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[R^2]

So I tried downloading the Minecraft demo because I want to be merely late to the party and not miss out on what I gather some of you cool kids are still doing.

Turns out Minecraft runs at about .3 to .5 fps on my computer. I've seen $200 budget machines at Wal-Mart with better specs than what I've got, so this is no great surprise, but still.

So I'm all like "Minecraft why u no have any low-resource options" and Minecraft is all


But there's a game that's pretty well close to the same thing, only in nice 2D.




So first we generate a character. Stoic bald black men are rather underrepresented in video games, don't you think?


Then we randomly generate a world. I'll stick with a small one for now.


I ran the game and dicked around for a couple hours to make sure everything worked okay, but beyond finding some basic copper and iron ores, I didn't accomplish much. This is a blind LP, I'm avoiding spoilers and game guides in the spirit of exploration.


Generation takes a while.


That doesn't sound good. Also listed are "Making world evil", and on a lighter note, both "Putting rocks in dirt" and shortly after, "Putting dirt in rocks".


And here we are! A small patch of bare stone, a bunch of trees, and an NPC walking back and forth.

[R^2]

I think his name is Kyle or something. He's sort of an introductory guide to the game, and gives you some basic help on game concepts and how to craft stuff. Among the things he tells you are:
- Use axes on trees, picks on dirt and stone, and hammers on background elements. Chopping trees for wood is a good place to start on your own shelter.
- You can craft a few things yourself, but for any more you'll need a wooden workbench.
- Kill slimes for gel, combine wood and gel for torches.
- Underground are "Crystal Hearts" that extend your life. You need a hammer to get them.
- If you gather Fallen Stars, which appear randomly at night and disappear at dawn, you can increase your magic capacity. My magic capacity is currently 0 so hey why not.
- If you build homes, people will move into them. Homes need to be completely enclosed in walls, with a source of light, a door, a chair, and a table. (Beds are apparently somewhat advanced crafting.)




There's nothing that pauses the advance of time in this game, so while I'm talking, we get attacked by a slime. A few stabs with my copper shortsword is enough to kill it, but the controls for the game are awkward enough that I take a few needless hits anyway.

That numerical menu at the top is the quick-selection bar, allowing you to press a number key to switch between tools. Only the bar across the top of the keyboard works, the number pad doesn't. As a left-handed player who remapped the movement controls to the arrow keys instead of WASD, this seems needlessly cumbersome.


Kyle, or whatever his name is, resumes his lesson.
- Only one person will live in a home. Merchants will appear if you have at least 50 silver coins. Nurses move in if you increase your life maximum. Arms dealers appear if you have a gun. Defeating a strong monster will attract a dryad. A demolitionist can do something with explosives I find.
- Make a grappling hook from three chains and a hook. Skellingtons tend to carry hooks.
- Smashing a shadow orb can make meteors fall. Shadow orbs are found in "corrupt" areas.


Well, let's get started.


In a shocking change from Minecraft, chopping the base out from under a tree destroys the entire tree, showering you with useable wood and a couple acorns.


The local wildlife are not smart enough to keep their distance from you while you are swinging your axe or pick around.


Mind the falling wood beams and flying chunks of dismembered rabbit.


Good a spot as any, I suppose.

[R^2]

From what I've seen of monster movement, there's no reason not to have your abode float in the air, only enterable from the top or bottom. In this case I wall myself completely off while I do my first crafting, so the monsters don't bother me. I don't know if zombies can open (or smash) doors in.


This is the crafting interface. Rather than placing materials on a grid and letting the shape of them determine what's made, you just choose what you want from a list. The list automatically includes items you have materials to make, determined by what sort of crafting furniture you're standing by. First up: a workbench.


Plunk. Now we're standing by some crafting furniture, so there's more options available.


I fill in the back walls of my little shed.


Which keeps out the natural light, which is waning anyway as sunset approaches. It is dark, something something grue.




