My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet
Nigel 'ridd3r' Martin, Dave 'LLCooldave' Spickermann, and Josh 'Inexistence' Peaker's IL runs
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: This game is more proof that grappling hooks make games more fun.
Nigel 'ridd3r' Martin, Dave 'LLCooldave' Spickermann, and Josh 'Inexistence' Peaker's IL runs
Verifier Responses
Quote:
My verifier comments for grappling hook are below (for the levels I didn't do):
Video/Audio is fine, no signs of cheating.
Level 3: Bit of lag at the start as explained in runners comments but no problem as the in-game timer is used. The start of the level is done very well, a better strafe jump could be done just before the save point but virtually no time lost there. Possibly a smoother ending as well if the final hook was held for a little less time. Overall though a pretty optimal level.
Level 6: A bit too much time spent aiming for the first hook, great hook to the 2nd code. Possibly some time could be gained by more 'side to side' strafe jumping on the yellow blocks; ending is solid. A very small improvement to the previous record, a 22;xx might be possible but you would have to push very hard.
Level 10: Basically as noted by the runner, the whole level is on the rails until right at the end. It could have been made to look better but time wise it doesn't make any difference. So, the final section, a hook to the top would be quicker (although he is low on health), honestly though I don't think you could bring this down to a 27;xx.
Level 12: I really like this route, it works out brilliantly with the lift at the end. The only thing to say about this is a possible earlier final strafe jump but it's very nice overall.
Level 13: I had a bit of a go at beating this myself but it's actually very well done and harder than it looks. Final hook could maybe be a bit quicker but I doubt 19;xx is possible unless I'm missing a trick.
Level 14: It's a shame about the excessively high jump at the start as apart from that this run is great. You can do a jump that is perfectly the right height by pressing jump at the same time as you shoot. The rest of the level is very well done however. I can say from experience that the strafe jumping at the end is way harder than it looks and the little run up is necessary!
Level 15: Great planning for this level. The intended route is made a mockery of with the big hook. I had thought that instead of stopping at each block you could do continous strafe jumping to the final platform but you would have to be a lot quicker to make it to the final block a cycle early so it doesn't look like any time is lost. Just for safe measure though I will say the final jump, if it was a strafe jump might be marginally quicker.
Level 16: This is a very nasty level as there are loads of turrets and there isn't time to recover the 90hp or so you need to survive two turret hits. However, the runner found a simple yet effective method to avoid getting shot by the second turret. It is important to note that you basically can't dodge their shots. Secondly the runner managed to get pretty much exactly the right height on every hook, which is impressive. The only downside is too much time spent aiming but this is a very well done level in terms of planning and it is decently executed.
Level 22: I have attempted this level (though to a very limited extent) and it was rare that I made the first big jump. As the the runner notes, it is a difficult set of strafe jumps. First hook could be quicker and if the runner had landed in the centre of the end target he would have saved a few tenths of a second, as the end of level trigger is above the target in the centre (see Level 18). It's not just the start of the level that is hard though, the air movement from the two hooks has to be very precise and so while there is room for improvement, it is a tough time to beat. Also note this is a high 11;xx meaning getting a 10;xx is unlikely.
Verdict: Accept all. This is a very good start to the game.
Video/Audio is fine, no signs of cheating.
Level 3: Bit of lag at the start as explained in runners comments but no problem as the in-game timer is used. The start of the level is done very well, a better strafe jump could be done just before the save point but virtually no time lost there. Possibly a smoother ending as well if the final hook was held for a little less time. Overall though a pretty optimal level.
Level 6: A bit too much time spent aiming for the first hook, great hook to the 2nd code. Possibly some time could be gained by more 'side to side' strafe jumping on the yellow blocks; ending is solid. A very small improvement to the previous record, a 22;xx might be possible but you would have to push very hard.
Level 10: Basically as noted by the runner, the whole level is on the rails until right at the end. It could have been made to look better but time wise it doesn't make any difference. So, the final section, a hook to the top would be quicker (although he is low on health), honestly though I don't think you could bring this down to a 27;xx.
Level 12: I really like this route, it works out brilliantly with the lift at the end. The only thing to say about this is a possible earlier final strafe jump but it's very nice overall.
Level 13: I had a bit of a go at beating this myself but it's actually very well done and harder than it looks. Final hook could maybe be a bit quicker but I doubt 19;xx is possible unless I'm missing a trick.
Level 14: It's a shame about the excessively high jump at the start as apart from that this run is great. You can do a jump that is perfectly the right height by pressing jump at the same time as you shoot. The rest of the level is very well done however. I can say from experience that the strafe jumping at the end is way harder than it looks and the little run up is necessary!
