The Sandcastle [Test Post Thread]

Put your Let's Plays in here.
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Getting a LP ready, but not quite there yet? This thread is for you! You can make test posts and dry-run posts of your LP.

To avoid clogging up the thread with long posts, you may wish to use the SSLP Test Poster to make a link to your test post instead. The poster supports all of the forum's BBCode.

Here's the first update post for my LP of "Legend of Ancient Dragon Pursival", an obscure Korean RPG with a god-awful translation. Putting the finishing touches on the OP which will include more background info on the game. The game dialogue is in ALL CAPS, so I just put my commentary in standard mixed-case and I think it's reasonably clear what's commentary vs. in-game text, but let me know if anything seems unclear, if the image-to-text balance seems off, etc. Planning to start the thread some time tomorrow.

https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=157058

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I love obscure RPGs and I think that looks incredible. Especially the ALL CAPS DIALOGUE.

I have some recorded gameplay for an LP I'm planning, and I'd like some feedback on things. Specifically, I'm a bit worried I may be scrolling through text too fast, because I'm apparently a fast reader. I try to read through the text twice (after letting the text crawl finish; it's kind of agonizing, I feel like every text box takes forever), but still I worry. And of course the usual audio/video nitpicking is welcome.

Wizardy is unique in that its more about sussing out a dnd style dungeon but I honestly dont know if it would make a good lp in the way I make them.....?

Best thing to do is to make a test update and then put it here for people to critique. I personally don't know anything about your "LPing style" and couldn't say if the LP would be interesting or not without some content to look at.

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Wanting to get a Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones LP going. How does this look for a good OP?

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Sounds funky. I'd be down. I could use a bit of practice for getting a GBA FE LP workflow down for when I make my own run at Sacred War.

Personally, I think you should do two chapters per pass. Seems to me that a single chapter isn't a lot of time to really get going, and you'd end up just doing a lot of passing back and forth and a lot of the time being used in finding a new person to play instead of actually playing. You should also definitely prefer that somebody who hasn't had a turn yet gets a turn over somebody that already had a turn, just to keep things a bit more mixed up.

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TheMcD wrote:
Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:06 pm
Sounds funky. I'd be down. I could use a bit of practice for getting a GBA FE LP workflow down for when I make my own run at Sacred War.

Personally, I think you should do two chapters per pass. Seems to me that a single chapter isn't a lot of time to really get going, and you'd end up just doing a lot of passing back and forth and a lot of the time being used in finding a new person to play instead of actually playing. You should also definitely prefer that somebody who hasn't had a turn yet gets a turn over somebody that already had a turn, just to keep things a bit more mixed up.
Thanks for thr feedback. Two chapters per pass definitely sounds like a good idea, at least for the first 8 chapters. I could start with Prologue to Chapter 2, then the next person does Chapters 3 and 4, and the next person does 5 and 5x. By Chapter 8, we’ll probably have figured out if we want to keep up the double chapter system after the route decision. As for preferring people who haven’t gotten a turn ver those that have, I’ll be hoping that the participants will be able to work that idea into their heads by themselves.

I’ll also need an OK on using Mediafire. I’m not sure if it’s some variety of illegal, or just unprofessional, like using Strawpoll instead of in-thread polls.

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TheMcD wrote:
Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:06 pm
somebody who hasn't had a turn yet gets a turn over somebody that already had a turn, just to keep things a bit more mixed up.
A solid and fair plan.
Greener223224 wrote:
Mon Aug 10, 2020 2:49 pm
I’ll also need an OK on using Mediafire. I’m not sure if it’s some variety of illegal, or just unprofessional, like using Strawpoll instead of in-thread polls.
From experience, most people just use Dropbox (and sometimes Drive) for such a thing, and we're only handing over savefiles which should be technically safe. From my experience with the DF Discord, you can also probably just upload it through there as well. A GBA savefile should be infinitely smaller than a late-game DF file. I think Strawpoll was really only a thing for some SA LPs due to the paywall. You'd have a decent number of lurkers who read threads but never got a chance for voting if it was all in-thread. Here, that's not as much an issue.

