Doshin the Giant - September 13, 2016

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2016-09-13 03:38:09 pm

2016-08-16 03:51:11 pm

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Doshin the Giant (ntscj) (gcn) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'PvtCb'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2016-08-16 03:51:11 pm

Run Information

Doshin the Giant (ntscj) (gcn) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/doshinthegiant-20160810/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

peter afro

2016-08-17 05:26:23 pm

dope meme run

accept

ktwo

Edit history:

ktwo: 2016-08-30 02:38:29 pm

2016-08-28 08:34:12 am

A/V: Good

Legit: Looks like it.

Gameplay: Ok, wow, this game is a bit special...

Quote from Run comments:

I'm not going to delve into detail about what happened in this run because I think a lot of Doshin's charm is from not understanding what the hell is going on.

I admit that this worked around 5 minutes for me. Then the "seemingly random picking up of trees in one spot and then throwing it a bit further away" and "ad hoc dribbling with an invisible basket ball" took its toll... So I decided to read up on how this game is played. Despite being obscure and all that, the game is documented well enough and it appears to be fairly simplistic once the basic mechanics have been understood. I'd like to think that I'm now knowledgeable enough about the game to know most of what is going on in the run.

Quote from Run comments:

Nothing goes as planned in this game and half the mechanics don't even work, but you can be prepared for when the game inevitably screws you over.

Quote from Run comments:

Everything was executed well

Without having played the game, I can still easy see how the controls are pretty terrible and how the game has a will of its own in terms of what you pick up, where you're allowed to walk etc. Considering the nature of the game, getting something that looks like clean execution is therefore pretty unlikely. As expected, there are also more than a few execution mistakes throughout the run (some of them possibly not counting though, because I probably couldn't always tell if there were periods of downtime while waiting for various events). I'd still say that the execution didn't look exceptional by any means.

Quote from Run comments:

with phenomenal RNG until Day 3, at which point Yellow Monument completed but didnft register. I had to spend a lot of the day recovering Yellow Village and killed time while I was waiting for the Tower of Babel and Rocket to build (losing me about 4 minutes).

This is kind of the critical point. I buy that RNG plays a big role in the game, but what elements were so phenomenal that it counter-balanced a 4-minute loss and execution that, if not directly poor, at least looked improvable? https://www.twitch.tv/pvtcb/v/49403421 was 8 minutes faster... Judging by the splits, even that run seemed to be 25 min off the previous run in various parts (might partly have to do with the "floating nature" of using monuments as split points?).

Overall, I don't quite get this to add up. It might be a good run, with many things going right compared to most attempts, but it can clearly be pushed much lower (since there is a several minutes faster run already). In summary, I don't see this run as a good fit for the site.

~~Reject (unless someone can address my questions)~~
Accept (after some light was shed on the questions I had)

A/V: Good

Legit: Looks like it.

Gameplay: Ok, wow, this game is a bit special...

[quote="Run comments"]I'm not going to delve into detail about what happened in this run because I think a lot of Doshin's charm is from not understanding what the hell is going on.[/quote]
I admit that this worked around 5 minutes for me. Then the "seemingly random picking up of trees in one spot and then throwing it a bit further away" and "ad hoc dribbling with an invisible basket ball" took its toll... So I decided to read up on how this game is played. Despite being obscure and all that, the game is documented well enough and it appears to be fairly simplistic once the basic mechanics have been understood. I'd like to think that I'm now knowledgeable enough about the game to know most of what is going on in the run.

[quote="Run comments"]Nothing goes as planned in this game and half the mechanics don't even work, but you can be prepared for when the game inevitably screws you over.[/quote]
[quote="Run comments"]Everything was executed well[/quote]
Without having played the game, I can still easy see how the controls are pretty terrible and how the game has a will of its own in terms of what you pick up, where you're allowed to walk etc. Considering the nature of the game, getting something that looks like clean execution is therefore pretty unlikely. As expected, there are also more than a few execution mistakes throughout the run (some of them possibly not counting though, because I probably couldn't always tell if there were periods of downtime while waiting for various events). I'd still say that the execution didn't look exceptional by any means.