Level 15: Great planning for this level. The intended route is made a mockery of with the big hook. I had thought that instead of stopping at each block you could do continous strafe jumping to the final platform but you would have to be a lot quicker to make it to the final block a cycle early so it doesn't look like any time is lost. Just for safe measure though I will say the final jump, if it was a strafe jump might be marginally quicker.
Level 16: This is a very nasty level as there are loads of turrets and there isn't time to recover the 90hp or so you need to survive two turret hits. However, the runner found a simple yet effective method to avoid getting shot by the second turret. It is important to note that you basically can't dodge their shots. Secondly the runner managed to get pretty much exactly the right height on every hook, which is impressive. The only downside is too much time spent aiming but this is a very well done level in terms of planning and it is decently executed.
Level 22: I have attempted this level (though to a very limited extent) and it was rare that I made the first big jump. As the the runner notes, it is a difficult set of strafe jumps. First hook could be quicker and if the runner had landed in the centre of the end target he would have saved a few tenths of a second, as the end of level trigger is above the target in the centre (see Level 18). It's not just the start of the level that is hard though, the air movement from the two hooks has to be very precise and so while there is room for improvement, it is a tough time to beat. Also note this is a high 11;xx meaning getting a 10;xx is unlikely.
Verdict: Accept all. This is a very good start to the game.
Quote:
Cheating: Pfft, none.
Audio/Visual: All seemed fine to me.
Level 1: Nothing I can think to say… Perfectly good.
Level 2: Excellent use of the double jump. So glad that the trick got a use in the run!
Level 3: Very good. That hook at the start was really quick, a bit confusing when I first saw it. I see no improvement in this level at all..
Level 4: Perhaps, after stepping through the opening doors, near the beginning you could strafe jump, rather than just walking. So you can get to do that hook straight up quicker. Also, just before the hook hits, jumping would mean that you get lifted up quicker. Of course, at the end, the last strafe jump was unnecessary and made you lose time before you could aim the hook correctly, but still, this is a hard level to do. Well done.
Level 5: Incredible.
Level 7: Great job getting that earlier cycle. Don’t see any improvements at all.
Level 8: …So good. This level is so hard to do fast.
Level 9: Again, awesome.
Level 10: I think you could have jumped a little earlier on the elevator, saved a little time, but other than that, great run. I hate this level normally, nevermind running it.
Level 11: Excellent.
Level 13: I think that in the room you fall into, where you hook against the wall and have to drop down. If you’d have let yourself fall for a brief amount of time more, and only held onto the hook for the slightest amount of time, you might have gotten straight through the hole, rather than sliding down the wall..
Level 14: I’m sure there’s a faster route at the beginning… I recall I experimented with double jumping on these, and I’m pretty sure I got the first code from the very first block launching me. But this is such a hard level to do, I think this run is brilliant anyway. The strafe jump at the end looks crazily hard…
Level 15: …Yeah. I don’t even need to comment on this.
Level 17: Awesome \o/
Level 18: Great again. Glad I could contribute a new route to this level.
Level 19: Even harder level, even better run. Woo!
Level 20: Woah.. Getting through the gap after pressing the button, AND getting the jump off it must have been hard. Great run.
Level 21: Incredible.
Level 22: I really wish you hadn’t missed the elevator. This would have been perfect.
Level 23: Nothing much you could’ve really done with this level. Nice skillz, nice run.
Overall: Great run. Total accept.
Audio/Visual: All seemed fine to me.
Level 1: Nothing I can think to say… Perfectly good.
Level 2: Excellent use of the double jump. So glad that the trick got a use in the run!
Level 3: Very good. That hook at the start was really quick, a bit confusing when I first saw it. I see no improvement in this level at all..
Level 4: Perhaps, after stepping through the opening doors, near the beginning you could strafe jump, rather than just walking. So you can get to do that hook straight up quicker. Also, just before the hook hits, jumping would mean that you get lifted up quicker. Of course, at the end, the last strafe jump was unnecessary and made you lose time before you could aim the hook correctly, but still, this is a hard level to do. Well done.
Level 5: Incredible.
Level 7: Great job getting that earlier cycle. Don’t see any improvements at all.
Level 8: …So good. This level is so hard to do fast.
Level 9: Again, awesome.
Level 10: I think you could have jumped a little earlier on the elevator, saved a little time, but other than that, great run. I hate this level normally, nevermind running it.
Level 11: Excellent.
Level 13: I think that in the room you fall into, where you hook against the wall and have to drop down. If you’d have let yourself fall for a brief amount of time more, and only held onto the hook for the slightest amount of time, you might have gotten straight through the hole, rather than sliding down the wall..
Level 14: I’m sure there’s a faster route at the beginning… I recall I experimented with double jumping on these, and I’m pretty sure I got the first code from the very first block launching me. But this is such a hard level to do, I think this run is brilliant anyway. The strafe jump at the end looks crazily hard…
Level 15: …Yeah. I don’t even need to comment on this.
