Stumbling through Little Nemo

[davidn]

I cannot believe that the demographics of videos uploaded on Youtube are so heavily weighted that putting the innocent word "through" in a video title immediately throws up the tag suggestions "fire" and "flames".

Anyway. I tried another NES game, this time with an elaborate recording setup that I was playing about with all day that allows me to record my voice through the headset connected to the computer, while simultaneously running the game's audio to the guitar processor thing I use and recording it on that, then editing the two together at the end. So you can now hear both Little Nemo: The Dream Master and my reactions to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQItDEQn69Y

I'd never so much as seen the game before I started recording this video, but as it turns out, it's a game in which you hop around a dream world lulling monsters to sleep by throwing boiled sweets at them and then hijacking their bodies to get yourself around the level. It also turns out I'm dreadful at it, even though I was very proud of myself for getting to the second level.

The method I used for recording worked out rather well, but I'm confused by how out-of-sync the sound gets in Camstudio - it seems to play my voice and the video at normal speed, and yet the voice always drifts slightly ahead or behind the video over time. The process of resynchronizing them in iMovie just got more and more difficult as it went on, having to re-import the same file multiple times to split it up, having the Trim menu disappear entirely and with it preventing me from scrolling down to the last row of thumbnails on the video to edit the end - it came to be so excruciating that I found myself wondering insane things like whether Windows Movie Maker might actually be better at it.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Would the people at your work actually see this?

What have videogames done to us, that you assumed that the goal was to rescue the princess, even though (I believe) the intro just said you were going to play with her...

Also, the 'sprite problems' at the edges are 1) map problems, and 2) endemic to any NES game that scrolls in two dimensions. I'll spare you the technical explanation (unless you want to hear it, in which case I'll go on and on<3)

I just realised that they started the game by first introducing you to an enemy that you CAN'T jump on, even though jumping on them is how you're supposed to deal with every other enemy from then on. That is... TERRIBLY short-sighted..

(Or, wait, no-- is it that the FROG can jump on people, but normal Nemo can't? Argh X3)

Y'know, when I saw that jump, I thought "this is a Capcom game isn't it" XD; (Apparently it is.)

It's so strange that the powerups hurt you until you 'subdue' them, even though they just hold still! Given that they hold still, there's basically no reason for them to damage you, as they won't be a threat once you understand not do jump on them.... and the way they cause you damage makes it seem like they're there to be defeated just like all the OTHER enemies... I'd say you're actually doing well considering the mixed messages this game sends X3

Have you noticed the weird compression artifacts this is having? I'm tempted to suggest something like uploading the video at double resolution, as counterintuitive as that sounds... I don't know if that would actually work, though. There's probably NES-uploaders out there who would know! (I googled quickly, but nothing turned up..)

Anyway, huzzah. :D

[kjorteo]

"I think I'm going to get someone else to recommend a game to me next time!"
:(

Apologies for the impression you got from the introduction. I sort of forgot it lays it on that heavily, because A) I grew up with this game and B) I'm me.

Also, seconding what ravenworks said about how you mentioned having to go rescue the princess even though the game only said you're being invited to play with her!

"This isn't what his voice should sound like, is it?"
Not especially.

Anyway, I wasn't sure how much to tell you going into this one--it's complicated enough that I wanted to at least give you some sort of fighting chance of understanding how to even play, but I didn't want to spoil the "stumbling through" experience! There was a little Crystal Maze spectator-ing on my part, but only for things that, upon further consideration, really weren't that obvious at all except to me because I grew up with this game. "No, only the frog can jump on enemies, and you need to feed him before you can fursuit as him, and it takes three pieces of candy to be enough! Argh! No, wait, hold on, that might actually be insane."

Children of the NES era were a lot more accustomed to having vital information about how to play our own games mostly being in the manual, you see. Manuals were pretty important back then. That being said, I'm impressed that you figured it out enough to make it to the second dream on your first attempt! Congratulations for that.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

hey, you're playing all the games I want to play but haven't yet, so I can't watch these :P