{"id":32229,"date":"2016-05-18T03:26:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T07:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=32229"},"modified":"2016-06-28T21:18:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T01:18:44","slug":"ruts-vs-battlespire-ch9-ruts-vs-regular-spire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=32229","title":{"rendered":"Ruts vs. Battlespire CH9: Ruts vs. Regular Spire"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s really no way to sugar-coat this: I am having some troubles saving the multiverse. I’d been doing pretty well<\/em> up until now. Turns out I’m a whiz at hacking daedra, I’m the champion at slowly navigating platforms over lava, and nobody<\/em> reads and superstitiously obeys notices on buttons quite like I do. And while these have so far been the primary job requirements, it seems there’s still a few holes in my repertoire. Example: I’m currently stuck in a goddamn attic.<\/p>\n

That shadow down there is a pit of lava. Apparently it's just out of range of my light source.<\/div>
That shadow down there is a pit of lava. Apparently it's just out of range of my light source.<\/div><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That hole in the floorboards is where the lift that brought me up very briefly <\/em>was. There is no way to summon said lift from up here, and I have found nothing online to suggest that its failure to return is the usual or expected state of affairs.<\/p>\n

But I’m not saying it’s a glitch. It could just be an act of guerrilla cruelty from a disgruntled developer that somehow escaped documentation until, technically, these words you are currently reading.<\/strong> Sure; let’s go with that. In fact, while I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll be extra charitable and attribute to malice everything wrong with this game so far.<\/p>\n

Sigh. <\/em>You know–sooner or later in the grousing process you run out of things to complain about. Then there’s nothing for it but to take a deep breath, take a good long look at your situation, and find new and overlooked subjects for complaint. Or a solution, if it’s not too inconvenient.<\/p>\n

So here’s what we’re cooking with. I’m on a thin wooden platform with a big hole in the middle and little holes on its four edges. Beneath each is a sheer drop to a few skinny wooden platforms and a big, fat, Dungeonowner’s Association-mandated lava pit.<\/p>\n

So what happens when I drop straight down onto the elevator? I don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s impossible to do. Moving willfully toward a ledge in this game causes your character to shuffle and skip ambivalently–you need a little speed, or a hop, to clear the edge. Regardless, early experimentation uncovers no obvious route through these holes without flying at a forty-five degree angle straight into a wall–where I promptly get stuck. That’s right, I’m leaping off a ledge toward a pit of lava and my problem is not falling.<\/em><\/p>\n

The good news is, you get all the time in the world to study this wall. The bad news is that as walls go, it's not very challenging.<\/div>
The good news is, you get all the time in the world to study this wall. The bad news is that as walls go, it's not very challenging.<\/div><\/p>\n

But though fortune favors the bold, it tolerates the stupid and will kick scraps to the persistently mediocre. A dozen save-and-reloads later and I’ve successfully calculated a NASA-grade flight pattern which puts me on a far shallower course. Instead of crashing into the wall, I successfully undershoot and crash into the pit of lava. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED. REPEAT, THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.<\/em><\/p>\n

The good news is that every lava death means I get a brief glimpse at the platform I'm aiming for. The bad news is that THIS IS MY LIFE.<\/div>
The good news is that every lava death means I get a brief glimpse at the platform I'm aiming for. The bad news is that THIS IS MY LIFE.<\/div><\/p>\n

I cannot stress enough that this process of re-calibrating and re-positioning and re-plummeting is not an exact<\/em> science. Maybe it’s the game’s weird movement physics, maybe it’s the shonky controls, but I quickly learn not to expect consistent results from my aeronautics. I take gravity’s whims as they come and just thank the game’s jumping mechanics for being a good sport about all this. Meanwhile, both eat my lunch.<\/p>\n

But a combination of mutations and good fortune eventually bless me with exactly the result I’m looking for: I finally hit neither wall nor lava, but the platform waiting below. My character gives a little groan of celebration and sinks to his knees in gratitude. That’s probably made easier by the fact that his kneecaps are, presumably, somewhere inside his buttocks at that time. I’ll have to check an autopsy report–turns out falling from this distance is an instant game over.<\/p>\n

So the elevator won’t come back and I need to reach the ground–but if I’m very very careful, I can avoid dying in lava and die on regular boards instead. This is what we call “progress.”<\/p>\n

Let’s see what kind of potions I’ve got. First and most obviously foremost, there’s a potion of jumping. Experiments reveal I can use this to hurl myself twice as fast and hard towards my death. Next up is a potion of “etherealness.” At some point in midair, I reflect that–even if, charitably, this potion applies to my situation at all–the most likely result is that I’ll fly through the solid platform and come to a softer lava landing. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. The platform is still very solid. <\/em><\/p>\n

Finally–and this is a bit of a punt–I try those glowing sigils. Now, I happen to have figured out that these give you a very brief window of immunity. My theory is that if I snarf one on the wing, I might just be able to stick a landing without dying instantly. So that’s just what I try to do: I hop through the hole, use a rune at the last minute, and observe the landing. The good news is, I land totally safely. The bad news is, it’s on the lava. Needless to say, when my immunity wears off in a few spicy moments, I…continue to take no damage? Find myself standing indefinitely and indifferently in a lava pit?<\/p>\n

Naturally.<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously, I can just take a stroll around here. The dremora up top seems affronted.<\/div>
Seriously, I can just take a stroll around here. The dremora up top seems affronted.<\/div><\/p>\n

But there’s no way up, so it’s a wash nonetheless. So I try the hop-and-pop approach with my sigils a few more times, and finally, after about an hour of concerted efforts, I find myself back on the correct platform, hale, hearty, and ready to get on with the oh shit dremora he’s gonna knock me–<\/em><\/p>\n

...off.<\/div>
...off.<\/div><\/p>\n

Okay, that’s it. I’m done monkeying around this infernal labyrinth. Over the course of the next twenty minutes after I land, I successfully scour the entire level for all the remaining McGuffins, pound them into place, tip a final middle finger to the wizard I leave behind, and hop into the obligatory danger portal. Let’s get on with this.<\/em><\/p>\n

I use Star Galley for all my nonspecific game-progress commuting. Now with easy collect-five-cogs payment plan!<\/div>
I use Star Galley for all my nonspecific game-progress commuting. Now with easy collect-five-cogs payment plan!<\/div><\/p>\n

I don’t know what’s up ahead, but the bad news for it is, there’s a hell-raising pants-grazing eye-glazing bandit rolling up on its six–and Gods help me, but he is angry.<\/em> And let me ask you a sincere question:<\/p>\n

Is this the sort of guy you want to see angry?<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

NEXT WEEK: MEET LEVEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s really no way to sugar-coat this: I am having some troubles saving the multiverse. I’d been doing pretty well up until now. Turns out I’m a whiz at hacking daedra, I’m the champion at slowly navigating platforms over lava, and nobody reads and superstitiously obeys notices on buttons quite like I do. And while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}