I just do in-thread polls because there's room for discussion between voters, I don't mind counting them all up, and it helps to have something to push the thread to the next page when you regularly do 100 - 200 screenshot updates.

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The Flying Twybil wrote:
Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:03 pm
From experience, most people just use Dropbox (and sometimes Drive) for such a thing, and we're only handing over savefiles which should be technically safe. From my experience with the DF Discord, you can also probably just upload it through there as well. A GBA savefile should be infinitely smaller than a late-game DF file.
Alright, I'll use Dropbox then. Now I just need to figure out how to use Dropbox.

Anyways, here's how the OP looks now.

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You absolutely want to use png for things like this. There is no advantage to using jpgs, they're both heavier and uglier.

Also use whatever file host you want as long as long as it's not like TotallyLegitFileHostWithNoVirus.xxx or something. I don't think anyone's going to complain about mediafire if that's what's most convenient for you.

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vilk wrote:
Mon Aug 10, 2020 4:22 pm
You absolutely want to use png for things like this. There is no advantage to using jpgs, they're both heavier and uglier.

Also use whatever file host you want as long as long as it's not like TotallyLegitFileHostWithNoVirus.xxx or something. I don't think anyone's going to complain about mediafire if that's what's most convenient for you.
Okay, I'll use Mediafire then, and people can choose to use Dropbox for future

Raagh, I just finished converting all my photos and deleting the old versions, and they're all in jpg format. I'll use png format in the future.

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Did you empty the recycle bin? You might be able to just restore the old files. But it's not really a big deal or anything, just very much sub-optimal.

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Converted to png from the original screenshots, and I'm ready to post it. Does this look fine for the first update?

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Yeah that looks fine. I would generally recommend putting blank lines between text and images but that's more a preference thing, not a technical issue.

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Done, and done. Man, I hope I wasn't supposed to contact a moderator before putting up a new thread...

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Man, I hope I wasn't supposed to contact a moderator before putting up a new thread...
Nope! Post a new thread if you have a cool idea. That's the LP way.

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I suppose since I'll be posting this here as well, I might as well make my test post here too. More eyes on things is always good, after all.

Weebs At War: Let's Play Hearts of Iron 4!

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What's all this then?

This is Hearts of Iron 4, a grand strategy game released in 2016 by Paradox Development Studio. It is currently the latest in that series, and has been continually developed and received new DLCs up to now, with more content still due to be released past the writing of this post.

So what's this game about?

Basically, this is a game all about World War 2. You pick a country and guide it from 1936 to 1948 (actual end date is flexible), making decisions, building nations and running wars along the way. If you've played other Paradox games, you have a basic idea of how this is going to go, though this game is more war-focused than, say, Crusader Kings 2 or such.

If you haven't played a Paradox game, basically imagine yourself in control of the major facets of a country. You decide which direction your politics take, build your cabinet, you construct your nation's industry, you decide what weapons you build and what kind of an army, navy and air force you set up with those weapons, you trade resources with other nations, build alliances, spy on each other, all sorts of stuff you need to do to run a successful nation. As such, there's a lot of stuff to learn with this game.

And what about the LP?

Well, as I said, there's a lot of stuff to learn with this game. Furthermore, this game has an interesting multiplayer function where multiple people can play the same nation, with changes any player makes instantly being visible to all players. With that in mind, I decided to combine those two factors to create this LP. As such, here's who's part of this LP.

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First, we have myself, TheMcD. I have about 1000 hours in this game, though a good part of that was probably spent in observer mode watching games with different mods develop because that interests me. Still, I have a fair amount of experience in this game, even if there are some parts I really don't know how to work optimally. I can get through games and win wars. I will be taking the role of teacher in this LP.

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And for our second participant, we have Ibblebibble. As he describes his experience with this game himself: "I last played the game on release, and then played Italy and lost to Greece." Ibble will be taking the role of student in this LP.

So together, we will be playing this game in co-op multiplayer and attempt to get through a vanilla Germany campaign (with some cosmetic mods) while I teach Ibble to play the way I play. From there, we see how things go. Things might go great! Things might not go great. Hopefully, it will be entertaining either way.