[quote="Run comments"]with phenomenal RNG until Day 3, at which point Yellow Monument completed but didnft register. I had to spend a lot of the day recovering Yellow Village and killed time while I was waiting for the Tower of Babel and Rocket to build (losing me about 4 minutes).[/quote]
This is kind of the critical point. I buy that RNG plays a big role in the game, but what elements were so phenomenal that it counter-balanced a 4-minute loss and execution that, if not directly poor, at least looked improvable? https://www.twitch.tv/pvtcb/v/49403421 was 8 minutes faster... Judging by the splits, even that run seemed to be 25 min off the previous run in various parts (might partly have to do with the "floating nature" of using monuments as split points?).

Overall, I don't quite get this to add up. It might be a good run, with many things going right compared to most attempts, but it can clearly be pushed much lower (since there is a several minutes faster run already). In summary, I don't see this run as a good fit for the site.

[s]Reject (unless someone can address my questions)[/s]
Accept (after some light was shed on the questions I had)

PvtCb

2016-08-29 03:24:55 am

This is not the giant

The 1:14 has a lot of issues, mainly; that it doesn't even finish the game and was run on a softmodded Wii that was forcing PAL 60 (which this game doesn't have native support of and which speeds up several things tremendously).

Also, I can't stress how much of this game is RNG. The fact that I didn't get a single instance of a village not changing color when it needed to change color is phenomenal and rarely happens.

ktwo

2016-08-30 02:40:19 pm

I see, that makes more sense. Thanks for the reply. I have changed my reply a bit then. Let's keep this open for another week though, in case someone else strolls in here and decides to take a look as well.

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2016-09-05 06:28:55 am

LotBlind: 2016-09-05 06:24:57 am

LotBlind: 2016-09-03 04:18:11 am

2016-09-02 03:37:06 am

If there wasn't a video to back it up, I'd think the run notes were 100% troll and this game didn't actually exist. You can leave stuff out of the final published notes but for the verification, it's impossible to verify a run if you don't understand it. I read the IGN walkthrough though and what is explained helps too.

26:20 You've been raising and lowering that little piece of land. So there was nothing else to do to help it even slightly? Like moving a tree a bit? Or getting the villager sooner?

There's other downtimes elsewhere that I'd like to extend that question to... why can't you start preparing the next flower? Is it because you have to be near monuments to get them to build faster?

What happens when the day changes exactly? You get shown some statistics clearly, but why does the game boot you back to the main menu? I guess it's to discourage playing for too long.

39:45 Here you were waiting for the village to turn blue-green instead of BGY, but why aren't you moving closer to the hairpin as you're waiting? Why haven't you already picked it up when it's happened?
41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?

I have the feeling you could've been a little bit less conservative with turning into Jashin. It didn't seem like you were ever close to getting unwanted skull growth. How many skulls does it take to make hate monuments though?

Which drops do you mainly want to see from boxes?

59:19 - You accidentally destroy a structure by placing another one on top of it. Is there any chance that's the best way to do it?

59:50 - Again, is there really nothing you could be doing?

What's all that extra menuing at the start of day 3? I don't see any mention in the notes.

Why did the yellow monument not register? Did it complete in the night, couldn't you have postponed it them? And why does Y village hate you so much when you go over?

1:07:30 - this is some of the most humorous stuff I've even seen in a speedrun Cheesy

How do you know how close you have to be to a monument so it builds at max speed? Do you have to have it in your direct line of sight or just in the same area?

1:16:30 - So why is there another one of these monuments here? It's a hate one isn't it?
1:17:22 - here you're clearly a little bit late with delivering that flower, because you stopped to mess with the building.

Could you not ever have used Jashin's fireballs to snipe monuments at a distance instead of lugging the hairpin around?

Why can't you prepare flowers by placing 6 trees next to each other, not just 5?

A shame you can't always be big enough to do those giant leaps as Jashin. It seems you're also hovering?

