already here

A quote was made about what might happen in the long run exactly one year ago. Well now... I'm already here.

In summary, The prediction occurred in that all of the statements in last year's quote later became true one way or another.

Loud thunderstorms and it's still quite bright out here. I'm surprised that I didn't hear that many strikes outside, and I was near a window as well.

Dead Metal Hero

The game Dead Metal, essentially Bubble Tanks in space (and without the metal music). Combined with the fact that the AI is smarter in that they will lead their shots and will hit you more often, it puts more strategy in the game than you might expect than just continuously moving around. Notable things include:

• Switching your ship instantly before or as many times as you want to during the game (with the same amount or health). Each ship is specialized at something, and switching is a must on higher levels.
• Pyro = Best on turrets and traps.
• AI 3100 = Can destroy smaller fighter ships without a problem.
• Demo Man = Only useful on slow (or immobile) stacked ships, it's secondary being a different story.
• Sniper = Useful for taking out LARGER units, not the best for fast targets.
• Weapon X = Its freeze is useful except you can't fire your weapons during that time as well.

Note on the image title: I may not have the image title on the top left if it looks better without it. Post title: There are two games called Scrap Metal and Scrap Metal Heroes (two unrelated games). Then there's Dead Metal (this game) and there's this post title.

6 Million and Counting...

Playthrough @ Level 67 with Tempus Fugit + Multiplier + Speedball. 6.16 million in 1:56.

6 million and counting, and still haven't hit timelord yet.

And this marks the first youtube video I've uploaded. (The rest are in photobucket btw). There's probably going to be a few errors my first few uploads or so, but at least I don't have to worry about a bandwidth limit. Additionally I can increase the quality of videos put up here for the same reason.

Note: For those interested, Super Speed was used. Why? Normally I feel they don't make much of a difference in a game, but if balls are moving quickly and you're firing through a two-ball gap with little margin of error, then a speed powerup will help you to lead your shots easier. There were many games where the double gap was messed up because either the balls fired moved too slow and they miss their intended target or they stuck to one of the gap edges.

Two ball gaps are much smaller and riskier than normal three ball gaps, but they yield 20% more points (~155k compared to ~132k per double gap at 9x)

Sign Twirlers

Just your ordinary sign twirler. Wait, what? It's a machine?

(Not) Another Mystery Dungeon

UPDATED: September 2 - more map data

Went through a few runs of the Arkandian Revenant Mystery Dungeon during the past few days, where even non-rare resources are hard to find, and did a map dump of the dungeon. (And there might be at least one map missing here). Link for larger version of this image

Conclusion: There are a few ingredients, the most important being Holy Water, that is not obtainable in any room of this repeatable dungeon.*

NOTE: You may have noticed there's a large gap between this image and the last one in the Fall 2011 image set - I will put them up as I finish them.

Welcome to Paradise Division

The last day of DSSS (it's officially over) involves visiting UCSD in order to attend the Paradise DCM. I'm the only person representing UOP since the rest of my crew left hours ago.

After having lunch and goodbyes, we proceed back home. This concludes the five day summary of DSSS. Running totals: 677 images taken, 52 new people met (and maybe more).