Part 85: Episode LXXXIII: Game Dev QA Session

Episode LXXXIII: Game Dev QA Session



Sidequest... Sidequest never changes... They actually refer to them as sub-quests internally in NieR: Automata and that sounds wrong and dumb. What are you even playing at Yoko Taro? That’s just the wrong term. Full stop.





While we’re still within bounds of the Amusement Park, after we helped out that extremely fucked couple’s very troubling relationship, there is a sidequest that has cropped up here. This one takes us back to the Amusement Park Castle’s basement. Remember the one with the machine zombie outbreak. Don’t worry, the rogue remaining Umbrella laboratory had its self-destruct sequence activated and sorted that out. Unfortunately, it did take the world-famous Hot Dog Museum with it. Tragic, really...


New Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)



Remember the kinda creepy tower of CRT monitors and old boxy TVs at the end of the machine corpse dumping ground we found here the first time around? Well, it’s now staffed by a clown machine that has a quest for us. Let’s see what his deal is, shall we?



This place isn’t exactly what I’d call “fun.”
Good point. It’s more like an un-amusement park, eh? That’s why I’m thinking about making a game!
Oh yeah?
Yes! A fun game that anyone can play! If only I had the materials... I don’t suppose you’d help me out with that?
<Aid the game creator.>
Excellent! All I need is a single tri-color cable. Just let me know when you find it.
If you know what you need, why don’t you go find it yourself?
Tri-color cables are found inside the machines in the amusement park. You don’t expect me to slaughter my own kin, do you?
You could just decide not to make the game, you know?
Never! My creative urges must be satisfied!
But you just said... Oh, forget it.
The machines carrying tri-color cables are quite aggressive, so be careful!



So starts Game Dev Machine Lv.1. This is a three-part questline. All three parts are quite short. We’ll be doing ‘em all this very update.



However, we’re not quite done in this room yet. Behind the mountain of game development components is another hacking locked chest. Having 9S sort that out results in a shiny new weapon!



Demon’s Cry is yet another Combat Bracers class weapon. Strangely, the vast majority of these kind of weapons are heads/helmets/faces. These punching demon fangs have an Attack Power Up bonus for each level of improvement. At maximum level, Devil’s Hatred is unlocked. This creates a small shockwave (just like the Pod Program we got in the previous update) every time an enemy is slain. Which honestly ain’t bad as far as final upgrades go. Let’s see if its backstory can match...


Well... I mean, I guess technically the illness was stopped. In a way, if you really think about it. Mission accomplished. Moving on!


Music: Amusement Park (Vocal)







Our next stop is going to be back at the entrance of the Amusement Park to obtain the necessary component to crack into the indie gaming scene. All we’ve got to do here is go hog on all of these neutral festive machines until one of them coughs up the necessary component. 9S could just systematically hack his way through each if he wanted to minimize causalities. But where’s the fun in that?



In any case, we’ve gotten our Tri-color Cable which looks... suspiciously like an old Composite Cable. Mmm... shooting for that classic hot 480i fidelity, huh? Let’s jog back downstairs and hook up our guy with his request.


Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)



<machine ratcheting> Excellent! Now I just attach this here...
<game beep> Success! The game is ready!
So what is this game of yours anyway?
It’s a shooting game. I have the feeling it’s still really buggy though... I’d appreciate it if you could debug it a bit while you play. Feel like playing a game?
<Sure.>
Have fun!




Music: Amusement Park (Chiptune)







The game in question is just the Hacking mini-game modified to an unique layout specific to this quest. It’s a little Pac-Man looking, I suppose. It’s simple enough to finish quickly. However...



Just completing the game will dump us back out and the quest still remains open. Game Creator Machine did ask us to debug the game. Which means we actually have to try to find something fucked in the game. So let’s try that again.



One thing even games with even good QA testing cycles still occasionally manage to flub is geometry bugs that let the player break the bounds of the game world. It’s a cornerstone of a whole lotta speedruns! So in this instance, we’ll just hug all the walls until we find...



You debugged the game! Thanks!

Whoops! Broke out of bounds. That’s not supposed to happen! Someone is going to find that, beat the game in an hour after skipping all the cutscenes, then bitch about it online loudly unless it gets sorted out.


Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)





We’re given a whole helping of materials and status improving items along with cash and a nice chunk of EXP for completing our first QA session. However, we’re far from done with the Game Creator Machine. Instantly we’re thrown into the follow-up quest...



I bet a four-color cable would be just the thing to raise the difficulty. Do you think you could track one down for me?
<Agree to help.>
Merci! You can find said cables rattling around the insides of soldiers in the abandoned factory. You’ll have no trouble spotting them, because they tend to walk around alone, away from their fellow machines. Have fun out there!





