Topic: Super Meat Boy

[W7RE]

Official Site

I'm sure some of you have heard of this game, but for those who haven't: it's a platforming game where you play as a cube of meat. You avoid buzz saws and fire and other various obstacles while trying to get to Bandage Girl to rescue her. Dr. Fetus kidnapped her. (he's a fetus in a jar, wearing a suit) The game was made by a dev team of 2, and is out on XBLA, soon to be out on PC/Mac.

Here's a quote about the game from the official site:

Super Meat Boy is a game where you play as a boy without skin whos girlfriend who is made of bandages gets kidnapped by a fetus in a tuxedo wearing a top hat and a monocle.

Super Meat Boy features platforming madness spanning over 300 levels of saws, disease, fire, lasers, missiles, and various other traps that Meat Boy must avoid to rescue is lady love.

The game is setup in challenge style. Each level can be completed in as little as 2 seconds, or take as long as 30-45 seconds. You will die A LOT, but it feels so good when you complete a level. Levels score you based on time, so you may want to push for a fast time, which will require perfect execution.

Here's a badass gameplay montage.


XBLA version
Release Date: Oct 20

Playable Characters:

Gish - from Gish (sticks to walls)
Commander Video - from Bit.Trip.Runner (floats in a perfect horizontal line)
Alien Hominid - from Alien Hominid (boost jump/slow fall)
Ogmo - from Jumper (double jump)
Tim - from Braid. (rewind time)
Flywrench - from Flywrench (triple jump)
Spelunky - from Spelunky (explosive jump)
N the ninja - from N
Pink Knight - from Castle Crashers (flutter jump)
The Kid - from I Wanna Be The Guy (double jump)
Jill - from The Mighty Jill Off (air break/slow fall)
Meat Ninja (Teleport)
4-bit Game Boy Meat Boy
4-bit Meat Boy
8-bit Meat Boy



PC version
Release Date: Nov 30
PC version will have a level editor (not sure if it ships with one or not). The best levels made by fans will be added to the XBLA version through the "Internets" chapter.

Playable Characters (using this teaser picture and hoping I get the characters all right):
Commander Video - from Bit.Trip.Runner (floats in a perfect horizontal line)
Jill - from The Mighty Jill Off (air break/slow fall)
Ogmo - from Jumper (double jump)
Flywrench - from Flywrench (triple jump)
The Kid - from I Wanna Be The Guy (double jump)
Mr. Minecraft - from Minecraft
Captain Veridian - from VVVVVV
Josef - from Machinarium
Head Crab - from Half-Life (Steam version only, sticks to walls like Gish, but with a further horizontal jump)
Goo Ball - from World of Goo (non Steam versions for Pc and Mac, controls exactly like Gish)
unknown
unknown
Meat Ninja (Teleport)
4-bit Game Boy Meat Boy
4-bit Meat Boy
8-bit Meat Boy

I believe the way the characters work is that the ones from warp zones are for all platforms, and the ones unlock by collecting bandages are exclusive to each platform. I'm assuming he Meat Ninja and the Meat Boy variants will be in all versions too.



PC Retail version
-A 40-page booklet that is half-comic and half-sketchbook
-A mini-poster by Dave Rapoza
-The ability to play as Alien Hominid (formerly an Xbox-exclusive character)
-A digital soundtrack including songs by retro-maestro Danny B.
-The game itself (300+ stages, unlockable characters, a level editor, etc. etc. etc.)



Wii Version
Wii version CANCELLED

[W7RE]

XBLA Release date announced: Oct 20

[Quemaqua]

I remember being kinda' interested in this one.  Looking forward to a PC release as long as it isn't Steam-dependent.

[W7RE]

It's truly great to see small developers get so much attention at a show. One extreme example: a scantily clad booth professional confessed to me that they had to delete Super Meat Boy from some of the game systems because people kept getting out of other game demos to boot it up.

From Destructoid at PAX.

[W7RE]

Funny commentary over some gameplay

Basically showing exactly how the game plays.