1:23:10 - Why don't you jump straight towards the trees at first?
1:23:40 - You accidentally fall off? :/
1:26:00 - Why do the flowers keep withering? Is that programmed into this area?
1:26:48 - I don't think this is a forced error either. Your choice of trees is not good AFAICS. Also if you had used the tree that was most central in the new formation as the center of the next flower spawner, were you afraid a tree would block the construction?
1:28:13 - How did you know which side the flower had spawned when it wasn't in sight? Is there some rule to that?
1:35:05 - Was the monument building a little bit slower because 2 guys were stuck?

Is there multiple endings to this game?

If there wasn't a video to back it up, I'd think the run notes were 100% troll and this game didn't actually exist. You can leave stuff out of the final published notes but for the verification, it's impossible to verify a run if you don't understand it. I read the IGN walkthrough though and what is explained helps too.

26:20 You've been raising and lowering that little piece of land. So there was nothing else to do to help it even slightly? Like moving a tree a bit? Or getting the villager sooner?

There's other downtimes elsewhere that I'd like to extend that question to... why can't you start preparing the next flower? Is it because you have to be near monuments to get them to build faster?

What happens when the day changes exactly? You get shown some statistics clearly, but why does the game boot you back to the main menu? I guess it's to discourage playing for too long.

39:45 Here you were waiting for the village to turn blue-green instead of BGY, but why aren't you moving closer to the hairpin as you're waiting? Why haven't you already picked it up when it's happened?
41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?

I have the feeling you could've been a little bit less conservative with turning into Jashin. It didn't seem like you were ever close to getting unwanted skull growth. How many skulls does it take to make hate monuments though?

Which drops do you mainly want to see from boxes?

59:19 - You accidentally destroy a structure by placing another one on top of it. Is there any chance that's the best way to do it?

59:50 - Again, is there really nothing you could be doing?

What's all that extra menuing at the start of day 3? I don't see any mention in the notes.

Why did the yellow monument not register? Did it complete in the night, couldn't you have postponed it them? And why does Y village hate you so much when you go over?

1:07:30 - this is some of the most humorous stuff I've even seen in a speedrun :D

How do you know how close you have to be to a monument so it builds at max speed? Do you have to have it in your direct line of sight or just in the same area?

1:16:30 - So why is there another one of these monuments here? It's a hate one isn't it?
1:17:22 - here you're clearly a little bit late with delivering that flower, because you stopped to mess with the building.

Could you not ever have used Jashin's fireballs to snipe monuments at a distance instead of lugging the hairpin around?

Why can't you prepare flowers by placing 6 trees next to each other, not just 5?

A shame you can't always be big enough to do those giant leaps as Jashin. It seems you're also hovering?

1:23:10 - Why don't you jump straight towards the trees at first?
1:23:40 - You accidentally fall off? :/
1:26:00 - Why do the flowers keep withering? Is that programmed into this area?
1:26:48 - I don't think this is a forced error either. Your choice of trees is not good AFAICS. Also if you had used the tree that was most central in the new formation as the center of the next flower spawner, were you afraid a tree would block the construction?
1:28:13 - How did you know which side the flower had spawned when it wasn't in sight? Is there some rule to that?
1:35:05 - Was the monument building a little bit slower because 2 guys were stuck?

Is there multiple endings to this game?

LotBlind

2016-09-05 06:26:27 am

Updated the above post.

PvtCb

2016-09-07 12:10:20 pm

This is not the giant

Hey, sorry for getting to this late.

LotBlind, to answer most of your questions, things in this game don't work well/consistently. This game is way more finicky than it should be and there's not much you can do to prepare for it because your size is variable. I'll answer some of the important questions.

Quote from LotBlind:

26:20 You've been raising and lowering that little piece of land. So there was nothing else to do to help it even slightly? Like moving a tree a bit? Or getting the villager sooner?

Not really. I was leveling this spot because RV sometimes extends to here and I didn't see anything else to do.

Quote from LotBlind:

There's other downtimes elsewhere that I'd like to extend that question to... why can't you start preparing the next flower? Is it because you have to be near monuments to get them to build faster?

I could prepare a flower by placing 6 trees together, but chances are that a flower would appear when I don't want one. Being close to monuments also plays a role but it's not as important as flowers coming out when you don't need them.

