knuckle-cracker: wimp consiering purchasing

[jrodman]

Firstly, those who are 100% in love fans, please do not reply: I'm not interested in hearing 40 fans tell me to buy.  I'd have emailed this question to the author/staff but he/they (understandably) have hidden their contact info away and pointed me to the forum.  However, this message is really intended more for the author, not the 100% sold fans.

I'm trying to figure out if this game will be one I enjoy.  You see, I'm a wimp.  I play (video) games to be entertained, not challenged.  I seek challenges elsewhere in life, but not in entertainment software.

I played the demo (on the web, and the downloadable) and it's a lot of fun.  However, I have the sneaking suspicion that these levels are *much* easier than the ones in the game.  How much harder does it get?  How much harder does the story get?  How about the other modes (excepting user-created maps).

I enjoy putting a bit of work into games, but very fast and precise clicking and timing challenges are just tedious to me, and losing the same map more than 3 times has me reaching for the delete key.  Is the mainline of the game as pleasantly mild?  Is there a way for me to turn down the difficulty if it's more than I'm interested in?

Thanks for your considered replies!

[Karsten75]

Dude, this is like $10. It is not going to be the end of the world if you don't like it.

And how are we supposed to answer you?  Yes, some levels are hard. but this game is quite interesting in that you can hit pause and do a lot of stuff with no penalties. So you can hit pause and sit there and figure it out or do all the precise clicking in pause mode. But how much harder is ot? That is hard to answer, since we can't assign numerical values to the relative hardness of things.

Not everybody likes a wimpy game (your terms), so understandably the author (Virgil, BTW) has created some hard levels. But the sweet thing here is the custom maps. There are hard ones and easy ones and even trivial ones. SO perhaps if you like the mode of game play, then you will find a bunch of trivia, easy and even medium maps that will suit you perfectly.  And if you ever want to step up to the challenge, then there wil lbe Chop Raider, Tucana, Loki and Gump (to name a few) just waiting to welcome you. As well as custom map authors such as MrMcDeath, Xylnalya and a bunch of clueless noobs who make impossible maps.

What games do you play that you never lose in? I'd like to know, so perhaps that wil hel pus figure out if CW is for you.

Do two things. Go look at the more than 1,300 custom maps and figure out if there might be a few you'd like to play.  Go to YouTube and look at the Creeper World videos. Figure it out from that for yourself.  And then think that it is only $10 and how much can you really lose if you waste $10 and a few hours to figure out if you like or hate the game?

And if you don't want to do that, really, how much do you expect us to do for the grand total of $0, which is what we will get.

[Xylnalya]

You don't have to worry about the complexion of the story too much - I'd say you'll like it, since it stays rather simple, while being as much story as you could see in the simulator and gets a little humourous touch if you're able to recognise the hints.

The campaign's difficulty increases, but there's only a few (about 3 or 4 out of about 20) hard maps. Another mode, conquest, will be one you'd enjoy - There's 25 rather easy to medium maps in there. The difficulty of said few campaign and some of the special ops missions will be a nut to crack, but it's nothing too impossible.

As Karsten said, there's a lot of variety in the custom maps.

I'd say you'll like most of the game - but not all.

On a different topic:

As well as custom map authors such as MrMcDeath, Xylnalya and a bunch of clueless noobs who make impossible maps.

Owwww =´C

[Mrmcdeath]

Karsten please do not yell at him. The campaign is quite easy at the beginning and gets steadily harder as the levels get higher with the exception of a few. I think that the bowl is harder than most of the levels in the campaign. But then if you get a feel for playing levels you will probably be halfway through the campaign. After that you get the conquest missions, special ops missions, and you can download and make maps with the map editor. The choice is yours but just ask yourself, is this worth $10? Am I getting a good deal? If you really are stumped about what to do then just look around a bit. Look at videos, screenshots, anything. But people will not make a decision for you and then get yelled at or feel bad because they made the wrong choice.

[Karsten75]

On a different topic:

As well as custom map authors such as MrMcDeath, Xylnalya and a bunch of clueless noobs who make impossible maps.

Owwww =´C

Hey! someone who gets frustrated after trying 3 times are not going to go far into your campaigns... I would have throttled you if I could get hold of you at one time.... :D Now your maps are some of my faves.

Karsten please do not yell at him.

Wow, I wasn't yelling. There are no !! or even ALL CAPS there. :)

[Mrmcdeath]

But the way I read it it seemed as if you were angry. Dunno why. PS: Don't piss me off, i recently had a book drop on my laptop and some of the keys broke off. The only reason they are working is that the little gel things are still on. I am going to have to buy a new keyboard for $20 bucks off of ebay... I am angreh...

[jrodman]

To me, the price is kind of irrelevant, it's the time investment.  I'd rather not sink a bunch of energy into a game that turns out to have claws. 

The post wasn't asking for you to decide.  It was pretty explicitly a request for information.  I thank all of you for the information that you provided.  It sounds a close enough fit through story mode. 

