Thirty Flights of Loving

[elmuerte]

My jetpack didn't work

[dibs]

Can one unsee puffin mode?

[Nappi]

Awesome! I hope this will turn into a franchise one day. I can't wait to play a longer Citizen Abel (?) game.

Brendon. I sent you a screenshot of the graphics glitch I encountered.

[miffy495]

I'll take a screenshot when I have the chance. I'm on a desktop with a Radeon 6750.

[Patters]

  On 7/19/2012 at 2:39 PM, mikemariano said:

Time to add this to the pile of 50+ games purchased on Steam that I can't play!

But I did know that going in. I don't have a record player, don't wear t-shirts, and don't have any good place to hang artwork, either, so all these Kickstarter rewards will go to waste!

Basically you are a bad person?

[mikemariano]

  On 7/19/2012 at 6:53 PM, Patters said:

Basically you are a bad person?

[MrHoatzin]

  On 7/19/2012 at 7:19 PM, mikemariano said:

It is not our fault that we like to support wacky games that don't support us.

[Chris]

  On 7/19/2012 at 4:30 PM, GameDreamer said:

Haha, that's awesome as hell. The grid pattern really fits the overall tone of the game for some reason, but I can't put my finger on why. It's little things like this that make it really special.

Yeah I agree. I'm really glad it ended up as the grid. It's one of my favorite little things in the game.

[Heti]

This took forever to render and upload but here we go. My first time playing through puffin mode. I didn't know what it was going to do and you can tell. I feel like anyone in my position would react the same way to a world of goldblums.

[Jim Profit]

hey brendon will the proper thirty flights release be available outside steam? thought about this yet?

[dibs]

The grid was awesome! I thought it really fit the aesthetic of the game. I really enjoyed the experience.

As for the possible graphics glitches, on my 2nd playthrough it all seems much prettier so i'm not convinced that it is a glitch (that might be jeff blinding me with handsomeness though). Here are two examples:

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[GameDreamer]

Whoa, I've never seen anything like that in my playthroughs. They look cool but they're almost certainly not intentional.

[Patters]

  On 7/19/2012 at 7:19 PM, mikemariano said:

  On 7/19/2012 at 7:36 PM, MrHoatzin said:

It is not our fault that we like to support wacky games that don't support us.

I meant he doesn't wear T-shirts.

[Brendon Chung]

MrHoatzin - I'd love to have a mac build, and Quake2 is mac-compatible. Unfortunately, I'm a mac noob. It's something I'm looking into but may take some time.

elmuerte - The jetpack was supposed to let you fly, hence why that mode is called PuffinMode. Left-click would baboo on-demand. But the jetpack didn't like me.

Jim Profit - Yes. There'll be a version available to the general public a bit later.

dibs - okay, it seems everyone's graphical wonkiness is related to the car mesh. Now I know where to look.

[subbes]

  On 7/19/2012 at 10:31 PM, Brendon Chung said:

MrHoatzin - I'd love to have a mac build, and Quake2 is mac-compatible. Unfortunately, I'm a mac noob. It's something I'm looking into but may take some time.

We can wait. After all, we have so many other good video games available for Mac.

(SOBS, SHUFFLES INTO CORNER, ROLLS INTO A TINY BALL.)

[Iosef Stalin]

I I I...I...Um...Ah?

The Goldblum mode is certainly exuberant! Also by the way in the second bit you're pushing the trolley, you can jump up on the yellow sofas and over the turnstiles and get stuck there.

[Lechimp]

Every game should have a Goldblum mode

[dibs]

Emergent Being John Malcovich 2: The Man With The Golden Goldblum scripts. The wedding in puffin mode immediately brought to mind that movie.

[Korax]

It was great, but I wish that Puffin Mode had enabled Blumcats.

Had an issue with the game crashing, though. When I hit the mid-game load point, it froze on a black screen, and I had to kill it with the Task Manager. It happened twice more, at the same load point. I got a bit annoyed at having to re-set my graphics and mouse sensitivity because of the crashes, so I started it up, set them, quit, and started it up again. After that, no crashes. Played through the entire thing twice, normal and then Puffin Mode, without any other problems.

[kosikutioner]

Hey Brendan. Just wanted to chime in with weird graphical stuff. I got this. Lots of attempted screenshots because they weren't all capturing it. It was changing rapidly. On a Radeon 5770.