Level 17: Awesome \o/
Level 18: Great again. Glad I could contribute a new route to this level.
Level 19: Even harder level, even better run. Woo!
Level 20: Woah.. Getting through the gap after pressing the button, AND getting the jump off it must have been hard. Great run.
Level 21: Incredible.
Level 22: I really wish you hadn’t missed the elevator. This would have been perfect.
Level 23: Nothing much you could’ve really done with this level. Nice skillz, nice run.
Overall: Great run. Total accept.
Quote:
Level 1: The start of the level is on a timer, so it's just down to the last part. The jumping sequence seems a bit weird and unoptimized, but then again this is the fastest time any of us got so I'm not sure you can argue with that.
Level 2: Again a timed part slowing down the start. Jumping off the elevator is pretty much optimal. The last jump uses the double jump glitch where hitting jump twice quickly (or on two different key binds) when near the edge of platform gives the player a quick double jump, resulting in a bit more jump speed and height. This extra height is JUST enough to get the code in the middle of the gap, but only if you have a good jumping curve, which requires the slightly slow looking setup before.
Level 3: my run
Level 4: Pretty well played level, the jumping pattern works out quite well. The grapples at the end require a fairly precise aim as the target area is pretty small so a bit of slow down there is practically unavoidable if you dont just want to shoot blindly.
Level 5: Again, pretty fluent. The start part looks sort of slow, but it's by a good bit the fastest method any of us has found. Doing that curve grapple up from the part with the electric floor is surprisingly hard, even if it doesn't look like it. Very easy to get stuck on a wall.
Level 6: Never thought about that first grapple myself, it's great but also looks slow. However, the green block right after is moving up slowly at the start so even doing it faster wouldnt help you much here, and the final part of the level is again on a timer, and the run is smooth enough to make me doubt that arriving there a cycle earlier is possible, so the final time is good.
Level 7: One of the worst levels to run in the game. The route found is pretty damn good and efficient, but the level is fighting back by having a lot of timed parts in it that cause waiting. There's no way you can get any part done a cycle earlier (even the part at the top, and believe me, we have tried saving a cycle there quite a while and it just seems impossible.) As a bonus, the final jump looks very good so this time should be close to unbeatable.
Level 8: Those first grapples require quite a bit of precission so you don't miss any of the codes. I'm still not convinced there isn't a faster way to collect them, though, but none of us have had any luck with diagonal grapples.
Level 9: I think you can get to the end of the first corridor a half cycle faster, but that's no use because you need the block to get any further anyway. This is one of the levels where playing on hard mode actually shows, as the electric damage almost kills you at the end. It doesn't help that getting the second last grapple right is pretty tough as you just barely touch the code when you do it right.
Level 10: Another one of my runs
Level 11: This route is just beautiful, it circumvents the whole level. I think I found most of the grapples on the outside, but I never was able to get it all together in a smooth run, especially not the chute at the end where I always missed a code.
Level 12: We desperately tried to find a way to make this level faster, but the movement of the blocks influences your jumps so much that there just isn't anyway to move around the middle level in a fast manner. Requiring the vertical blocks for movement pretty much does any other time savers in. There just might be a faster route collecting some middle codes before dropping to the bottom floor, but I had no luck toying around with that.
Level 13 - 15: All mine
Level 16: This level is just horrible to run on hard, the turrets do so much damage and shoot much more accurately than on normal. The execution on this is a bit lacking, but I personally never managed to finish this route even once, so I guess we'll have to live with it.
Level 17: Pretty straight forward, the precision shot at the start is nice. Not much to say about this.
Level 18: Another ugly level to speedrun at first, but we kept discovering ways to skip most of the train rides. It might look like the run isn't on hard because of the time the runner sticks glued to the second train, but you don't need to keep grappling the block to stick to it, being pushed is enough. You can see the green grow lighter for a bit when the block is first grappled so this is certainly on hard. This level is quite bearable when you skip most of it.
Level 19: Another one of these levels, and the grappling spots are placed even worse. I'm quite fond of the route, though you can clearly see one code being initially missed. Luckily it's just barely collected right at the end. It's probably possible to do this better, but we couldn't find anything faster than this.
Level 20: The start is quite tough, the second grapple might go a bit too high (you have to drop some to be able to collect the code) but the rest is very smooth. Jumping off the closing door to the final chute saves a grapple on the inside, a very clever yet subtle move.
Level 21: Very smooth run, everything just flows very nicely. Probably my favorite of all the levels.
Level 22: Mine again
Level 23: Very dull final level, it's even more on a timer than the first one! The odd platform layout makes a faster jumping pattern to the switch pretty much impossible, so there really isn't anything one can do to make this interesting.