[W7RE]

The creators (Edmund McMillon and Tommy Refenes) talk about controls, and how they need to feel just right.

Oh, and here's the first 14 minutes of the game.

[Quemaqua]

I'm really impressed by this.  Looking forward to hearing more about a PC release.

[W7RE]

50 minute long quick look on Giant Bomb

One of Brad's final comments is, "This is gonna be on my end of year list. It's that good."

[W7RE]

Super Meat Boy will be 33% cheaper for early buyers

While its price has been set at $15, early buyers will be rewarded with a 33 percent discount. From launch day until sometime in November, Super Meat Boy will be reduced to $10.

[Cobra951]

Super Meat Boy is an extremely difficult game. Make the slightest mistake and you'll have to restart the stage over from the beginning – there are no checkpoints. You might die a hundred times before you are finally reunited with Bandage Girl and the game gleefully keeps track of every death in the Statistics menu. It's such a tense experience my hands hurt after a while and I couldn't get a good grip on the controller any longer because of the sweat.

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/112/1128601p1.html

That's not the part of old-school gaming that I remember fondly.  Just the opposite.  I'll try this tomorrow, but I'm almost certain I won't be buying it, not even for $10.

[Xessive]

What's up with this notion that classic gaming = insanely difficult gaming?

Granted, we used to finish whole games in a single sitting without saving/loading back in the day (no way I could or would do that now) but that wasn't a gameplay element, it was an inconvenience of the lack of storage devices at the time. At one point I remember game developers implemented level passwords, so all you had to do to start at a higher level was input the arbitrary password at the main menu. The best ones were from Rolling Thunder 2 since the passwords were sentences made up of buzzwords.

Anyway, all of the newly released "retro-style" games are sold with the promise of unforgiving difficulty! Check out Megaman 9, holy hell.

[sirean_syan]

I suspect it stems more from the idea that many newer games tend to be overly easy rather than older games being overly hard. Often beating a game is more about just putting in the time rather than actually getting better at something (think something along the lines of the MMO mentality). While this is cool when I'm in a game for the story/exploration aspects, I'm also sometimes in the mood for a game that'll push me a bit. If the challenge is set up skillfully, there's nice sense of accomplishment that the standard game doesn't provide. It also helps the story from time to time. For something like Demon's Souls when the story is literally walking through hell, feeling a bit drained by the end increases the impact of the game.

A pure gamey-game like Meat Boy needs the challenge because it really can't fall back on plot or a sense of adventure (although it seems like it has charm in spades). To push you through the game, you need to feel accomplishment.

[Xessive]

I suppose that's true for certain cases. That's generally how I feel about Castlevania, including the new Lords of Shadow. Symphony of the Night starts out ok but gets increasingly challenging with each area in the massive maze, much of the challenge coming from the odds being stacked against me but also on how skillfully I can land hits and evade enemy attacks.

[sirean_syan]

Huh. Symphony of the Night was a different story for me. It seemed like I always had relatively good gear throughout the game and tended to become godlike pretty fast. Some parts were still tough, but because of all the awesome weapons it never felt really all that hard. The game became more about how awesome Alucard could be by then end then him being dragged through the mud.

Now Lords of Shadow (and most of the linear 2D Castlevanias for that matter, or Symphony as Ritcher), that's an entirely different ballgame. The Bellmonts definitely don't have it as easy.

[W7RE]

For anyone concerned about the difficulty, I'm wondering if the gameplay isn't clear enough. These are mostly single screen stages that will take you 5-30 seconds to complete. When you die there is zero load time, and you are instantly put back at the beginning of the level. You have infinite lives (except in some of the warp zones, but those are like 3 levels long each, and if you fail you can start the warp zone over as many times as you want.) Each level is basically a time challenge, and it even allows you to save replays.

The part where old school gaming comes in, is partly just because it's pure platforming, a genre we rarely see done (or at least done well) these days. Also, it's got a ton of homages to old school platformers. One world has an intro that is a remake of the original Ninja Gaiden NES intro, but it's Meat Boy and Dr. Fetus running towards eachother and jumping in the air to attack eachother in slow motion. Another is a remake of the Castlevania 1 intro, with Meat Boy walking up to the outer gate of a silhouetted castle, with Dr. Fetus flying off in the background on bat wings. Some of the warp zones are done in NES style graphics and sound, some are done in original Gameboy style monochrome.

