Inaugural Post: A brain dump of questionable origins
2023-10-15
Well, I had trouble falling asleep last night because I was thinking about Drakklor, and it was the first thing I thought about when I woke up - so I guess I've got the "obsession" item ticked off.
Actually, I was thinking about the secret hint again:
It did cross my mind that I could try to contact the game's author - he doesn't have much of an online presence but there are some tracks including a LinkedIn. I think I should probably try to solve it myself first though. Obviously, have 13 coins, then figure out what "do a Shift in February" means. Translating February into a construct within the game is difficult. It's the second month, so do something in the second level? Or maybe some part of the map will resemble a calendar, and something has to be done in the second slot? Shift is the key that rotates Binkley, but I suppose it could be something less obvious like "shifting" boulders around?
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
A Status Update
On a whim on my last staycation (a few months ago), I played through Drakklor. I would say a month ago or so, I had this idea of trying to speedrun it. About two weeks ago I actually started to consider it seriously, and figured I'd start on the project expecting to lose interest and move on.
That hasn't happened. In the interim, while developing this site and doing other prep, I've had a lot of thoughts going in various directions. Also, I've been playing the game a bit, of course.
Actually, I've been playing it more than I planned to do before launching this site. As I'm writing this, I'm kind of stopping myself from playing to get this done, while at the same time listening to the bread machine whirr away since I feel like I should do something non-Drakklor related today.
Initially, I thought I would start slow by only doing runs of a small portion at the start of the game, but playing it recently I think I'll start with full runs. I've already got a rough strategy in my mind, and I'm thinking the game may be a little more linear than I thought initially (as far as optimal speedrun strats go) - but we'll see.
I've also started making full reference screenshots of each levels, but it's kind of a pain:
Here's the ones I've done so far:
I think there's 11 total: 8 proper levels each with a key, 2 hub levels, and the Fountain of Youth. I'm itching to get into it, but want to get some things done first that I'm forcing myself to do now.
Where things are heading
I need to actually launch this site. I've framed it out - very minimal, essentially static without using any frameworks or a CMS. This may change in the future though. I recently purchased a VPS to run it on and migrated my personal site there - no more shared hosting for me!
I'd like to post a "run" before launching as well just so I can finish out framing that section and sort out some of the tech. At this point, I'm thinking of just doing a direct recording from DOSBox and hosting the video on this site. Thankfully it can do that natively. I may or may not involve a timer like LiveSplit, although at this point I expect that to come later. As an aside, I'm also wondering if I can get it set up to automatically do splits - which looks a little involved and I assume doubly so with DOSBox acting as an extra abstraction layer. Anyway, TBD.
At some point, I would look to hosting stuff on YouTube and having a proper overlay with the timer and etc. Dancing around scaling while keeping the video looking good is also a consideration. Right now all of that is feeling like a chore and I just want to put some runs in, so I'll probably half-ass that aspect of it to start. Maybe I'll have more energy to do it when I feel like I need a break from doing runs. There's also the possibility that I just drop this half-baked idea at some point and tear the site down or let it go stale.
Finally, the brain dump
I just want to get down some random thoughts before moving on. First, from a meta perspective:
- I'm still questioning whether to host/share all this or not. Because it's a bit of a weird project which offers some exposure, because I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it, and because of how I'm currently feeling re: just wanting to do runs vs. the work around doing runs and documenting all that.
- While building this, I've been telling myself not to worry about it because I can always choose to just keep this internal, but I'm getting closer to the decision point.
On content and hosting:
- If I stick with this, I'd like to get some decent production value. That means an overlay, timer (hopefully) with auto-splitting, a methodology for distributing the content, etc.
- As an extension, I wouldn't mind doing Twitch streams, which has further considerations re: production quality, to the point of lighting/audio/cam quality/etc. I know all of that can be left lacking on a project that's basically a lark - but getting back to obsession, if I decide to do something I really throw myself into it and try to optimize/etc.
