Penny Arcade - PATV - First 15 – Tricky Towers

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Penny Arcade - PATV - First 15 – Tricky Towers

Gabe and Tycho play a game for 15 minutes and then judge it accordingly. This week they play Tricky Towers.

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sawells

I think we have another case where Mike's visual processing abilities lead him to effortless victory.

moonwaltz7

Anybody have insight into the Ziggurat and Robert Ziggurat (presumably not a real name) beef being referenced?

psycojester

Everytime I watch the guys try and understand a simple straightforward game I gain a greater insight into why games have to spoon feed information to you in tutorials like you're a cretin.

jerodast

Who else lost it when Mike screwed up the first "Finish Him" cap piece? I sure did

dennis

psycojester wrote: »

Everytime I watch the guys try and understand a simple straightforward game I gain a greater insight into why games have to spoon feed information to you in tutorials like you're a cretin.

Seems a bit harsh. Some games, I can see your point, though I have to say that you can't underestimate that they're to some degree "performing" - both for each other and for the camera - at the same time as playing. It's probably a distraction.

But on this one, I was right there with them on figuring out how the game worked. The game SEEMS to use Tetris style gameplay, but if you play it that way (which they did) you'll soon find out that's totally NOT the way to play it. I also thought they did a very good job of figuring out the spells as they used them.

DemonStacey

dennis wrote: »

psycojester wrote: »

Everytime I watch the guys try and understand a simple straightforward game I gain a greater insight into why games have to spoon feed information to you in tutorials like you're a cretin.

Seems a bit harsh. Some games, I can see your point, though I have to say that you can't underestimate that they're to some degree "performing" - both for each other and for the camera - at the same time as playing. It's probably a distraction.

But on this one, I was right there with them on figuring out how the game worked. The game SEEMS to use Tetris style gameplay, but if you play it that way (which they did) you'll soon find out that's totally NOT the way to play it. I also thought they did a very good job of figuring out the spells as they used them.

Well for this one it was really just their(especially Jerry holy crap) complete lack of understanding of basic physics time and time again.

Granted it was hilarious.

But damn they are some slow learners.

dennis

Again, don't really agree on this one. I think they got it, then things like the vines through them off. It became clear that the vines rooted stuff to other stuff, but that that whole thing was still affected by physics. This is as opposed to the mortar, which roots stuff to... air? Basically, it doesn't move.

I especially cut them some slack because as viewers we can look at the ENTIRE SCREEN and figure stuff out. They're having to deal with blocks dropping down and what their opponent is doing to mess them up. It's just way easier to learn while watching many types of games being played than to actually play them.

DemonStacey

dennis wrote: »

Again, don't really agree on this one. I think they got it, then things like the vines through them off. It became clear that the vines rooted stuff to other stuff, but that that whole thing was still affected by physics. This is as opposed to the mortar, which roots stuff to... air? Basically, it doesn't move.

I especially cut them some slack because as viewers we can look at the ENTIRE SCREEN and figure stuff out. They're having to deal with blocks dropping down and what their opponent is doing to mess them up. It's just way easier to learn while watching many types of games being played than to actually play them.

I mean... none of that explains stacking things 1-2 wide over and over and being surprised when it suddenly falls but ok.

Tube

It's much, much harder to play a game while speaking constantly and trying to be entertaining than it is to just play a game.

dennis

Tube wrote: »

It's much, much harder to play a game while speaking constantly and trying to be entertaining than it is to just play a game.

It's hard enough to just be entertaining when not even playing a game.

DemonStacey

Tube wrote: »

It's much, much harder to play a game while speaking constantly and trying to be entertaining than it is to just play a game.

I guess that's true, they may just be bad at that portion of it!

Tube

Refrain from being a jackass please

Artereis

I did like when Jerry went "Oh this is a race" and just held the down button more the majority of that match.

discrider

I think the play that needs to be made in the puzzle mode is rooting things off to the sides of the platforms.
Still the guys did good here in my opinion.
1/2 block towers are risk/reward especially in race mode.

Didn't like how the block speed up black magic in survival wiped Jerry that game.
When you're trying to balance everything, that black magic just seems killer.