[Cobra951]

That all sounds great.  And I understand having to rely on difficulty to make a simple game substantial.  (I did that myself with the maze/chase game I wrote, but that was 1983.)  I have to try it before I pass judgment.  I hope the trial version doesn't steer me wrong (either way).  It's getting a lot of positive press.  But constant frustration with occasional success is not my idea of a good time.  It really never was.  This is what I'm afraid of here.

[W7RE]

Yea, some people just don't get into this type of gameplay. I do, but rarely do I find it built into gameplay mechanics that appeal to me as much. Trials HD seemed great, but I really didn't care for the base mechanics of the game.

I don't know if I can see playing this game for long periods of time though, unless it's during the early sections where things are still pretty easy.

[W7RE]

5/5 starts from Giant Bomb

I hate Super Meat Boy. No, seriously--I'm not trying to be all cute here and feign outrage at how hard it is. I hate this game. Sometimes. But I guess I also love it (not easy to admit). It's the times when those two feelings collide in a Venn diagram of pain that you're tapping straight into the bloody beating heart of this brutally hard, ultra-fast-paced throwback of a platformer. It's one of the toughest games I've ever played, but just try to stop yourself from getting swept up in how ridiculous and extreme it all is.

Super Meat Boy knows exactly what it wants to do, which is to baffle, entertain, and frustrate you, to fill you with joy and rage in equal measure. And by God it does all those things without apology. This game is most certainly not for everyone--if you can't handle extremely hard games, you're better off marveling at this spectacle from a distance--but those who can stomach the difficult and appreciate the bizarre will take every ounce of punishment Super Meat Boy dishes out and beg for more.

[W7RE]

It just showed up on the XBLA marketplace about 2 and a half hours ago (shit, it didn't feel like that long ago). I bought it already and have been playing it since then. The controls felt a little weird at first (if you hold spring you get a LOT of horizontal movement, with nearly full control while you're in the air), but after a few minutes I was really used to them and flying all over the place with some pretty good accuracy.

I've cleared the first world so far. 20/20 level with A+ ratings on both normal and hell modes, 18/20 bandages, 3/4 warp zones. I'm something like 235 on the leaderboards, but I'll probably be like 10,000 by the time I get up tomorrow.



Also, in a short conversation with Notch over twitter, they just got permission to put "Minecraft guy" into the PC version. (Not sure if he'll appear anywhere else or be patched into the XBLA version.)

[idolminds]

And meat blocks in minecraft! Now I can build a horrible meat castle!

[W7RE]

I got back on the game. I keep finding myself going for the fastest time I can get. One level I must have worked on for 10-15 minutes straight trying to get the perfect run. I just spent another 5 on another and managed to get 17th on the leaderboards, but I'm not sure how I can shave some time off.

I need to stop and go to sleep.

[Cobra951]

Hehe!  It is funny, as long as I go in with the mindset that I'm going to die 99 times out of 100, and that's just in the harder demo levels.  I got through the 13 levels in the demo plus 2 of the 3 "dark world" variants.  I could not get through the last one.  I'm sure I would have eventually, but I lost interest.  Your quote bolding is spot on.  This one is just not for me.  I can see it becoming wildly popular with many other players.

[W7RE]

By the way, there are some differences between the demo and the full version. Things like a "for sale' sign on the world select, and a special ending only in the demo. (I should have beat the demo before buying it.)

[Cobra951]

Do you lose the demo world if you buy it?

[W7RE]

Do you lose the demo world if you buy it?

I assume you do. When you download the demo, you're downloading the whole game, but only getting access to a portion of it. I'm looking now and I don't see it in my game library anymore. I can start it up by browsing to the demo on the marketplace and choosing "play now" from there, but it starts up the full game when I do that.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I got this today and it's pretty awesome, finished all of the light and dark worlds on the first chapter, just a few more bandages to find.  I played through the first level of the second chapter.  The opening cutscenes for those chapters were hilarious as are the other cutscenes I've seen so far.