Better.


My first attempts at a hammer end up with a randomly-assigned trait! And that trait is "Broken", making the hammer kind of terrible.


My second attempt also lands a trait, this time a good one.


Excuse me wtf are you doing

Down on the ground there, hard to see in the lack of daylight, is my axe. Somehow in closing a menu not only did I accidentally drop it, but it phased through the wall of my shed and fell to the ground outside.

Here's the problem:

I NEED THAT AXE TO GET OUT OF MY SHED

Wood is destroyed by axes, even if you've placed it yourself. Swords, hammers, and picks won't break apart the shed walls. And now my axe, through bug or glitch or my own careless ignorance, is well outside my reach. You can't make a wooden axe on a workbench, and I don't have any of the metal I need to make a new one.

I'm stuck.

[R^2]

I quit and reload, which respawns me on the same patch of rock in the previous-forest as before. (I don't know if it's possible to reset my spawn point.) So I'm out, but in reloading the gameworld, my axe disappeared. I'm axeless.




But not swordless, which is good news when the zombies start wandering in. Somehow a wooden sword has a better attack arc and does more damage than a copper one.


Well, let's get digging.




Pictured: the least surprising Steam alert ever.


There was a small copper vein here, but I found that pretty much by luck, have no decent leads in this hole, and didn't find enough to do much with.


I also get attacked by a Demon Eye, which fly around in lazy arcs and loops and do surprisingly large amounts of damage when they hit.


Without any better leads, I keep digging, and find some iron ore too. Kyle falls into the pit, so I walled him off.


I craft a new work bench here in my impromptu mine, and use it to build a furnace.




With a furnace I can smelt my copper and iron ores into useable ingots... but not enough to do anything useful with.


Digging at random isn't doing me much good, so I go off in search of a natural cavern. Instead I find a lake.


I build a bridge across.


Good a spot as any. Let's play Spelunky!

[R^2]

Just a few steps in and I've found another copper vein. I have to put down some wooden platforms to reach it.


Not bad.


I tear down my scaffolding before I go, though.


Just in the other direction, iron and copper.


A jar! You can break these open to collect the items inside.


Like this one.




Breaking through the wall here reveals a much larger cavern. There's a chest on the other side, so I break open the nearby jar for the copper coins inside and leap across.




Opening the chest reveals several items inside, including nine iron bars!


And a spear. It's stronger than my sword, so.


A little experimentation indicates that you always stab towards the mouse cursor. I can aim!


Finally, I hammer the chest off the ground and take it with me. Hey, free chest.


Fighting with the mouse and keyboard in tandem proves tricky.


And I'm eventually knocked into the shaft leading down, well out of the range of my torch.


Much better. And I landed on some clay, which I mine out.


As I finish, a Demon Eye starts bumping into the walls I built to keep monsters out. Seems like it's workAAAAGH


Note: sometimes Demon Eyes get lucky and find the one wooden platform in your wall, and fly through it.


It's as close to a motherlode as I've seen so far! I might have enough to do something useful, so I don't explore any further for now.




And as I exit, there's a Fallen Star right there by the entrance. (The copper coins are zombie loot.)


But being outside at night is a good way to get mobbed by monsters. I'm killed, which in this difficulty mode drops all your money. In harder modes, death deletes your character instead.

[R^2]

I respawn, next to another Fallen Star and the original pit I dug.


With enough iron bars, I can make an anvil.


And with an anvil, I can craft metal items. Like axes! I have an axe! I'm right back where I was at the start of the game!


I hammer up my anvil, workbench, and furnace, and carry them out of the pit.


Ah, that's better. Just needed a little work and a few holes in the walls for access, and it's almost like home.


Speaking of homes...




DO YOU MIND I AM WORKING HERE




I put a little flag on the wall indicating that apartment is for Kyle.

The big one with the stone armor statue and flowerpot is mine, of course. Or would be, if I could figure out how to make it thus.