Oh boy. The Abandoned Factory again. Now’s the part where this quest starts getting tedious. Remember, every leg of this job we need to go up and down that elevator for the basement (like 10-15 seconds each way) and then jog all the way across the back alleys of the Amusement Park (like a minute jog) and load up a new area fast traveling (5-15 seconds) both ways. That time starts to add up.


Music: Wretched Weaponry (Quiet)







Especially due to the fact there’s not a whole lot to these requests. Like the Abandoned Factory machine we need to kill is just a minute jog into the place next to the very first smelter pit. There’s a torch carrying machine. They don’t belong here yet! It’s way too early for the death cult to get established.



Smashing these machines gets us our... what is this? An S-Video cable? Gonna bump it up to 480p, huh? Spicy. Now then, just run all the way back to the Access Point, teleport back to the Amusement Park, run clear across the Amusement Park, ride the elevator again, run down the long corridor and...


Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)



<hammering> Now then, I just connect this end to the widget here aaaand...
<game beep> Presto! My amazingly fun game is now more difficult. Care to check it out? I’ll give you a prize if you can debug it for me.
<Sure.>
Have fun!




Music: Amusement Park (Chiptune)





Game development QA Testing Round 2. The game has been made somewhat more difficult. Those enemies in the tight corridors can no longer be destroyed from the front. Plus there’s TWO cylinders protecting the core with more spawning in. Once more, defeating the game doesn’t progress the quest. Let’s try that again...



This one is a bit more difficult to find the bug. Turns out, the game is not fancy of speedruns and trying to destroy only one of the cylinders at the top of the screen and rushing the core is against the game’s core programming.



You debugged the game! Thanks!


Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)





Well, at this rate we might make up the funds we blew on future Robocop and his mind-wiping slave master girlfriend. Plus, some of these materials are actually on the rarer side. So that’s nice. But, we’re still not done with the Game Creator Machine. As soon this quest ends, we’re dumped in the Lv. 3 of the questline.



But that can easily be rectified if you bring me a five-color cable.
<Agree to bring him the cable.>
Muchas gracias! And best of luck tracking down that five-color cable. You can salvage them from the machines in the desert. Just go ahead and rip it right out of ‘em! They tend to hang out in groups, so good luck finding the right one!
Um, I thought these machines were your friends.
CREATIVITY is my friend!



This is going to be the Dark Souls of hacking mini-games. Or maybe the Citizen Kane of shmups. It’s hard to say. Anyway, off to the desert we go for the final cable. C’mon, 2B. Also err... are you feeling alright, 2B? You’ve literally not spoken in like three updates... You’ve just been staring silently as 9S collaborates in making asset flipped shovelware in this machine’s basement for an hour now.


Music: Memories of Dust (Quiet)





While the Game Creator Machine did say to look in the desert, our targeted destination is actually closer to Jackass’s Camp. Specifically, in the canyon filled region just prior to the Desert Zone proper (it’s also the place 2B and 9S popped out post-naked Adam fight.)





A group of machines have taken up residency in an old bombed out building in the middle of the region. The one we specifically want is the Level 40 Medium Biped hanging out with all these low-30s level scrubs. It’s important to be careful here because it’s totally possible to have the item drop fall somewhere awkward and be impossible to retrieve without the Auto-Collection Chip hovering it up. Why you wouldn’t have the item auto-collect chip installed is beyond me.



Here’s the final cable we need. A component cable, of course! I'm a little disappointed there wasn't one final quest for a single color cable that was an HDMI cable. What a pretender game dev machine... Not even trying to keep up with the format of the times. Anyway, allllll the goddamn way back we go...


Music: Amusement Park (Quiet Vocal)



<hammering and screwing> Now I just zap this... and tweak that... aaaand...
<game beep> Yes! Now it’s so hard, you’ll wonder if anyone ever bothered to bug-test this! I doubt you can beat it. But if you DO, I’ll give you a really nice prize. Feel like playing a game?
<Sure.>
Have fun!




Music: Amusement Park (Chiptune)



For this final, punishingly difficult game err... enemy ships appear once every second or so. And if w—



...Wait all we did was destroy five ships and it broke? The hell?!



...Is that it? You’re not going to send me to find some other weird cable?
Actually, I’ve sort of run out of ideas. I never knew how difficult it was to be a creative genius. That’s why I’ve decided to go out on top. Thank you for your support!





...And this is why we have Steam Refunds now.






Video: Episode 83 Highlight Reel





Amusement Park Ride Concept Art – I had one of those break down when I was little and I got stuck on it for like 45 minutes in the middle of summer and got the shit sunburnt out of me. That was fun.