Quote from LotBlind:

What happens when the day changes exactly? You get shown some statistics clearly, but why does the game boot you back to the main menu? I guess it's to discourage playing for too long.

You get booted back to the main menu because the game needs to slightly change the whole map terrain. Doshin also despawns and respawns at the hairpin with the lowest height.

Quote from LotBlind:

39:45 Here you were waiting for the village to turn blue-green instead of BGY, but why aren't you moving closer to the hairpin as you're waiting? Why haven't you already picked it up when it's happened?

This was a play mistake.

Quote from LotBlind:

41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?

Exactly

Quote from LotBlind:

I have the feeling you could've been a little bit less conservative with turning into Jashin. It didn't seem like you were ever close to getting unwanted skull growth. How many skulls does it take to make hate monuments though?

It's not the hate monuments that are a problem so much as that when you get too much hate, the villagers tear down buildings and build stuff like cannons or statues of Doshin getting impaled by a giant spike and they won't do anything else until they finish these new buildings. I've seen villages get razed to the ground and the people still love me; I've also seen villages lose one person and decide I'm the antichrist. It's not very consistent.

Quote from LotBlind:

Which drops do you mainly want to see from boxes?

Trees in 90% of cases, but I shoot for villagers every now and then.

Quote from LotBlind:

59:50 - Again, is there really nothing you could be doing?

You underestimate how much of this game is waiting around.

Quote from LotBlind:

What's all that extra menuing at the start of day 3? I don't see any mention in the notes.

If the Y monument registered, I would have seen it in the monument list.

Quote from LotBlind:

Why did the yellow monument not register? Did it complete in the night, couldn't you have postponed it them? And why does Y village hate you so much when you go over?

I tried to get there to stop it but I was too late. They hate me because I took people from them and sometimes that causes hate.

As for the rocket island, it's all set time from when you wake the villagers up by being next to them. I was goofing around and showing how bad this game works every now and then.

Hey, sorry for getting to this late.

LotBlind, to answer most of your questions, things in this game don't work well/consistently. This game is way more finicky than it should be and there's not much you can do to prepare for it because your size is variable. I'll answer some of the important questions.

[quote="LotBlind"]26:20 You've been raising and lowering that little piece of land. So there was nothing else to do to help it even slightly? Like moving a tree a bit? Or getting the villager sooner?[/quote]
Not really. I was leveling this spot because RV sometimes extends to here and I didn't see anything else to do.

[quote="LotBlind"]There's other downtimes elsewhere that I'd like to extend that question to... why can't you start preparing the next flower? Is it because you have to be near monuments to get them to build faster?[/quote]
I [i]could[/i] prepare a flower by placing 6 trees together, but chances are that a flower would appear when I don't want one. Being close to monuments also plays a role but it's not as important as flowers coming out when you don't need them.

[quote="LotBlind"]What happens when the day changes exactly? You get shown some statistics clearly, but why does the game boot you back to the main menu? I guess it's to discourage playing for too long.[/quote]
You get booted back to the main menu because the game needs to slightly change the whole map terrain. Doshin also despawns and respawns at the hairpin with the lowest height.

[quote="LotBlind"]39:45 Here you were waiting for the village to turn blue-green instead of BGY, but why aren't you moving closer to the hairpin as you're waiting? Why haven't you already picked it up when it's happened?[/quote]
This was a play mistake.

[quote="LotBlind"]41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?[/quote]
Exactly

[quote="LotBlind"]I have the feeling you could've been a little bit less conservative with turning into Jashin. It didn't seem like you were ever close to getting unwanted skull growth. How many skulls does it take to make hate monuments though?[/quote]
It's not the hate monuments that are a problem so much as that when you get too much hate, the villagers tear down buildings and build stuff like cannons or statues of Doshin getting impaled by a giant spike and they won't do anything else until they finish these new buildings. I've seen villages get razed to the ground and the people still love me; I've also seen villages lose one person and decide I'm the antichrist. It's not very consistent.

[quote="LotBlind"]Which drops do you mainly want to see from boxes?[/quote]
Trees in 90% of cases, but I shoot for villagers every now and then.