[R^2]

On my way back across the lake, I pick up my dropped money and... my own tombstone. Not sure what it might be used for, but eh.


I don't have any way to deal with water yet, so deep pools are an effective dead end. I hope this stuff I just broke out of the wall doesn't pool anywhere I need to go.


Neat.


I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to do that.


Shit, a giant worm. This screencap was taken after he'd already hit me a few times, these guys are basically Demon Eyes that are much faster and can move through solid objects.


Found some sand.


And an underground lake.


And some mud.


And some silver. Neat.


...water!


I could swim my way out, I think.


Instead I bust through the wall and drain the lake I saw beWHWHHHARRHRHRAHHAHHGPGGHAHHRHRGPH pff pff pff pff CHRIST that's cold.

Anyway, having reached a dead-end, I backtrack back up the main shaft.


And find another chest.


Whoever left these behind sure was fond of spears and unworked iron bars.


You can get the hell out of my apartment.

[R^2]

Silver ingots!


I haven't even met these guys yet, but since they're present I can assign them homes.


Milton has a helmet that provides light for sale. I totally want one; planting torches is getting tedious. But it costs gold coins, I don't have any gold yet, and there doesn't appear to be a gold<->silver<->copper conversion rate. (Other than the craft bench, which lets you turn one silver coin into 100 coppers.)


I craft a lamppost, to add a little style to my apartment building entrance.


This is why exploring at night is bad, kids. So many monsters.

[R^2]

I'll spend the night in relative safety, crafting things instead. Sand equals glass equals glass walls equals a nice window in my apartment.


A zombie also drops a shackle, my first piece of defensive gear. It means I take slightly less damage and swing weapons infinitesimally faster.


Where I died last: a sunflower patch.


Just in case sunflowers on the surface indicate something nice belowground, I dig up the flowers and mine a little hole. But there's nothing.


There's another cave further along, though. It's full of cobwebs, which slow you down if you move through them but are easily broken. And collected, although I can't imagine what they might be used for.


I am eventually knocked down a shaft and slain when I hit bottom. Falling damage is very much a thing.

[R^2]

Rather than walk halfway across the world map (I have no idea if it's actually halfway, but it's a schlep), I just start digging straight down from the spawn point. Maybe I'll find something nice, and if I die, the only way to go to get back to where I was is down.


It's a long way down, though. This is an empty pocket, but serves as the only screencapworthy thing on the way so far.


Another underground spring. It's almost imperceptible in the screenshot, but the plant over there is glowing softly.





A gargoyle statue.


And a poison dart trap.






That ore is glowing.


I find some topaz on the way to it.


My copper pickaxe isn't enough to break it, though. I'll have to come back with better equipment.


Found some gold, though.


Which I smelt into bars, which in turn cannot be minted into coins.


Falling star right outside.


I've gotten plenty of stone and clay, enough to build another better structure -- or most of one, at least -- out of bricks. I don't know if there's any reason to do that other than "style", but hey, why not?

And that's as far as I got on my first play. I might have gotten further if I didn't drop my axe like some sort of moron, though!

What's next, folks? Other than "more mining". That's a given.

[R^2]

I've picked up quite a few Fallen Stars in my travels thus far -- thirteen in all -- so I can combine ten of them into a Mana Crystal.


I don't have any magic to spend mana on yet, but whaddyagonnado


Back down to where the yellow slimes splash about. I haven't worked out what differently colored slimes are for, since all of them seem to behave about the same and all drop gel and copper coins when defeated. Might be a linear HP/defense growth and that's it.






I drain the lake barring my path downward into another lake, finding a small deposit of amethyst for my trouble.


The screencaps don't pick it up very well, but this plant gives off a soft light.


Onward and downward. I must be making progress, the background music changed.






I break through a wall into what is a very large cavern. You can tell just by how far the little beam of light through the hole goes.