- I would want to cobble together some kind of unified persona/handle ideally with a consistent name between platforms which is a bit of a pain to do when I'm "late to the game" of content creation and a lot of obvious stuff is in use, inactive, or squatted.
On obsession:
- It's definitely a part of me that's existed for a while. Historically, through gaming, hacking, food/cooking, and coding (to a lesser extent). When there's a system to be figured out, a puzzle to be solved, or some kind of loop/craft to be optimized, a switch kind of clicks on and I get tunnel vision.
- Upon quick reflection and as an aside, I'm interested in how my food/cooking obsession fits in, because it's kind of out of place in the previous list. I do spend a lot of time fixating on what I'm going to cook next, or what favourite food I'm going to go out and get next. I don't currently have a Netflix subscription, but I do have Discovery Plus (which has all of the Food Network content) and I've watched way more Beat Bobby Flay, Guy's Grocery Games, and other competitive cooking shows than I care to admit.
- Anyway, obsession can be extremely double-edged. Be very productive (although often more so in the sense of being active than producing anything of use) to the point of burning through all available free time on The Thing, spending all my time when I'm not working on The Thing thinking about The Thing, losing sleep over it, waking up thinking about it, etc.
- In terms of hacking, I would go absolutely nuts trying to solve a challenge and not being able to figure it out, knowing there was a solution just beyond my grasp. In doing courses and certifications, that's good fuel (perhaps a dirty fuel, though) to get me through to the end. At work, when it comes up, it can really ruin my work-life balance. In my free time, now I realize that I need to stay away from the types of challenges (like live CTFs) where I can't reveal the answer to relieve my frustration once I'm locked in on something but not making progress, but also not able to stop myself from continuing to bang my head.
- Anyway, to that point, maybe this whole thing is a bad idea. I feel that part of myself getting activated. I'm also hoping, though, in some way, by being mindful about this process, to learn how to recognize, control, and harness this aspect of my personality a little more.
Isn't this supposed to be about a speedrunning game? Yes, fine. Here are some arbitrary points on that which will likely not mean much to anyone but myself:
- I've only completed a handful of runs so far, more so in an experimental "feeling out" sense than trying to be fast. I do feel like I'm about ready to start grinding things out though.
- Initially, I wanted to play with a controller, and I went to the trouble of getting that working through DOSBox. Unfortunately, it felt a bit muddy compared to the keyboard, so I'm back to using that.
- I'm playing the game at 4000 cycles in DOSBox. This feels right to me, but I might end up tinkering with it - which would skew any historical results. Not that it really matters, but it's kind of a question re: methodology. The game starts up at 3000 cycles which definitely feels too slow. I did see one DOS archives website say it should be 5000 cycles, but that feels way too fast. Anyway, this doesn't really matter at this point and tweaking is TBD.
- I also wonder if - due to the emulation/etc. complexities - that the game would run at different speeds on different computers, regardless of cycle count. My understanding is that it shouldn't but I would expect that that system in DOSBox is a bit imperfect. Not that it really matters, but it would be if anyone else felt like running, or I switched devices at some point but wanted to keep my benchmarks. It should be easy enough to test, but it's very low on my list right now.
- In terms of strats, I think what will be important in the game is the "opener", ie. how to play the first 3 levels (get the first 3 keys, really) since there are several different options to do that - really mostly all in the first level. It seems like runs will be fairly linear from level 3 to 7, with 8 (the final level) also having several paths. The only other important thing will be diversions to get enough coins which are used later on to bypass large chunks of several levels, as well as things like health/potions (primarily invincibility potions) to be able to complete the game without dying while not really slowing down to deal with enemies.
- There's potential for some run variations: "any%" i.e. just beat the game (which requires having all 8 keys). Also, a "100%" version could include getting all the armor/fireball powerups which really are out of the way, and would probably really complicate the strategy. Plus, a "get # coins" could be another variation, or even "get # energy (health)".
- Again, what does the damn hint mean?
Anyway, you're still here? Kudos! Well I'm out, I'm going to put in some runs or maybe post some more.
