Interview 02 - Nick F

Hello, Playdate Community!

This week, Nick and Don take the week off to dig deep inside themselves emotionally, while Ryan is joined by Discord Leaderboard Hotshot, Nick F!  SO MANY NICKS.  They discuss protips and techniques for getting highscores on a variety of playdate hit games.  SEASON ONE SPOILERS ABOUND. Feel free to chime in on the socials with your own protips!  Thanks for listening.

Join us here (most other weeks) as we examine all of the Season Pass games, as well as discussing news and indie finds from the Playdate community.

NickF's *boopity-boop-boop* Tips and Techniques Notes

WHITEWATER WIPEOUT (8:19)

- Holding up immediately before leaving the wave lets you jump

  - You will see him shift closer to the back of the board

- Holding left or right allow you to spin faster

- Combos are created by landing at least the same amount of spins as the previous jump

  - However, can be maintained by switching between quads and trips.

- It is worth losing the combo to land the jump cleanly

  - Forcing that extra rotation will either cause you to wipe out, or leave you with too little speed to continue the combo on the next jump anyways

- Work to land triple 360s consistently before going for quads or quintuples

  - Muscle memory can be developed for number of crank rotations

- Quints likely best used at the end of a run as waves run out (due to need for extreme lead-up and recovery).

SNAK (24:24)

- Faster game modes result in faster score buildup (for those with differing attention spans)

- The game’s framerate may slow down if too many apples are on screen (particularly when climbing up the snake’s body)

  - The game’s framerate WILL slow down when the snake’s body gets too long

  - Helpful in faster levels! …But be mindful of adjusting your own (internal/perceived) rhythm of the game!

- There is a split second before crashing/dying where the player still has a chance to turn the snake (a la PacMan Championship DX)

  - Playing with the volume on will help, as the audio will also pause

- The jump mechanic has a distance of two rows/columns

- The snake can turn when doubling back on itself

  - The snake does not need to retrace its exact path (can cross lanes)

- The apples cannot climb on a section of the snake that has doubled back on itself (discussed in week 10 by Ryan)

  - Good way to stall them in place and pick them off 

- The 5-button thumb/circle/A motion is much easier to execute in Mirror

HYPER METEOR (42:54)

- Sometimes you can “spawn camp” an enemy to be in the white space before it begins to move

  - Mostly recommended for the larger meteors

- Take advantages of invincibility frames after a death to clear an overlapping cluster of enemies

- Increasing your combo is the primary method of increasing score

- Prioritizing destroying all the meteors on screen will also leave behind a greater number of smaller chunks to maintain combo between enemy spawns

- Leveling up is based on the playtime of the run, rather than amount of enemy kills or overall score

- Practice hitting enemies head-on/point-first. Gives more control over hitbox, as entire ship is a hitbox

- Take advantage of 180/360 degree turns to control momentum

- Circle enemies in the direction opposite their rotation to line up their weak spot

- Do not chase enemies, let them come to you

INVENTORY HERO (01:01:32)

- Against the Crowllector, use bombs as soon as possible

  - Subsequent rounds will require assembling more and more pieces of scrolls (halves, thirds, etc)

- The Crowllector will destroy equipped gear almost immediately

  - Hold a full suit of armor on and

- The spinning columns in the matching game stop one past the slot in which A is pressed

- Discard all rabbits as soon as they are obtained

  - There is a slight delay before multiplication

- Mushrooms will multiply in your inventory as well, albeit at a slower rate

  - Eat ones that restore health, discard ones that lose health

- Armor typically disintegrates before weapons

- Repair scrolls restore all equipped gear

- Do not hoard healing potions; they will be forcibly replaced by newly obtained items

NECROCRISIS (01:11:57)

- Mirror helps to see screen more easily during frantic cranking

- The enemy patterns are for the most part fixed (learn locations/spawns)

- Take the chance to reload after a screen before the next begins

- Enemies don’t always aim/shoot in the order which they appear on screen

- Place the cursor at a common height so you only need to move left and right

- Tweak the sensitivity to your liking (I use 12)

- PERSONAL PREFERENCE: using on Mirror gives you a bigger screen and eliminates the issue of screen shake

• Intro/Outro Music - Made with Boogie Loops on Playdate

Contact:

• Hello Playdate on Discord
• Hello Playdate on Instagram
• Hello Playdate on Twitter

• Playdatepodcast.com

• Indie Game of the Week Collection on itch.io
• Helloplaydatepodcast (at) gmail dot com
• Voice Mail - 1-(724)-BINGOS-1  (1-724-246-4671)
• Our Previous Podcast, Gaming On Ten
• For Amusement Only Podcast, Nick's EM Bingo and Pinball Podcast
• Game and Cast, Ryan's Handheld Gaming Podcast Series

Tags: video games, gaming, handheld, handhelds, panic, playdate, play, date, yellow, crank, gameboy, ds, pocket, videogames, nintendo, sega, xbox, playstation, sony, vita, psp, ngage, itch.io, Keita Takahashi, katamari