You said something about mods.

Yeah, I'm using a few minor graphical mods I like and one multiplayer utility mod. Here's the list of mods I'm using.

- Square Counters: Exactly what it says. Normally, counters that show units are rectangular in this game. But I come from HoI2, where counters were square. So I prefer it this way.
- Universal Colored Puppets: This colors puppet states the same color as their overlord. It makes maps look a bit nicer when you can tell at a glance that a country is just a puppet.
- WW's Map: This is just a map mod. I think it looks cleaner and nicer, so I use it.
- No Forced Pause / Slowdown For MP Lag: There's an automatic slowdown with speed when somebody lags behind in multiplayer. Since this is just two people playing co-op and we're probably going to be frequently pausing to go over stuff anyway, I figure it's easier to disable the automatic slowdown and keep us in control of the speed.

I don't think that's all the mods you're using.

No, those are all the mods. Everything else is completely normal vanilla HoI4. Don't question it.

Anything else?

One more important note. Do not treat this LP as a comprehensive tutorial! You will be sorely disappointed if you do that. This LP will teach you to play my way. That is not necessarily a good thing. It will probably be enough to play the game, find some success, and have fun. But people who know the game better will probably tear their hair out at some things I say. Please don't get mad. I'm just kinda dumb.

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What if Sectoids were cute? Let’s Play Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

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Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a 3rd party Mario game designed by Ubisoft combining the classic Mario Characters and their Rayman murdering Rabbids. Yes, I am obvious.

It’s basically an x-com game, simplified, and made cute. It’s for kids after all, and it’s actually cute and somewhat. I unironically love it.

I’ll be joined by my funnier smarter wife Mistywave, as we tackle this game. I’ll be controlling the single player, and yes, we’ll do all the co-op games too together.

Now, I know this is a kids game, so what’s better than making it into a drinking game? That’s right, I’m ripping off Danaru, and gonna be drinking. My wife will be drinking too, but on her own schedule not my drinking conditions.

Drinking Conditions:
Everytime I miss a 50% shot
Everytime I get hit by a 50% shot
One sip per level rating. Perfect: 1 Good: 2 Fine: 3
If any of my characters get knocked out, I finish the drink
If I get a golden shot, sip.

Of course, feel free to suggest more conditions for me!

Now, enough of me babbling, here’s the link to the videos

Updates
Update #1 Wherein we lay out the drinking conditions

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I'm gonna do an LP of Hand of Fate! I think everything looks good but I could use another set of eyes.

OP - https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=159722
First post - https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=159723

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This is baby's first LP Beach post, and a test post for my potentially upcoming XCOM Files LP
And before you ask, yes the first mission I got was against a Reaper. I decided to roll with it. If the LP ends up being narrative, having the literal first event be a duo of agents being violently murdered by a Reaper would really set the tone
https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=161935

I do have some things I'd like some help with, namely wondering if there's a way to shrink my images, since I don't think I have enough room to do a full campaign with images this size. And then some other minor things like, is there a better way to organize my pictures? Or what format should I use. Part of me wants to do it sort of, report style. Part of me thinks having the commander as a central character would be better. I guess that's up to me though

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glwgameplayer wrote:
Sun Nov 13, 2022 2:54 am
This is baby's first LP Beach post, and a test post for my potentially upcoming XCOM Files LP
And before you ask, yes the first mission I got was against a Reaper. I decided to roll with it. If the LP ends up being narrative, having the literal first event be a duo of agents being violently murdered by a Reaper would really set the tone
https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=161935

I do have some things I'd like some help with, namely wondering if there's a way to shrink my images, since I don't think I have enough room to do a full campaign with images this size. And then some other minor things like, is there a better way to organize my pictures? Or what format should I use. Part of me wants to do it sort of, report style. Part of me thinks having the commander as a central character would be better. I guess that's up to me though
To shrink your images, you can use Photoshop, GIMP, or another image editor. I do like the writing you've done in your post.