[Quemaqua]

I'd really like to get this.  Waiting for PSN, though, or PC if I ever fix my PC.

[W7RE]

I'd really like to get this.  Waiting for PSN, though, or PC if I ever fix my PC.

It'll be coming to PC, but not PSN.

[Quemaqua]

Fuck.  Well, I guess I fix the PC, then.

[Xessive]

I just checked the Gamespot review and they definitely made it more appealing.

[Cobra951]

It sure does.  What made me think the most is the description of the difficulty curve.  The demo makes it seem like you get into overly harsh territory in a hurry.  (I understand that you can't get a good sense of full-game progression in a 13-level demo.)  The reviewer is telling me that difficulty ramps up smoothly through well-designed levels, allowing you to pick up skills before getting the really hard stuff thrown at you.  That gives me a better vibe.  Add unlockable characters with special skills that allow reaching other areas.  Hmm.  I think I have until sometime in November to get this for $10 ($5 off).  Mmm, maybe.  I hate to miss out on something so universally well regarded.  But I hate getting over-the-top frustrated in games even more.

[sirean_syan]

[Cobra951]

Uh oh.  You mentioned Hitler.  Now you've done it, thread killer.

[idolminds]

I'm sure PETA loves this game.

[Xessive]

I'm sure PETA loves this game.

Haha that's exactly what popped into my head! They might revive their "_____ is the kitten of the _____" campaign.

Super Meat Boy looks like it could be fun but it also looks like it could be incredibly frustrating, to which the Gamespot review says "in this footage it might look frustrating but's not at all." I'll have to try the demo and see for myself.

[Quemaqua]

It actually doesn't look all that hard to me.  Maybe I just like these kinds of gigs, but nothing they show seems particularly insurmountable, and the levels are so incredibly short it seems like it wouldn't get all that frustrating since you never get set back very far.  And even Brad Shoemaker at Giant Bomb who seemed to think it was incredibly difficult still seemed to love it despite not being great with it.

[W7RE]

I've been clearing both light and dark worlds as I go, grabbing every bandage I see, getting an A+ rank in every level. I would beat a level, repeat it until I got the best time I thought I could, repeat it again to get a bandage if there was one, then do it again for the dark version of that level. It wasn't until world 3 that I hit a level that I decided to skip and come back to. The only bandages and warp zones I've missed are ones that I didn't see, not ones I couldn't get to. So really it's not THAT hard.

Deaths don't really feel cheap or unfair either, especially since it takes only seconds to make up lost progress. And there's a great feeling of satisfaction when you fly through a level at top speed and make all the jumps just right. When I first got the game I thought the controls seemed a little awkward because Meat Boy moves so fast and it's easy to overcompensate any movement. Now it feels like second nature, and I have a lot more control of him.

[PyroMenace]

Well I finally bought it... but I can't play it. The game won't download for me and I think it has everything to do with the fact that I recovered my gamertag on Belmont's 360 and played a little bit of meatboy on it. Even though it says one of the reasons you would recover a gamertag is if you "are on someone else's console", it really plays hell with the system. After getting back to my place from Belmont's, I couldn't even recover or log into my gamertag until I called him and asked him to log onto his 360. Whenever I try to download super meat boy it will download to 99% and just sit there for about 15 seconds and give me an error saying I can't download it. Does this mean I have to get a USB and get my profile data from his console or will I have to call the dreaded arabic speaking microsoft support? God help me.

[Cobra951]

Whichever is easiest for you.  How far of a trek is it to Belmont's?  See if this thread is any help.  Seems like you're not alone.  There's a "Mister Blint" there who seems to be tackling people's gametag recovery issues.

[TheOtherBelmont]

How far of a trek is it to Belmont's?

He's about 4 hours away from me.

Pyro, if the files are small enough I have an old 64MB USB drive I could put the info on and mail it to you if that's what needs to be done, just let me know.