| Name: | Don't Spare the Horses |
| Author: | Morsel |
| Added: | |
| Version History: | View |
| Demo: | No |
| Hall of Fame: | No |
| Length: | 8 exit(s) |
| Type: | Kaizo: Expert |
| Description: | 'Big Hand', the greatest traitor unhanged, the father of his country, George Washington, provided for the emancipation of his slaves in his will. An act of altruism, or conscience, or, the cynical might suppose, that of one with his eye on the changing wind of history? I stand with Montaigne, who, in Book the First, Chapter VII of his essays has it that, 'I have taken notice of several in my time, who, convicted by their consciences of unjustly detaining the goods of another, have endeavoured to make amends by their will, and after their decease; but they had as good do nothing, as either in taking so much time in so pressing an affair, or in going about to remedy a wrong with so little dissatisfaction or injury to themselves.' Unlike that 'ancient morsel,' Gonzalo, of The Tempest, I have not dragged Montaigne across my argument for mere devilment. Rather I must allow for the sense of ineffable miscellany that would threaten to bemire the player were he not aware of the sad origins of these levels. Yes, these were my prisoners and now: 'I shall miss thee: But yet thou shalt have freedom.' I apologise if you have met some of them before. The short of patience only have to know that I have made some too difficult levels as usual. v1.1 fixes some things (see zip). v1.2 'Experientia docet'; Louis also does it, as M. Doucet has convinced me to fix more things (see zip). |
| Tags: | asm love music |
| Comments: | 9 (jump to comments) |
| Rating: |
Download
312.78 KiB | 932 downloads
Comments (9)
"Intensive Mining" inspired me to take a few weeks off from ROM hacks (read: ragequit). The difficulty level of the midgame stages is about as high as anything I've played, noticeably harder than Elephants. That is due to extreme tightness and jank-adjacent mechanics and obstacles. One section is themed around avoiding collisions between your sticky-held shell and the enemies you're forced to cape spin (dodge the frame rule). Another section kills you for pressing B - but not for holding B - when on the ground, as well as for pausing at any time. You're only told directly about pausing, leaving you to take seemingly-inexplicable deaths when you press B at a wrong moment.
I was reminded at an early obstacle of "Intensive Mining" of the non-spawning Chuck in Dram World, for which Panga apologizes in a message box. There, as here, you have to move in a very specific way that is not visually clear for progress to be possible. You stumble around, try a bunch of different movements, die over and over, until you hit on the precise sequence that works, but there's no "aha, of course" moment. It just felt like luck.
That in a nutshell captures my complaints. Much of the difficulty here didn't feel rewarding. I didn't get the satisfying feeling of solving the level. Instead, I was determining through trial and error that I have to do these exact inputs to avoid dying. That may seem a distinction without a difference, but I feel a clear dividing line between them. For me, Don't Spare the Horses is over that line.
Pardon me sir, but Morsel has a good heart. I sincerely love the twist of this game.
PS: Happy birthday, le4che!
On a more serious note, I liked that this hack, much like your others, had a focus on references and allusions to the works of others and your own. However, rather than something like Luigi's Adventure or Hypers, referencing more contemporary works (and more modernish works of your own) I think was a pretty nice change of pace. If anything, I think this hack really shows how versatile of a level designer you are, and how comedic you can be when you so choose.