[knucracker]

I designed the game to be on the easy to medium side of difficulty for most of the missions.  There are a few missions with some challenge (the first few times you play them), but nothing really terribly difficult.
Video game design has trended towards easier accessibility over the years, and for good reason.  We all play to have fun mostly... not to climb mountains all of the time.  Once we are good at having fun, then we want a challenge.

CW was designed so that the built in missions (55 of them) are pretty accessible, but the community generated maps can span the spectrum from trivial to very, very challenging.

[Trippynet]

I can honestly say that I found almost all of the levels to be good fun and rarely are they what I'd call "especially difficult". This is particularly the case as you can pause the game at any point and yet continue to build (although the items don't get completed until you come out of pause mode). Hence if you want to take your time and work out a strategy instead of rushing things, you can do so.

There's a couple of levels that can be a little difficult (especially in the Special Ops extras, these aren't part of the main storyline though), but most the levels are fine. And I say this as a fellow gamer who plays games for relaxation and entertainment, rather than to have the crap challenged out of me. If you do get stuck at all on a level incidentally, chances are that someone else has got stuck on it, posted about it on here and has received help, suggestions and strategies to beat that level.

[Kamron3]

But the way I read it it seemed as if you were angry. Dunno why. PS: Don't piss me off, i recently had a book drop on my laptop and some of the keys broke off. The only reason they are working is that the little gel things are still on. I am going to have to buy a new keyboard for $20 bucks off of ebay... I am angreh...

You realize that you can put the keys back on right? >_>

I've had keys break on my old laptop and all I had to do was put them back on... but when one falls off, they all start falling off.


_k

[The smoking revolver]

But the way I read it it seemed as if you were angry. Dunno why. PS: Don't piss me off, i recently had a book drop on my laptop and some of the keys broke off. The only reason they are working is that the little gel things are still on. I am going to have to buy a new keyboard for $20 bucks off of ebay... I am angreh...

You realize that you can put the keys back on right? >_>

I've had keys break on my old laptop and all I had to do was put them back on... but when one falls off, they all start falling off.


_k

lol!


The game is a great investment,you will find maps that you like

[nic nac]

To me, the price is kind of irrelevant, it's the time investment.  I'd rather not sink a bunch of energy into a game that turns out to have claws. 

The post wasn't asking for you to decide.  It was pretty explicitly a request for information.  I thank all of you for the information that you provided.  It sounds a close enough fit through story mode. 

each map is meant to take around 20 minutes, to repeat what vergil wrote.
but this does only state the actual time spend on a map during a successfull pass through.
have a look at the walkthrough videos at YT if you are desperate to know how it plays.

the challenge is to figure out where to build what until the stuff comes flooding in, in every map.

[archn]

If it were free would you consider playing it?  If yes, then set aside a dollar a day for 10 days, wait 2 weeks, look at your pile, and purchase the game and use the 4 dollars left over for a couple of 2 liters of Coke.  You'll need the caffeine to keep yourself up as you say "I'm one planet closer to finishing the story line"....

When I was playing the story line for the first time, I didn't find the levels extremely challenging.  I usually quit games that I can't beat (Or I cheat, but I don't cheat on this game, since it's not that hard, and it would eliminate the fun), and I stuck to it, and beat it.  There was one level which was a little difficult which you have to "save survivors", in addition to powering the totems, and because the creeper advanced rather quickly to the survivors, you needed to take care of them as a priority over building defense or expanding.  Other than that, the levels were easy.

In fact, the last level was so easy that I decided to challenge myself to doing it without building the "cheat" building at the end, and I succeeded!

So, it's worth it.

[glengainer]

I my self just brought this game 3 days ago (6 hours in So far I Love It  ;D) and I'm on the blue levels (10-15)

"However, I have the sneaking suspicion that these levels are *much* easier than the ones in the game.  How much harder does it get? "

Well the free (5 online & 5 demo) levels took me a few minutes each to beat and the level include in the game so far taken me mostly 10-25 minutes

So far I had only had to look up how to beat one of the levels (the answer was not hard but in a way I wouldn't have through of) the rest of the levels (I have played) 50% are just as hard as the bowl (You know what to do but the creepers take over too fast and you have to play again and improve your plan so you end up playing it 2-3 times) and the other 50% and more like the cells (You know what to do but it just takes time for it to play out)

If think playing the bowl was funny BUY IT (If you think it was to hard this game is not for you)


If you are look at the time investment plan about 15 min (at my rate so far) per map * 20 (just for story mode) =  5 to 6 hours just to beat game
Then add in the 25 Conquest Missions & 10 Special Ops Missions which are just like the story levels (with upgrades) at 15 minutes a level = another 9-10 hours
16+ hours just for $10 (then add in custom maps and you could play for weeks)

[Karsten75]

(then add in custom maps and you could play for weeks)

Weeks? Assuming you only play like a third of the custom maps, you will play over 420 custom maps. While some of them are dead easy, let's say you play on average 10-15 minutes per map. Add in another 10 minutes per map for play while paused and you play say 25 minutes per map at 400 maps that gives 10,000 minutes of playing time....  :) (No wonder I've been here since December....)

Oh yea, don't forget bathroom breaks...