Didn't find any issues in Video or Audio quality, although my own LQ encodes look abominal, not sure such a fast paced game should even have the LQ encodes released. The planning for the levels is well done overall, and the execution is pretty tight except for level 16 which feels a bit careful, but survival is just so hard in that. In any case, one level wouldn't warrent rejecting the entire IL project anyway, and as nobody is working on this game anymore I'll green light it. This game deserves some front page exposure.
Level 2: Again a timed part slowing down the start. Jumping off the elevator is pretty much optimal. The last jump uses the double jump glitch where hitting jump twice quickly (or on two different key binds) when near the edge of platform gives the player a quick double jump, resulting in a bit more jump speed and height. This extra height is JUST enough to get the code in the middle of the gap, but only if you have a good jumping curve, which requires the slightly slow looking setup before.
Level 3: my run
Level 4: Pretty well played level, the jumping pattern works out quite well. The grapples at the end require a fairly precise aim as the target area is pretty small so a bit of slow down there is practically unavoidable if you dont just want to shoot blindly.
Level 5: Again, pretty fluent. The start part looks sort of slow, but it's by a good bit the fastest method any of us has found. Doing that curve grapple up from the part with the electric floor is surprisingly hard, even if it doesn't look like it. Very easy to get stuck on a wall.
Level 6: Never thought about that first grapple myself, it's great but also looks slow. However, the green block right after is moving up slowly at the start so even doing it faster wouldnt help you much here, and the final part of the level is again on a timer, and the run is smooth enough to make me doubt that arriving there a cycle earlier is possible, so the final time is good.
Level 7: One of the worst levels to run in the game. The route found is pretty damn good and efficient, but the level is fighting back by having a lot of timed parts in it that cause waiting. There's no way you can get any part done a cycle earlier (even the part at the top, and believe me, we have tried saving a cycle there quite a while and it just seems impossible.) As a bonus, the final jump looks very good so this time should be close to unbeatable.
Level 8: Those first grapples require quite a bit of precission so you don't miss any of the codes. I'm still not convinced there isn't a faster way to collect them, though, but none of us have had any luck with diagonal grapples.
Level 9: I think you can get to the end of the first corridor a half cycle faster, but that's no use because you need the block to get any further anyway. This is one of the levels where playing on hard mode actually shows, as the electric damage almost kills you at the end. It doesn't help that getting the second last grapple right is pretty tough as you just barely touch the code when you do it right.
Level 10: Another one of my runs
Level 11: This route is just beautiful, it circumvents the whole level. I think I found most of the grapples on the outside, but I never was able to get it all together in a smooth run, especially not the chute at the end where I always missed a code.
Level 12: We desperately tried to find a way to make this level faster, but the movement of the blocks influences your jumps so much that there just isn't anyway to move around the middle level in a fast manner. Requiring the vertical blocks for movement pretty much does any other time savers in. There just might be a faster route collecting some middle codes before dropping to the bottom floor, but I had no luck toying around with that.
Level 13 - 15: All mine
Level 16: This level is just horrible to run on hard, the turrets do so much damage and shoot much more accurately than on normal. The execution on this is a bit lacking, but I personally never managed to finish this route even once, so I guess we'll have to live with it.
Level 17: Pretty straight forward, the precision shot at the start is nice. Not much to say about this.
Level 18: Another ugly level to speedrun at first, but we kept discovering ways to skip most of the train rides. It might look like the run isn't on hard because of the time the runner sticks glued to the second train, but you don't need to keep grappling the block to stick to it, being pushed is enough. You can see the green grow lighter for a bit when the block is first grappled so this is certainly on hard. This level is quite bearable when you skip most of it.
Level 19: Another one of these levels, and the grappling spots are placed even worse. I'm quite fond of the route, though you can clearly see one code being initially missed. Luckily it's just barely collected right at the end. It's probably possible to do this better, but we couldn't find anything faster than this.
Level 20: The start is quite tough, the second grapple might go a bit too high (you have to drop some to be able to collect the code) but the rest is very smooth. Jumping off the closing door to the final chute saves a grapple on the inside, a very clever yet subtle move.
Level 21: Very smooth run, everything just flows very nicely. Probably my favorite of all the levels.
Level 22: Mine again
Level 23: Very dull final level, it's even more on a timer than the first one! The odd platform layout makes a faster jumping pattern to the switch pretty much impossible, so there really isn't anything one can do to make this interesting.
Didn't find any issues in Video or Audio quality, although my own LQ encodes look abominal, not sure such a fast paced game should even have the LQ encodes released. The planning for the levels is well done overall, and the execution is pretty tight except for level 16 which feels a bit careful, but survival is just so hard in that. In any case, one level wouldn't warrent rejecting the entire IL project anyway, and as nobody is working on this game anymore I'll green light it. This game deserves some front page exposure.
Decision: Accept
Reason: This game is more proof that grappling hooks make games more fun.
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