I tweeted @ you. But this seems better. Deleting those tweets!

(I also had weird-ness during the same things previously mentioned)

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http://i.imgur.com/Bu3d0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kCN6m.jpg

[HPopper]

Awesome game.

I liked the conglomeration of geese and cats.

Also, Brendon, I tried to set mouse2 to "use" and it threw up an error about not being able to find the letter-mouse2 image when i hovered over usable objects. So I set it back to e.

[Korax]

Going over the game again in my head (and screenshot folder), and there are a bunch of little things I really liked:

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The note particle effects drifting up from the first radio as it's playing.

Being able to turn on the second radio down in your secret staging area, and it playing what I assume to be audio from an actual numbers station.

Anita having a robot arm and leg, but only in scenes of this last job you're doing. I really want to know what happened in between everything I actually saw in the game.

Being able to open up the ammo boxes, take all the bullets, and pick up the guns, even though you never get the chance to use them.

Pushing those geese off the railing.

[feelthedarkness]

Wow. Congratulations. That was spectacular. As if Jodorowski made video games, like surrealist touches of the people floating at the wedding. For game design, it's an awesome use of snapshots to imply a greater story.

Chris: Great job with the music, really builds a sinister, urgent atmosphere. Love the main "spy theme" when dude hits the ground.

[feelthedarkness]

  On 7/20/2012 at 1:27 AM, Korax said:

Going over the game again in my head (and screenshot folder), and there are a bunch of little things I really liked:

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Anita having a robot arm and leg, but only in scenes of this last job you're doing. I really want to know what happened in between everything I actually saw in the game.

Being able to open up the ammo boxes, take all the bullets, and pick up the guns, even though you never get the chance to use them.

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"Elephant Piercing"

Also, The assassin/double agent from Gravity Bone waiting at the wedding. Then Anita in bed being replaced with the killer during the shootout flashback. Does he realize she has set him up once again?

[TurboPubx-16]

The story (spoilers for Thirty Flights of Loving and Gravity Bone):

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The first couple of times I booted the game, it went straight to the bar/hideout. The third time, I got to see a newspaper article first. Was I supposed to see that the first time or was it unlocked by me beating the game? In any case the article reveals that Thirty Flights of Loving is a Citizen Abel adventure, as was Gravity Bone.

There are three possibilities as to what happened at the airport: (a) Anita (the Confectioner) betrayed Borgers (the Best Man), ( Borges betrayed Anita, or © they were attacked by a third person (the Red Lady?). Since Abel decides to rescue Borges, we can assume that his life is more important to him than Anita's, regardless of their romantic relationship. As to who shot first, I think it makes slightly more sense that it was Borges, since Anita is trapped in that little corner with no path to escape. Blowing people away and getting away with it is the Red Lady's specialty, though...

There are two road accidents in the game, one on the motorcycle and another in the escape from the airport. Since Anita and Borges are healthy (and not trying to kill each-other) in the former, we can assume that it happened first and the latter happened afterwards. Of course, the world of Citizen Abel has shown that hails of bullets and car crashes are not necessarily fatal.

I think the Anita died in the motorcycle accident, and that many of her appearances in the game are actually the Red Lady. This is implied when you see her beckoning you to get in bed with her, not Anita. Why doesn't Abel try to save Anita at the airport? Maybe I'm reading too much into those hearts on the motorcycle ride, but I think it makes sense that that woman isn't Anita at all.

If there is any continuity between the games I think the events of TFoL must have happened first. Why, do you ask, does Abel not recognize the Red Lady in Gravity Bone? He's probably slept with hundreds of women. Or, maybe GB happened before TFoL, and Abel doesn't recognize the Red Lady at the party because he has amnesia. I think I'm just going to give myself a headache if I keep pursing this so I'm going to give up.

One last thing: in the fall off the balcony at the end of Gravity Bone I think I see Anita! Her face flashes on screen for a brief moment, and then in the final shot there she is as runner 99!

As to the symbolic aspects of the story, well.. I was just hoping to get the ball rolling so maybe someone smarter than me could offer some insight into the game! Also, please don't assume I'm just some dork who desperately wants this to be a conventional story. On the contrary, I laud Brendan for the flawless execution of this unique style he has created and don't want it to be anything else.