[quote="LotBlind"]59:50 - Again, is there really nothing you could be doing?[/quote]
You underestimate how much of this game is waiting around.

[quote="LotBlind"]What's all that extra menuing at the start of day 3? I don't see any mention in the notes.[/quote]
If the Y monument registered, I would have seen it in the monument list.

[quote="LotBlind"]Why did the yellow monument not register? Did it complete in the night, couldn't you have postponed it them? And why does Y village hate you so much when you go over?[/quote]
I tried to get there to stop it but I was too late. They hate me because I took people from them and sometimes that causes hate.

As for the rocket island, it's all set time from when you wake the villagers up by being next to them. I was goofing around and showing how bad this game works every now and then.

LotBlind

2016-09-08 04:05:54 am

Rocket island: You mean it's set time after you've handed them the flower? Or from the moment their A.I. has activated?

Is there a chance you could answer the other questions too at some point?

ktwo

2016-09-08 09:34:50 am

Quote:

Quote from LotBlind:

41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?

Exactly

This was probably my favorite moment in the run. I had a hard time holding back my laughter here. The bird circling around with its mocking calls was pretty fitting to the whole situation as well.

Just gonna pick a few questions that (I think) I know the answer to.

Quote from LotBlind:

Rocket island: You mean it's set time after you've handed them the flower? Or from the moment their A.I. has activated?

The flower isn't needed to build a monument. However, if you don't give the villagers a flower before it's too late, they will not build the desired monument. So the way I understand this part is that the aliens start building the monument when the level begins. As long as you give them a flower some time before it's finished, you'll get the rocket. But that's pretty much the only action required from you in the last level, so goofing around doesn't matter.

Quote from LotBlind:

1:26:00 - Why do the flowers keep withering? Is that programmed into this area?

This is a game mechanic. There can only be one flower at any time. If you create more flowers (by gathering 7 trees together), the new one will wither. Once you give the flower to the villagers, you can however create a new one. All of what's happening here is therefore without importance for the run. It's just goofing around while waiting for the rocket to be built. This ties in to the "only gathering 5 trees and not 6". If you have 6 trees together and another one randomly spawns, you'll suddenly get a flower somewhere, but without knowing it or where it is. Since the map of the base game is huge, this would be disastrous. So next time you'd try to make a flower, it would just wither away until you found where the flower was.

Quote from LotBlind:

Is there multiple endings to this game?

Only one ending.

[quote][quote="LotBlind"]41:00 Here it looks like you're loitering about but were you really trying to grab a red all along with the game not letting you?[/quote]
Exactly[/quote]
This was probably my favorite moment in the run. I had a hard time holding back my laughter here. The bird circling around with its mocking calls was pretty fitting to the whole situation as well.

Just gonna pick a few questions that (I think) I know the answer to.

[quote="LotBlind"]Rocket island: You mean it's set time after you've handed them the flower? Or from the moment their A.I. has activated?
[/quote]
The flower isn't needed to build a monument. However, if you don't give the villagers a flower before it's too late, they will not build the desired monument. So the way I understand this part is that the aliens start building the monument when the level begins. As long as you give them a flower some time before it's finished, you'll get the rocket. But that's pretty much the only action required from you in the last level, so goofing around doesn't matter.

[quote="LotBlind"]1:26:00 - Why do the flowers keep withering? Is that programmed into this area?[/quote]
This is a game mechanic. There can only be one flower at any time. If you create more flowers (by gathering 7 trees together), the new one will wither. Once you give the flower to the villagers, you can however create a new one. All of what's happening here is therefore without importance for the run. It's just goofing around while waiting for the rocket to be built. This ties in to the "only gathering 5 trees and not 6". If you have 6 trees together and another one randomly spawns, you'll suddenly get a flower somewhere, but without knowing it or where it is. Since the map of the base game is huge, this would be disastrous. So next time you'd try to make a flower, it would just wither away until you found where the flower was.

[quote="LotBlind"]Is there multiple endings to this game?[/quote]
Only one ending.

SDAVerification

2016-09-13 03:38:10 pm

Decision posted.