Well, there's a slime that does something unusual. Black slimes interfere with your vision, making light sources less effective for several seconds. That's the status countdown timer in the top left.


You can't swing the sword in anything but an overhead arc. Which makes it difficult to fight enemies downhill from you. Should've brought my spear.

[R^2]

I did find rather a lot of ore on my way down there, though. I craft myself some new equipment before I return. Golden sword and silver pickaxe (which for some reason are more effective than iron despite metallurgical realities), chainmail, and a... well, a bucket worn as a helmet. Don't judge me.


Goldfish are collectible items. You can eat them for an HP restore. The description says "It's smiling, perhaps it would make a nice snack?"


I can't pry this out of the wall even with a new pickaxe. Tough stuff.


This is indeed a large cavern.


Good stuff in the walls, though. Well, rare stuff. Well, stuff I haven't seen much of yet.


Tough monsters, though. Skellingtons make the same sound as a stone wall when you hit them.


Silt, like sand, falls when subjected to gravity. I learned this when some fell on my head and hurt me.


She's a bad mothaSHUT YO MOUTH. But I'm just talkin' 'bout that giant slime that splits into four black slimes when you kill it!


Every time I knock down a wall, there's another giant cavern behind it. Unfortunately at this point I had to go to work, so it'll be tough finding my way back to this exact spot.

[R^2]

Spawned topside, I make myself some metal pants for extra pants-protection.


Oooh, glowy spot.


It's a bit dank in here, but the mushrooms that grow in this sort of area glow. So does the lichen on the walls, which can't be harvested but does go away if you break the block it's attached to. The more you mine this place out, the darker it gets.


Numerous monsters, though.


Returning, I get chased by several skellingtons. None of them have dropped that hook Kyle told me about, though.


You can chop down the giant mushrooms to get lots of... little mushrooms. Weak! I wanted to build a house out of giant glowy mushroom lumber.


Traps! This place is really dangerous.


I harvest the pressure plates for my own foul means, then I build a bridge over to the dart launchers and take those too. I wonder if I can set up antizombie security measures in my fort up topside.


My bridge effectively makes a big cistern across the top of the cavern, so I spend the next hour or so draining lakes into it to mine out the dry lakebeHRRHHRRHRHRAARHRHRAHRRRHGGGH that's cold!


I get the feeling this is going to happen a lot.

[Stush]

I know it's a balance thing, but i'm always amused by how [spoiler]gold bars sell for less than a gold coin.[/spoiler]

[R^2]

Falling Stars gonna fall. I actually saw this one fall out of the sky; they make a squelching sound when they land.


"Can Mine Meteorite"? That sounds promising.


...um. I've not heard of this before. Am I collecting Cthulhu's body parts to reassemble him in R'lyeh so I can murder him again and remove his curse? Is that the game plot?


I was already playing by the time Stush posted his comment, but this was the point I realized you can sell things by dragging them into a shop's inventory. I had enough Copper bars to make those worth selling (Copper being kind of useless now), but like Stush said, an ingot of solid gold is worth a measly twelve silver coins.


Aha! I can mine out this stuff n-- that's not a Meteorite. That's not a Meteorite at all. Suddenly I don't want this very much.


I hope water pumps are a thing I can build in the future. Draining lakes is kind of fun but it gets a bit tedious.


Nice visual effect though.


I've fallen to my death here before, but didn't get a good look around. This stuff is new. It's too hard to mine out, though, even with a gold pickaxe.


Ew. These guys are kind of hard, since they attack by ramming, their aim is better than a Demon Eye, and they have more HP.


A tiny desert, with the requisite saguaro, followed immediately by a purple-tinted biome.


The sky gets noticeably darker as I go over here. Those purple strands in my way are thorn bushes; they can't be harvested but can be destroyed -- which is good, since they hurt.


Hmm. Giant pit of unmineable ore, and more of those nasty flying monsters.


