, i just hope i don’t end up making something too ugly lol.
