It’s a game about killing bulls–and it is great because matadors are fucking ballers – [Author’s description]
(via Indie Statik)
Press [X] To Give Up (Anders Børup, Bram Michielsen, Henrike Lode, Jonas Maaløe, Jonatan Van Hove, Mads Johansen, Thomas Ryder)
Posted by Noyb
on January 23, 2013
(via Indie Statik)
this game rules!!
thanks. Did you kill the bull?
Quite
YAY for best ending! I still think it would be awesome if there was a way of playing the game properly and timing your shots and all, actually hitting your opponent without getting hurt. It’d be incredibly fun!
As it is, the only way of actually winning is standing next to the bull and stabbing him as fast as you can as many times as possible without defending yourself from damage. I must say it’s pretty frustrating at first, when you try to play by the rules and the bull always hits you before you’re even close to stabbing him.
But the game itself is fantastic.
I can’t say I’m sure I fully understand the game systems in play, but if you’re getting hit by the bull during what I think is intended to be normal play (wait for it to come at you, spacebar to switch pose, hold up to ready the lance, press down to attempt to hit the bull with the lance) and you’re always getting hit, then that suggests you’re probably pressing spacebar too early. It seems to only work out if you wait for the slowmo to kick in before switching pose.
Are there more than three endings?
(By the way, I do really like this. Though maybe I have mixed feelings about the instructions. The in-game instructions seem wholly inadequate without also scrolling down the page to see the full set, but maybe that works out because it means you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a fail-state first?)
O wow, I never realised that. Wait for the slowmo to press space? Where was that in the instructions or what’s that move’s logic?
Anyway, yes, it seems my way of beating the game was actually a bug (I’m guessing you’re not supposed be able to beat the bull by just standing next to it and stabbing him non-stop). And it was much less rewarding, since I didn’t get to watch the bull’s transformation that way.
And no, by “best ending” I was referring to the Champion ending. There aren’t more than three as far as I’ve played.
That’s an interesting point. It’s the hold-up-and-then-tap-down bit that I found inscrutable without the additional instructions below, but knowing to wait to hit space — at least after failing on the first try — really relies on at least a vague familiarity with bullfighting (I think, since mine is probably informed more by Looney Tunes as a kid than anything real.)
Strangely enough, the stabbing mechanic seemed pretty intuitive to me, after watching the matador’s arm a few times. Now that I read more closely, the instructions DO say “press space when the bull is near.” I just never paid attention to that.
This is not true though. You can play it the way it is intended, but it is hard. Look at the eyes of the bull. Green: it follow you, red: it follows the cloth. Press Space right when it goes in slow mo and start lifting your arm + stick. Wait until the neck is under your stick > Hold down to stick it in. It’s incredibly satisfying. We originally wanted the bull to push you back if you came too close, but left it in as it is fun to see whether players are intimidated by the bull or not (many were).
That was awesome. I actually found the controls fairly intuitive once I read the instruction about how to stab. The only time I got hit was when I wanted to see what would happen if I hit the space bar earlier. Great music.
Yeah the sound design for this game is seriously incredible.
Before the ending I stabbed the shit out of that tumor-bull corpse. Felt awesome 😈
Oh come on. The ending. Oh come on.
That was quite a good game once I figured it out. I read the thread here, read the instructions, and spent ten minutes wondering why I couldn’t stab the bull. The instructions say to stab him “right behind the head”, but when I finally killed him I was hitting him in the middle of his back.
Normally I’m all for mechanics being something you figure out as you go along, but since there was zero feedback here it’d be really great to have:
– some kind of visual indicator for where you need to stab
– some kind of indicator for how high your arm has to be before you can stab
Without the first of those I was really lost.