 

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I'm currently in the planning stages for a new let's play that I think will be pretty good, but I should probably get approval before going ahead with it the way I plan to. The game in question is Fear & Hunger, and while I was able to post a Let's Play of the sequel with no issues raised, the first game is generally a lot more graphic and less tenable to simply censoring naughty bits. I'll be creating a test post here for a hypothetical thread, and if the mod team would rather I not press on, I fully understand and will pursue other projects. I'd highly advise looking up information on this game after reading this post to determine whether or not it's suitable for the forum.

Thread Title: What's the most you've ever lost in a coin toss? Let's Play Fear & Hunger!

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*CONTENT WARNING!*: Fear & Hunger is an extremely grimdark game with plenty of content some may find upsetting. The game contains scenes of mutilation, sexual violence, body horror, exposed genitalia (both heavily deformed varieties as well as the occasional nude though not really graphic human sprite), drug use and themes of suicide and mental breakdowns. Essentially if it seems like a really edgy thing to put in a game, Fear & Hunger probably at least references it. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

The Game

Fear & Hunger is a 2018 horror/Role-playing game made in RPG maker with extremely spaghetti custom code, created by Finnish independent developer Miro Haverinen AKA Happy Paintings AKA Orange~. (Mans is like a rapper with all these aliases) Billed as a horror dungeon crawler with roguelike and JRPG elements (though the roguelike aspect is about as tacked on and loose as that term gets), the game is an unholy conglomeration of trial-and-error, buggy coding and edge. Heavily inspired by Berserk, (by orange's own admission and obvious to anyone who has read/seen the series) Fear & Hunger seems to have been made under the impression Darkest Dungeon was too cheery and optimistic and decides to approach the medieval fantasy genre in the most grimdark way imaginable. The usual suspects of permadeath and sanity decay are present, but Fear & Hunger also features the possibility of permanent limb loss, death by infection, states where the game is technically playable but effectively unwinnable, and loads of beginner traps where the only way to realistically get around them is either blunder into them and use the knowledge gained to avoid that in the future, or use a guide. In terms of atmosphere and story content, the game is unashamedly edgy and checks all the boxes you'd expect for a Grimdark game. While my sardonic approach to describing all this might sound negative, I actually really love the game for how much it does not care what people will think of it, and I respect how hard it goes. And if you're willing to put up with the transparently unfair gameplay loop, this game is great fun to delve into and learn about, and is very rich in tension. And I hope to demonstrate why I think it's pretty great to you, the viewer, with this let's play!

The Let's Play

Per my standard, we'll be delving into this game about deep as I can go without dedicating my life to it. We'll be completing successful runs of the game with all characters, obtaining all endings in the standard game, and then obtaining each character specific ending in the game's ultra-sadistic Hard Mode. We'll also be doing at least one playthrough of the parody dating sim mode the game gives you a code for upon completion, though I will not personally commit to every ending you can obtain from that. I will also be sure to show off as many major worthwhile secrets in the game that might be worth routing into a playthrough if you were tackling the game yourself. For anything I don't feel is worth personally going for but I feel is notable enough, I'll likely link to videos from the channel NoCommentary, a Fear & Hunger fan channel that contains videos for just about any obscure event or secret you could possibly think of contained in both games in the series. With all that being said,

The Videos

*IMPORTANT NOTE*: While a censorship mod does exist for the game, it excises about 30-35% of the graphics from the game. Having to describe what you're supposed to see would get old fast, so I won't be using it. It's also highly impractical for me to censor anything I'd feel worth it personally, as it would turn the videos into an editing nightmare. With that established, these videos will be covering the unmodified game, and thus I will be age-restricting them as to not run afoul of Youtube's guidelines. While I sincerely doubt anyone under the age of 18 will be seeing this thread, it is worth noting you will need a Youtube account with the age tied to the account being 18 or over to actually watch these videos.


That's my pitch. As I said, if the mod team objects to this game being featured on the forum, I fully understand and will just focus on other less triggering things.

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Sorry I missed this! Hope you are having a good new year.

I'm going to defer to mod Danaru on SA's verdict, to wit: go for it (with appropriate content warnings, of course).

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Awesome! I've been careful about marking any posts that have suspect imagery, so I should be able to port over the ongoing thread once I'm feeling motivated.

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