Guess I'll go somewhere else.

[R^2]

Fiery torches are useless underwater, but glowsticks aren't. Which is good, because water is dark.


...a wooden structure with a door?


And walls made of a new material. I'm not entirely sure if it's right that my first impression upon finding a new place is "hey, new stuff. Break it down!"


Two statues and a golden chest. Ooh, shiny.


Double jump? Yes plz


And as usual, the next thing I take is the chest itself.


Zombies cannot open doors, it turns out.


About eight slimes appeared while I was exploring the little structure here. Since attacking downward is such a pain, I chuck a grenade at them.


SKLORTCH

Goodness, that was immensely satisfying.


I found some more of those weird "Inactive Stone Blocks". I wonder what they're for.


OMG YES PLZ

Now I know what all the Fallen Stars are for.


Double jump in action.


One chest had a cloud in a bottle, the other had the magic mirror. I plunk them down beside one another and unload all my loot. With four chests I can be a little organized; I end up with one holding furnishings I haven't used yet, one holds seeds and plants, one holds ores and metals, and one holds weapons I'm not using.


Two fallen stars at once?


I have no reason to need 40 mana at once, since the Magic Mirror isn't something I'll be using so often my magic doesn't have time to recharge between uses, but hey. More magic. Who knows what I'll find next?


The shopkeepers will take 100 coins of a smaller denomination to give one coin of a larger denomination. So 100 coppers -> 1 silver, and 100 silvers -> 1 gold.

[R^2]

You've heard of Gaia's Navel? I think this is Gaia's Cleavage.


Another big lake.


With more of that scuzzy purple stuff on the other side. I turn back and explore some of the caves beneath Gaia's Cleavage.


A blowpipe. I assumed seeds were for planting, but I guess you can huck them at enemies too.


Another underground structu-- oh. No, it's the same structure, approached from the opposite side.


With an overburdened inventory, I magic myself back home.


Angel Statue? I don't have one, but apparently they're either highly sought after or, judging from the last half of his comment, crap.

Anyway, I've finally saved up enough golds to buy that Mining Helmet.


...which does not work as advertised.


...because I had everything equipped into the wrong slot. Apparently "Social" items on the left just determine what your character looks like, and you have to put things in the column on the right for them to actually work. No wonder my armor didn't seem like it was doing much to keep me alive. It wasn't!


This thing is awesome. I still drop torches to mark places I've explored, but don't have to constantly hold one wherever I go.


We meet at last, sir!




aww yisss


I immediately find either a highly-sought-after item or a piece of crap.


And an accessory that speeds my innate health regeneration and boosts my damage output a smidge.


This stuff is a little easier to find this deep down.


why hello there


omghai2u2


...dood.


I smelt my ore into a bar that pulses with energy. Despite that sounding like a tagline for a processed whey protein snack, I refrain from eating it.


Unfortunately, I don't have enough Demonite to craft the next level of gear, and all of the stuff I can craft is the same as I've seen since I started collecting gold. There's nothing for it, I'm going to have to look something up.

[Classic]

No! Just summon a shit-tonne of shopkeepers! Maybe build an extrrravagant castle or something in the middle of mordor.

[R^2]

Shopkeepers can't be summoned, to my knowledge. NPCs show up as they feel like depending on things you've accomplished. I didn't screencap it, but getting life extensions summoned a Nurse, who will heal you for money. Why there is pay-to-heal in a game with natural regeneration I cannot say.

Anyway, I only have the one merchant. He sells the mining helmet, the piggy bank, and a bunch of crap I can make myself.

[Beat Bandit]

Enough seems to have changed from what you've seen so far on top of what I've just forgotten about this game to make the playthrough all new and exciting enough for me to consider replaying it.

That said, if you meant you were going to look for a guide to see where you should be focusing efforts right now [spoiler]your fortune lies in the corrupted lands[/spoiler].